ernst gombrich - in search of new standards (ch. 26)
TRANSCRIPT
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6
IN SEARCH OF NEW STANDARDS
The
l te
nineteenth
century
Superficially,
the end of the nineteenth century
was a
period of
great
prosperity and even complacency.
But the
artists
and
writers who
felt
themselves outsiders
were
increasingly dissatisfied
with
the
aims and
methods
of the
art
that
pleased
the
public.
Architecture
provided the
easiest target
for their
attacks.
Building
had developed into an
empty
routine. We remember
how
the
large blocks
of
flats, £tctories
and
public
buildings
of
the
vastly
expanding
cities
were
erected in
a
1notley
of
styles
which lacked any
relation
to the purpose of the
buildings. Often it
seemed as
i
he
engineers had first
erected
a
structure to
suit the natural
requirements of the
building,
and
a
hit of Art had then
been
pasted on
the fac;:ade
in
the form
of
ornament
taken
frmn
one of
the pattern books
on
historical styles . It
is
strange
how long the m ~ o r t y of
architects
were
satisfied
with
this
procedure. This public
demanded these
columns,
pilasters, cornices
and mouldings,
so these architects
provided
then l.
But
towards
the
end
of the nineteenth century an
increasing number
of people
becan le aware
of the
absurdity
of
this £1shion.
In
England
in
particular,
critics
and
artists
were
unhappy about the
general decline
in
craftsmanship
caused
by
the Industrial
Revolution,
and
hated
the
very
sight
of
these
cheap
and tawdry 1nachine-made t ~ l i t a t i o n s of ornament which had once
had a n1eaning and a nobility
of
ts
~ w n .
Men like
John
Ruskin
and
William
Morris
drean1t
of
a
thorough
reform
of the
arts
and
crafts,
and the
replacen1ent
of cheap mass-production by conscientious and meaningful
handiwork.
The
influence
of
their
criticism was
very widespread even
though the humble
handicrafts
which they advocated proved, under
modern
conditions,
to
be the
greatest
ofluxuries.
Their propaganda
could
not
possibly abo1ish industria l
nuss-production, but it helped to open
people s eyes
to the
problcn ls this
had
raised,
and
to
spread a taste for
the
genuine,
sim_ple
and
homespun .
Ruskin
and Morris had
still
hoped that the regeneration of
art
could be
brought about
by
a
return to
medieval
conditions.
But tnany
artists saw
that this was an in lpossibility.
They longed for
a
New Art
based on a new
feeling for design and for
the
possibilities
inherent
in
each material.
This
banner of
a new art
or rt
ouveau was raised in
the
1890s. Architects
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536 IN
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STAND1\RDS
experimented with new types ofmaterial and new types of ornament.
The Greek
orders had
been developed
from prinlltive
titnber
structures,
page 77 and had provided the stock-in-trade
of
architectural decoration
since the Renaissance, pages
224
250.
Wash
not
high titne that
the
new
architecture
of
ron and glass that had grown up almost unobserved in
railway stations,
page 520 and
industrial structures should develop an
ornamental style
of
its
own? And if the
Western tradition was too much
wedded
to the old building methods,
would
the East perhaps provide a
new
set
of
patterns
and new
ideas?
This n1nst have been the reasoning behind the designs
of
the Belgian
architect Victor Horta (1861-1947) that nude an itnmediate hit. Horta
had learned fi-on1japan to discard symrnetry and to relish the effect
of
swerving curves that
we
remember
from
Eastern art, } age 148 But
he was no 111ere imitator. He transposed these lines into iron structures
that
went
well
with
n1.odern requirernents,Jigurc 349· For the first tin1e
since l3runelleschi,
European
builders
were
offered an entirely
new
style. No
wonder that
these
inventions
becan1e identified with
Art Nouveau.
For this self-consciousness
about
style and this hope that Japan might
help
Europe to
get out of the impasse
were not confined to
architecture,
but the feeling
of
uneasiness
and
dissatisf:tction with the achievements
of nineteenth-century
painting which took hold ofyoung
artists towards
the
end
of the
period
is
less easy to explain. Yet it is in1portant that we
should understand its roots, because h was out
of
this feeling
that there
grew the various movernents which are now usually called Modern Art .
Some people may consider the hnpressionists the first
of
the moderns,
because
they
defied certain rules
of painting as taught in the
acadenlles.
