POTS AND PANS OR STUDIES IN STILL-LIFE PAINTING BY ARTHUR EDWIN BYE PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 1921 Copyright, 1921, by PSIHOXTON UHIYKBeiTT PRMS6 Published, 1921 Printed in the United States of America ERRATA P. ii8, line 2 for manet read monet P. 149, " 5 " CANNOT " CAN p. 177, " 2 " MAX " JUST 4753^)6 PREFACE Still-life painting is a field of artistic activity which has been neglected by writers. Countless volumes have been published dealing with art epochs, or the great na- tional schools of painting, rehgious painting, figure painting, illuminated manuscripts, book illustrations, engraving, etc. There are few books, however, deaHng with special problems in painting such as that of land- scape. No volume discussing the particular problem of still-life painting, either historically or aesthetically, has, to my knowledge, ever appeared. It has been my aim to remedy this apparent lack. Still-life painting is a modest art. The pots and pans, or the fruit and flowers, the humble elements composing a still-life picture, perforce make the painter and his art as modest as themselves. And so, in keeping with the character of my subject, I have endeavored to present, in as simple a way as possible, the charm of still-life painting and its historic development. The book is intended for lovers of art. Conscious of the fact that neither my title nor my subject will ap- peal to those who understand nothing of art, I have not endeavored to be popular. Neither have I attempted to [vii] Vlll PREFACE be technical. The readers to whom this book is likely to appeal are those who already have a cultivated appre- ciation for art and a never-failing interest in it. To those I address myself. No further preface is necessary. I wish, however, in this place to acknowledge my indebtedness to those who have aided me in my work. To Professor Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., who read my manuscript and offered many valuable suggestions for its improvement, I owe many thanks. His brilliant style as a writer and his keen critical discernment have been a constant inspiration to me, just as the supreme accomplishment of the still-life pictures of Emil Carlsen has given me that conviction of the aesthetic importance of still-life painting which I needed for my work. To my brother-in-law, Mr. Carel Heldring, I must also express my gratitude. Without his encouragement and sympathy I would have lacked much of the enthu- siasm which fortunately I possessed. I must also acknowledge my appreciation of the as- sistance furnished by the following persons who courte- ously lent photographs for reproduction : Messrs. Emil and Dines Carlsen, Mr. Henry Rittenberg, Mr. Hugh Breckenridge, Mr. Robert Macbeth, Mrs. Cornelia B. Sage Quinton. Arthur Edwin Bye. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAOI Preface vii List of Illustrations xi Chapter 1. The Historic Prejudice 1 Chapter 2. Foreninners of Still-life Painting. . . 21 Chapter 3. Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painting 43 I. Pots and Pans 45 II. Trophies of the Hunt 57 III. Fruit and Flowers 68 IV. Herring and Wine 81 Chapter 4. The Vanitas and Bodegone Painters of Spain 89 I. Alonzo Vasquez 91 II. Velasquez 92 III. Valdes Leal 96 IV. Pereda 98 Chapter 5. French Still-life Painting 99 I. Chardin 101 II. Courbet 107 III. Manet 113 [ix] X TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE IV. Fantin-Latour 121 V. Vollon 126 VI. Cezanne 132 VII. Impressionism and Post Impres- sionism 140 Chapter 6. Chinese and Japanese Still-life Paint- ing 151 I. Chinese Flower Painting 153 II. Japanese Still-life 163 Chapter 7. Modem Dutch Still-life Painting. . . 175 Chapter 8. American Still-life Painting 189 I. Flowers 191 II. Fish 201 III. Ancient and Decorative Objects. . 209 IV. Conclusion 224 Index 229 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE FEONTISPIECE 26 S6 30 so 34 Mandarin Beads, by Emil Carlsen . . . Dream of St. Ursula, by Vittorio Carpaccio . Still-Life, by Jacopo de' Barbari John Arnolfini and His Wife, by Jan van Eyck Legend of St. Eligius, by Petrus Christus Banker and His Wife, by Quentin Matsys Market Scene, by Joachim de Beukelaer St. Jerome in His Study, by Albert Durer .... 36 Melancholia, by Albert Durer 36 Portrait of George Ghisze, by Hans Holbein, the Younger, . 40 The Two Ambassadors, by Hans Holbein, the Younger 40 Interior of an Inn (detail), by David Teniers, the Younger 48 Interior of a Farmhouse (detail), by David Teniers, THE Younger, 48 Interior of a Farmhouse (detail), by David Teniers, THE Younger, . 50 The Misers, by David Teniers, the Younger, ... 50 The Housemaid, by Gerard Dou 52 The Alchemist, by Gerard Dou 62 The Grocery Shop, by Gerard Dou 54 Grace Before Meat, by Nicholas Maes 54 Paternal Advice, by Gerard Terborch 56 [xi] XU LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING FAGS A Market Stall, by Willem van Mieeis . . . . . 56 Dead Game, by Franz Snyders 58 Dead Gtame, by Franz Snyders ........ 60 Partridges and Woodcocks, by Jan Fyt 60 A Trophy of the Hunt, by Jan Baptiste Weenicx . 62 A Dead Hare, by Jan Weenicx 62 Dead Game, by Dirk Valkenburg 62 Dead Game, by Jan Weenicx 64 Eagles Attacking Fowl, by Melchior d'Hondekoeter 66 Still-Life, by Jan de Heem 70 Still-Life, by Jan Davidszoon de Heem 72 Still-Life with Fruit, by Pieter de Ringh .... 72 Festoon of Fruit, by Jan Davidszoon de Heem . . 74 Still-Life, by Abraham Mignon 74 Flowers, by Abraham Mignon 76 Fruit, by Jan van Huysum 76 Fruit, by Jan van Huysum 76 Fruit and Flowers, by Jan van Huysum 78 Flowers, by Rachel Ruysch 78 Flowers, by Abraham van Beyeren 80 "Breakfast Piece," by Pieter Claesz 82 "Breakfast Piece," by Pieter Claesz 84 Still-Life, by Willem Claesz Heda 84 Still-Life, by Gerrit Willems Heda 86 Still-Life, by William Kalff 86 Still-Life, by Jan Jans Treck 88 "Vanitas," by Franciscus Gysbrechts 88 Still-Life, by Jan Jans Treck 88 Pipes, by Hubert van Ravesteyn 92 The Omelette Woman, by Velasquez 94 The Steward, by Velasquez 94 Allegory of Death, by Valdes Leal 96 Allegory of the Brevity of Life, by Valdes Leal . . 96 Still-Life, by Chardin .... 102 Fruit, by Chardin 104 Still-Life, by Chardin 108 Still-Life, by Chardin 108 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XIU FACING PAGE Apples, by Courbet 11^ Still-Life, by Eduard Manet 118 Study in Flowers, by Fantin-Latour 124 Fruit and Flowers, by Antoine Vollon 130 Flowers, by Antoine Vollon 132 Still-Life, by Francois Bouvin 132 Pears, by Cezanne 134 Still-Life, by Cezanne 134 Still-Life, by Claude Monet 140 Blue Hydrangeas, by Jacques Emile Blanche . . . 142 White Peonies, Lustre Jug and Red Lacquer Box, by Jacques Emile Blanche 142 Melons, by Yam ad a Do an 166 Egg Plant, by Yamada Doan 166 Poppies, Wheat, and Natane Flowers, by Sotatsu . 168 Vase of Flowers and Rising Moon, by Harunobu . . 170 Surimono, by Hokkei 172 Still-Life, by Maria Vos 182 The Cast-Off Toys, by Lizzie Ansingh 184 Wreath, by John Lafarge 194 Poppies and Mignonette, by Maria Oakley Dewing . 194 Peonies, by Wilton Lockwood 196 Spirea and Single Dahlias, by Howard Gardiner Cush- ING 198 Roses, by J. Alden Weir 200 Fish, by William M. Chase 202 Chrysanthemums, by Henry Rittenberg 206 The Lady of the Iris, by Henry Golden Dearth . . 210 Still-Life, by Emil Carlsen 214 Still-Life, by Emil Carlsen 216 Still-Life, by Emil Carlsen 216 The Spanish Brazero, by Dines Carlsen 218 The Bronze Bell, by Dines Carlsen 220 Still-Life, by Emil Carlsen 220 Still-Life, by Dines Carlsen 222 The Chinese Jar, by Hugh H. Breckenridge . . . 224 The East Window, by Childe Hassam 226 Still-Life, by Adelaide Chase 226 CHAPTER 1. The Historic Prejudice POTS AND PANS CHAPTER 1 The appreciation of still-life painting has grown in recent times with the development of taste and the un- derstanding of the true meaning of art. We must say that it has grown even though there may appear to have been a period of neglect for neither art nor its appreciation can stagnate, decay, even for a moment; decay implies death. But in a sense the pursuit of still- life painting is a return, inasmuch as it reached its height in the seventeenth century, with the Dutchmen. Today the aesthetically cultivated man or woman regards a fine example of nature morte with the same pleasure as he would a landscape or a portrait. One is forced to admit, however, that a certian amount of con- noisseurship is demanded unless indeed, one be in- stinctively gifted to appreciate a still-life picture to the extent that it might deserve. A Chardin may have painted it ; it may be exquisite in tonality, harmonious in design, delicate or rich in coloring, but there lurks half hidden in one's unconsciousness, that a group of mere objects cannot have the claim to one's permanent affec- tion as, for instance, an expansive landscape with at- [3] ' ' * ' ' ' POTS AND PANS mospheric distance and overarching sky, which by its suggestion of cosmic vastness, impels one to philsophic thought, or again, an intimate landscape which, by its poetic associations, leads one to contemplate eternity. One may affirm to oneself, "My knowledge tells me that still-life pictures have equal claims with any other kind to being works of art ; my definitions of art tell me so." Why, then, this lurking doubt? Few persons escape the prejudices of their age, and few can live uninfluenced by the opinions of the crowd. Those who do, however, and there are such, can scarcely be unaware of the attitude of mind which environs tiiem. And so one asks why? By the average visitor at an exhibition still-life pic- tures are considered prosaic. The bouquet of flowers seems never so beautiful as a bunch of real flowers which anyone can obtain so easily at the flower shop around the comer. Why paint an imitation of the reality which can be possessed by a tithe of the cost of the picture? The platter of fish seems an actual offense, recalling as it is apt to do, unpleasant sensations of feeling and smell. How can one have such a picture about? The popular prejudice against pictures of fish is well illustrated by a story concerning the former Emperor of Germany. The painter William M. Chase had on exhibition in Ber- lin one of his remarkable studies of fish. The hanging committee, who well understood the excellences of the picture, were anxious for the Kaiser to examine it. "But I do not like Fisch/* the monarch exclaimed. "No?" a committeeman responded, "but you must see how well these are painted." "I do not like Fisch*' the Emperor [4] W THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE repeated, and in spite of all remonstrances, this was all they could get the Kaiser to say. If we take another subject, say, the basket of vege- tables ^what aesthetic suggestions do these create? What has food to do with art? And again ^there is that picture of old jugs, pots and pans. Perhaps there is more excuse for that, the doubter will agree, for these old things demand a certain amount of respect we always pay to age, but what enthusiasm, after all, can these arouse? He is confirmed in his doubts by the scarcity of still- lives he finds in the galleries. There is about one to every hundred portraits, genre subjects, religious or mytho- logical canvases and landscapes. Surely the authorities believed that, comparatively, still-lives are unimportant. The fact is that fewer still-life pictures are painted. There are few on the market. The art dealers are partly responsible for this. I know of an incident which illus- trates the attitude of the art-buying public towards this branch of art. An artist who painted still-life pictiu*es as well as landscapes, but who was most skillful with his still-lives, sent in several of his works to an art dealer for exhibition in his show rooms. The landscapes were kept, but the still-lives were all returned. The art dealer acknowledged the still-lives to be better pictures, tech- nically even aesthetically ^but the landscapes would make a larger appeal. Those who hold still-life painting in slight esteem have historic arguments to back them, if they know it. There are good reasons, and historical ones, for their attitude. There has always been a school of aesthetics which main- [5] POTS AND PANS tains that art should be sublime, should uplift and en- noble humanity. And most art lovers would subscribe to this belief. Many have been the purposes attributed to art, even insisted upon, for it. That art should have a moral, a religious, or a philosophic purpose, is perhaps the most historic. Art, for all we know, may have been bom of the desire upon the part of primitive man to produce or symbolize the image of his god, or to picture his deeds. At the dawn of civiUzation in Egypt, Chaldea or Assyria art is certainly inseparable from religion. As we rush through the centuries, we find that during the Periclean age of Greece art becomes the chief expression of re- hgious and philosophic thought. Sculpture portrays the dignity and the sublimity of the gods, it ennobles the human form and makes the body the means of express- ing transcendental ideas. All other art reflects this type. Even to the decoration of the meanest pot, scenes from the lives of the gods or god-like heroes are portrayed. It is later in the Hellenistic period that genre subjects are introduced into art episodes from everyday life, like little children playing with fowl or boys pulling thorns from their feet. Classic art, however, is philo- sophic or religious in its purpose, as it upholds the god- like ideal of perfection. This classic ideal Kngers on in art as long as the Graeco-Roman period lasts, for nearly one thousand years, until the decorative ideal of the Orient and its contempt of form prevails in the sixth century of our era, and when also the northern conquests change, for a time, the entire course of civilization. But the classical ideal is never extinguished. It [6] THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE bursts forth again in the so-called Italian Renaissance and again in the French Revolutionary period, and is alive to this day, with its nobility of form, and subUmity of purpose. The beholder of a painting by any one of the great artists of the Italian Renaissance Giotto, Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Raphael, or Michelangelo, is transported from the commonplace, the vulgarity of ordinary life, to the serene calm of a higher world. In the sixteenth century Italian art is transplanted to France. Francis I summons to Fontainebleau the best talent he can obtain from Italy Leonardo, Cellini and others. A century later the brilliant courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV attract artists from all Europe. From this time on France stands at the head of the mod- em art world aesthetically, and French art thus carries on the torch of classic tradition. So it is no wonder that the great majority of laymen, and even of critics those at least uninitiated into the esoteric teachings of painters themselves hold firmly to the principle that art must conform to the classic standard or ideal of form, and that it have the philo- sophic quaUty of sublimity. There are only a few types of picture that can answer such definitions of art. The religious picture comes perhaps foremost ; one thinks of Fra Angelico, Bellini, Perugino and Raphael as having made the most universal appeal. Then comes to our minds the purely imaginative picture. By that is meant the glimpse into a world of dreams by which the beholder is transported out of himself for the moment. Some- times this is romantic in character, as in a Watteau; sometimes mystical as in a Rossetti or a Bume- Jones; [7] POTS AND PANS but it is not the real world that is portrayed. Certain kinds of genre, because of their uplifting character, like- wise appeal to these persons pictiwes of homely inci- dent, chiefly pathetic as in a Greuze or a Hogarth which are not at all classic in character. They wish life pictured with an emotional stress some chord of sym- pathy with suffering humanity must be touched so that the beholder of the picture becomes, temporarily at least, as when hstening to a sermon, a better man. The pubhc is often right. The well-deserved popu- larity of Millet is easily understood. He pictured peas- ants with a sympathy perhaps the most intense in art. He was a realist as well as a romanticist, for he painted real life not for the sake of realism, but for the sake of humanity. He was more than either of these how- ever; he gave his peasants a transcendental reality a cosmic quality as they worked in their broad fields under the overarching sky. They became patriarchal arche- types of mankind. Like Michelangelo's prophets they are thoughtful, serious and profoimd. They seem to sum up the struggles of the human race throughout the ages, so that there is something classical about them. One is, in the end, carried away from the commonplace. It is no wonder that those who look to Millet, Puvis de Chavannes, Bume-Jones, Watts, as ideal painters, can find little enjoyment in a still-life. They are per- fectly consistent as far as they go. But their trouble is that they have formed a narrow definition of art. If they had studied their Dutch masters as well as their Italian and French, their definition would have been broader. [8] THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE The prestige of France has for the last two centuries overshadowed the glory that was Holland's. The pres- ent active interest in things Dutch is the result of the nineteenth century revival of Dutch art under Israels, Bosboom, the Maris brothers, Mauve and Jongkind. But it is surprising how little is known how little writ- ten about the art of Holland compared to what is known and written about Italian or French art. If one doubts this, let him look for a history of Dutch art and he will find at best a very inadequate obsolete work. The re- liable works are confined to monographs and individual studies. Vermeer, one of the greatest of the world's painters, is a discovery of the last generation. Campin, Gerard David, are resurrections of the modem archivist. Dutch art has a totally different historical backgroimd ' from the Italian. Here in the north there was no clas- sical tradition with monumental remains to influence the development of a new school. The Gothic statue, the illimiinated missal were its sources. Gothic artists, as we now know, derived their types from hiunanity about them. There was first a realistic phase, then an ideal- istic, to be succeeded by an emotional. But in the Low Countries, the interest in life about one never forsook the artist. He remained far more independent of tradition than the Italian artist ever was. Dutch art came to its matiu*ity during the Protestant revolt, and at the same time as the rise of patriotism in Holland and Flanders. (These two coimtries became independent of Spain be- tween 1568 and 1648) . Thus it became not the purpose of Dutch art to portray Christian dogma and to teach it to the people, but rather to devote itself to civil and [9] POTS AND PANS individual needs. Flushed with their new-found inde- pendence the Dutch tended to be individualistic in their thought. They became intensely interested in them- selves, in those around them and in every aspect of life. Hence the group portrait, intended for the adornment of the town hall, the guild, or council chamber. Hence the various types of genre aristocratic, domestic and peas- ant ; hence also the landscape, the animals and game and the still-life. The democracy of the Dutch people like- wise tended to bring art closer to the lives and interests of the average citizen. Art was to be confined no longer to the church or to the palace, but devoted to the home. Contrary to those who held that ordinary life was too mean for art ^that art should occupy itself with god- like things sublime motives ^the Dutch felt that noth- ing was too mean for art, or, to be more exact, they felt that art could ennoble all life. The subject matter did not count ; it was the artist's attitude toward it that mat- tered, and his ability to penetrate its beauty. Hence de- veloped the theory, essentially modem in the western world, but old to the east, that beauty can be discovered anywhere. What was the beauty that Brouwer discovered in his dirty cellars filled with howling wretches? Nothing but the low tones, the subtle value of colors, but that was enough. That he was a superb draughtsman who could seize accurately the critical action, and that he was a master of composition adds to the value of his pictures, but their beauty lies chiefly in their tonality. What was the beauty that Vermeer saw in his quiet and simple interiors? Nothing but the soft hght filter- [10] THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE ing through casement windows, caressing a woman's arm as she lifts a pearl necklace to her throat, bathing the walls and furniture with a uniform glow that makes his pictures seem, in spite of their simple subject matter, dreams, as mysterious as Giorgione's. There was no aspect of life that escaped the interest of ^ the Dutch. The religious life was as vital to them as to any race of painters. Rembrandt is to be placed with Raphael and Titian as one of the greatest religious painters in the world of Christian art. They pictured high life as well as low; the cavaliers and satin-gowned ladies interested Terborch and Netscher; the bourgeoisie, Metsu and Jan Steen; the peasants, Brouwer and Os- tade. Landscape in and for its own sake was first ap- preciated by the Dutch; heretofore it had been consid- ered merely as adjunct to a figure composition. In Van Goyen, Ruisdael, Hobbema and Cuyp we have our first real landscape art. But whether the Dutch painter gave his chief atten- tion to religious themes, to portraiture, to the domestic interior, or to the peasant revel, he was always interested in still-life. If beauty can be discovered anywhere and they had found it to be so in the simplest cottage, and in the landscape, new ideas at that time ^why not in a group of objects on a table? Those copper kettles catch- ing the light from the window ^was there not a richness and glow about them? Those amber-colored goblets rest- ing on the red damask cover, with glistening red or white wine catching the sunbeams, and sparkling like jewels in a dark chamber what a color scheme was that I And there was a chance for arrangement and design in that POTS AND PANS group of Chinese porcelain on the shelf! The artist could play with these things as he could with no other kind of subject. Not only the Dutch artist loved still-life paintings, but the Dutch people loved them as well. The decora- tive value of still-life was well understood; the value of color and design apart from subject matter was in- stinctively appreciated. After the death of WiUiam III of Orange, the po- litical prestige of Holland waned, while at the same time, imder Louis XIV the prestige of France rose to its height. This political ascendancy of France, carry- ing with it national prosperity, was natiu-ally coincident with French influence. To Paris, instead of to Amster- dam the eyes of the art world looked, and for two hun- dred years the western world fell under the influence of French classicism. Dutch art, it is true, entered France, with Watteau, the Van Loos and others.