But
it
is
well
to
ren1embcr
that
the Impressionists
did not
differ
in
their
aims from
the
traditions
of
art t l i ~ t
had developed
since the discovery
of
nature in the Renaissance. They, too, wanted to paint nature as we see it,
and their quarrel whh
the
conservative masters was not so rnuch
over the
aim
as over the
means
of
achieving it. Their exploration
of colour
reflexes,
their
experiments with
the effect
ofloose
brushWork, aimed at creating
an
even
more perfect replica
of the
visual impression. It was only in
lmpressionisn1,
in £1ct that the conquest of
nature had becon1e
complete,
that everything that presented itself to
the
painter s eye
could
becon1e
the motif
of
a picture, and that the real world in all its aspects becatne
a worthy object
of the
artist s study. Perhaps
it
was just this
complete
triun1ph
of
their tnethods which
nude
smne
artists hesitate to accept
them. It seemed, for a
mmnent, as if all the
problen1s of an art ainllng at
the inlltation of the visual irnpression had been solved, and as if nothing
was to
be
gained by
pursuing
these ain1.s
any
further.
349
Victor Horta
S aircasc, II
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538 IN
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NEW STANDARDS
But we know
that
in
art
one problem
need only
be
solved for a host
of
new ones to appear in its stead. Perhaps
the
first who had a clear feeling
of the nature of
these
new
probletns was an artist who still
belonged
to
the
sam_e
generation
as
the
Impressionist nusters.
He
was Paul
Cezanne
(r839-I906),
who
was only seven years younger than Manet, and even
two
years
older
than Renoir. In his youth CCzanne took
part n the
Impressionist exhibitions,
but
was so disgusted
by the reception accorded
thetn that
he
withdrew to his native
town ofAix-en-Provence,
where
he
studied the probletns of his art, und-isturbed by the clamour of the critics.
He was a
tnan of
independent n1eans
and
regular habits,
and
was
not
dependent on
finding buyers for his pictures. Thus
he could
dedicate his
whole
life
to the solution of the
artistic problems
he had
set hin1sclf, and
could apply
the most
exacting standards to his own work. Outwardly,
he
lived a life of tranquillity and leisure, but
he
was constantly engaged
in
a
passionate struggle to achieve
in
his
painting
that ideal
of
artistic
perfection
after
which
he
strove. l
le
was
no
friend
of
theoretical talk,
but
as
his
£ n e
among
his few adtnirers
grew he did
son1etimes try to explain to them in
a few words what he wanted to do. One ofhis
reported
remarks was that
he aimed
at
painting
Poussin from
nature'. What he wanted
to say was
that the old classical masters such as Poussin had achieved a wonderful
balance
and
perfection
in
their
work.
A
painting
like Poussin s 'Et
in
Arcadia ego', page 395 figure 254 presents a beautifully harn1onious
pattern
in
which one
shape seen1s
to answer
the other. We feel
that everything is
in
its place,
and
nothing
is
casual or vague. Each
form
stands out clearly
and
one can visualize it
as
a firm, solid body. The
whole
has a natural
simplicity
which
looks restful
and
cahn.
Cezanne
aimed at an art
which
had something
of
this
grandeur and
serenity. But
he
did not think that
it could be achieved
any longe,,
by the methods ofPoussin. The
old
nusters, after all, had accon1plfsbed that balance
and
solidity at a price.
They did
not feel
bound
to respect nature
as they
saw it. Their pictures
are rather arrangements
of
forms they had learned from the study
of
classical antiquity. Even the itnpression
of
space and solidity was
achieved through the application
of
firm traditional rules rather
than
through looking at each object anew. cezanne agreed with his friends
atnong the
Impressionists that these
methods of
academic art were
contrary to nature. He admired the new discoveries n the field
of
colour
and
nwdelling.
He, too, wanted to surrender to
his impressions,
to
paint
the forms
and
colours
he
saw,
not
those
he
knew
about
or
had
learned
about. But
he
felt uneasy
about the direction painting had
taken. The
Impressionists
were
true
nusters in
painting
'nature'.
But was that
really
enough?
Where was
that
striving for a harn1onious design, the
achievement of
solid simplicity and perfect balance
which
had
marked
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.•
1
matter
of
calculation it co uld not have been don
e; bu
t
of
course it is
no t . Th is balance and harmony a
bout
which artists worry so much is not
the same
as
the balance of machin es. It suddenly happens , and no o ne
quite knows how or why. Mu ch has been writ ten abo
ut
the secret of
Cezann
e s art . All kinds
of ex
planations have been suggested
of
he
want
ed and what he achieved.