^ The Flemish Rubens did much to mould French taste, and Chardin, an isolated figure, was quite Dutch in spirit; yet we must say that Dutch art was sleeping in the eighteenth century. France has ever since been justly the leader in art. But this has implied that classic ideas of form and design iVan der Meulen, 1643-1690. Largilli^re, court portraitist. Born in Antwerp, 1650; died in France, 1748. J. B. van Loo, born in Aix, 1684. Carle van Loo, born in Aix, 1705. Watteau, born in Valenciennes (then Flanders), 1684; died, 1731, in France. Lancret, also born in Valenciennes, 1690; died, 1743, in France. The brothers Le Nain were French by birth, Dutch by instinct. [12] THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE have ruled. It became established that certain rules of order, of symmetry, and spacing must be followed to cieate a decorative work. Chief of all was the rigid ad- herence to classical subject matter. Claude Lorrain in his landscapes with classic ruins, Poussin in his "Et Ego in Arcadia," Watteau in his "Embarkation for Cythera," Boucher in his Cupids, David in his "Rape of the Sabines," Ingres in his "La Source," Puvis de Cha- vannes in his historical-legendary decorations all ad- hered in one way or another to classical or academic canons. We would have expected England, who was the true successor of the Dutch Enghsh art having been bom in the Low Countries to have preserved the Dutch love for still-life ^to have appreciated the value of a work of art outside its subject matter. But English art was too strongly influenced by its literature. Art in England has scarcely ever lost a Uterary flavor. English literature has been overrulingly great. What hope there may have been for a true critical appreciation of art was lost with the Pre-Raphaelites who turned to the Italian primitives for inspiration. Bume-Jones was a medi- aevalist. With Watts, Leighton, Poynter and Alma- Tadema EngKsh art went right over to pure classicism. The greatest force to break the bonds of classicism in decoration was the Japanese print. At the end of the nineteenth century Europeans for the first time learned that decoration could be informal, could defy all the canons known to the West could in a word consist of surprises, and still be decoration. For the first time an [18] POTS AND PANS art, untainted by Greek ideas, held sway over the imagin- ations of men. The enormous importation of Chinese and Japanese vases, bronzes, and all sorts of objects did much to add to the interest on the part of the public in oriental art. The inherent decorative value of the meanest utensils was brought home as it never was before. And Japanese and Chinese art taught the western world once again what the Dutch had once taught, but which had been forgot- ten, the beauty of things in and for themselves, the beauty of pure arrangement and color design, regardless of their story, power to uplift, religious association or what not. This interest in things in and for themselves is, after all, universal. Nearly everyone has the instinct for col- lecting. It is inborn in the child who stuffs his pockets full of nick-nacks. Tom Sawyer's chief triumph was not merely that he had made an easy job out of white- washing the fence, but that he had gained by his bar- gaining, a piece of blue bottle glass, twelve marbles, a glass stopper, a brass door knob, a key, a dog collar and six pieces of orange peel. The difference however, between an artist and a lay- man is that the latter is content with the mere possession of a collection while the former glories in their arrange- ment and coloring. Ming vases, golden bowls, rare porcelain, old armour, tapestries, are of no greater beauty to one who has the artist's soul, whether painter or amateur, than pots and kettles and gaily dyed muslin, if he is allowed to group them in color schemes and line arangements against the background that he finds ap- [u] THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE propriate. He can make the commonest, cheapest ob- jects provided they are simple and self-respecting, not tawdry rare and wonderful. It has been said that beauty can be discovered any- where, but we can go a step further than this and say that the artist can create beauty anywhere. Not long ago I was invited to a mountain cabin a rough affair itself, but overlooking a magnificent valley. On the crude table made of logs and boards, the hostess had laid a cover of dyed muslin of an orange color, approaching old rose. On this was a bunch of orange wood-lilies in a golden-hued glazed china pitcher. It was an evident attempt to give a bright note to the sombre wooden interior of the bungalow, so I commented upon its suc- cess. "Yes," my hostess replied, "I remembered I had this piece of cloth when I saw along the roadside on my way up here these lilies growing. So I knew I had a splendid color scheme." To group objects, to arrange them, so as to make patterns of color, is a passion with the artist. Small wonder it is then that we find nearly all painters whether their main work be portraiture or landscape doing still-life in their odd moments. Here they are unfettered in their desire to do what they please with things. They have their revenge, in a way, upon nature. The landscape painter, however he may let his imagina- tion play in interpreting the face of nature, is ever baf- fled. Nature always changes ; not two hours together is she the same, and when the artist sets out in the morning to do a misty day, by noon it is clear sunlight that trans- forms everything. He may endeavor, by means of a [15] POTS AND PANS sketch, to record his impression, or his emotions, but then he is forced to rely upon his memory for his finished studio picture. The portraitist is bound with closer chains than the landscapist. He must be true to his model, and even though he interpret the sitter's character without neces- sarily adhering to a literal resemblanqe, there is little play for fancy. Unless he have a Spanish dancer, whom he may pose as he pleases, dress as he pleases as far as color scheme goes and play with in a sense, and then with what capricious features what changes of mood what fleeting expression has he to contend! The city magnate had better be allowed to flop down in his chair in his own customary way, and look as prosaic as is nat- ural for him, otherwise what the artist paints is not a por- trait, but an imaginary head. But when an artist sets out to do a still-life, here he is the creator, the god who can fashion things as he will. Out of his household goods or others! ^he can select baskets, fish, vegetables, china, vases, bric-a-brac, fur- niture, antiques of any description, flowers, what he will, as few or as many as he pleases; he can place them where he will, by the sunht window, or in the shadowy comer of the room, and there they have to stay. No passing clouds will alter them, no new day will destroy their first effect; no varying moods can change their face. Only a few still-life subjects are deceptive like a summer day or a maiden's face; flowers will fade, and fish will decay; these are the exceptions we must have as with any rule. In principle, still-life painting is no different from landscape, portraiture or figure painting. As an art, [16] THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE each aims, or should aim, at interpretation, or, in other words, to express in a way that will be understood by others, the vision of beauty and its resultant emotion ex- perienced by the artist. A still-life picture must first of all interpret or express a vision or emotion of the artist. This is one of the tests by which we can judge a good still-life. If it is a mere prosaic imitation in paint of a group of inanimate objects, there is no excuse for its existence. In this respect a still-life demands more than any other kind of picture. A stupid still-life is worse than a stupid landscape, or a stupid portrait, be- cause these latter command an undeserved sympathy from the experience of the beholder; their sentimental associations may render them tolerable. But a still-life must rely upon its own virtues alone. As Emil Carlsen said to the writer, "There is no essen- tial difference between a still-life and a portrait. Up to a certain point a portrait is a still-life. Then there must be something added personality, hfe. But to a still-life there must be also a something added to make it a work of art caU it what you will." We must seek then, first of all, in our study of still- Hves, that inexplicable something which reveals the pic- ture to be an expression of a vision. How the artist may express this may be by color, design, i. e., arrangement or grouping, so we must look for these. He may paint each object with minute care, with almost microscopic detail, as did Gerard Dou, or he may paint them broadly, obscuring details, as if they were seen behind a veil, as sometimes does Carlsen; the method would depend upon the character of the objects painted and the effect de- [17] POTS AND PANS sired by the artist. But what is essential is that there be an interesting choice of objects things that make a jolly company that they be arranged decoratively, or with design, and that their coloring be especially rich, bright, and varied, or deep, subtle, and mysterious so that it expresses in color a powerful emotion on the part of the painter. In short, besides its conception as a vision or an emotional experience, a still-life, to be worth while, must be technically superior. We might as well admit before going any further that a still-life, more than any other type of picture, must be judged from the point of view of technique. The mere beauty of its paint, the quality of its surface claims our attention. We might overlook defects of this kind in an interior by Josef Israels where the tender sympathy with human life is the chief aim. But in a still-life slovenly technique is ^ unforgivable. In fact, we might go so far as to regard a still-life as we would any objH d'art a bit of gold- smithy, a jewel, a Japanese sword, an Indian shawl, something to enjoy for the beauty of its workmanship. Granted that still-life painting is a favorite hobby with the artist the philistine may still be reluctant to give this branch the appreciation that he would to other pic- tures. Still-life painting has never been given its due. The religious picture, the classical allegory, the romantic or historical episode, the village tale, have occupied the attention of most artists, art critics, art historians, and the art loving public. They have taken up so much of the space in our art galleries ; they have intruded them- selves so conspicuously upon the public attention for [18] THE HISTORIC PREJUDICE hundreds of years that more humble types of pictures have been forced to take second place. The average man, therefore, has little chance for ap- preciating still-life; he accepts, unconsciously, the his- toric prejudice. If he spontaneously develops a love for it, he is gifted. The fairies have touched his eyes. He has, unawares, discovered that without being a painter himself, he has the artist's vision. [19] CHAPTER 2 FOBERUNNERS OF StILL-LIFE PaINTING CHAPTER 2 While it may be said that still-hfe painting originated with the Dutch, it would not be true to say no other school had been interested in it before. As was the case with landscape, it was employed in connection with epi- sodic or descriptive pictures by the Italians, but neither landscape nor groups of inanimate objects were con- sidered fit subjects in themselves for pictures. Wher- ever intimate scenes of domestic life were portrayed,, wherever a painter became interested in describing life about him, we find attention to still-life even among the primitives. Pietro Lorenzetti (c. 1305-c. 1348) was one of the first Italians and possibly the first among sig- nificant masters, to show any interest in mere objects. Byzantine painting had been symbolic, hieratic, aloof from life. But in the Sienese Pietro Lorenzetti we find human feeling, naturalism, and even a touch of the genre. Take, for example, his "Birth of the Virgin," in the Opera del Duomo, Siena. Here we find an intimate scene, perhaps descriptive of a real child-birth, for what we see is a Sienese bed-chamber of the fourteenth cen- tury. Undoubtedly the artist was interested in the fur- [28] POTS AND PANS niture and the things that stood about the room. He has drawn our attention to the basin in which the infant is about to be washed, the pitcher from which the hot water is being poured, the plaid blanket on the mother's bed and the embroidered towels; but these things are incidental only; the artist's main concern is with the religious episode. The monumental painters of Italy, inspired by Giotto, and later by Masaccio, were too much occupied with lofty themes to stoop to depicting the commonplace de- tails of everyday Hfe. If we contrast Lorenzetti's "Birth of the Virgin" with Ghirlandaio's version of the same theme in the church of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, it is evident there is no naturahsm about the latter. Ghir- landaio shows us an evidently unreal room, idealized in a sense, for it appears palatial, but as a bit of descrip- tion, impossible. It reminds one of stage scenery; it is unliveabje. Only with painters who have descriptive or naturahstic tendencies do we find still-life introduced into their pictures. Another Italian painting which comes to mind in this connection is also a much later one than Lorenzetti's. I refer to Antonello da Messina's "St. Jerome in his Study" now in the National Gallery. (Antonello c. 1430-c. 1479.) This picture shows much Flemish in- fluence in its color and chiaroscuro as well as in its at- tention to details of furnishing. Whether the painter had actually been to Flanders or not, and come in touch with the Van Eyck or Van der Weyden school, or whether his Flemish traits are the result of his training in Naples, the Flemish influence is strong, especially in [24] FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING this work, painted about 1473/ The saint, a small figure, sits in a large Gothic vaulted room. About him are his books and many other articles. The importance of these details makes the picture less a portrait of a saint than an interior of a studio. This subject, so frequent in art, naturally lends itself to details of still-life. Carpaccio (active 1478-1522) also painted it. He may have been induced to represent it in the descriptive way in which he did by a knowledge of Antonello's work, for we know the latter painter exerted much influence in Venice. However that may be, Carpaccio was fond of describing religious or legen- dary themes in a natural Venetian setting. His picture of St. Jerome in his study, in the Scuola degli Schiavoni shows us the saint in his well-equipped oratory. What a small part of the picture is devoted to the saint him- self I He does not concern us so much as his surround- ings. The table, bracketed to the wall on one side is a curiosity in itself. We stop to study its strange con- struction. On it is a collection of heterogeneous articles, books, inkstands and shells. At the foot of the table, on the dais, rest other books, musical scores (they can be read, so minute is the painting) and loose paper. Around the wall are mouldings, and these are filled with objects celestial spheres, statuettes, vases a collection to be envied. Another object of peculiar interest is the elbow chair with its device for holding a canopy over it for state occasions, while attached to it is a reading stand. In fact, the room with its closet adjoining, opened for our inspection, is so full of attractive inter- 1 Venturi, VII, 4. p. 14. [25] POTS AND PANS est that it would take several pages to describe it com- pletely. Equally descriptivej is Carpaccio's "Dream of St. Ursula" painted for the Scuola di Sant Orsola in Venice (Fig. 1). The picture has been described, with fanciful diversions by Ruskin in his "Fors Clavigera" and better by Ludwig and Molmenti in their monumental work on Carpaccio. This is again a bedroom interior, pos- sibly picturing the chamber of a wealthy Venetian lady of the Quatrocento. It is essentially a pure interior as near the spirit of Pieter de Hooch as would be possible in Italy for the little figure in the bed, asleep, with the covers closely drawn about her, only her head with one hand tucked under it appearing, contributes to rather than detracts from the still spaciousness of the room; the apparition stands in the doorway. There- fore the artist has interested himself chiefly in inanimate things the sombreness and simplicity of the room, with its few elegant and tasteful furnishings, the bed with its high posts and canopy, the covers, the pillow, the elbow chair, the bracket with candlestick, the win- dow sill with roses and plants, the cupboard with books and the table all these are rendered with a truthfulness to detail, and a love for the things themselves that shows the spirit of a still-life painter. This, after all, is not pure still-life painting. Yet if we look further among the Italian painters we find still less attention to still-life than with Antonello who was partly Flemish, or with Carpaccio. Perhaps one ques- tions whether Veronese was not interested in a sUght degree, in still-Hfe, for we know of his passion for gor- [26] FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING geous apparel, velvets, satins, rich stuffs, rugs, golden goblets, costly table furnishings, and all that pertained to a lordly establishment, and which he loved to paint in his great banquet scenes, "The Marriage at Cana" in the Louvre, or "The Feast in the House of Levi" in the Venice Academy. But these things scintillate like jewels in a great setting. One does not think about them in the midst of the pageant as one does in Carpaccio's "'St. Jerome." With Titian we occasionally find associated with a portrait, an interesting attention to realism in details. His "Man with the Glove" in the Louvre is as good an illustration as any. Moroni's "Portrait of a Tailor" in the National Gallery, London, with its prominent shears, is another. But not one of these Venetian portraits shows as much still-life detail as almost any portrait by Holbein. The first Italian painter to do a real still-life is Jacopo de'Barbari (1450-c. 1516). Barbari was in Niirnberg as early as 1500 where he was an influence upon Albert Diirer. Until 1507 he worked for the Counts of Bur- gundy, and in 1510 he was in the employ of the Arch- duchess Margaret. His still-life painting was the result of his northern influence and is entirely Flemish in tech- nique. Hence he is hardly to be reckoned among Italian painters ; he was out of the main current of Italian ideas, and his talent was insignificant. One of his pictures, formerly in the Augsburg picture gallery, now in Mimich, was painted in 1504 (Fig. 2). It represents a strange combination. Hanging from a hook on a wall, -and held together by a violin bow, are a pair of gauntlets [27] POTS AND PANS and a partridge. This is one of the earhest still-life pictures extant. That there are two other still-lives by him, one in Regensburg and one in the Layard Collec- tion, Venice, indicates his proclivity for this type of picture. Later in the sixteenth century we find the influence of the north affecting the art of Italy to a greater extent than before. With Caravaggio (Michelangelo Amer- ighi, 1569-1609) and the Italian naturalists, we find a growing interest in still-life. A picture of Caravaggio's in the Hermitage at Petrograd (until 1914) called "The Lute Player," is chiefly attractive for its still-life details. The figure merits no attention, but the charmingly conscientious way in which the violin and the bow, the open page of music, the vase of flowers and the fruit, are done, indicates that the artist was more concerned with these things, as are we, than in the subject. Moreover these objects are grouped so that they make practically a complete picture in themselves. Caravaggio gained his reputation early in life as a painter of fruit and flowers. His adherence to realistic detail, his lack of idealism, and love for genre caused him to be regarded by the Italians with the greatest con- tempt a proof that his art was not Italian. Never- theless he was imitated by his Italian contemporaries, and the grandiose Annibale Caracci stooped to paint a "Bean Eater"^ in the spirit of Ostade. Akin as he was to the north, Caravaggio exerted considerable influence on Lastman, and through the latter, on Rembrandt. Capuccino (Bernardo Strozzi 1581-1644) was purely 2 Now in the Colonna Gallery, Rome. [28] FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING Dutch in many of his genre pictures. The one entitled "The Cook" in the Brignole-Sale collection, Genoa, is strongly reminiscent of Pieter Aertz. Here we have a kitchen interior, with a caldron, boiling over an open fire. The cook is consciously busy plucking a goose, while about her are hanging, or lying over the table, on the floor and on the hearth, turkeys, ducks and other game. Conspicuous in the foreground is an enormous pitcher. The painting is obviously a study of game, much as a Dutchman would have done it. One other late Itahan painter was influenced by the Dutch school, Michelangelo Cerquozzi (1602-1660). He was chiefly famous, in his lifetime, for battle scenes, but he also painted realistic genre subjects. Late in his career he took to painting fruit and flower pictures, and today these are the works for which he is most highly esteemed. The brevity of this list is a clear indication that still- life painting was not appreciated in Italy. In only one field of art, a minor one, were still-life subjects ever popular. The decoration of cabinets, pulpits, cassone or marriage chests by means of intarsia, or wood mosaic, began as early as the fifteenth century. At first the designs were elaborate, with landscapes and figures, but later it became the style, particularly for cabinets, to represent shelves filled with articles of every kind books, vases of flowers, utensils, etc. It was purely a decorative craft, yet so accomplished that the Italian intarsia work became famous throughout Europe. We have wandered far from the representative artists of the Italian school, when Italian painting was at its [29] POTS AND PANS height, and because the later men were beyond doubt re- flections of the north they come too late to have af- fected the art we are studying they cannot be counted in the development of still-life painting. Hence it is to the north we must look for the source of this development. We find it with the earliest painters of Flanders, Jan van Eyck and Robert C ampin, con- temporaries. We do not know the date of the birth of the former, but Jan van Eyck was working on the Ghent altarpiece from 1426 to 1432, a recognized master; it is beheved he was born between 1380 and 1390. Robert Campin settled in Toumai about 1406, at the age of twenty-eight, hence he must have been bom about 1378. We cannot determine which was the first to show an in- terest in still-life, but the point is of little moment, as undoubtedly interest in genre, in the intimacies of do- mestic life, was an inheritance of mediaeval art in the Low Countries. The illustrated calendars with the sea- sons of the year, the breviaries and Books of Hours convince us of this. The picture of Jan van Eyck which we may take as an example is his so-called Amolfini panel in the Na- tional Gallery (Fig 3). Here we have a Flemish in- terior, with every minute detail. Jan Amolfini it may be Jan van Eyck himself as Rooses suggests stands in the center of the room holding his bride by the hand, with just pride and imconscious dignity proclaiming her condition as an expectant mother. But in spite of the care with which every detail of their apparel is rendered the artist's evident love for the texture of velvet and fur is noticeable ^the eye wanders from these. The sur- [30] FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING poundings of the figures hold our attention longest, the bed, its curtains, the casement window, the mirror on the wall with its reflections, the chandelier, the slippers on the floor, the little spaniel these things are an im- portant part of the picture. Jan van Eyck, however, was not the genre painter that we find in the master of Tournai. He represents the hieratic in primitive Flemish painting. True, in portraiture he was more of a realist, and was not the mystic that his brother Hubert seems to have been, but his religious pictures breathe an aristocratic aloofness from life; his madonnas are princesses of heaven, with diadems, thrones, and worshipping attendants. Thej' are not domestic, nor bourgeois, nor are they surrounded with the things of real life. Robert Campin's madonnas are on the other hand comfortable wives of city magis- trates. They are mothers truly Flemish. Campin leads the Tournai tradition, followed by Roger van der Weyden, Bouts and van der Goes, in giving the thor- oughly national stamp to Flemish art. He ushers hi the genre treatment of religious themes. As one of the greatest of the primitives Robert Campin deserves more attention than he has yet received ; his artistic personality must have exerted a tremendous influence in shaping the development of northern painting. Let us take his representative "Madonna of the Mousetrap" the famous Merode altarpiece in Brus- sels. The center panel pictures the Annunciation. Mary is a splendid housewife. Her house has the pecu- liarly neat and clean appearance we would expect. A rather large and heavy woman, she is seated comfortably [31] POTS AND PANS on a stool at the foot of a carved wooden bench, in front of a fireplace. She is absorbed in reading a book when the angel appears. But she takes absolutely no notice of him. Practically minded, she has, apparently, no use for supernatural visitors. We are not interested, any more than she, in this part of the picture. Far more curious is the room and its details the beamed ceiling, the casement window, the sculptured alcove, the fireplace with its screen and andirons, the carved seat, the table with its vase of flowers and its open book. AU these things are arranged in an admirable way, although of course not grouped by themselves. The shutters of the triptych increase the genre character of the altarpiece. On one side is Joseph in his shop, fashioning a mouse- trap. On his table are all his tools. In the window, in view of the street, is a second mousetrap, completed, while the interior of the shop is as minutely rendered; even the wood shavings and the bits of wire can be seen. Surely this is prophetic of what we may expect in the way of still-life painting later on in the Low Countries I The other shutter pictures the donors of the triptych, in an interior no less characteristic of the artist. This masterpiece, so thoroughly original, so absolutely Flemish in character, gives Campin a unique place among the primitives. Only recently identified, he has not yet been assigned his true place in the history of art. Although endowed with nothing like the imagination of the van Eycks, he must nevertheless rank with them as one of the forces which produced and gave distinct char- acter to Flemish art. Other pictures attributed to him, the van Werle altar- [82] FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING piece in the Prado, Madrid, in particular, show a similar feeling for the genre with still-life that we found in the *'Madonna of the Mousetrap." But for all that we do not find in Campin a painter of pure still-life. Petrus Christus, a pupil of the van Eycks, marks another step in the development that gradually leads to absolute still-life painting. His "Legend of St. Eligious" in a private collection in America^ i^^S- '*)> represents his interest in objects of goldsmith art. The saint, who is a goldsmith, is seated before his bench. There are so many things about him that we instinct- ively turn from the story to examine the objects in the room. Undoubtedly the artist was as much en- gaged with these as with the figures. In front of him are his scales, weights, and other things, among them noticeably one of those circular convex mirrors, popular with the van Eyck as well as with the Campin studio. But behind the Saint is a regular collection of curiosi- ties. On a shelf are vases and flasks, while hanging below are necklaces, pendants, purses and the stock in trade of the goldsmith. After Petrus we will have to wait for Quentin Matsys for any further development in still-hfe. Roger van der Weyden, a great painter who gave minute attention to detail, merely carried on the Campin tradition as far as still-life painting is concerned. Memhng, his suc- cessor, was a reaction to Gothic mysticism, while Gerard David and Hugo van der Goes stuck to the episodes they had to tell. Dirk Bouts, from Holland, loved to paint repasts. His "Last Supper" in Louvain, his "Pass- 3 Formerly in the Oppenheim collection Paris. [S3] POTS AND PANS over" in Munich, or his "Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee" in Berhn, gave him splendid opportunities for table settings, but he woefully failed in his group- ings. All we find in them is a continued interest in objects, but neither he nor any of the other painters of his school was able to divorce still-life from the religious episode. Quentin Matsys (about 1466-1530) was not able to do so either, but he was a pure genre painter in certain pictures, and in these he gave his still-life objects a pre- dominant place. Matsys' "Banker and his Wife" in the Louvre (Fig. 5) goes a step further than Petrus Chris- tus' "St. Eligius." Our first interest, it is true, is with the figures the intentness with which the banker weighs out his money and with which his wife watches him; but we linger longer over the accoutrements of the room. On the table the obvious base for still-life are scattered various articles, the familiar reflecting mirror, an open book, (etc., but at the back are two shelves of well grouped objects which forecast the arrangements of Teniers the younger. Well lighted, holding their place in the shadow, they are more naturally painted than any grouping of objects we have yet discovered in our search. In the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam, there is a still-hf e painting which is attributed by Dr. Max Fried- lander to Quentin Matsys. It is undoubtedly of the Flemish school in the time of Quentin Matsys. In the shape of a lunette, perhaps a fragment of a larger pic- ture, it is nevertheless an independent composition. On a shelf are a number of books ; this is all there is to the picture, but the coloring in golden browns, with the [34] S vf 4^^ , , ,. ^-Hlv Iz; -> "^^ii- ^^*^ H ..