Dut
these explanations remain crude;
sometimes the
y even so
und
self-
co
ntradictory.
Dut
even if we get
impatient with the critics there arc always
the
pic tures to convince
us.
And
the best advi
ce
here and always is
'go
a
nd
look
at
the
pi
ctur
es
in
the original .
Even our illust
ra
t
ion
s however, should at least convey something of the
greatn
ess
of Ceza
nn
e s tri
um
ph.
Th
e landscape w ith Mont Sainte-
Vi
ctoi re
350
Pau l
Moll/ Sa iute-Victoi t•
seen mu
Helle1
. 885
Oil on c nvas 7 x 9 nn
37Y z x 51 in; Barnes
Fou d l titm, Mnim1,
Jc n lvan ia
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54 i l ~
1 \T lo N I N N T I I U l lY
J5 1
Paul Ccnmnc
Jltwlttaiusiu Pmflt ttn,,
I R - \ 0
Oil l l l
. IW.t i,
6J j
X
7t) .
Jl lll,
X i
I
•
in ;
NJiional G:tlll•ry ondon
·
in southern France,.figure
350
is bathed in light and yet firm and solid. It
presents a lucid pattern and yet gives
the
impre
ss
ion
of
great depth and
distance. There is a sense of order and repose in the way Cezanne marked
the horizontal of the v iaduct and road in the centre and the verticals of the
house in the fin·eground,
but
n
ow
here do we fe
el
tha t it
is
an order which
Cezann e h s imposed on natu re. Even his brushstrokes are so arranged s
to fall in with the
mainlines of the
design and to s
tr
engthen
the
feeling of
natural harmony. The way in which Ceza
nne
altered the direction of his
brushstroke
wit
h
out
ever resorting to outline
drawing
can also
be
seen
i n f i J ~ I I r e
351
wh
ich shows h
ow
deliberately the artist
coun
teracted
the
effect
of
the
flat
pattern which
might
have resulted in
the upper
halfby
emphasizing the solid tangible forms of the rocks in the foregro und. H is
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IN SHARC
H
OF
S
I ANilARilS
wonderful portrai t of his
wifc fi;;ure
352 shows how greatly Cezanne s
concentration on simple, clear-cut forms co ntribu tes to the impression
ofpoise and tranquillity. Compared wi
th
such calm masterpieces, the
wo rks of the Impression ists suc h s Manct s portrait of Monet,
pag
e
8
figure
337
often look like merely witty improvisations.
Admittedly
ther
e arc paintings
by
Cezanne
wh
ich are not so easily
un d
erstood. ln
an
illustration, a still life such
s figure
353 may not look
too promising. How awkward it seems if we
compa
re
it wi th
the assured
treatment ofa similar subject by the Dutch seven teenth- centu ry master
Kalf, pa;;e 431 figure
280 Th
e fi:uit
-b owl
is so clumsily
drawn
that its foot
352
Paul Cezanne
1 me
c.:
ezmme
1883- 7
Oil nn canvas 6 x 5 rm
x 2 in:
l hiiJddphi;1
Mnsl umofAn
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543 H L T [ N IN t NT II EN T U RY
353
Pa
ul C
ez
anne
Sti/1 fr c 187y- S2
il
on
C:IIIV,lli, 6 x 1.111.
x
.21
in: privatl
collecr ma
does
not
even res t in the middle.
Th
e table
not
only slopes fi:om left to
rig
ht
, it also looks as
if
t
were
tilted forward.
Wh
ere the
Dut
ch master
excelled in the rendering of soft and flu
ffY
surfaces Cezanne gives us a
patch
wor
k
of
c
olour
dabs
whi
ch
mak
e the napkin look as
if t
were made
of
tinfoil. Small wo
nd
er
that
Ceza
nn
e s
paintinb>s were
at first de
tided
as
path
et
ic daubs. Bu t the reason for this apparent clumsiness is not far to
seek.
Cezan
ne had ceased
to ta
ke any
of
the traditional methods
of
painting for granted. He had dec
ided
to start from scratch as
if
no painting
had been done before him.