-W^^^HpB^ ;,l^t O ^ Pi ^fc- ::g^,, ^'^ pi' 1^~ '-^'^^^^^H 4u*j^J^^hHpr-^ ik^J^iV^^H S ^'.^ ^^ -I --. -'^ H Q jwl/bsH^'^S- ^^1 1 1 o-.iiJM^i ^ '' J^/ o ^ma j^M 1-5 CO l|2jp. . ^^- y \ * QUEN BANKER LO FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING books of various hues of yellow and rose, deeply lumin- ous, shows that in the mind of the master no objects were too mean for his attention. In the Mauritzhuis, The Hague, there is another small primitive still-life, likewise attributed to the Flemish school of this period. Entitled "Vanitas," it represents a human skull on a window ledge. Behind, out of the window, there is a brownish landscape with ruins; on a carton, below the skull, is the inscription "Memento Mori." This is one of the earliest still-lives extant with the familiar skull. Later, as we shall see, the Spanish still-life painters were fond of such subjects. Matsys, with his introduction of realistic genre into art, purely for the sake of picturing contemporary life, paves the way for a host of successors. Martin, or Marinus van Roymerswael, called also the Zeelander (c. 1497-c. 1567) showed an increasing interest in still- life groupings. One of his several "Money Changers," that in the National Gallery, London, shows us two old men, with avaricious, miserly faces, seated before a table on which are their account books and piles of money. These latter, we notice, are especially well lighted; but behind, on a chest, are a crowd of objects, boxes, papers, books, candlesticks and vases. Another picture of van Roymerswael's is a "St. Jerome" in Madrid. Here the old man is packed in, literally wedged, among his fur- nishings, his books and tables. The saint himself points out to us the skull upon which he is supposed to medi- tate. Here we have the beginning of those increasingly popular groupings a table with skull, books and can- dlestick the scholar's study-table. [S5] POTS AND PANS Whenever one sees still-lives with these objects, one thinks of St. Jerome, who during the process of still- life development, was weeded out of his environment. Jan Sanders van Hemissen (about 1504-1555) was a follower of van Roymerswael. While the last named was born in the north, in what is now the Nether- lands, van Hemissen, born near Antwerp, died in Haar- lem. From this time on most of the painters who intro- duce still-life into their pictures belong to Holland. Van Hemissen's contribution may be understood from his "CalUng of St. Matthew" in Munich. The scene takes place in the interior of a Dutch or Flemish room. Ob- viously the subject gave the painter a chance to do an- other variant of Roymerswael's "Money Changers." Consequently we see here a tableful of money, with pens, inkstand and the various articles pertaining to the busi- ness. Behind on the wall are again shelves of books. But with Pieter Aertz a tremendous jump is made. He goes right after still-life, down to the kitchen or into the dining room ; while he introduces a figure by way of excuse, it is evident that with him the objects of interest are not mere adjuncts to a figure subject. Pieter Aertz or Lange Pier (1507 or 1508-1575) was born in Amsterdam. He worked as a young man from 1526 to 1536 in Antwerp which was then the metropolis of art, but he must be considered a Dutchman and one of the most influential in directing Dutch art on the current which it followed. His two "Cooks" in Brussels are his most characteristic works. In each of these we have a robust female, busy with her work. In one case she has a cabbage under her arm, in another, she holds a spit [86] FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING with chickens ready for their roasting. On a table in the latter picture lie carrots and a basket full of vege- tables, while behind on another table is an earthen bowl. In these we have a new kind of still-life, thoroughly- original. In his "Kitchen," in Copenhagen, Pieter Aertz goes further. The figures now are placed in the background. They are pure pretexts for a still-life picture. It is as if the painter felt that a picture of meat and vegetables was not sufficient without people cooking or eating them. In the foreground is a huge table, filled with every article of food possible to include in one composition, game, fowl, hams, meats, fish, vegetables and fruits. It is not difficult for us to understand the attraction of such sub- jects for the painter. The combination of freshly sliced hams, cabbages, cucimibers and cheese offers a richness of coloring every painter would delight in. A picture like this, however, like the kitchen and market scenes, is open to the criticism of being coarse, or at least de mau- vais gout. The art of Jacob Jordaens would demand the same criticism, but this raises a point of aesthetics which I prefer to leave for a later chapter. These pictures of Pieter Aertz are thoroughly Dutch versions of the abun- danzia theme. He was a painter of the people and of their interests; his best known work, "The Egg Dance," in Amsterdam, illustrates the joyful side of peasant life, their feasting and their revels. To paint their kitchens and market stalls is but to go one step further. Joachim de Beukelaer, Aertz' pupil (1533?-1573) (Fig. 6), was unable to keep the kitchen out of his re- ligious themes. Or did he choose religious subjects which [37] POTS AND PANS obviously gave him the chance to bring the kitchen in? Probably the latter is true. Taking a hint from Aertz' "Jesus with Martha and Mary," where Martha comes in with a basket full of game why so many rabbits and fowl for one repast, we ask de Beukelaer painted a "Prodigal Son,"* where the feast is being prepared. This is nothing but the interior of a prosperous Flemish household, one of those seemingly impossible interiors where reception hall, dining room, pantry and kitchen are combined. On one side we see the cook with her roast and spit, on the other the mistress, elegantly at- tired, busy preparing other dishes for the feast. In his "Game Dealer" in Vienna, de Beukelaer casts pretexts to the winds and deliberately paints for its own sake what interested him most game and food. Pieter Breughel (1535-1569) is the most famous of the Dutch and Flemish painters of the people with their faults and foibles. He was beyond all else a painter of humanity; what interest he had in still-life was subsid- iary to his theme, but in several of his pictures he intro- duced some definite still-hfe groups. His "Village Wedding" in the Vienna Imperial Museum may be taken as an example. The picture is crowded with feast- ers, the bagpipes giving the scene a truly festive air. But all these are means which the painter used to fill his can- vas with varied, luxuriant and glaring color, for these Flemish festive scenes are mere pretexts for splendid coloring; not least conspicuous in the "Flemish Wed- ding" are the yellow omelettes. But food is not the only 4 In Antwerp. Beukelaer likewise did a "Jesus with Martha and Mary" in Aertz' style. This picture is in Amsterdam. [38] FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING kind of still-life we find in this picture. In the lower left hand corner is a table, off by itself, covered with bottles and jugs. One might call it an independent group, such as Teniers loved to paint a half century later. The Flemish school, finally influenced so strongly, and to its detriment, by the late Italian, did not suc- ceed in freeing still-life entirely from its environment. This was left to the Dutch. The way was paved by Pieter Aertz who came the nearest to painting pure still-life of any of the primitives, unless, indeed, Quen- tin Matsys painted them, so that later when Dutch na- tionality and Dutch independence was able to express itself, there was no difficulty in breaking the fetters. But before coming to the Dutch and later Flemish painters, we must notice what development was going on in Germany. As has been said, Jacopo de'Barbari was the first Italian to paint a pure still-life, and his picture in Augs- burg (1504) appears to be one of the earliest of its kind in any school or country. This picture was painted under German or Flemish influence. But what German still-Hfe painting preceded him? Martin Schongauer was the first great name in German art; his name is linked with Michael Wohlgemuth's and Barbari's as an influence upon Albert Diirer. A mere glance at some of Schongauer's pictures re- veals that he belonged to the Campin-van der Weyden succession. Further analysis of his art only deepens this conviction. His "Holy Family" in Vienna is so much like a Campin or early van der Weyden in spirit and [39] POTS AND PANS treatment as to seem like a Toumai school piece. In this picture, in one corner, is a basket of grapes, so con- scientiously, so exquisitely done, that we feel at once the artist's interest in details of still-life. It is not put in as a necessary part of the picture, but for its own sake. Primitive German painting being a provincial reflec- tion of the Flemish school, we would expect to find genre and still-life elements entering into German rehgious pictures and portraits as it did in Flanders. Albert Diirer (1471-1528) was a genius who gave German art an original stamp. As an engraver he in- terests us most. The art of engraving, not lending itself to mohu- mentality so readily as that of painting, is able to ex- press itself better in subjects of a trivial nature, the perfection of the execution being the chief aim of the artist. Engraving, too, is a process by which many copies of a work can be made, and used for illustrations of books. Niimberg, where Diirer worked, was a great centre for engraving. Hence Diirer was able to turn to such subjects as coats-of-arms, book plates, and line drawings of all sorts, such as studies of rabbits, praying hands, etc. These engravings he made into masterpieces by their decorative design, superb draughtsmanship, richness in light and shade and dehcate execution. Diirer's engravings which show the importance he at- tached to still-life are: "St. Jerome in his Study" (Fig. 7) , "Melanchoha" (Fig. 8) , and "Portrait of Erasmus," 1526. Others come near to being in the category of still- [40] 55 33 w E ^ S N! S^ C/3 E a a o O '^ *" X o x ^H /5 O a K ^ FORERUNNERS OF STILL-LIFE PAINTING lives, like "Reeds," in the Vienna Albertina, "The Rab- bit," and the "Hands" already mentioned. Whether Diirer actually did any still-life studies or not, undoubtedly the attention he drew to simple things did much to educate taste and to make it understood that a work of art could consist as much in the rendering of a rabbit as in the portraying of a mythological epi- sode. In fact his plate of the shield with a death's head has far more value to us today than his large Raphael- esque "Holy Trinity." Diirer was much honored in the Low Coimtries as well as in Italy, and influenced at least one Dutch painter Lucas van Leyden. That Hans Holbein, the younger, (1497-1543) was a true successor of Quentin Matsys, in one respect at least, is shown in his portrait of George Ghisze in the Berlin Museum (Fig. 9). The merchant is seated in a room fuU of objects, in this case rather conspicuously important. On two sets of shelves at his back, and on a table, are a quantity of objects, rendered in the manner of the Antwerp master, or of van Roymerswael. Other pictures of Holbein which show a similar interest are: "The Two Ambassadors" in the London National Gal- lery (Fig. 10), "Portrait of Erasmus" in the Louvre and "Archbishop Warham." Undoubtedly there was much pure still-life painting done in Germany, of which we have no extant examples ; probably such pictures were considered no more import- ant than sign-boards. What art the religious wars which racked the empire permitted to flourish, fell under the sway of Italy, and German art died out. [41] CHAPTER 3 Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painting CHAPTER 3 Pots and Pans We have seen that still-hfe painting began in the kitchen. Quentin Matsys and van Roymerswael, with their genre subjects, paved the way for Pieter Aertz, who with his cooks and kitchen scenes took for granted that the preparation of bounteous repasts must be the most interesting thing in Hf e to a painter at least I Un- doubtedly with the Dutch and Flemish the kitchen was one of the most popular themes in art, and for a good reason ; the kitchen was an important department of the household. It was dignified in a way we today in other countries can hardly understand. How else are we to ac- count for those surprising interiors which are pictured to us by sixteenth and seventeenth century artists ? The mistress, in her costly garments, with lace at her elbows and fur on her coat, sits at a table piled with uncooked food, while close by is the cook in her apron preparing a roast. The lord and master stands looking on with in- terest even guests appear to be entertained by the pre- [45] POTS AND PANS parations, and with all the richness of the carved fur- niture, the tiled floor, the pictures on the wall and the vista through the doorways, we are at a loss to determine whether this is the kitchen, the reception hall, or the one and only room in the house I In a farmhouse this would be imderstood, but what we see is the home of a wealthy citizen. We are therefore forced to conclude that the kitchen was no mean room in the household. This view is borne out when one visits an ancient country house in the Netherlands. One would be content today to use these kitchens for state occasions, with their tiling and beaming, their spacious- ness, and their cheerfulness. The hearth with its appur- tenances, its pots and its pans hanging on the wall, or standing on the shelves; these are things not only of utility, but of beauty. To this day the Dutch housewife is as proud of her brass kettles as of her tableware. In the well-to-do home of today, the kitchen is of course not the place for the family to gather. They have moved up one step into the dining room. There may be libraries and halls, but still there are associations with the dining room that renders it the coziest place to live in. In many homes the dining room is still the liv- ing room, and the richer its appointments, the more de- lightful is it as a place in which to converse and in which to sup a cup of tea with the host and hostess. I myself was surprised when I first visited a beautifully ap- pointed home in the Netherlands, to find myself being received in the dining room where the hostess was busy with her embroidery, and the daughters likewise, long before the servants prepared the table for the meal. [46] DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING This modern custom in real Dutch homes to use the dining room as a Hving room, is a reflection of the past glory of the kitchen. So it is not strange that the genre painters loved to picture kitchen scenes. We can thus dispose of any prejudice at the start which leads one to hold such motives in disdain. When we look at these pictures, let us forget our modern kitchens the disdain should be for our own households. We cannot, however, hold for a moment the idea that the painters were attracted to the kitchen and to the pantry merely by the food. Granted that the Dutch, and Flemish were, or seemed to be, a trifle gourmandish, we need not suppose that they were much more so than any other northern people. The point is that the Dutch- man or the Fleming did not look upon the material things of life as too mean for their attention; instead they dignified their kitchens by their presence. And they had come instinctively to feel that the things of the pantry and of the hearth were as beautiful in themselves as the objects of a landscape. Henry W. Ranger said, referring to Rembrandt's painting "The Butcher:"^ "In looking at that picture, one sees nothing of blood and death, but is charmed by the beauty of color and the general exquisiteness of the painting. I can now see the wonderful reds and golden greys in the leg of beef hanging on the hook in the butcher's stall. The effect helps us to reahze that we are surrounded by beauty if we can but distinguish it. i"Art Talks with Ranger," Bell. This picture is in the Louvre. A similar version is in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia. [47] POTS AND PANS In this instance we see clearly that it was not an attempt to accent ugliness." This is the answer to the popular criticism that paint- ers like Brouwer and Jordaens sought uncouth motives. But they sought motives for art in departments of hfe that were unknown to other schools. There was no more refined painter than Brouwer and if we fail to find the pleasure in groups of pots and pans that Teniers found, perhaps the fault lies in ourselves. 4 David Tenier, the Younger, (1610-1690) went fur- ther than any other of the genre masters we have so far met with, except Pieter Aertz, in painting groups of pure still-life. We may begin with him, especially be- cause he belongs to an artistic succession which links him up with those we noticed in the last chapter. His father, David Teniers, the Elder, (1582-1649) was a genre painter who, Hke his sons, pictured village scenes, while his grantedfather Julian was likewise a genre painter. His father-in-law was Velvet Breughel. Teniers the Younger, is most generally known for his "Kermesses" with peasants dancing or amusing themselves before quaint rustic taverns. He also did peasant interiors. And in both kinds of pictures he painted still-life arrangements. Let us take his "Interior of an Inn" in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence (Fig. 11). The picture is divided into two distinct halves. On one side is the butcher with his chopper, talking to the cook who is cutting up some meat. On the other side is by far the most important part of the picture. In fact this is a complete picture in itself, which could be cut off from the rest, leaving us two perfectly unified compositions in [48] l1 tn & O P4 K S ^^^^^^HM|MH||HM||MMHHH|H||^H^gBMB^''> o Pi ^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^^B' < fo >5 O ^^^^H^^HH^Pv" o Q O RH^^^^^H^ral^^^^^H^^^^K^^HE^^^^sY H K H o Pi o Ed 1^ ^^fcr'^^^T^fe^. iji^ii^^B^^^^^^^^^^ftla Cfi HH ^^^^^;~ '^WP^BE||. i^^^^^^^^^H^^^^^^H^^^^HBI ti ff3 < ^^^E^ "^PHVllraBl^iB^^^^^^^^H^^^^^^^^H W S o ^^^Hp ' ''^^^MI^H^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H H ^ ^^B^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H S 'Z < ^^E, ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H H t-H >5 o ^^IfiMBt ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^B H * IHI ^ J^^^Q^H Q O HBBP^ ^BHidil^Hi^^l^^^HHHiS I> Pi < fo Q 1 I P-H - P 1; ai g H O ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ :z < ^^^^^^p^^^^^^^l^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HH D fo ^^^^^^^^B^^mPH^^^^^RS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HH^H o !s ^^^^H^ """^^H^^^H^^^^^^H ;h tf ^^^^^^^^^^^^L ^i^^BS^^tt^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^l H o ^^v' '-'^^^hHI 5 ai Ed ^^^^BlHBHflB^^^S^9i ti H ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HK^^^^BH^^^^^^^^^^^H^^^^N HH ^ o ^^^^^^^^^^^Hm^^h^^^H :2; S M ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^H^^^^H H o Pi M ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^BH^^B Q h^ & ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1^1 HH ^B^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^*^^^^"^* > l_^ < < H Q DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING place of one. Here we have a whole beef cut open and hung from a cross beam of the roof. Below, grouped about a large barrel is a tipped-up plate from which are falling onions, leeks and lettuce heads. On a rough stool are other vegetables, while on the floor are large heads of cabbage, some bowls, a basket and various cooking utensils. Needless to say, such a variety teems with color; the color is obviously the main charm, for the painter has placed his luscious green cabbages next to the beef with its many hues of red-pink, salmon and purple. The pottery adds the ochre tones, the barrels and the stool and the dark background of the walls give the more sombre greys and browns. But the coloring is not less delightful than the lighting. That Teniers has arranged his meat, vegetables, and utensils with more attention to the play of light and shadow upon them is evident from the fact that the brightest notes are concentrated on the upper half of the beef while most of the objects are in shadow. Here is the proof that meat and vegetables are painted not because the painter was drawn by material associations to portray them, not because these things suggest good meals to come, but because of the opportunity they afford the painter to revel in color and light. Otherwise why does he place some objects in a shadow? If all he wanted to do was to display his wares, to excite our appetites, this would be a poor advertisement indeed. There is a sim- ilar picture in the Metropolitan Museum, attributed to David Teniers the Elder. The above "Interior" is indeed a revel of color, and one must admit a bit flagrant. Far more tasteful are [49] POTS AND PANS other arrangements of Teniers. We may take his "In- terior of a Farmhouse" in the National Gallery in London (Fig. 12). A peasant woman peeling pears is introduced by way of an excuse. There are three sepa- rate parts to this picture; on one side is a perfect still- life group consisting of a half -barrel section turned up- side down, with a white towel and a kettle on it, a large pot, a jug, a wooden block, a flask, one or two other re- ceptacles, two cauliflowers, and a collection of pears. Overhead, on a cross-beam, hangs a bit of cloth, while on top of a rough plastered oven lies an old coat and a battered hat. These few objects, high above, set ofip in agreeable contrast the larger group below. As a group, this is one of Teniers' best ; there is restraint in the num- ber of objects presented, not so many as to bewilder one; there are enough open spaces to give a sense of rest, and a naturalism, in spite of their evident arrangement, which is most engaging. Another of Teniers' pictures is similar to the last; I refer to his farmhouse or tavern "Interior" in Bucking- ham Palace (Fig. 13). The collection is again arranged in front of a rough wall with great posts filled in with brick and plaster and the familiar oven. It is another of those pictures where the still-Hfe constitutes an inde- pendent composition so that the other part of the canvas could be cut away without any detriment to this. There are more objects here two of which Teniers was very fond of introducing, a wheelbarrow full of vegetables, and a long-necked flask with a piece of paper or a tiu*- nip-top for a cork. This flask with its interesting cork [50] DAVID TENIERS THE YOUNGER DETAIL FROIVI "INTERIOR OF A FARMHOUSE" BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LOKDON Cfi '7- '-'% '^^K^^^k.. Pi Xi ^fc^^i *^ ' ''**'' w '^* *-: V . : , .Kflk^ 'v. ^^ W " ^ ." -- v,^- ''mSk. R d %^\m 1 s^^Hhe" ?!' 