Th
e Dutch master had painted his still life to
clisplay hi
s stupendous virtuosity. Cezanne had c
ho
sen
his
motifs
to
study
some specific problems tha t he wanted to solve. We know that he was
fascinated by
th
e relation of
co
lour
to
modelling. A brightly
co
loured
round
solid such
as
an apple was an ideal motif to explore this question.
We kn ow that he was interested in
th
e achievem ent
of
a balanced design.
Th
at is why he stretc
hed th
e bowl to the le
ft
so as to fill a void. As
he
w
ant
ed to s
tud
y a
ll
the shapes
on
the table in the
ir
relat
io n
ships he simply
tilted it forward to make them come into view. Perhaps
th
e example
s
ho
ws h
ow
it happened that Ceza
nn
e became the
fat
h
er of mod
ern art .
In
his tremendous effort to achieve a sense
of
de
pth without
s
ac
rificing
the brightness of colou rs to achi eve an orderly arrangement with
out
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5 ~ 5 l l l · I ATE NINETLENI H
C:ENTU1tY
354
(;corgL·s
Scurar
·n . , , . ; , ~ · · m
Cmnbt Jk,
1886-7
o.lun l \ \ ,1\ , 4() -4
)
_\).J nu.
t
1
. x
lt Y•
in:
Courrau\d
Jn
sriUHt
(;.tlll·til. ll, Ltmtlou
a
number
of
years
he
might one
day
be
able
to
sell his pictures
and
repay h
is
generous
brothe
r. ln his self-chosen solin1de in Aries, Vincent set
down
aU
his ideas and hopes in his letters to Theo, which read like a continuous diary.
T hese letters, by a
humb
le and alm ost self-taug
ht
artist who had no idea of
the fame he was to achieve, arc among the most moving and exciting in all
literature. In tbem we can feel the artist s se nse ofmission, his struggle and
triumphs, his desperate loneliness and longing for companionship, and we
become aware of he immense stra
in
under
which he
worked with feverish
energy. After less than a year, in Dece
mb
er 1 88 1, he broke do
wn
and had an
attack of nsanity. In M
ay
Tb39 he
we
nt into a mental asy lum, but he still
had lucid intervals
during
which he
cont
inu
ed
to paint. T he agony lasted for
another fourteen mon ths. InJuly 1890 Van Gogh put an
end
to his life- he
was thirty-seven like Raphael, and his career
as
a p
ai nter had not
lasted
more
than ten years; the paintint,rs
on
which his fame rests were all painted during
three years w hich were intcrrupt
d by crises and despair.
Most
people
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IN Sci\RCII 0 1
NeW
STANDAIWS
nowadays know some of hese paintings; the sunflowers, the
empty
chair,
the
cypresses and some of he portraits have
become
popular in coloured
reproductions and can be seen in many a simple
room
That is exactly
what Gogh wanted. H e wanted his pictures to have the direct and
strong effect
of h
e coloured
J
apancse prints, page
525
he admi
red
so mu
ch
.
H e longed for an unsophisticated art which would no t only appeal to
1;ch connoisseurs
but
give
joy
and
co
nsolation
to
every human being.
Nevertheless this is not quite the whole story. No reproduction is perfect.
The
cheaper ones make Van Gogh s pictures
look
cruder than th
ey
really
are, and one may sometimes tire of hem. Whenever that happens, it is
quite a revelation
to
return to Van Gogh s orif,rinal works and to discover
how subtle and deliberate he could be even in his strongest effects
For Van Gogh, too, had absorbed the lessons of Impressionism and of
Seurat s pointillism. He liked the technique ofpainting in dots and strokes
of
pu r
e colour,
but
under his hands it became
something
rather different
from wh
at
these Paris artists had
meant
it
to
be. Van
Gogh
used the
355
Vincent van Gogh
Con
ifi
e/d
with
cyp
res
s
es R9
il
on
a n v ; ~ s
7 2
1 x
90 9
em 2X- x JS Y. in:
Nation
al
Ga
Uc
ry
Lond
on
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5+7 THE LATE NINE TEI .NTII CEN rUHY
Vincent van Gogh
J/icwofL( s
Saintcs-
M a r i c s d c l a M e l ~
r8R \
Quill pm and
indim
ink
on
paper, - L\ x
Go
em,
t?Y
)
2yY. in; Sammlung
Qsbr
Reinhart.
individual brushstrokcs not
only to break up the colour
but also
to convey
his own
excitement.
ln one of his letters from Arles he describes his state
of
inspiration
when the
cn1.otions arc somctin1.es so
strong that one works
without being aware
of
working ... and the strokes cmne with a sequence
and coherence
like words
in
a speech or a letter'. The con1.parison
could
not be
clearer. ln such nwmcnts he painted as
other
n1 en
write.