1 l^^^^^l H <) Kf^RK ^ > ' ^ y.W^g CD o / y ^}aw a P ;- . '1 I '" ^B w 5 i 1' \ f :Ti %.i H Q .^ but, unlike most painters of detail, he keeps everything ' in its place; a pupil of Rembrandt, he never lost sight of the value of light and atmosphere as an envelopment for his figures and objects. One of his pictures, "The Housemaid," in Bucking- ham Palace, London (Fig. 15), shows us a housemaid leaning against a window frame, polishing a kettle. In the window hangs a bird cage as dear to Dou as a corkless bottle was to Teniers and on the sill is a pewter pitcher and a ladle. The simplicity with which these few objects are grouped, the exquisiteness of 2 The Dresden Gallery possesses two still-lives by him. [53] POTS AND PANS their execution, make this httle picture as charming as any of Don's works. Godfried Schalcken painted a variation of this composition. His "Woman Scour- ing Pans" in the National Gallery is very like Don's. More conspicuous for its still-life is Don's "Grocery Shop" in Buckingham Palace (Fig. 17). In spite of the figures, this is obviously a tour de force in still- life painting. This is its fault its interest is divided even multiphed. Fortunately this kind of thing was not indulged in by many painters. We have Don's favorite composition a view through a window frame, with the marvelously executed has relief of puttie playing with a goat, at the base a perfect imita- tion of stone. On the window frame again, are Don's bird cages. But inside! What an encumbrance of wares! Granted the perfection with which every plate, piece of fruit, jar or bucket is painted, the picture is unsatisfactory. Our eyes wander from the disturbing chaos there is no grouping no centre of interest no rest. This, then, is an example of what still-life painting should never aim to be mere imitation. Perfect imita- tion of objects this is indeed! Better is his "The Alchemist," in the Hermitage col- lection, Petrograd (Fig. 16). It reminds one of a "St. Jerome in his Study." On the broad window sill, like a table, are placed a great open book a candlestick, of course a mortar and pestle a basin a sphere, and a few papers. Behind, on a reading desk, are more books and the usual human skull, while the very centre of in- terest the point to the picture, is the flask of liquid [54] GERARD DOU, THE GROCERY SHOP BUCKINGHAM PALACE, LONDON NICHOLAS MAES, GRACE BEFORE MEAT RYKS MUSEUM. AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING which the alchemist holds up to the light and to the ad- miring gaze of the spectator. There is imitation here to be sure, but more beside. There is arrangement, at- ^Kjy^^^HH^H^ w tf Q . V^T'^fll^^HPHIH H ^^F' ^ ^^^^Wl^^vl Pi ^^^ ^k. jH^^K^LJKIH < .,:^?3!:-- :/'5^.L <3 & ^g^JH^^HfKBmlBH VI ^'^v^s. . ^ - ,sjIi^..-i1b ^^^^^^pHini '$^&i |H^^^^^^^BHHQ^^r^ tf^ ^ '^^^^^H o HBh^^^SI^ ^i^^^^^k^l H ft :^ 1-5 DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING tions. His picture in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich ( Fig. 25) , represents a large dead hare, hung up by a leg to the branch of a grape vine, its head resting on the ground. On one side is a turkey, on the other a few small game birds and some fruit. These objects all appear to be in a garden, for in the distance we see tall, well-trimmed cedars, a flight of stone steps with a balustrade, with figures, and a distant view of garden terraces and foun- tains. His picture in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam, is similar. Here we have a large dead hare, with other game, thrown upon the ground, beside a large urn, be- hind which is a view of a park and a castle (Fig 27) . The famous Weenicx in the Mauritshuis, The Hague, "The Dead Swan," again pictures a garden scene. In this case, beside the urn are thrown a magnificent white swan and a deer.^ These three pictures, like others of his, are as far re- moved from the plebeian kitchen type as the lord of a manor from one of his peasant tenants. For this is aris- tocratic still-life. The nobleman or country gentleman has returned from the hunt; by his garden steps he has thrown his trophies, even his gun, and leaves to us the pleasant contemplation of gorgeously plumaged swans, carved urns, balustrades, marble terraces and gardens. These decorations were, in fact, designed for princely halls, and the largest collection of Weenicx's paintings belonged to the Kurf iirst Johann Wilhelm of Diisseldorf at Schloss Bensberg. What a glimpse we catch of the elegance of country life I What suggestiveness of human 3 A variant of this is in the Wilstach Collection, Philadelphia. [63] POTS AND PANS associations with these things! And, leaving the land- scape out of consideration, how decorative is the arrange- ment, how rich the coloring ! There is genius displayed in Weenicx's compositions, for it would have been easy for him to divide the interest in his picture. But our attention never wavers between the landscape and the game. The distant view, like the background of a Parthenon metope, gives space and rest, and brings the main objects out in relief. There is always one thing upon which the hght is concentrated the dead bird or the dead hare, and on these is lavished the painter's skill as great as Jan Fyt's in rendering textures and subtleties of coloring, whether it be the ir- idescence of turkey feathers, the velvety sheen of rabbit skins, or the soft whiteness of swan plumage. But he excells Fyt in luminosity. Always brilliant, highly keyed, his pictures seem lit from within, radiating gold and amber. Weenicx's pictures meet nearly every test we would demand of good still-life painting or of any good paint- ing for that matter. They make that appeal to our imagination which convinces us that the artist conceived a vision of beauty, that he experienced a profound emo- tion, which he has been able to interpret in turn to us. By means of his arrangements he has impressed us with the force and unity of his original conception; by the skill of his execution he has permanently charmed us, as in a musical composition, there is force and volume, contrasted with quietness and low tones, never the same repetition. If one wishes to appreciate more fully the qualities of [64] JAN WEENICX, DEAD GAME RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING a Weenicx, let him compare one of those I have de- scribed with a Valkenburg (Fig. 26) . Dirk Valkenburg (1675-1721) was an imitator of Jan Weenicx. He also pictured trophies of the chase thrown by the terrace steps. Like Weenicx, he was employed by princely pa- trons, notably by Prince Lichtenstein, in Vienna, and by William III of Holland. There is an example of his works in the Ryks Musemn, Amsterdam, entitled "Wild Game." In spite of the richness of his arrangements, and his wealth of detail, how lacking they are in force and impressiveness ! These are the works of a borrowed talent, of a man whose inspiration was the mere reflec- tion of a master's. We are lost in his detail, beautiful as it is; there is that lack of concentration, that failure to say one thing, that spoils any work of art. Weenicx was the last word in this type of Dutch still- life painting. With him, unless we include Melchior d'Hondekoeter among the painters of trophies of the hunt, culminated the movement started by Pieter Aertz in Holland to paint dead animals, whether in the kitchen or out of it. Weenicx takes us out of the kitchen and the larder, into the chateau courtyard, and with him we almost approach the French spirit of decorative treat- ment. Weenicx had another and more famous pupil, his nephew, Melchior d'Hondekoeter (Utrecht 1636- Am- sterdam 1695) (Fig. 28). Melchior d'Hondekoeter! What a vision of wealth and splendor his name spreads before us ! He was not a still-life painter, and yet, he was. This paradox is explained by the fact that his reputa- tion rests upon his pictures of live birds and wild fowl, [65] POTS AND PANS while at the same time he did dead game and still-lives for which he is not well known. The trouble is that the word still-life or "nature morte" is a much abused term. But it is only a step from the art of Weenicx to that of his famous pupil. Both excelled in large, decorative compositions, designed for palaces and patrician homes Hondekoeter decorated "Het Loo" for William III and what small difference is there between a "Dead Swan" by a castle terrace, and a "Floating Feather" in some garden pool? The charm of Hondekoeter*s paintings consists of many things. In decorative design they are mag- nificent even magical in coloring they are rich, glow- ing, brilliant beyond words; in imaginative appeal they are unequalled ; there is a subtle enchantment about his strange and foreign birds in lordly parks which sug- gests oriental romance. When we see his peacocks and his owls unearthly, mysterious birds we expect to see some Arabian prince or Chinese princess in the scene, or we imagine some picture like Hondekoeter's where they would appear. But there is still another quality in Hon- dekoeter's pictures which makes them admired today as they were always admired, a quality which is peculiarly Dutch. We call this quahty purely pictorial. This can best be explained by comparing a picture of Honde- koeter with an animal picture by Landseer. As far as skill is concerned in rendering life texture of fur or hair, the English master is as clever as the Dutchman. But Landseer's pictures sicken us today like Greuze's with their sentimentality. The Enghshman is telling us a story, pointing out a moral ; his art is not so much [66] MELCHIOR D'HONDEKOETER, EAGLES ATTACKING FOWL LOUVRE, PARIS DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING that of painting as of sermonizing. "A Distinguished Member of the Hmnane Society!" None of that for Hondekoeter. The Dutchman is a painter above all. As Hondekoeter's masterpieces are not still-lives, we w^ill refer only to his less well-known paintings, which are. The Ryks Museum, Amsterdam, possesses one called "Dead Birds." In the background are architec- tural ruins which give the picture the same decorative quality as some of Weenicx's. There is another in the same museum, of dead game, with a dead hare, and birds, a gun and other hunting implements ; and there is here, too, another one, in the style of Otto Marseus van Schrieck, with plants, toadstools, birds and insects, all at the base of a tree trunk. The National Gallery of Lon- don possesses a similar painting. In Brunswick there is a still-life with fish. In Dresden, another with hunt- ing-pieces. The Schwerin GaUery has a painting of dead poultry. These are sufficient examples to show Hondekoeter as a painter of real still-hfe, and a versa- tile one at that. The popularity of Hondekoeter never died. He was imitated in each succeeding period of Dutch art. Aert Schoimian whose life spanned nearly the whole eight- eenth century (1710-1792) imitated the master's style in his day, and in the nineteenth century the versatile Maria Vos revived it. One other name must be mentioned before closing this brief account of the painters of fur and feathers that of Cornelius Lelienbergh, of The Hague (flourished 1646- after 1672). Most of the painters just men- tioned were chiefly interested in the decorative effect of [67] POTS AND PANS their pictures, but Lelienbergh, more like Fyt than any of the rest, devoted himself to the simple beauty of plum- age. The Ryks Museum of Amsterdam possesses four of his works ; they are all still-lives with dead birds a dead parrot, or snipe, or chickens. A very charming example is in the Wilstach Collection in Philadelphia, and it should be noted in passing that this small collection is, for its size, exceedingly rich in Dutch still-lives, having examples by Peter Claesz, Weenicx, Snyders, Adriaan van Utrecht, Hondekoeter, Fyt (these last two rather poor, however) and Abraham van Beyeren. The picture by Lelienbergh, dated 1654, shows a dead pigeon hang- ing by a windowsill, while nearby are lying several dead finches. The delicacy with which these little birds are painted cannot be described, but the chief beauty of the picture consists in its fine luminosity. The colors are soft, yet rich, with olive and amber tones predominating. It is one of the finest pictures in the Wilstach Collec- tion. Lelienbergh was not alone in loving to paint the smaller feather- folk ; Fonk although not well-known has left us some extraordinary refined still-lives, and this tradition was continued in the eighteenth century by a school of painters in Dordrecht. Ill Fruit and Flowers Flower painting, strictly speaking, can hardly be called still-life painting. Even though we use the French translation of the term, nature morte, we are using a misnomer for flower painting. For flowers ought cer- [68] DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING tainly to be alive as the painter studies them, and they ought to look alive in the picture, and as for being "still," let anyone try to paint a vase of poppies and he will see the petals droop and fall, one by one, before the picture is half finished. But fruit is certainly still-life (the term is a bad one in any sense) whether it be nature morte or not, and fruit is so frequently combined with flowers in pictures that one can scacely omit pictures of this kind from a study of still-life painting. Of the many kinds of still-life pictures fruit and flower pieces have always been the most popular. They appeal to the greatest number of people. There are some persons, sensitive to associations, who, against their bet- ter judgment cannot overcome their prejudice to raw beef; there are others who, while admiring the plumage of birds and the fur of animals, prefer them alive to dead; there are others, again, who cannot perceive the aesthetic qualities of pots and pans. But who ever ob- jects to fruit and flowers? It takes less effort perhaps to enjoy a picture of lus- cious fruit, oranges half peeled, displaying their juicy insides, or of a vase of flowers white roses and jasmine for example ^than it does to enjoy a picture of pots and pans, but it also takes less of an effort to paint them. That is, to make a likeable picture of them. I recall a story told of a modern American landscape painter. He was a painter of prosaic scenes ; he loved empty fields with deserted barns against a leaden sky, but with these he produced some of the most poetic landscapes in Amer- ican art. Asked one time why he did not use more ro- [69] POTS AND PANS mantic subjects, or choose scenes more obviously pic- turesque, he repHed, "Do you mean why don't I paint villages churches with their spires peering above the trees and lonely httle cottages nestled in their shade? Any damned fool can make pictures like that!" To find beauty in the commonplace requires a more piercing eye, a keener appreciation of what beauty is. A bouquet of flowers is obviously beautiful, a bowl of fruit scarcely less so. But we can have real flowers, infinitely more lovely than painted ones, any time we wish, upon our table or on our shelves, while bowls of real fruit are as easily obtained. Here is a problem that faces the fruit and flower painter and makes it ex- traordinarily difiicult for him to make a really distin- guished picture. The artistic value of fruit and flower still-lives has nothing whatever to do with the intrinsic qualities of these things. Nothing is more stupid than a painted imitation of a bouquet and there are so many of them on the market, in our homes and museums. But the merit of a still-hf e with flowers consists in an interpreta- tion of them in an arrangement of line, mass and color, the same interpretation that must be made of any still- life group, so that artistically there is no difference whatever between a good flower piece and a good canvas of pots and pans. The painter of fruit and flowers has therefore to beware, lest the beholder exclaim, "I would rather have the originals the fruit to behold and to eat, and the flowers to smell!" After all, the painter of fruit and flowers cannot con- fine himself to these mere things. He is forced to place [70] DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING them against a background, and on a support they cannot hang in empty space. What is that background going to be? This is often a more difficult problem than the choice of subject. He must also select his combina- tion; if he chooses roses, what sort of fruit would go well with them; is his scheme to be one of brilUant con- trast, or one of harmonious tones in one key; in other words, what is to be his range? These are questions which the still-life painter must consider, and which in- volve him in complications which the average beholder never takes into account. The best still-life pictures are not casual copies however natural they may appear but the result of careful study on the part of the artist. Daniel Seghers of Antwerp (1590-1661) was the first notable painter of flowers in the Low Countries. He had predecessors, among them being his master Jan Breughel or "Velvet" Breughel, son of the famous Pieter, who, however, did not begin flower painting until 1608, and Ambrosius Bosschaert (Antwerp circa 1565 The Hague 1621) . Breughel's garlands were smooth and hard and stiff; Seghers' flowers were fresh, glisten- ing, delicate in texture, more life-like. Bosschaert's were more in the primitive style of Breughel. A picture of his in The Hague Museum shows a bouquet of flowers in a window ; behind it a landscape. The effect is like glass or enamel. Breughel and Seghers were led to flower painting by surrounding their portrait medallions of saints and ma- donnas with garlands. It is interesting to notice how this branch of still-life painting, like still-lives of kitchen [71] POTS AND PANS things, began by being subservient to a figure subject. An example of his art in the Antwerp Museum, is en- titled "St. Ignatius," where the saint, in a tiny medal- lion, is lost behind the gigantic frame of flowers. The garlands and festoons of Seghers were doubtless derived from Italian art. Garlands of fruit as well as of flowers were favorite decorations of Mantegna and Carlo Crivelli. They were used as early as the primitive Antonio da Negroponte; but these painters in turn found such motives in Florentine sculpture and in the antique; hence the origin of flower and fruit garlands must be sought in classic art. Seghers, like most of the Antwerp painters who were influenced too much for their good by Italian art, fell into bad taste. When ornament crowds a picture, the result is vulgar, like too much jewelry on an ugly woman. Seghers, however, paved the way for a host of flower painters greater than himself. He had pupils who followed his style, like the German EUiger, but it is to Holland we must look for the origin of real flower painting. Jan Davidszoon de Heem (1606-1684) was both Flemish and Dutch, as he was bom in Utrecht, worked there half his life, but died in Antwerp. His father, David de Heem (1570-1632) was a fruit and flower painter of Utrecht to whom has been given the credit by some writers on Dutch painting, on what authority is not stated, of being the father of still-life painting. Ap- parently it was not known that Ambrosius Bosschaert was working in Utrecht as early as 1616, and Jacob Vos- maer of Delft (his dates are 1584-1641) at about the [72] DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING same time. If David de Heem were the father of any- thing, it was of the de Heem style, practised by a whole dynasty of de Heems. His son Jan was the greatest of the family, for he was one of the rare men in the Dutch and Flemish school to understand the spirit of still-life painting. Like Weenicx of whom we have spoken, and van Huysum and Kalff of whom we shall speak later, he was a magician who could create a world of enchant- ment out of his materials. In his hands porcelain bowls, golden dishes, plates, oranges, grapes, apples, flowers of all kinds, beset by flies and beetles, became Hke a set- ting of jewels, bright, dazzling, lustrous, rich and won- derful. This was his aim, to bring together, to arrange, compose and illuminate objects which were pleasing in themselves, attractive to the senses and stimulating to the imagination; but his magic touch, his perfect tech- nique, combined with his good taste, made them richer and more beautiful than a setting of crown jewels could be. One example of his work hangs in the Dresden Museum. On a table rests an upturned bowl filled and overflowing with fruit grapes, half-peeled oranges, apples and cherries, while from above dangle temptingly more grapes with their rich green leaves. This is a more tasteful arrangement than many of his still-lives. In spite of its numerous details, the lighting and interest are concentrated on the overturned bowl. But the same tasteful arrangement cannot be claimed for the example in the Metropolitan Museum, New York* (Fig. 29). This latter picture technically is a masterpiece. It repre- 4 Assigned to de Heem; possibly by one of the lesser members of the family. [78] POTS AND PANS sents the rich man's table, spread with costly food and vessels. Our attention is attracted first of all to the white linen tablecloth, which is shoved back over one corner, revealing a dark cloth beneath. This is an unfor- tunate, because conspicuous, caprice. Moreover, the table has too many different groups. One does not know whether to admire most the highly finished objects of the goldsmith's art, the glass beakers of wine, the basket of fruit, the lobster, or the arm chair, cluttered like the table, with plates and pitchers. And for what reason, we ask, is the clumsy clock introduced? We feel on the whole that the composition is a tour de force on the part of the artist to show us his skill in minute detail. An example of his simpler compositions is also in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Fig. 30). The pic- ture is a small one, and consists only of a large glass gob- let of wine, a few oysters, a slice of lemon, and one bunch of grapes, all on a table covered by a cloth. The color scheme is a tonality in gold, yellow and brown. In his coloring he was more Flemish than Dutch in that he showed the brilliance and luminosity of Rubens and Snyders rather than the tonality of Brouwer or Ter- borch. One of de Heem's most magnificent, and at the same time most characteristic pictures is in the Dresden Royal Museum. It shows us a still-life combined with a land- scape. In the foreground is a vast collection of fruit, melons of various sorts, yellow, green and striped, grapes, berries and nuts. Plants are growing in the foreground a thistle is conspicuous in the distance. Grape and melon leaves abound in profusion. Behind [74] ABRAHAM MIGNON, STILL-LIFE RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING the group of fruit is the trunk of a twisted tree, on one of the branches of which a httle bird has perched. But- terflies hover about. In one corner of the picture on the ground, is a bird's nest with two eggs in it, while a dead bird Hes nearby. The composition is elaborate but uni- fied. The interest centers where the light strikes the large melon in the centre. The whole picture scintillates with light and color. The artist's whim to place this choice collection in so romantic a spot is altogether de- lightful. De Heem is a wizard, indeed, who with his still-lives presents to us an enchanted world. De Heem's own country, Holland, is rich in examples of his work, and Amsterdam and The Hague possess examples of his flower pieces. Perhaps it was by his simple decora- tive flower studies that he has wielded most influence. In these the backgrounds are generally black, the flowers being richly relieved against them. These decorations are becoming popular again in our own day. De Heem was the greatest of the large family of de Heems, of whom there were no less than six (David the Elder, David Davidszoon, David the Younger, Jan, Jan the Younger, and Comelis), a dynasty of still- life painters. Undoubtedly the prolixity of this family had much to do with their fame. Besides these there were many pupils, among whom were Elias van den Broeck, Maria van Oosterwijk, Abraham Mignon and Pieter de Ringh. In Flanders Jacob van Es and Adriaan van Utrecht may be mentioned as, in a sense, followers of the school. But the best was Pieter de Ringh of Leiden (1615- 1660). Very few still-life painters surpassed him in [75] POTS AND PANS harmony of coloring. There is a fine example of his work in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam (Fig. 31) . As with the de Heem in New York, there is a table in front of a column with a huge curtain held up by a cord for a background. This gives us the palatial setting. On the table spread by a rich cloth is the collection of fruit and other dainties suitable for a grand repast. The fruit is piled in baskets in pyramidal form, the back and apex of the pyramid being a large golden urn. There are peaches, oranges and grapes, with grape leaves plenti- fully interspersed, relieving the brilliant yellows and oranges with their cool green. A lobster is conspicuous at the base, to give a broad mass of color in contrast to the smaller spots. The ensemble is rich, voluptuous, magnificent, as the artist intended it to be. Abraham Mignon (1640-1679) was another worthy pupil of de Heem (Figs. 33 and 34). Although a Ger- man by birth he worked nearly all his life in Holland. There are several fine pictures by him in the Ryks Museum of Amsterdam in the style of his master, which show that flowers were as interesting to him as fruit, and that he could do either by themselves, or in happy com- binations with pitchers, plates and goblets. Compared with de Heem, however, he is rather dry and tiresome. But with Jan van Huysum of Amsterdam (1682- 1749) we come to an original genius who surpassed in one sense all who came before him as a fruit and flower painter. Too young to be a pupil of de Heem his only master as far as we know was his father, Justus van Huysum he was nevertheless inspired by the Utrecht master. In his own day, he was perhaps the most highly [76] ^ d K-' ^f^^^SS^m "^^^^^Sm i. ^^^^^^^y^v A|^y h^^i >'^:;i^ ^ r ^2 ^^.