Just as
the appearance of a handwritten page, the traces left by the
pen
on the
paper, in1part something of the gestures of the writer, so that we feel
instinctively when a
letter
was written under great stress of en1.otion- so
the brushstrokes
of
Van Gogh tell us son1.ething
of the
state
of
his
mind.
No artist before hirr1 had ever used this n1eans
with
such consistency
and
effect. We remen1.ber
that
there is bold and loose
brushwork
in earlier
paintings, in
works
by
Tintorctto,
page 37o,figure
237, by
Hals,
pa} e 417,
_figure
270,
and
by Manet, page
518,figure
337, but in these it
rather
conveys
the artist's sovereign
nustcry,
his
quick perception and nugic
capacity for
conjuring
up
a vision.
In
Van
Gogh
it
helps to
convey
the exaltation
of
the
artist's
mind.
Van Gogh liked
to paint
objects
and
scenes which gave this
new
means full
scope-
rnotif')
in which he could
draw as well as
paint with
his brush, and lay on the
colour thick just
like a
writer who
underlines his
words. That is why he was the first
painter to
discover the beauty of
stubble,
hedgerows and
cornfields,
of the
gnarled branches
of
olive trees
and the dark, flamelikc shapes of the cypress, igure 355.
Van Gogh was
in
such a fi-cnzy
of
creation that he felt the urge not
only
to
draw the radiant sun itself ,figure 356, but also to paint hun1blc, restful
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It
was rather different
wi
th a third artist who was also
to
be found in
so
uth
ern France in
1888 -
Paul Gauguin
(r
848-I903). Van Gogh had a
great desire for companionship; he dream
ed
ofa brotherh
oo
d
of
artists
such
as
the
Pre-R
aphaclites had fo
und
ed in
En
gland,
p g
es 511
2
and
he persuaded Gauguin , w
ho
was five years older, to jo in him in Arles .
As a
man
, Gau guin was vety different ·om Van
Gog
h. He had none of
his humility and sense
of
mission.
On
the contrary, he was proud and
ambitious. But there
were
some points ofcon ta
ct
between the
two
. Like
Van
Gog
h, Gauguin had started painting comparatively late in life (he had
been
a well-
to-do
stockbroker); like him , he was almost self- taught.
The
companionship of the two, h
oweve
r, ended in disaster Van Gogh, in a fit
of
madness, attacked Gauguin , w
ho
fl
ed
to Patis.
Two
years later, Gauguin
left
Europe
altogether and
went
to one of the proverbial
'Sou
th Sea
Islands , Tahiti , in sea rch of the simple
li f
e. For he had
more
and
more
become
c
on
vinced th
at art
was in
dan
ger
of
b
ecoming
slick and superficia l,
that all the cleverness and knowledge which had
bee
n accumulated in
Europe had deprived
men
of the gre
at
est gift - strength and in tensity of
feeling, and a direct way
of
expressing it.
358
Paul Gauguin
l e Rerioa (Day·
dreamiug),
1897
Q j
011
Coln\ fl i,
C ) ~ . l
X
1J 0.2 nn
7 Y .
x
in
C:mJrt;tU)d
lnstitlltl
G a l l c r i ~ o . : s .
Lu1Jdm1
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551 ' 'HE Lt\TE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Gauguin, of course, was not the first artist
to
have these qualms about
civilization.
Ever
since artists
had
become self-conscious
about
style
they
felt distrustful
of
conventions
and
impatient
ofmere
skill. They
longed
for an art
which did
not
consist
of
tricks
which
can
be
learned,
for a style which was
no mere
style, but
something strong and
powerful
like
hunun
passion. Dclacroix had gone to Algiers
to
look for n1ore
intense colours
and
a life of1ess restraint, page 506 The Pre-Raphaclites in
England hoped to
find this directness and simplicity in the unspoilt art
of
the Age
of
Faith .
The
Impressionists
admired
the Japanese, but theirs was
a sophisticated art compared with the intensity
and
sitnplicity for
which
Gauguin
longed.