( r^'"' ABRAHAM MIGNON, FLOWERS RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING prized of all the fruit and flower painters. He was the first to paint successfully flowers against a white or a golden background. He has all the magic of de Heem, his richness, his fantasy, his deHcacy, but not his volup- tuousness. He is a far more tasteful painter, with more restraint, a more refined sense of the limitations of a single picture, a better understanding of what a still- life ought to express. His compositions are less gran- diose; many of them are in fact very simple although they are always minute to the point of being painful. One of his fruit pictures is in the Louvre (Fig 35) . It shows us a marble table cluttered with fruit and flowers, apparently out in a garden, for behind and overhead is the dark foliage of trees, while to one side is a marble urn. This suggestion of the palace garden is exceedingly ap- propriate as a background for the rich display before us, while at the same time it appeals to our imagination in a much more subtle way than de Heem's landscape settings do. But the fruit and flowers take up most of the picture, and they are so brilliantly lighted that there is no wavering of attention. No artist has suc- ceeded better than van Huysum in combining fruit and flowers. His ingenuity in contrasting light fruit against dark, small shapes against large, so there could be no monotony of form, astounds us. He does not depend upon variety of objects for his variety, as a lesser artist would do, but attains this by making bold use of his stems of grapes, their leaves and tendrils, by a few flowers, rightly placed. Another one in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam ( Fig. 36) , is similar in style to that in the Louvre, save that the [77] POTS AND PANS display of fruit is on a table with a neutral background. Bunches of grapes are again the chief interest, with their lustrous green and white surfaces, while grape leaves with well-designed stems, and larger fruit such as oranges, give contrast and variety. The effect is above all rich, bright, scintillating with light and color. There is a criticism which must be made of van Huy- sum as a flower painter which applies in a greater or lesser degree to all Dutch flower painters. Reference has been made already to his painful minuteness. This minuteness was apt to result in a crispness and hardness which flowers should not have. Flowers are above all else soft in texture, and so delicate as to defy precision. It cannot be said that the Dutch flower painters were successful with textures. The van Huysum type of still-life was imitated by Conrad Roepel (1678-1748), a painter who was very prolific but not altogether original. He continued the school long into the eighteenth century. The fame of Jan van Huysum might be justly con- trasted with that of Willem van Aelst. While the for- mer may be more celebrated^, certainly the latter is equally distinguished; he is even more prized by col- lectors today. Willem van Aelst of Delft (1626-1679) was a pupil of his uncle Evert van Aelst of Delft (1602?-1657?), a painter of dead game, and of Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1619/20-1678). This interest- ing succession of still-life painters is worth noting, as showing the great variety of still-life that was being tried in Holland. Otto Marseus painted foregrounds full of plants, among which crawled lizards and snakes, [78] JAN VAN HUYSUM, FRUIT AND FLOWERS RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM RACHEL RUYSCH, FLOWERS RYKS MUSEUBI, AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING while butterflies hovered about the flowers. His pupil, Willem van Aelst, was the master in turn of Rachel Ruysch, who borrowed, like Huysum, Marseus' forest foregrounds with plants and insects. There are two pictures in the Mauritzhuis, The Hague, which should place Willem van Aelst very high as a still-life painter. One is a hunting piece with dead game. The coloring is fresh as if not a day old, with delicate touches of red, brown and ochre enlivening the even grey tone of the whole. A minute touch is shown in the fly on the bird's wing; but the effect is not meticu- lous. The other picture is a flower piece in the style of de Heem, but given an individuality by a rich orange marguerite in the centre of the composition. In these two still-lives Willem van Aelst shows himself to be a tonahst of the first rank, and a technician as skillful as Dou. In fact one might well call him the Gerard Dou of pure still-hfe painting. Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) (Fig. 38) was one of the first women to gain renown in the field of art. The Dutch school of fruit and flower painting may be said to have culminated in her. She was for a time court painter to the Count Palatine and worked for him at Diisseldorf. It seems that this type of picture the rich and elaborate collection of things pleasant to the eye and to the taste, was especially admired by princes and great lords. Maria van Oosterwijk (1630-1693) before mentioned, a pupil of the great de Heem, worked for such poten- tates as Louis XIV of France, the Emperor Leopold, Wilham III of England, and the king of Poland. Both these women, although good technicians and in- [79] POTS AND PANS genious composers had little originality. Ruysch's pictures are in the style of de Heem and van Huysum. One of her works in the Pinakothek at Munich pictures a collection of melons and fruit at the base of a gnarled tree, in a landscape. There are butterflies and bird's- nests of de Heem, but the mass is disorganized, and her shapes unfortunate. Her art is like her period, the eighteenth century in art, as we found in other branches of still-life painting, a mere reflection of what is past. But, luckily for us, the succession of fruit and flower painters was never interrupted in Holland. Van Huy- sum had two imitators, at least, in Margareta Haver- man (1720-1791), whose microscopic minuteness is be- yond description, and Jan van Os who lived from 1744 to 1808, and who therefore carried the style into the nineteenth century. His daughter, Margarita van Os (1780-1863), had some reputation as a flower painter, but she was completely overshadowed by Maria Vos of Oosterbeek who revived the glory of the seventeenth century still-life painters. She was, however, a versa- tile genius, and is best known, not for her flower pieces, but for her dead fowl with baskets and natural back- grounds somewhat in the style of Fyt, or for her por- celain. Delft and metal vases with fruit in the style of Kalff. [80] ABRAHAM VAN BEYEREN, FLOWERS RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING IV Herring and Wine It is a constant enigma to us moderns how in the sev- enteenth century separate schools of painting with in- dividual local styles could develop in little towns scarce an hour's journey apart. Haarlem today seems like a suburb of Amsterdam; it is only twenty minutes in the train, and yet here a school of still-life painters worked and produced pictures quite distinct from any others we have yet studied. Pieter Claesz (about 1590-1661), Willem Claesz Heda (1594-after 1679), and his son Gerrit Willemz Heda (1642-1702), were the principal painters of this school ; others were Willem Kalff , Franz Hals the Younger (1617-166&), Pieter Roestraten (1630-1698), Claes van Heussea (fl. 1626), whose works are very rare, and Roelof Claosz Koets (fl. 1642) . Willem Gabron (1619-1678), although of Antwerp, also painted in the style of Claesz and Heda. "Break- fasts" their pictures are often called, but this term does not sufficiently describe them. A simple repast like a breakfast is often portrayed, but the combination of food and drink displayed seems sometimes impossible for a breakfast. And more often than not the simplicity of the repast seems inadequate, as when it consists of a slice of bread and a lemon. There is a picture by Pieter Claesz, formerly in the van Oldenbamevelt Collection, Holland, now in the Wilstach Collection, Philadelphia (Fig. 40), which shows us a table set with a plate of sliced herring, a large bumper of beer, a coffee pot, a glass of Rhine wine, two rolls of bread, a dish of green [81] POTS AND PANS vegetables, a pipe and a tobacco box. The herring is certainly meant for breakfast ^Dutch herring! What wonderful memories they evoke I and the pipe is meant for the after-breakfast smoke in the good old times when one did not rush off for business. Let us hope the beer, wine and coffee were not for the same person to drink. If Claesz' pictures are breakfasts, then various wines and beers were popular in Holland early in the morn- ing. In one of his still-lives in the Ryks Museum, Ams- terdam, there are several drinking vessels, a glass goblet with wine, a mug with a lid of repousee design, a silver plate, and a partly peeled lemon on a pewter dish with nuts. A more nourishing "breakfast" is portrayed in another still-Hfe in the same museum (Fig. 41), for here on the table lie, on pewter dishes, a red herring, a loaf of bread and a half peeled lemon, while beside them are a pewter salt cellar, a large beaker of ale and a vine branch in the background for a fanciful color note. A Claesz in Budapest is interesting for the sliced pie which is intro- duced. His picture in the Mauritzhuis, The Hague, is also a very striking one. It has the coloring of a loaf of bread! Never again shall we meet with this humiUty, this contentment with the plainest things of life, as subjects for art, until we come to Chardin, and the great Chardin, both in subject matter and coloring is very like Claesz. Herein lies the charm of these still-lives. They seem so casual, so commonplace, so matter-of-fact. In short, they are homely affairs, and therefore good companions comfortable. Just as there is nothing grandiose about the subjects, there is nothing glowing nor brilliant about [82 1 DUTCH AND FLEMISH STHX-LIFE PAINTING the coloring. In contrast to the Flemish painters Snyders and Fyt for example who loved warmth and glow these Haarlem painters sought rather subdued harmonies, atmospheric effects and blended tones. Willem Claesz Heda was the finest of the Haarlem still-life painters. He is noted for his taste in arranging herrings with silver and golden vessels, glasses, cups and lemons. These things are nearly always placed on a white cloth, and the whole scheme enveloped in a grey tonality. His coloring is apt to be a trifle too metalUc too hard, with an insistence on cold greyish purple tones and lacking in warm golden hues. A fine Heda is in the Dresden Museum. Its compo- sition is more complex than is usual with Claesz. Against a perfectly bare background a wall is the table, with its white cloth partly turned back, and set with the following articles: a large glass half filled with wine, an overturned cake dish, a plate with a large meat pie, cut open, other plates and other glasses, a serving spoon and a richly sheathed knife. Heda's "Breakfast Tables" are set with costly ves- sels. While impretentious compared with the fruit and flower pieces of de Heem and van Huysum, Heda loved to offset his herring with elegant and rich utensils. The Heda in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam (Fig. 42) , shows a table filled with drinking utensils of pewter, silver and glass, with a half -peeled orange. In Budapest there is a fine example of his work, approaching Kalff in style. The composition is exceedingly rich ; a table cov- ered with a plush cloth, over which is crumpled a piece of white linen, is laden with glasses and various costly table [83] POTS AND PANS utensils. On a large meat platter is a cut ham.. This would be, indeed, a bounteous breakfast table. Heda was the best of the Haarlem painters, but he was not the most celebrated of the school he represents. Abraham van Beyeren of The Hague (1620-1675), in reality stands in a class by himself, as the greatest master of sea-fish painters, the forerunner of VoUon and Chase. But he also painted breakfast pieces, hence we can in- clude him here. Probably no Holland still-life painter attained such richness with harmony of color as he. Fish, after all, are wonderful animals as far as coloring is con- cerned. Like birds, they are protected by nature from their enemies and given colors that hide them in their environment; fish have all the iridescence of water. There is a good van Beyeren in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. It is a study of fish. On a table one sees a pile of fish, large and small, talbots, sHced sal- mon, and crabs. Some are in a basket, others are scat- tered about. The background is neutral, the light being concentrated on the fish. Mrs. William L. Elkins of Philadelphia possesses an example of this master's work which illustrates his rich- est style. On a table covered with a blue cloth edged with silver fringe is a wicker basket, holding a silver dish filled with grapes, peaches and figs. On the left of this is a golden beaker and a silver plate with a ham; behind this again is a Delft stein and a tall Renaissance cup. In the foregroimd on a white cloth is a silver tray with a lobster and two Rhine wine glasses, and nearby some oysters and a small loaf of bread. This bare description gives some indication of the variety of the coloring of [84] PIETER CLAESZ, "BREAKFAST PIECE" RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM WILI.EM CLAESZ HEDA, STILL-LIFE RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING the picture, but the work must be seen if its glow is to be appreciated. And this glow, this luminosity, is the chief charm of van Beyeren. It can be compared to old Flem- ish glass so mellow, so transparent with its amber, citron, russet and olive tones. In the Widener Collection, also in Philadelphia, there is a work by van Beyeren, in the painter's rich and ele- gant style, while in the Wilstach Collection, Philadel- phia, is a characteristic example of his fish. One of the best van Beyerens is in the Berlin Museum. On a wooden table are large talbots, sliced salmons, flounders and crabs. Behind, giving a pyramidal composition, is a brass bucket. This is less elaborate than the one above described, is more purely a study of fish and perhaps the most tasteful example of the master's work. Willem Kalff of Amsterdam (1621 or 1622-1693) belongs, also, indirectly to the Haarlem school. He was the most celebrated still-life painter of Holland, and for that matter of all the Low Countries, Flanders in- cluded. Perhaps his fame is partly due to the Dutch poet Vondel who immortalized his still-lives in charming verse. But he deserves it. If it were possible ever to say one man is the supreme master of his art, we would say Kalff was the greatest of all the Dutchmen, as still- life painters. In choice of subject, arrangement, light- ing, coloring, tonality, he was unsurpassed by any of his time. Kalif chose subjects of the most tasteful character, objects best suited for still-life painting. With pots and pans, and market produce, Teniers made arrangements full of interesting form and color. With animals and [85] POTS AND PANS wild fowl Snyders and Fyt and Weenicx made rich and colorful canvases. With fruits and flowers de Heem and van Huysum bewilder us with their wealth of detail. But Kalff gives us permanent joy by his superbly deco- rative arrangement of richly contrasted color blue por- celain plates, amber colored wine glasses, golden vases objects which would be the envy of the collector. What- ever may be said for carrots and cabbages, larders well stocked with food and household utensils and we love all these things with their associations ^we would rather possess rare china, golden cups and Venetian glass I But these things do not make up the charm of Kalff's still-lives. In arrangement Kalff is the most restrained of all the still-life painters. We have said that crowd- ing too many objects into a picture was a fault to which still-life painters are only too prone, and oftentimes painters like de Heem and Rachel Ruysch were not able to relate and unite all the elements in their pictures. Kalff never falls into this error. He does not care for tours de forcCj for a show of skill, for elaboration. Next to Weenicx he is the most decorative of the still-life painters, depending on proper spacing, balance of forms, and rich coloring. There are few objects in his pictures, and these are generally large in proportion to the canvas, and well varied as to relative size and shape. Lastly we must mention his light, which is strong and concentrated upon the point of attention, oftentimes on the amber-colored wine in a glass, or on a lemon, showing off in this way the brightest note in his color arrangement. As an Ams- terdam painter, he fell under the influence of Rembrandt [86] ^ ^^J^H^^^M^ , E^ ^ GERRIT WILLEMS HEDA, STILL-LIFE RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM WILLEM KALFF, STILL-LIFE RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM DUTCH AND FLEMISH STILL-LIFE PAINTING ^hence oftentimes his superb golden tones and rich shadows. His coloring is much like Vermeer's; one often finds the same preference for the blue and yellow notes ; in many ways, indeed, he may be called the Ver- meer of still-life painting. Pictures by Kalff are extremely rare and valuable. The best one is in the Copenhagen Museum. Emil Carl- sen, who knows something about still-lives, has said it is the finest still-life painting existing anywhere in the world. The one in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam (Fig. 44), is also a splendid example. It has all the qualities enumerated above. The objects are arranged against a large, plain dark background ^no curtain, no marble pillars, no view nothing to disturb the main interest. Conspicuous on the table is, first, a silver pitcher repous- see of hydria shape, whose poHshed raised surface reflects a beautiful light. Back of this, or rather to one side, is a Chinese porcelain bowl with oranges and lemons, and behind the pitcher and the bowl, in the center of the com- position, is a tall, yellow goblet, indistinct in the shadow. On the oranges in the foreground, and on the repoussee design of the pitcher the Hght is concentrated. The edge of the table shows at the bottom with one or two fruit leaves to break the straight line. With these few objects, Kalff has given us a decorative scheme, so well balanced, so happily designed, so rich in color yet deli- cate in tone, so simple and dignified that many of the de Heems, de Ringhs, and even the Snyders seem tawdry in comparison. Another very fine Kalff, and similar to the above, is in The Hague Museum. From the first one [87] POTS AND PANS is struck by the blue porcelain bowl and the lemon the coloring of Vermeer. In the Johnson Collection in Philadelphia, which, by the way, includes the fine "Slaughtered Ox" by Rembrandt, is one of the more elaborate compositions of Kalff, ap- proaching Heda in variety. It resembles closely another KalfP in the Berlin Museum. In this we see again Kalff's favorite blue porcelain bowl, his half-peeled lemon, and his wine cups. Philadelphia possesses another Kalff in the Widener Collection, one of his very restrained and simple pic- tures. A porcelain plate on a table contains apples and lemons. Kalff's influence upon subsequent still-life painters has properly and naturally been very great. In his own day Jan Jans Treck (Amsterdam 1606-1652) (Figs. 45 and 47), Simon Luttichuys (1610-1663) and Jurian van Streeck (1632-1678) were influenced by him. Pieter Roestraten carried this style of still-life painting to England. Chardin, the great Frenchman, if not re- flecting Kalff, at least reflects the Haarlem "breakfast" style. The same is true of Velasquez. These men were the ones who said the final word for Dutch still-life painting, who perfected this art. Had it not been for them, it is doubtful if Dutch still-life painting would have maintained the prestige that it has. [88] w A < Q BJ , . - " . , H - Bi -' Jk -~ 1 ' ^ 1%^ fc^' .Ksaj|^.^ ^ ^ <. ^ :2; !^ Jf '^^1^ ^^^""'^i**!^^ \^.^ < ^ *F ^ (mHJI, ' "^ lai^ '"s-^i! ^ C^ K ^^ " ^ 'M/- '1 .--jf .\ .\ \ ^s3:t'^# -'* '^r^sa^,^'' ^^yJ ' ~\'' Kr_, *^4/hl/\ K s^ ^^5^ . -^ ^^^^^nw o g '*^^t!!*^ '^"*^**#^ ^^n^^^K ^vw^ H w ^^^Ib^^S "^'vflK Pi n CO ks^^^^ "^ - . X -J"""'"^-'^" <* < o s-rf *. ; ^..^ en !^ S X "^f O 2 "V,,, Cfi H V / ^ HH U ^ ^ : \ * H >; M ^^^^HM ^g^^ S .-pssiiji?!^- I fe ^SHj^^nK ^' 1 1 JBHH: ' ^f ' .- ^^ ^ g J^^HB' .10. 4. ". _ '' H t ^^^T ^fci fcfi 'f ^^ g^ f h^ PS ^^^^^^^R. wS^m^ -0* ^^H&. VJ!-"" l-H u ^^^^^m ^ JfR^K? ^iP*^ -^ ^k l# CC g ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^SkO*"'''"''''*''''''^' - ! ^^1 '^^^^> ^^p; g- 1 ' /''' 1-5 m^mm m W^^^ '*W^m 1 *S^^BK^^^, "^ ^^p^' -^. r '' "^ " . :^^^^^m ^^l ^ ps?T ,,, f ^^^^^H.. ''^9^^ ^^^^^^^^P i^^^^^^^H3^^^^^^^^Bi_ ^^^^B '^IH^^S^^^I^Be^' ~^^ ^ ^^^^^^^^^Kbmus^''^}^^' ' ^^^^^^^^^^^^P^^"" ' %' n ^^^^^^^^'^-..^j^^^^^lv ^-^ - .1 jh^^^hk - -_ -4ii ' 1 1 i m^^^^ i W^^^^m^ F JAN JANS TRECK, STILL-LIFE BUDAPEST MUSEUM CHAPTER 4 The Vanitas and Bodegone Painters of Spain CHAPTER 4 Alonzo Vasquez (about 1550-aboxjt 1650) The close political connection between Spain and the Netherlands made the Dutch and Flemish painters familiar to the Spaniards. The sovereigns of Spain knew the value of Flemish art and were great collectors of the primitives. Perhaps it was the realism mixed with mysticism which we find in the primitive school which appealed to Spanish taste. Fortunately for art the iconoclastic tendencies of the Reformation, so de- structive in the Low Countries, did not affect the Span- ish peninsula, and Spain was able to preserve the great altarpieces of the religious age. Flemish tradition was not merely a matter of con- noisseurship upon the part of Spanish patrons. It went to the roots of Spanish art itself. Painters like Roger van der.Weyden and Quentin Matsys served as models for the Spanish primitives. Even in the Renaissance period, when the influence of classicism was at its height, Flemish influence was still strong. It may be said that [91] POTS AND PANS the Spanish painters were taught the Itahan style under the tutelage of Netherland masters. At the beginning of the seventeenth century three Dutchmen were among the leading painters of Spain Pieter Kempenaer (called in Spanish Pedro de Cam- pana), Ferdinand Sturm (Hernando Sturmio or Des- turmes) and Franz Fruter (Francisco Fruter). These men were contemporary with Alonzo or Ildefonso Vas- quez, called by Pacheco, the Spanish historian, "The Father of Bodegones.'* "Bodegones" is a Spanish word for studio pieces with genre and still-life. Undoubtedly Vasquez was influenced to paint such scenes by the genre pictures of the Antwerp school with which he was familiar. He was a sort of Netherland Romanist. But the still-life pictures for which he was noted seem to be lost, unless a still-life in Budapest, ascribed to him, is really his. His most famous picture is the "Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man" in which he lavishes the greatest care on table settings goblets, copper flasks, rich food and fruit in abundance. He is thus the Pieter Aertz or Joachim de Beukelaer of Spain. II Velasquez (1599-1660) It is a singular fact that the work of Velasquez, the greatest Spanish artist, has often been confused with that of painters of the Dutch and Flemish schools; that is, pictures by Sustermans, Terborch, Franz Hals and Rubens have been labelled by uncritical collectors "Velasquez," but never have Velasquez* works been [92] HUBERT VAN RAVESTEYN, PIPES RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM 'i'r THE VANITAS AND BODEGONE PAINTERS OF SPAIN confused with those of his Spanish contemporaries Coello, El Greco, Roelas, or Herrera. It is not necessary, however, to look for the direct influence of any Dutchman upon Velasquez. We could as well look for the influence of Caravaggio. The governing impulse of the art of the seventeenth century was realistic, and it is a striking sign of the genius of Velasquez that he was aware instinctively, while still a youth, of the tendencies of the age in which he lived, while his contemporaries of his own land were not. So that, at the outset of his career it seemed as though he were intended to belong not so much to Spain as to the whole world. He was fortunate in his master ^the man who after- ward became his father-in-law Pacheco. Velasquez* naturahstic tendencies were in direct opposition to the classical theories approved by Pacheco; yet the latter wisely encouraged his pupil. To use Pacheco's own words, so often quoted, yet most appropriate to our dis- cussion, "What should we say about still-life studies? It is clear that if they are painted as my son-in-law painted them (achieving such success that he left others far behind) they are worthy of great commendation. With these studies and with the portraits of which we have spoken, he soon achieved a true copy of nature, con- verting to his own methods the minds of many others who were influenced by his example."^ The impulse to paint hodegones may have come from Francesco Herrera who was for a short time Velasquez* master, for Herrera had attained some celebrity as a iSentenach, "Painters of the School of Seville," p. 107. [98] POTS AND PANS painter of such pictures, but, as we learn from Pacheco, Velasquez owed to no one his determination to master the reality of things, and these early studies were his own means of training himself for the end he had in view. The youthful pictures of Velasquez must be looked upon in this light, as his preparation for his career. While he was always interested in the still-Hfe accessories of his pictures, especially in his genre subjects, his hodegone period lasted only until about 1621 up to his first visit to Madrid, yet, if we judge by the many attributions, the pictures of this period extant are numerous. Palo- mino says : "Velasquez, in his early days, took to repre- senting with singular fancy and notable genius, beasts, birds, fishes, fishmarkets and tippling houses, with per- fect imitation of nature." We have no pure still-lives left to us. Of the bodegones now known to be his, all have figures introduced, but merely to add interest to the still-life. The earliest of these is the "Christ in the House of Mary and Martha" in the National Gallery, London. Quite in the Dutch spirit, the prominence is given to Martha, who, a peasant girl type, is busy with mortar and pestle at a table on which are fish and onions. Next in chronological order is perhaps the so-called "Break- fast," formerly in the Hermitage Collection, Petro- grad. It represents a table at which a man and two boys are dining. It is evident by the care with which the tablecloth, the dish, and articles of food are painted that these things are the chief interest. Like this last-men- tioned picture is "Two Boys Dining" in the Collection [94] VELASQUEZ, THE OMELETTE WOMAN IN THE COLLECTION OF SIR FREDERICK COOK, BART. RICHMOND, ENGLAND 1 1 , W^ 3^ w^H^, '*^^^^ff ^^1 1 .^^.^'iiB^- ^1 MHtoMMlM^^ ^^<^ ra>E'-.<^^ VELASQUEZ, THE STEWARD IK THE COLLECTION OF SIR J. C. ROBINSON, C.B. THE VANITAS AND BODEGONE PAINTERS OF SPAIN of the Duke of Wellington, Apsley House, England, which is principally a study of earthenware dishes and jars. Of greater interest from the still-life point of view is Velasquez' "Old Woman Cooking Eggs" or, as it is also called, "The Omelette" in the Cook Collection, Richmond (Fig. 49) , where there is an elaborate display of cooking utensils. "The Steward" in the collection of Sir J. C. Robinson, England, is another such picture (Fig. 50). The steward stands behind a great table laden with fish, poultry and other food, while hanging from the ceiling about his head are huge cuts of meat. "The Water Carrier of Seville" in Apsley House must also be mentioned in this group because it is the finest and most justly famous of the period. While the figure claims the greatest attention because of the sym- pathetic rendering of an aged type, the prominence given to the water bottle a fine study of the texture of earthenware and to the glass of water, makes it a true hodegone. All of these pictures have similar qualities, in being very large, with life-sized figures, and almost mono- chromes. Velasquez, at this period, did not strive for the shimmering effects of his later pictures; he was studying values and struggling for an uncompromising truthfulness in representing what he saw. By these studies he became finally one of the supreme masters of tone, and one of the most startlingly realistic figure painters in Europe. Artists themselves have never ceased to wonder at his extraordinary force. His in- [95] POTS AND PANS fluence in the nineteenth century was very strong, especially on one still-life painter Manet. Ill Vaudes Leal (1622-1690) Quite a different still-hfe painter was Don Juan de Valdes Leal. He is noted for two large "Vanitas" pic- tures in the hospital de la Caridad, Seville. Mention has been made before of the early Flemish Vanitas pic- tures attributed to Quentin Matsys or to his school. They generally contain a death's head, a few books, a candlestick and sometimes a parchment roll with the inscription "Vanitas," the obvious meaning being, of course, that all is vanity, even the wisdom of this world. Valdes Leal's two pictures are the most elaborate in their allegory as well as the most grandiose things of their kind. They are unique in art. Painted at the height of his career, in 1672, they are not only sumptuous and rich in color beyond description, but they are exe- cuted in a masterly way. They were done at the com- mand of Don Miguel de Maiiara, a man who repre- sented all that was pessimistic and morbid in the Spanish temperament. Certainly we cannot conceive of their having been painted outside of Spain (Figs. 51 and 52). One is called "Allegory of Death." It shows a floor piled high with books of every description, and with pieces of armour swords, breastplates and' helmets. There is also a sceptre. On a sort of platform behind this pile is a papal tiara, a crosier, a crown, a cardinal's hat and a collar of the Golden Fleece. A papal staff [96] JUAN DE VALDES LEAL, ALLEGORY OF DEATH IN THE HOSPITAL DE LA CARIDAU, SEVILLE JUAN DE VALDES LEAI. ALLEGORY OF THE BREVITY OF LIFE IN THE HOSPITAL DE LA CARIDAD, SEVILLE THE VANITAS AND BODEGONE PAINTERS OF SPAIN rests against the platform. In the background is a huge candelabrum; about the burning flame are written the words: "In ictu oculi" "In a wink all is over." But the most conspicuous object in the picture is a huge skel- eton, or figure of Death, trampling upon the pile of earthly adornments. Under one arm it carries a coffin and a scythe ; with the other it points to the inscription. Morbid as such a conception is, it is entirely surpassed in gruesomeness by its companion picture, "Allegory of the Brevity of Life." In a dark burial vault, inhabited by bats and owls, stand three open coffins, two of which are placed together in the foreground. In one is the body of a bishop, half eaten by worms, almost a skeleton ; in the other is the body of a knight. The bishop clutches his crosier, the knight his sword and shield. Below, on a scroll, are the words: "Finis Gloria Mundi" "Gone is the glory of the world." But this is not all. From above, out of clouds, stretches an arm holding a pair of scales. In one scale are symbols of earthly folly a lit- tle dog, a peacock, a goat's head and the word "Nimas" "Not more"; in the other scale are the symbols of religious life a Bible, a loaf of bread, a crucifix, a flam- ing heart inscribed I. H. S., and the word "Nimenos" "Not less." Murillo, when he saw this picture, said to the painter Leal, "Comrade, one cannot look at it without holding one's nose." [97] POTS AND PANS IV Pekeda (about 1608-1678) The only other Spanish painter who, as a creator of Vanitas pictures, is worthy to be placed alongside of Valdes Leal, is Antonio Pereda of Madrid. He worked with Velasquez in Madrid, and in his clear, cool colors reflects the great master. There are signed still-Hves by him in the galleries of Lisbon and Petrograd (until 1914) dated 1652-1653, a Vanitas in the Hofmuseum of Vienna, and one attrib- uted either to him or to Valdes Leal in the Stirling Col- lection, England. His most important still-life, how- ever, is a Vanitas allegory of idleness, called "The Dream of a Knight" in the Madrid Academy. The knight is seated beside a table on which are the things of his dreams symbols of every sort of wealth money, jewels, badges of knightly orders, pieces of armour, wreaths, crowns, mitres and tiaras, but also the open book and the death's head. Still-life pictures these allegories are; figures, to be sure, are introduced, but there is no action. Yet it cannot be said the Spanish school produced any great still-life painting. The Vanitas pictures are too moralistic to be considered examples of pure art. Velasquez' hodegones answer more clearly to our definition. Still-life paint- ing is to be understood from the art of men like Kalff , who, without recourse to figures or to sentiment, made use of mere objects, and, purely by the language of art gave expression to the emotions these objects created. [98] CHAPTER 5 Fbench Still-Life Painting CHAPTER 5 Chardin, 1699-1779 Chardin was a man who could do very simple things in a very simple way lifting them to the sublime. There is no higher praise than this. It is the praise we would accord the spiritual leaders of our race, the St. Francises, the Brother Laurences, the Wordsworths, the men who taught the world to find love and joy and beauty where they have never been foimd before! If one questions if Chardin is worthy of this company, the answer is, he has shown us forever the spiritual value of silent things ^yes, even of pots and pans. There are certain geniuses, and a few artists, poets, writers, who move through history unswerved by pass- ing fashions in art, and who hand on to succeeding gen- erations those permanent qualities that are too precious for the race to lose. Chardin continued in France the Dutch tradition of genre painting. Chardin's self-portrait is a description of the man and of his art. He shows us himself, unflattered, the plain [101] POTS AND PANS man that he was. He looks at one honestly, bluntly, behind his clumsy horn spectacles ^no self-conscious air, no piercing glance, no haughty poise of the head. Per- haps we would enjoy a more animated, spirited face; it is a bit phlegmatic. He might have worn for this oc- casion a more becoming hat, but no, he prefers us to know him as he really is. What impresses us, above all, is the genuineness of the man, his permanent human qualities. And this is his art: intensely human, perfectly gen- uine, an art for the people. In character, unaffected by passing fashions ; but in technical qualities, composition, luminosity, coloring, tonahty, so superior and at the same time so modem, that since his day even in our own time, those who admire him most are the painters them- selves, the connoisseurs. For these reasons Chardin re- mains a master whose pictures seem to belong more to ourselves, to be in spirit closer to our own times, than those of any other Frenchman of the past. He is one of the enigmas of French art. It is futile to try to account for him fully. He remained absolutely apart from his age, from his French environment. The art of his day was expressed by such painters as Lar- gilliere, Rigaud, de Latour, Nattier, Perronneau, Wat- teau, Lancret, Pater, Boucher and Fragonard. The age which preceded him, that of Louis XIV, demanded of art "the grand style," in portraiture haughty pomposity, grandiloquence, self-conscious su- periority; in other fields of painting classical elegance and grandeiu', all that went with the extravagant court of "the great monarch." The art of the Regency and [102] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING of Louis Quinze, which was Chardin's age, was a re- bellion against these things. French taste, tired of the dignified pose, swung to Hght-headed gaiety. In por- traiture Nattier and his school sought charm and coquet- tish grace rather than hauteur; in figure subjects Wat- teau responded to the new demand, and gave to the world pictures of poetic and idyUic fancy. Watteau was a much more serious painter than the public of his day was aware of. His art was understood to be merely fantastic, and his successors, Lancret, Pater and Boucher, produced those delightfully superficial and altogether French works of art which were imitated in the eighteenth century by the whole world. For it is particularly the genius of the French to be able to be gay in a sense to coquette with life and yet maintain that amount of restraint which is necessary for refine- ment. This is what gave eighteenth century French art a piquancy we have never ceased to admire and the lack of which we most deplore today. Chardin ought to have been a Dutchman. He was planted into a world in which he did not seem to belong. Or are we judging France of his day by the art of his time? Chardin, the man of simple tastes, might have been far more representative of the true French char- acter than we would ever suppose from most eighteenth century French art. Chardin's own paintings picture to us a side of life we never see in any other painting of the day. They seem convincing. Let us hope they are the true pictures of French hfe. Take, for example, "The House of Cards" or "Child with a Top," both pic- tures of little boys at a table; these show us an interest [ los ] POTS AND PANS in homely joys which has nothing in common with the artificiality we are more famiUar with in the art of the court. This interest in the genre as well as his love for still-life is Dutch in spirit, but there is a subtle suggestion in all his works of something French. It may be their deHcate refinement, their perfect tasteful- ness, their elevated sentiment which leads one to feel this. There is an elevation about Chardin's art that we seldom find in the Dutch. We may be thankful there- fore that he was French and could contribute something mysterious and new to still-life painting. I have said that his art was intensely human; it may sound strange to say this about the art of a still-Hfe painter. I refer principally to his "Interiors" such as "La Pourvoyeuse" or "La Benedicite," but Chardin's still-Uves have this quality too, pecuHar as it may seem. Not all of them, for sometimes he fell into the fault of making elaborate groups which are too obviously "ar- rangements." But his best still-Hves are so naturally grouped that they seem to have been left carelessly per- haps as if the cook had turned her back for a moment, and given the painter his opportunity. Chardin won his reputation as a painter by a still-life picture. His famous "Skate" of 1728, now in the Louvre, was the picture that gained his membership in the French Academy. * There is something highly instructive in the story of this "Skate." That such pompous painters as Largilliere or Cazes could find in a painting of this kind quahties that gave it a place beside the greatest works of the period, is indicative that even in a superficial, aristocratic age a sincere and simple genius was appre- [ 104 ] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING dated. The picture shows us a tableful of sea-food and kitchen utensils fish, oysters, bottles, jugs and pans, among which a cat is eagerly prowling. In the fore- ground is a large crumpled napkin, and in the back- groimd, most conspicuous, an enormous skate, hanging by a chain. By this picture Chardin proved his artistic descent from Abraham van Beyeren and the Haarlem school. But in spite of this his still-hves have an independence of their own. There is one in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, entitled simply "Still-Life," but it had much better be called "Waiting for the Cook," or "Materials for the Dinner" (Fig. 53) . Predominant is a large ket- tle for stewing, with its ladle; beside it is a tall jug or earthen pitcher. On the table are also a fowl, a breast of lamb, a mortar and pestle, a few other less important ar- ticles, and a white towel. This white towel is the finest bit of painting in the picture. The background is plain, neu- tral in tone, and the table, too, is treated simply, so that the light, concentrated on the fowl, the jug and the towel, brings the attention where it belongs with no diversion of interest. One does not feel, therefore, that Chardin painted these common objects, merely because they were interesting in themselves although they were and still are ^but chiefly because of their artistic value as con- trasts in color and reflectors of light. It is the light on the towel, and its subtle shadows that we admire. Another still-Ufe by Chardin in the Boston Museum shows the same simplicity of arrangement (Fig. 54). Well composed it is, but there is nothing in its composi- tion to excite one ; these pictures of Chardin's, in contrast [105] POTS AND PANS to W^enicx's are not designed for decorative effect ; their charm lies in their intimacy. In this we have a large teapot, a few bmiches of grapes, and a pear, that is all. Chardin's still-life in the Metropolitan Museum is as humble as any of Pieter Claesz' (Fig. 55). It shows the painter to be not only the reverse of Weenicx, but also the reverse of such highly finished painters as de Heem or van Huysum. Chardin cares nothing about the microscopic delicacy of a fly or a beetle that may happen to perch on a grape. This is what is so modern about Chardin: The picture in question is a sort of breakfast- piece ^the breakfast of a very simple person. On a stone shelf there is a plate of fish, a fork, a broken loaf of bread, with a knife stuck into it, a bottle of wine and a beaker. Nothing could be rougher. Indeed it reminds one of a bit taken out of a Teniers or a Brouwer. Tech- nically, too, the painting harmonizes with the subject. It is ahnost sketchily done. All that Chardin cared about all that we care about, is the light on the broken crust against the dark rich tones of the bottle and the background. Probably no master has shown so well the possibilities of oil as a medium for paint as does Chardin in such pictures as these. The suavity of his brush stroke, the fluidity of his modeling, the clearness of his colors, and the softness of his light are all so perfectly and easily accomplished that it seems as if the technical limitations of oil painting had been reached by this one man. But if I were to be asked what constitutes the greatest charm of Chardin's work, I should say, it was not artistic [106] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING cleverness, but something far more difficult simple truth-telling, nothing more nor less. Chardin is the link that connects the Dutch school of the seventeenth century with the French still-hfe paint- ers of the nineteenth century. Until we come to Courbet, VoUon, Manet and Fantin-Latour, almost to our own times, we find Httle in still-life painting to arrest the attention. The Neo-Classic Revival, encouraged by the French Revolution, turned the eyes of artists to ancient Greece and Rome. Lofty themes alone were permitted to the painter. David, the autocrat in art, dominated the artistic world, and such pictures as "The Oath of the Horatii," "Brutus Condemning His Own Sons to Death for Treason against the State," became the standard by which all other pictures were judged. This was an art of borrowed ideas, as far removed from life as the Ro- man world was from our own. At the same time the coloring was as cold and dead as the corpses of the an- cient heroes. Little wonder is it then that small atten- tion could be paid the humble, the familiar and colorful things of life. Still-life, nature morte, was for nearly a century, dead in very truth. II Courbet, 1819-1877 Wherever we find reaHsm or naturalism in western art, we find an interest in still-life. This is true of Italy and of the Netherlands; it is also true of France. Courbet, the first of the so-called realist school in France, was the first French still-life painter of any note since Chardin. [ 107 ] POTS AND PANS Between Chardin and Courbet there is one hundred years, and more. In that time French art had suffered many vicissitudes. Swayed, in Chardin's days, by the rococo school, which strove to emulate Watteau, then vanquished by the neo-classic revolution of David, later disciplined into the academicism of Ingres, and now striving for freedom through the romanticism of G^ri- cault and Delacroix, French art needed the wholesome and robust leadership of a man like Courbet who could finally open the eyes of painters to a new vision of nature and reaHty, or to a new subject matter at least, and put- ting art once more to school with the soil, begin over again. At least that is what it seemed at the time. French critics and the public looked upon Courbet's "Funeral at Omans" as the funeral of art, just as they had, before, considered Delacroix' "Massacre of Chios" as the massacre of art. So that, to many, it appeared that art was crucified and would have to be reborn, whereas in reality it was merely a return to nature. But these pictures deserved much of the opprobrium be- stowed upon them. Delacroix' "Massacre" has Httle claim to our attention today, outside of its historic in- terest. Like its predecessor, Gericault's "Wreck of the Medusa," the first in the category of wrecks, massacres, and funerals for art, it was simply an expression of a revolt against the academic canon. Courbet's "Fu- neral at Omans" is an unlovely thing, brutal, unneces- sary. Its force is due to its representation of a homely circumstance in the life of peasant people, but because it possessed none of the imaginative quahties that make a work of art French because it replaced the ideal for [ 108 ] CHARDIN, STILL-LIFE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK CHARDIN, STILL-LIFE NATIONAL ART GALLERY, OTTAWA, CANADA FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING the matter-of-fact the French public rightly con- demned it. Courbet's saying "J'aime toutes les choses pour qu'elles sont" sums up his attitude toward art. There is something very Dutch about this idea, for undoubtedly the Dutch loved things for themselves, for what they were. Courbet, very possibly, drew much inspiration from the Dutch. In his early years when he was still hesitating for expression, he spent much time in copying Rembrandt, Hals and van Dyck. Later he said that the only painters he admired were Ribera, Zurbaran and Velasquez Spanish painters who never hesitated to paint the less agreeable realities of Ufe. Next in the list of his elect came Holbein and the Dutch tavern painters Ostade and Craesbeck. At the head of this whole list is in reality Caravaggio, who links aU the names from Rembrandt to Craesbeck together, although Courbet did not mention him. So the point of contact between Courbet and the Dutch is remote. Courbet descends from Caravaggio and Ribera. A Dutchman would never have represented a railway station, as Cour- bet did, just because it is a contemporary fact. Not even Brouwer perhaps the boldest of the Dutch real- ists painted things exactly as they were; he never seized the commonplace ; he chose a dramatic episode, or at least a picturesque one, and while his canvases seem truthful to reality, they were always carefully arranged even in a scene of disorder and they are bathed in an atmosphere that softens their brutality. We must, therefore, expect to find in Courbet's still- lives Httle that we are accustomed to. We will not [109] POTS AND PANS discover much of the picturesque using the term in its strict sense to mean arrangement, pattern, design, re- lationship of spaces, variety of forms, play of light and shade. We must expect to find, instead, what appears to be a casual acceptance of things as they happen to be. His objects will not be