At
first
he
studied peasant art,
but
it
did not hold him
for long. He needs n1ust get away from
Europe and
live anwng the
natives
of
the
South
Seas as
one of them to work
out his
own
salvation.
The
works
he
brought
back from there puzzled even some of
his forn1er
fi·iends. They seemed so savage
and
prin1itive. That was just
what
Gauguin
wanted.
He
was
proud
to
be
called barbarian .
Even
his
colour
and
draughtsmanship should be barbaric
to
do justice to the unspoilt
children
of
nature
he had come
to adtnire
during
his stay
in
Tahiti.
Looking
at one
of
these pictures today,.figure
_358
we
may
not quite
succeed in
recapturing
this
mood.
We have becmne used to
much
greater savagery in art. And
yet
it is not difficult
to
realize
that
Gauguin
struck a new
note.
It is not only the subject-matter of his pictures
that
is
strange
and
exotic. He tried
to enter
into
the
spirit
of the
natives
and to
look at things
as
they
did.
He
studied the methods of native craftsmen
and
often
included
representations
of their
works
in
his pictures. He strove
to
bting his own portraits of the natives into hannony
with
this plin1itive
art. So
he
simplified the outlines
of
forms
and
did
not
shrink
from
using
large patches
of
strong
colour.
Unlike
CCzanne, he
did
not mind
if
these
simplified forms
and c o l o u r - s c h e n l - ~ s made
his pictures
look
flat. He
gladly ignored the centuries-old
problems of Western
art
when he thought
that this helped him to render the unspoilt intensity of nature s children.
He tnay
not
always have fully
succeeded in
his
aim of
achieving directness
and
sitnplicity.
But
his longing for it was
as
passionate
and
sincere
as
that
ofCCzanne
for a
new
harmony
and that
ofVan
Gogh
for a
new
message; for Gauguin
too
sacrificed his life
to
his ideal. He felt himself
misunderstood in
Europe
and
decided to
return to the South
Sea
Islands for
good.
After years
ofloneliness and
disappointment,
he
died
there ofill-health and
privation.
Cezanne
Van
Gogh and Gauguin
were
three desperately lonely
men
who worked
on
with little hope of ever being
understood.
But the
problems
of
their art
about which
they felt so strongly
were
seen by more
and more
artists of he
younger generation
who found
no
satis£1-ction in
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55
IN Sl.:ARC
II 0 1 N W S
TA
NDr\lt D S
359
Pierre
ilonnard
I f
tile
rn l
, I y
Oil o boJrd. x 70 em
x 27X in: l i t u n
SJnunlung E C. rl
< .
Zurich
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553 ·1HI ' lATE N I
NF.TE
I,NTII ClNTlJ I Y
j 0
Fadinand l-lodlcr
J..,tkt
•num
19
05
•l
11
<
lllV· · xo .l
)
IOO l llt,
j i } M
X
j y
l;l in:
d Art
l
ci H i,wirc.
c:,•m• f.l
the
skills they acquired at the art schools. They had learn
ed
how to
represent nature, how to draw co rrectly and how to usc paint and
brush; they
had
eve n abs
orbed
the le
ssons of
the Impressionist
Revolution and became deft in conveying th e flicker ofsunlight and air.
Some
great artists ind
eed
persevered along this pa th , and champion ed
these new m etho ds in countries where resistance against Imp r
ess
ionism
was still strong, but nuny painters
of the
yo
un
ger generation
sea
r
ched
for new methods to solve, or at least to bypass, the diffic ulties that
Cezanne had felt. Basically these difficulties arose fi·om that clash
(discussed earlier, pa.( eS 494
-
5 between
the
n
ee
d for tonal gradation to
suggest depth and the desire to preserve the beauty of the colours we see.