placed; they will remain as they fell, or as they were poked into their places by some prosaic housemaid. Cezanne later employed the same composition. It must be said, however, that Courbet's still-lives are less literal than his figure subjects. The circumstances under which they were painted palliated their brusque- ness. Courbet was bom in Omans, in Franche-Comte, but had a strain of German blood in his veins ; indeed it was the strongest strain. He looked like a German a Ger- man peasant ^with a large buU neck, and enormous bulk, and he was German in his tastes. If one looks through his works, one will find that they are for the most part either coarse or sentimental. Only in his sylvan scenes with animals, and his landscapes, is he sin- cere. It is significant that nearly all of his still-lives were painted in his period of humiliation. His disgrace and imprisonment as the result of his part in the destruction of the Vendome column in 1870, stripped him, robbed him, of his defiance. "They have killed me," he said to a friend, "and I shall never do anything good again." Deprived of his studio and of his models, he took to painting fruit and flowers, and these, rendered in the humble spirit of Chardin, awaken our sympathies as do no other works of Courbet. [iioj FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING Perhaps the most tasteful picture he ever painted was his "Pheasants and Apples" in the possession of Mile. JuHette Courbet (1912) ^ It comes the closest to being a decorative picture of any of his still-Uves. We see here in a landscape two splendid birds, a male and a female, with gorgeous plumage. Their heads are turned back- ward, as if in some alarm, or as if they were on the alert for an enemy. In the foreground are several large apples, red and yellow, well contrasted and rich in color. It is a thoroughly original picture Courbet is always original vigorously composed, and freely executed. The boldness with which he dares to contrast the small birds against the correspondingly large apples, is char- acteristic of him, though just here Hes the fault in the picture. The apples are of equal importance with the birds, or of greater importance, which is unpleasant to the eye. There is no other still-life picture Uke it ; some of Jan Fyt's or Hondekoeter's come the nearest to it, and there is an old-master quality about it, with its deep rich tones and shadows. This, however, is not a pure still-life. His "Fruit," of 1871, in a private collection in Scotland,^ is a more characteristic example. On a dining table covered by a white cloth, is a collection of apples, pears, and quinces, piled high in front of a pot of growing flowers. The background represents a room with a fireplace, mantle, and a framed picture on the wall. This is significant of Courbet's realism. The fireplace and mantel are unnecessary. Another criticism which at 1 Can be found in Heineman's "French Artists of Our Day," pi.. XLIV. 2 Reproduced in MacCoU, "Nineteenth Century Art," p. 146, [111] POTS AND PANS once arises is that there is a total lack of variety in the forms of the objects. The fruits are nearly all of the same size, and they seem too large in comparison with the flower pot. Kalff would have placed both large and small fruits in the composition, and there would have been one object more important than the rest, to con- centrate the interest. No doubt things happen that way but, we may ask, is it therefore necessary to paint them so? His "Apples" in the Ryks Museum, Amster- dam (Fig. 57) , shows the same faults as "The Pheasants and Apples" before mentioned. While the apples them- selves are well painted, they have the size of melons compared with the trees which serve as a background. One large yellow apple looks like a large quince. Courbet, we have said, was best as an animal painter. His "Dead Stag" is painted much in the style of Snyders, and, while not original in treatment, is one of the most striking of the artist's still-Hves. The dead stag hangs by a tree in an open landscape the land- scape being like the backgrounds in Weenicx' pictures, giving the effect of tapestry. Courbet stands at the threshold of a new era in still- life painting. He is neither an old master nor a mod- ern one. Far greater men than he succeed him. So we will leave Courbet to pass on to Manet, the first great modem master of still-life. [112] COURBET, APPLES RYKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING III Manet, 1832-1883 After six years of study under Couture, Manet threw over the academic style and, disgusted, traveled in search of a new vision. In the course of this search he married a Dutchwoman, Suzanna Leenhof of Delft, a woman of artistic tastes whose family was not incon- spicuous in sculpture, engraving and music. It is thus perfectly clear what influence was strongest in determin- ing his artistic development ^the Dutch. It is true that he travelled in Spain, and his early paintings are strongly reminiscent of Velasquez and Goya, but other works recall Franz Hals. In either case, the original impetus is the same. What Manet discovered was a new ?:ealism, or naturalism, whichever one pleases to call it ^not that of the brand of Courbet. We can take four pictures to illustrate this point. "The Guitar Player" of 1860, the "Boy with a Sword" of 1861, the "Olympia" of 1865, and "The Bon Bock" of 1873. Of the first, Theophile Gautier said, "Here's a Guitarero who does not come from the Opera Comique and who would cut a poor figure in a romantic litho- graph ; but Velasquez would hail it with a friendly wink, and Goya would ask him for a light for his 'papelito.' " In truth it is in the spirit of the two great Spaniards, but it is significant that at this time Manet had not been to Spain. He had been interested in the performance of a troupe of Spanish dancers, and had painted one of the singers, in Paris, from the life. How is it then, that the picture recalls Velasquez and Goya? The answer [118] POTS AND PANS is simple these two Spaniards reflect the Dutchman Franz Hals, and it was Franz Hals who was affecting Manet at this time. Hals, Velasquez, Goya I This is a trio of old masters as modem as any artists living today impressionists all of them. But how was it that Hals impressed Manet? Merely by his kinship of spirit. Franz Hals had looked upon life with the same eyes pretty much as Manet. He had discarded the schools, and with a freshness of pig- ment and freedom of brush had portrayed the singing cavaliers and the gay wenches as well as the sturdy magistrates and staid Mennonites, people of every type, as Manet would paint the types about him. It was not merely the realism of Hals that made him eternally mod- em, but his method of painting. He wanted to catch the fleeting glance, the momentary effect. To do this needed a technique different from that of any who had gone before him. One brush stroke would have to serve for the shadow of a nose, another for a nostril subtle- ties of shadow would have to give way to spontaneity of effect. Thus, without knowing it, Hals became the father of impressionism. The picture of Manet*s which is most strongly suggestive of Hals is his "Bon Bock." It was painted just after the artist's return from Hol- land. It is no wonder that Alfred Stevens said of the portrait, "He is drinking Haarlem-brewed beer." Belot is in fact much more like a German than a Dutchman in appearance, but the vivacity with which he is presented is absolutely Hals.' Next to Hals, Velasquez was the greatest master of brushwork the western world had known. He likewise [114] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING was a realist of the truthful sort who never flattered. He dared to paint not only what he saw, but what he knew was there. Thus he stripped his sitters of their disguise. In the whole gallery of royal portraiture where can we find as truthful a picture of a king as Velasquez' Philip IV? As Velasquez shows him, he is not an inch a king. I doubt if there is any portrait like it for frankness, unless it be Goya's Charles IV. Manet, too, loved to tear the mask from society, in a word, to shock, as he did occasionally, as in his "Olym- pia." This work is undoubtedly reminiscent of Goya's nude "Maja." Velasquez' influence is most strongly felt in Manet's "Boy with a Sword" in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. The full length pose, the plain neutral background, the brushwork all recall the Spanish master. This stress on Manet's antecedents is not out of place in our study of still-life painting; it prepares us for what we may expect, for any Dutch influence, direct or indirect, would be bound to react by producing still- life pictures. Velasquez, for example impressed as he was by Hals, painted still-lives. His "bodegones," the studies of his youth, are kitchen interiors, or breakfast pieces, not far removed from the style of Dou, Metsu and Maes. Throughout his life Manet gave still-life a prominent place in his art; this is evident not merely in his pure still-life pictures but in his figure pieces. In his early Guitarero, we will notice that down at the foot of the bench on which the singer is sitting, are two onions and a large bottle. What are they here for save to add a [115] POTS AND PANS touch of color and variety to a part of the picture need- ing it? Manet with correct artistic instinct felt that oftentimes a portrait or a figure group with its large in- terests, needed a few objects like a vase of flowers, some fruit, or utensils, to offset it, and by their small spots of bright color to relieve the broader surfaces. In his "Eva Gonzales," there is the greatest attention paid to the painting of the chair, the portfolio beside it, and the flower on the floor. In his "Dejeuner sur I'herbe," there is again, in one corner, a still-life group baskets of fruit. It must be remembered that Manet called this picture "Le Bain" ; the later name by which it was gen- erally known was given because the still-life in the pic- ture suggested a picnic scene. Manet's "Dejeuner dans I'Atelier" likewise gives this importance to still-life ac- cessories, as do his "Pere Lathuile" with a counter full of bottles, his "Bar des Folies Bergeres," likewise with bottles, glasses, flasks, etc., and obviously the "Boy with a Sword," "The Woman with a Paroquet," the "Boy Blowing Soap Bubbles," and his "Portrait of Emile Zola," with Japanese prints in the background. Duret's story of how Manet painted his portrait is illuminating on this subject. He writes :' "In 1868 in the Rue Guyot, Manet painted my por- trait. Here I had an opportunity of observing the ac- tual working of his mind, and the processes by which he built up a picture. The portrait was of a small size and represented me standing up, with the left hand in the waistcoat pocket and the right resting on a cane. The grey frock coat which I was wearing detached itself 3 "Manet and the French Impressionists," p. 66. [116] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING from a grey background the picture thus forming a harmony in grey. When it was finished, quite success- fully in my opinion, I saw that Manet was not satisfied with it. He seemed anxious to add something to it. One day when I came he made me resume the pose in which he had originally placed me, and, moving a stool near to me, he began to paint it with its garnet-colored cover of woolen stuff. Then the idea occurred to him of taking a book and putting it underneath the stool ; this, too, he painted with its cover of bright green. Next he placed on the stool a lacquer tray, with a decanter, a glass and a knife. All these variously colored objects constituted an addition of still-life in a corner of the picture; the effect was wholly unpremeditated, and came to me as a surprise. Another addition which he made afterwards was still more unexpected a lemon placed upon the glass on the little tray . . . Evidently the picture painted throughout in a grey monochrome gave him no pleasure. His eye felt the lack of pleasing colors. Thus this practice (shown in many of his other works) of placing bright tones in juxtaposition ^in the luminous patches contemptuously described as patchwork pro- ceeded from a perfectly frank and deep-rooted in- stinct." This brings us to Manet's new use of color, which dis- tinguishes his later work, and the work of most succeed- ing painters influenced by him, from the older masters. Compared to him Courbet was an old master, in that he painted with the traditional chiaroscuro, obscuring his objects in brown shadow and avoiding bright colors. But Manet, whether from his own instinct, or from his [117] POTS AND PANS admiration of Japanese art, or from his contact with the plein-airism of Manet, gradually came to feel that the greatest aesthetic pleasure was derived from color. It would be deviating too far afield to go into a dis- cussion of the new use of color by Manet and the im- pressionists. Sufficient for us is the fact that from this time on modem painting makes a complete break with the past; objects are taken out of their dark studio comers, enveloped as they were in brown shadow, and placed in the light where their bright and rich colors can be enjoyed for themselves. Manet's "Peonies" in the Louvre, is a still-life study of his later years which illustrates the new method in painting still-lives. First of all it reminds one of the East. The vase and the platter on which it stands is Chinese, of a brilliant design, the lustrous white porce- lain enlivened by richly colored birds and flowers. This is the new note in color, the lustrous, the gorgeous and the vase does not stand in the dark shadow of an old master, but in a bright, broad light. More splendid are the great peonies, which take up the whole rest of the picture, forming a decorative pattern not unlike a Chi- nese design. The petals are painted with the loose, free, impressionistic strokes Manet derived from Hals, so that the whole picture has a freshness that should be- long above all else to flowers. That Manet was interested in the art of the Far East is well known. Though this interest did not affect so much the character of his art as it did that of Whistler, we find Chinese and Japanese details of design often introduced. His love for peonies of which he did sev- [118] 1^" jj^Hj^HI ^j^^l ^M ^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^H ^H Si^" ^^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^H ^H| i^' ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^K9^^^l l^^^^^l o ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^^^^^d^^M ^^^^^^H ei u ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^1 ^^^^^^^^HR^^^iMRiD I^^^Bfl ;j ^^^^^^^^^^^^^H ^^HP^^^^ .jjiiii II '"' ""~ ^^^B Z ^^^^^^^^^^^1 W% ^ % ^R 9. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^H^ t # jj^p ^^^^^^^^^^^^If V, -i^^ X ^^^^^^B^f ' < /^ g5 ^^^^^ - '"'* M e; ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Bk .^ ^^ ^l^^^^^l i^ 1 r' fl^H^^I^^^H 1 1 1 >5 o u o H FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING eral still-lives was perhaps due to his admiration for oriental design. One of his flower pieces, with roses and irises, in the Duret collection, Paris, shows a vase on which is painted a dragon. Often times these flowers have light grey backgromids ^the neutral tone of which gives them a suggestion of the Chinese or the Japanese. It is easy to imagine how very different such still-lives are from any painted according to the Dutch tradition. But Manet's versatility in still-life painting led him to great variety in choice of subject and treatment. The catalogue by Duret* reveals the fact that he painted at least three canvases of fish, two of oysters, one of a ham, three of "Pears," one entitled simply "Raspber- ries," another "Plums," and two of "Peaches," while he made several small studies of lemons, apples, and melons. That simple individual objects were repre- sented is shown by his picture of "A Bottle" ; game he painted also, as in his "Rabbit" and "Hare." Flowers, however, are the most numerous in the list. Some of his still-lives recall Claesz or Heda, as in the "Oysters" of the Pau Gallimard collection, Paris, where there is a plate shown with six opened oysters, other oysters on the table with a sliced lemon, and a china pepper shaker, with a fork. Professor Mather of Princeton possesses a Manet which reminds one of a Chardin in the Louvre as well as some work of the Haar- lem painters (Fig 58) . It represents a table, with the in- evitable cloth, and a collection of bottles, porcelain and other ware. It is not in the least impressionistic, being delicately smooth in its brushwork. But the cool grey 4 "Manet and the French Impressionists," Appendix 1. [119] POTS AND PANS luminosity of the work is distinctly Manet, Even more like the Haarlem painters in arrangement is his "Mel- ons, Quinces and Grapes.'"* On a table partly covered by a white cloth are the melons on a plate, the quinces on another plate, a bottle, a glass, and a bunch of grapes. But the treatment is unlike any Dutchman's. The pic- ture is equally illumined, with no deep shadows, the light being distributed evenly over the objects. The in- terest centres in the color contrasts, and the subtle color tones of the white cloth, the fruits and the high reflec- tions of the bottle. The artist seems to have sought brilliancy of effect luminosity, rather than delicacy, and there is a lack of decorative quality that a still-life should possess. Sometimes mere freedom of technique interested him, as in his fluid "Fish" in the Durand-Ruel Collection. Manet is seldom decorative, except by ac- cident. His neutral backgrounds against which he places his light spots, assist in giving his canvases a decorative quality; the flatness of his tones also adds to it; but it is not apparent that Manet studied line and spacing interesting variety in forms or contrasts of light and shade as part of a design. But Manet has placed succeeding generations of still- life painters in his debt by showing the aesthetic value of color in and for itself, the keen emotions that can be aroused by pure pigment, and the joy that can be de- rived from clear light and brightness. 6 Reproduced in Heineman's "French Artists of Our Day," pi. XXII. Collection not given. [120] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING IV Fantin-Latour, 1836-1904 The name of Fantin-Latour is often linked with that of Manet. It was Fantin who painted the celebrated portrait of Manet, in 1861, and Manet's portrait occurs again in Fantin's "Hommage a Delacroix" of 1864, as well as in Fantin's "Un atelier aux BatignoUes," of 1870. Both painters exhibited in the historic Salon de Refuses of 1863. Naturally they were friends. But Fantin, being a lesser genius, was influenced by the other. He attained his reputation by his Salon picture of the "Atelier aux BatignoUes," which, aside from its interest as a collection of portraits of famous revolu- tionaries in art, was appreciated for its fine grey tonal- ity and its naturalism. Fantin never aimed for the bold effects of Manet. It was as if his sensitive spirit feared the light of the blaz- ing sun, and was more content in the softened light of the studio. He was influenced by such pictures of Manet's as the "Eva Gonzales," "The Boy with the Sword," "The Woman with a Paroquet," and those with grey or neu- tral backgrounds, quiet cool tones, and subdued color schemes. Fantin-Latour was a genius of so quiet a refinement, and so subtle a charm that he attracted, and still at- tracts but little attention from the art-loving public. Courbet, Manet, and later Cezanne, shocked; therefore they were famous. But search the histories for Fantin- Latour, and what a scanty paragraph he occupies ! He is a painter for the connoisseurs, and therefore, if you [ 121 ] POTS AND PANS search the essayists the writings of such discriminating critics as Geffroy, Proust or Leonce Benedite, it is sur- prising, and yet not so ^how thoroughly he satisfies them. He painted, besides portraits, allegories, nudes and figure subjects of every description. In his allegories he was most individual. An enumeration of his works would include almost as many of this class of picture as of still-hves. His "Andromeda" of the salon of 1898, and his "Undine" and "Bathers" of the same year awak- ened high praise. In such works he displayed a fancy combined with naturalism that is indeed rare. Geffroy is never stinted in his praise of Fantin. He writes, "One would almost be able to apply in its entirety the verse of Baudelaire to the conception of this painter-poet who was possessed with the harmonies of line, of color, and of musical rhythm: 'One to the other, the forms, the colors and the sounds respond.' "a One of the reasons why Fantin is so much admired by those who know, is, that he was purely an artist, with a perfect taste. Far more discriminating than most of his contemporaries who pursued certain theories in art regardless of all else, he understood that tradition in art had a forcefulness that could never be replaced by what was new, yet at the same time he appreciated what was new in his own day, and selected from it. What he de- sired above all else in a picture was unity and natural- ism. For that reason his pictures are always restful, and one turns to them with relief after the highly emo- La Vie Artistique, 4-384. [ 122 ] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING tional experience which one so often has witnessing an exhibition of late nineteenth century art. Fantin's talent is seen at its best in his still-Hves, for in these simple compositions, often so quaintly arranged, he develops a style that is distinctly his own. The number of these pictures is prodigious. During his career he must have painted several hundred. In Flourys' "Catalogue de I'oeuvre complet de Fantin- Latour" of 1911, it appears that in 1872 he painted no less than forty-eight still-lives, most of them flowers; in 1873, seventy-seven, in 1874, thirty-one, in 1875, the same years as his masterpiece portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, twenty-six. To describe one of his still-lives is to describe many of them; there are dozens which differ scarcely at all in general effect. One who has seen many of his canvases in various private collections, carries away the impres- sion that they are quite uniform in style. For what he does is simply to paint a bouquet of flowers, of various kinds, in a vase against a grey background. There are several which the writer has seen in private and public collections in Holland, France, and America. They all had the following arrangement : against a grey or grey- blue background, light or dark, perfectly plain table or support being vaguely suggested a vase or a basket filled with many flowers, sometimes tightly compressed like an old-fashioned bouquet; sometimes loosely and freely arranged, a motley of roses, carnations, poppies, blue bells or larkspur and verbenas mixed in with their green leaves; or simply various kinds of roses, red and white and pink almost any combination of flowers, pro- [123] POTS AND PANS viding there was a sufficient variety of color (Fig. 59). Some of Fantin's still-lives are not such simple vases of flowers as I have described. There is one with a bas- ket of roses, more loosely arranged than most, with a glass bowl of poppies behind, but placed with charming simplicity against the neutral background.' Nor are all of his compositions flower-pieces, for there is one which represents a basket of ferns, with grapes on a table, nothing else.* Descriptions like these do not indicate the charm which the pictures actually possess; tightly bunched bouquets of red, pink and blue do not suggest decora- tion nor much originality in arrangement. But it must be remembered that against a neutral background almost any color scheme will work. That is why a Fantin is never crude. No matter how exciting the motley of red and pink and purple may appear, the surrounding grey gives rest. So that his vase of flowers is like a rich jewel against the velvet of a woman's dress, or a stained glass window within the gloom of a cathedral. The flowers are as vibrant sparkles of hght out of the som- breness of a dull sky. This is the secret of Fantin-La- tour, and this is why Geffroy could write, "The smallest canvas of Fantin-Latour is a scheme where nothing is lacking to constitute a definite decoration." But more must be said. Within the burst of splendor there is far more refinement, arrangement, display of taste than is at first apparent. The colors will appear to arrange themselves so that the whites, the salmons and Reproduced in "L'oeuvre de Fantin-Latour, Receuil de cinquante Re- production." L^once B^n^dite, Paris, 1906, from the Rosenburg collection. 8 Ibid. From the Belvalette Collection. [ 124] - - ^s^ ^ ^l^^iJIP^ft ^P' w^^mj^^^^Kt 'Ar^Slf^^'^^'V' ^^ ;^^H|H|^HH|^^^^^^Hr 4 Jk^fsk'"' ''^!