Th
e art
of
the
Japanese had
co
nvin
ce
d them
that
a picture
cou
ld
mak
e a
much str
onger imp
ression i modelling and
ot h
er details
we
re sacrificed
to bold simplification. Both Van
Go g
h
and
Gauguin
ha
d gone a certa
in
way along this road, enhancing their colours and disregarding the
impress ion of depth, a
nd
Seurat
had gone
even fu
rt
her in his experimen
ts
with poin tillism. Pierre Bon nard (T867- r947) sho wed particu lar skill
and sensitivity in suggesting a sense oflight and colour flickering o n the
canvas as if it were a tapestry. H
is
pai
nting of
a sp read table,ji,( lll'e
359
illustrates how he avoided a stress on perspective and depth in order to
make
us
enjoy a colourful pattern. The Swiss painter Ferd inand H
odlcr
( r85 3-19I 8) boldly simplified his native scenery eve n fur ther to achieve a
poster- like claJi ty,AQ /Ire360
lt is
no
accide
nt
that this paint
ing
re
mind
s us
of
poster
s,
for it t
urned
out that the approach which Europe had learned fi·om theJapanese
proved particu larly suited to the art of advertising. It was before the
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554
IN SEAI C II O F
NEW
STANDARDS
turn
of the century
that
the gifted follower ofD cgas,
page 526,
Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec
(rR64
-19
01), resorted
to
such an econom y
of means
for
the new art of the
postcr,JiJttHe
361.
The
art
of
llu
stration profited
equally
from the development of
su
ch
effects. R
emembering the lo
ve
and
c
ar
e
whic
h earlier ages had
bestowed
on
th
e production ofbooks , men such
as
William
Morris,
page 535, would
not want to
tolerate badly
produced books
or illustrations
that merely told
a story regardless
of
their
effect
on
the printed
page
.
In
sp
ired
by
Whistler
and
the
Japanese,
the
young
prodigy Aubrey
Beardsley
(r872-1 R9R
rose
to immediat
e fam e all
over Europe
wi th
hi
s sophisticat
ed
black a
nd
w hi te
illustrations,jigure
362.
Th e word of praise much used in this
period
of
rt
Nou/Jeau was
'decorati
ve .
Paint
ings
and
prints
sho
uld
present
a pleasing
pattern to the
eye lo n
g
be
fore
we
can sec w h
at they
represent. Slowly, but surely,
this fashion for the decorative t
hus
paved the
way
for a new
appro
ach
to
art. Fidelity
to
the m otif
or the
telling
of
a
moving
sto ry
no
lo
ng
er
mattered
so much , provided the
picture or
print
made
a pleasing effect.
And yet, some
artists felt increasingly
that in
all
th i
s sear
ch something
had
go
ne out of rt something they desper
at
ely tried
to
retrieve. We
remembe
r
th
at
Cezann
e had felt
that
w hat h
ad been
l
ost
was
th
e sense
of
order
and balance; that
the
lmprcssionist
preoccupa
ti
on with
the
fl
ee
ting
moment had made
them
neg
le
ct the
solid
and
en
during
forms
of
nature.
J6 l
H cmi de
Toulou
s
e-L
a
utrcc
Les A111bas
sadeu
n:
Aristide Rruaut , IS92
Lilho gr ph postc r; t p 2 x
98.
em Y1x in
J6
2
Aubrey Be
ar
ds ley
Illustmtiou to Oscar
' li/de s 'Salome', 894
:md
ha
l rom:
on
J
t
p;m
csc ve
llum:
J4 J
x
27 3 em 13
Vl
x in
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555 Ti l L TE NINETEENTH CEN TURY
Vn11 Gc>j h i 1 1 ~
sui lowe
RR
a i m i n ~ by Paul GauKuin:
o l on
c:mvas 73
x
y z
em x
36V.
in;
Hijk
smusc
un1
Vincent v;m
~ : ; l
Am st
t rc.l;un
Van
Gogh
had felt that
by
surrendet;ng
to
visu
l
impressions, and
by explming nothing but the optical qualities of light and co lour, art was
in danger oflosing that intensity and passion through which alone the
artist can express his fe e
ling
to his fellow men. Gauguin, fmally, was
altogether dissatisfied w
ith lif
e
and
art as he found them. He longed for
something much simpler and
more
direct and hoped to find it among
the primitives. What we call modern art grew out of these feelings
of
dissatisfaction; and th e various soluti
ons
after
which
these three painters
had
been groping became
th
e ideals
of
three
mo vemen ts
in
modern
art.
Ce
zanne s solution ultim.atcly led to Cubism, which or iginated in France;
Van Gogh s
to
Expressionism, which fo
und
its main response in Germany;
and Gauguin s to the vat;ous forms ofPrimitivism. However mad these
m o v e m e n t ~ may have seemed at first, today it is not difficult to show that
they
we
re consistent
at t
empts to escape
fi·o
m a deadlock in which artists
found themselves.
- -