^*''_1B ii^^^^^^^^^^^^^Hli. .1^ 1 H^ii|V*s < H ^':. y ^^^^^^^^l^^k, ^HIL ^ "*' ^ ^^ ^ ^v- _, -^ ^^ ^ 1 i *' ^ ^m 6>- FANTIN LATOUR, STUDY IN FLOWERS TATE GALLERY, LOST DON FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING the pinks of roses will group together, forming a con- spicuous mass and the chief point of interest in the pic- ture. The warmest tones, the reds, the yellows, and the oranges will be nearest the centre; and, as the bouquet curves around and over, the violets and the blues will be found. Separating them yet unifying them, are the green leaves. These colors, therefore, have not fallen so, like bits of sparkle in a kaleidoscope, but they were placed so by a luminist who understood the rules of color vibration and of harmony. And it is apparent that this is the new colorism not that of the old masters but of Manet, cool, bright, pure and lustrous, envel- oped not in shadow, but in a clear atmosphere and light. Nevertheless there is no impressionism in his handling; every flower is carefully studied. Its individual form and texture is preserved yet not too detailed to destroy its freshness. For this reason Fantin's flowers are more satisfactory than Manet's. The latter, while trying to preserve the freshness of his flowers by impressionistic handling, neglected their texture and their form; in short, his flowers lack that exquisiteness which only the greatest refinement can produce. The art of flower- painting makes certain stringent demands: to obtain that ineffable texture, whether it be crisp or soft, but always delicate, requires a patience combined with dex- terity that very few painters in the whole history of art have possessed. Of the hundreds of flower painters, men and women, who thought and still think that flower painting is a refuge for the artist manque, one can count on his left hand the number who have succeeded. Fantin succeeded, but it would be superficial praise [125] POTS AND PANS to adulate his art without being aware of his shortcom- ings. Often his flower-pieces seem over-studied. As a painter of the textures of flowers, he does not satisfy in every case. Certainly in this respect he will have to take second place beside Lafarge. And, too, in spite of GefProy, one feels that the artist is not a great decorator. His forms are often too small, there is not sufficient largeness ^not sufficient interesting contrast of large masses against small which the Chinese and Japanese knew so well how to employ. Decorative Fantin's still- lives may be, but in the sense that a bit of jewelry is decorative, and they remind one most of the mosaic brooches of the late Victorian age. VoLLON, 1833-1900 VoUon was a reincarnation of a seventeenth century Dutchman. While Manet was merely affected by a painter like Franz Hals, who was after all essentially modem, Vollon went right over to the little masters of Amsterdam and Haarlem. He seems to have been but slightly influenced by the impressionist movement, and therefore he has fared badly at the hands of critics of modem art. Some have gone so far as to say that he is not to be looked at in company with Manet, for in a natural world that loves out-of-door life with its radiance and glory, he preferred the brown gloom of the studio interior. Others in comparing him with Fantin-Latour, contemptuously allude to his profusion of fish and oys- ters as if these things were of a lower order than flowers, [ 126] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING although VoUon did flowers, too. On the other hand, there are those who concede that he is the greatest painter of still-hfe since Chardin, and one of the most accomplished painters of the nineteenth century. To admirers of still-life painting criticism of Vollon on the grounds that he belongs to the past, rather than to the present, will always fall upon deaf ears. He paints dead salt-water fish like Abraham van Beyeren good; grapes and crystal goblets like Kalff so much the better! Dead game Uke Franz Snyders and Fyt excellent! And butcher shops like Rembrandt and Teniers what better could he do? Vollon, Bonvin, Ribot, and Philippe Rousseau are four names that rush to our lips together when we think of still-life painting in France in the last century. Blaise-Desgoffe is a fifth but let us not spoil our series. These four are kindred spirits all Dutch in the same enigmatical sense that Chardin was. Bonvin is the example of the humility that should always be the lot of a still-life painter, dealing as he must do with humble things. A realist, the most he attempted was to picture the life and the things which interested him. In his visits to the Louvre, and later to Holland, he dis- covered that he belonged to the company of Chardin, Vermeer, Metsu and de Hoog, painters of familiar genre, who were not inspired by the merely anecdotal but by the picturesque. Bonvin's still-lives began in the kitchen, with the cooks French ones, however and their pots and pans, hence his pictures have the subdued lighting of indoors with deep shadows (Fig. 62). Ribot's beginning was no less humble. Poverty- [ 127 ] POTS AND PANS stricken, he was forced to work in his spare hours at night ; hence his darkened interiors. Accustomed to this scheme, it was natural that he should turn to the arti- ficial lighting of Rembrandt and the Spanish Ribera, but he was equally influenced by Hals, Steen and Metsu. His old woman "Keeping Accounts" is reminiscent of several genre painters from Quentin Matsys to Rem- brandt. In his early pictures he reminds one of Pieter Aertz as well as Teniers, the Dutch painters of cooks plucking poultry, stirring soup, and cleaning their pots and pans. In his picture of fish in the Ryks Museum of Amsterdam he is as fine as van Beyeren. Philippe Rousseau was purely a still-life painter, and in this branch an artist of higher aims, for he used his still-life for splendid decorative compositions, and loved the more luxurious things of life. He was a second Hondekoeter in his large decorations of birds, poultry and wildfowl, another Snyders or Fyt in his composi- tions of dead game; in his groups of fruit, lobsters, oysters and fish he was de Heem returned to life, while in his rich arrangements of Chinese porcelain, precious objects, fruits and dainties, it was as if Kalff had never died. While it may be said he was not original, yet he was not a servile imitator of the Dutch. Compositions so naturally conceived are not produced by imitation, nor coloring so powerful and clear. He, after all, has the freshness of a modern, and a rich, if deep, tonality which could only be produced from original observation. There is a picture by him in the Wilstach Collection of Philadelphia. VoUon, while belonging to this group, was by no means [ 128] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING a mere Dutchman. He may have re-incarnated from the Low Countries but then Watteau was Flemish born. There is something of the lyrical, the fantastic about him as there was about Watteau. Many of his pictures are scenes of that poetic world where Pierrot and Pierrette live their unreal life of tragic comedy. And as a landscapist VoUon is no less poetic. A farm- yard scene of his in the Metropolitan Museum is rich in quality. Not of the plein-air school, it is less a bit of ac- curate observation of effect of light than it is an ex- pression of the beauty which the scene revealed. There are landscapes by him which recall the Barbizon manner of Theodore Rousseau. It is something for which we may be profoundly thankful that through Vollon the old Dutch masters did not die in the seventeenth century. Had it not been for him, and Ribot, Bonvin, Philippe Rousseau, we would never have known what the old Dutchmen would have been like if they had lived in France. For Vollon, like Chardin, is after all French. Compare him to the Ger- mans, Leutze, Robbe, Grube or Preyer one can do that in the New York Library and one will understand. These men too, go obviously back to the Dutch school, but what stupidity of composition! What death in col- oring! Even Munkacsy, who lived in France, had noth- ing of VoUon's spirit. Vollon's still-life in the New York Public Library entitled "Mappemonde" is one of his important works. Exhibited in the Universal Exposition of 1900 it re- ceived the grand prix. It shows us a library setting; on a carved library table are old books, papers, writing ma- [129] POTS AND PANS terials, candlesticks and a geographical sphere. The background is neutral. The whole is well lighted, with a concentration of effect upon the important objects, and the objects are grouped into interesting relationships of shape and size, and the coloring rich and deep. This, it seems, is by no means one of VoUon's best still-lives, but it strikes one forcibly in contrast to the other still- lives in the Public Library. A Desgoffe in the same collection is an interesting contrast. Desgoffe, of whom Geffroy wrote, "There are existences which have truly touched the bottom of boredom," is here true to himself. It is a canvas showing objects of art used by Marie An- toinette. It is indeed a collection of dead things: a harp, a clock, Louis XVI furniture, vases frightful atrocities, costly but ugly the coloring is a clash be- tween yellows and pinks. Desgoffe how thankful too, we are of thee example as thou art of all that still-life painting never ought to be! He would have been far better the illustrator of a catalogue of French antiquities. Another picture of his in the Luxembourg why it is perpetuated no one knows shows a collection of sixteenth century curios: a rock crystal vase, a purse of Henry II, an enamel by Jean Limousin. It is not worth a kettle by Antoine Vollon perfect imitation of the objects that it is. His pictures express nothing his objects have no beauty no matter how precious for they have no color, no light or shade, no texture microscopic in accuracy though they be. This little digression is not unwarranted for the art of Blaise-Desgoffe is worth remembering as a warning. [180] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING His pictures, however, should be taken down from the art galleries and put in the show cases where curios are kept. VoUon seems to be best remembered for his fish. A canvas in the Luxembourg shows us two fish against a dark background, lying on a table. The wetness, the scaliness the slimyness of these fish is unsurpass- able. But this is not enough it is a rich harmony from deep tones. Chase undoubtedly drew inspiration from such a picture in his remarkable still-lives of fish. Of his pots and pans with vegetables, in the tradition of Chardin, there are many excellent examples. One of the best is in the T. G. Arthur Collection, Scotland, entitled "Plums."^ On a rough table there is a large copper kettle, an earthen jug, and a glass; the plums are in the foreground. One can visualize readily enough the rich coloring of the picture with its happy combina- tion of coppers, ochres, deep greys and purples. The Toledo Museum possesses an example of his flowers, with fruit (Fig. 60). It is one of the most im- pressionistic of his pictures, painted boldly with free fluid strokes there is nothing hard, dry or tight about it, and in such a picture Vollon shows himself to have been a true modem. On a table is a large silver repousse urn, loosely filled with roses and other flowers, some of which have fallen out on the table. On a plate nearby are some oranges and a knife, and behind, a decanter and a glass. For brilliancy, for luminosity, this rivals Manet. In design it closely approaches the Japanese. 9 Exhibited in the Glasgow Int. Ex. Reproduced by MacCoU, "Nine- teenth Century Art," p. 148. [131] POTS AND PANS In the Louvre there is another example of his still- life of fruit, this time as a breakfast piece. On a table, with a curtain background, there is a white porcelain plate of peaches and grapes, with grape leaves; behind there is a tall vase and a high champagne glass. The composition is exceedingly rich in design and color, and is brilliantly lighted. Of an entirely different character is the VoUon in the Ryks Museum, Amsterdam, of a red earthen crock with flowers (Fig. 61). It shows with what simple materials the artist could produce a decorative work. This is a small picture, but many of his are on a large scale. In a private collection in America there is an immense canvas of growing asters with carnations. They appear to be out of doors. One can well imagine what a sumptuous effect the artist has produced with these white and pur- ple asters, with the red carnations sparkling in their bed of green leaves. Vollon can be studied in the Wilstach Collection in Philadelphia where there is another large picture with a bouquet of flowers lying on a table. VI Cezanne, 1839-1906 Cezanne, the mysterious ! He has been dead for more than a decade, and still his place in the history of art is in doubt. No longer scorned he gained serious con- sideration long before he died he is now acclaimed by the Independents as the leader of a new movement in art, the father of the art of the future, while less revo- [182] h-i -H H O w g O < l-I PS o ^ > s 5 5 FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING lutionaiy painters and critics look upon him as an ab- normal genius, gifted, sincere, but untrained and experi- mental, whose notoriety is due in the main to the noise the Post-Impressionists have made. Mysterious indeed he is. His life is as much a mys- tery as his art. Unduly sensitive to criticism, he fled the city and sought isolation in his provincial Aix in Southern France. It was granted him by an all too willing public, and while this mildest-mannered of men worked obscurely and painfully at his experiments, his enemies branded his work as that of a dangerous per- son an anarchist. Cezanne's artistic development was a curious succes- sion of revolts. Untrained in any academy or school of art, for he began his career in his father's bank, he tried to learn by himself. The years that should have been spent in the study of drawing, he spent in the study of law. He could have made these up, but from the first he scorned the academicians and the classicists to such an extent, that he deliberately ignored drawing. He had ideas of his own about painting which prevented him from learning much from others, but it was natural at the start for him to be subject to influence. The first painter to influence him was Delacroix, then came Cour- bet, then Manet. So that his early enthusiasms fol- lowed the succession of revolutions that occurred in art during the nineteenth century. Later he was much in- fluenced by Pissarro, Monet and the Plein-Airists, with whom he exhibited in 1874. From this time on he employed the brightest colors, and sought the greatest gamut that his palette could afford. But in the latter [ 188 ] POTS AND PANS part of his career he was a pure independent, discarding every influence. This was what he was after to cast aside every pre- conceived theory every tradition that bound the art of painting. He attempted, therefore, the impossible. If we, if any one of us who attempts anything in the creative reahn of art, should endeavor to shut our eyes to the past, even to the surrounding present of civiliza- tion, what would be our problem? We would have to forget everything we ever knew. We would have to return to our childhood, or to remain a child. We would be forced to relinquish our philosophy, which un- consciously each one builds for himself, wipe out from our brains every memory of books we had read, every impression of pictures we had seen. In other words, we would have to take the point of view of a savage. And yet what would we not give for this childlike vision? How often, sophisticated mortals that we are, would we not give all that we possess for this naivete? Cezanne's pictures sometimes seem to show us this and therein is the chief element of their charm. Whether it is landscape or the figure which Cezanne represents, it is landscape or the figure as primitive man would see it. His canvases never reflect nature or man- kind as any previous painter has seen them. Therefore they are so strange. His biographer states that Cezanne would work for days before a canvas, out of doors or in the studio, studying the landscape or the thing before him, trying to imderstand its structure, its form, trying to picture it on canvas as a form, a solid mass. Often- times his experiment was left unfinished. Oftentimes [184] CEZANNE, PEARS HOOOENDYK COLLECTION, THE HAGUE CEZANNE, STILL-LIFE HOOGENDYK COLLECTION, THE HAGUE POTS AND PANS I am reminded of a still-life by Cezanne which rep- resents a table, covered with a white cloth on which are a wineflask, a goblet, an earthen jar, some apples and a knife. The background is plain save for three four- pointed stars like a pattern on the wallpaper. My de- scription recalls perhaps, a breakfast piece by Claesz or Heda, Chaj-din or Manet but it is unhke any by these men. The wine flask is misshapen, the tablecloth is crumpled up in a slovenly way. There is no arrange- ment nor design. There is no particular scheme of light- ing nor of color. Perhaps its lack of design is what ob- trudes itself most conspicuously, for the artist's love of literal truthfulness led him to paint things as they oc- curred going a step further than Courbet. He painted all the accidents in the things in front of him, whereas any other painter would have left them out as not con- tributing to the decorative eflPect. This is a glaring inconsistency in his art, for, we may well ask, if he discarded literal resemblance to form, why not eliminate also imnecessary elements in a compo- sition? But when we consider Cezanne's coloring we come for the first time to the principal force in the pic- ture, for these yellows, greens, whites, blues and browns are the words Cezanne used to express his realization of the objects. It is with these that the painter tries to produce volume and substance. These qualities his ob- jects have the glass, transparency with cylindrical roundness, the apples rotundity, the jar mass. "There is no such thing as line," said Cezanne, "no such thing as modelling. There are only contrasts, when color attains [IM] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING its richness, form attains its plenitude."" It is true, what is so often said, that Cezanne's forms are solid, one can look around them. That is why he places purples or blues where he does, or reds and yellows, not because these are the local colors, but because these colors placed as they are give the effect of solidity or mass which he desired. We notice, too, that some of his objects the jar, the plate, have heavy black outlines around them, while others, like the tablecloth, the glass, have none. These accentuations, or lack of them, have the same pur- port as the color to give the proper mass. And finally we wonder at the apparently careless way in which the color is apphed, the pigment thick in places, the canvas almost bare m others. This process also adds in giving the effect of relative mass or substance as well as shim- mering effect like mosaic. There are the greatest discrepancies between the works of Cezanne because of the experimental character of so many of them. An example of failure in every respect is a still-life of his with a table on which is a large shell, a vase and a cup and saucer, in a room where there is a large clock against the wall. The glass vase, the cloth on the table, the shell, and the clock are all equally fuzzy and look as if they were made of wool. Of course no one need believe that a picture must have "fin- ish" to be complete. Cezanne has been roundly criticized because of the unfinished state of his pictures. Qiiim- porte? A picture, however, must be carried far enough to give the objects their especial character that char- acter which Cezanne himself so emphasized. If a china 11 Quoted from E. Bernard, [137] POTS AND PANS cup has the same texture as a tablecloth, the elemental character of these objects is lost. Many of Cezanne's still-lives are of apples or other fruit, in plates and dishes, on a table, which is generally covered with a cloth, all against a background of a com- plex character, gay wall paper, or the interior of a room. A good example is in the Christiania Museum. There is a luxury of color about these pictures that is truly de- lightful. Thick and pure, rich and gay, they are not softened by any intervening atmosphere. Subtle effects of sunlight, flickering rays or stray beams never dance capriciously about them. Apples are green, tablecloths are white, and that is all there is to be said. You must like them as you like the gaudy garments of a negro, or the gay blankets of a Navajo. Perhaps one of Cezanne's best still-lives is in the Ber- lin National Gallery. It is less chaotic than most of his, in fact an orderly arrangement, unified, well-balanced and concentrated. On a small table partly covered by a crumpled white cloth, is a ginger jar filled with various flowers. On the tablecloth are a few pears. All the objects are well dravni. The background is unobtrusive. One feels that it is accomplished. The plastic quality of Cezanne's objects has often been insisted upon, but I do not believe the aesthetic value of his picture depends upon this. Their plastic quality is evident only to those who understand Ce- zanne's special symbolism of receding and advancing colors. It is therefore an intellectual and not an aes- thetic enjoyment which, in this respect, they give. They have, of course, no design ^no decorative quality, as [138] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING none was intended. As for the backgrounds, they are not back of the objects, for the distortions in perspective often make the distant objects jump out of place. There is one nature morte of Cezanne's with a collec- tion of pots and plates and a growing plant on a table covered with a white cloth. The table is a rough affair a common white kitchen table. Chardin would have seen its beauty. Cezanne saw its ugliness. The table- cloth is a crumpled mass. Chardin, like the Dutchmen, saw in a kitchen towel a surface for the subtle play of delicate lights and shadows; Cezanne treats his linen like so much plaster fallen from the ceiling. Only to this extent is it plastic. His pots and pans are interest- ing as masses, but they annoy one by their shapelessness. The flower in the flower pot seems made of colored clay a sculptor's sketch. All these objects are seen, ap- parently, from above. Behind them, in the picture, is the floor of the room, with a bit of stretcher lying on the floor, and behind that the wainscoting of the wall. Most of this is superfluous material which detracts from the unity of the picture. The above-described canvas is undoubtedly a study of planes, horizontal or vertical, receding or advancing. This brings us to the question, is such a representation an end, an aim in art? What is the aesthetic value of volume and mass in art? Of mere plastic quality? Let us admit that these things have their importance, but the pleasure which is derived from these is not a purely aesthetic one. There are so many other things that are more im- portant things of the spirit. Cezanne's art is plainly [139] POTS AND PANS materialistic, concerned with experiments of a purely materialistic kind. His experiments, his theories have led to abstract discussions of new quasi-scientific theories. His art has led to cubism, futurism, symbol- ism, and what not. We admire Cezanne's sincerity, his hard work, his powerful daring. We admire, too, his struggle for the expression of what he considered reality. But had he sought the reality which lies beyond matter ^that reality which is seen with the imagination by the spiritual eye ^he could not have been the Frenhofer that he was. He has been called a Fauve. It is not a bad name. He was a man to whom it should have been said, "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength," an admonition applicable to all the Fauves in art. VII Impbessionism and Post-Impkessionism in French Still-Life Painting The work of Eduard Manet prepared us for that of his contemporary, Claude Monet. With the former we became accustomed to a new vision we learned to see color, vivid color, in mass. With the latter we learn to see light, scintillating, vibrating light. "Plein-airism" has now become accepted as a principle, and we can hardly realize that the pictures of Monet were once tests upon one's eyesight, at a time when the eyes of most people were used only to studio darkness. Still-life painting was not the interest to Monet that it was to Manet, to Fantin-Latour or to Cezanne. [ 140 ] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING Manet had the Dutchman's love for the surface value of objects; Fantin-Latour the instinct for the spiritual value of fruit or of flowers ; Cezanne sought but did not find the hard reality of the commonplace. Monet, how- ever, pursued the light that played about things. For this reason he is chiefly a landscapist. But he painted a few still-lives of extraordinary charm. We cannot be too grateful to Monet. Never again can painters refuse to see the brightness and glory of light itself. "Beauty," said Plotinus two thousand years ago, "is a light that plays about things. It does not consist in the things themselves," and while the great masters of painting felt this instinctively through- out the centuries, its full meaning was not reaUzed until Monet revealed it (Fig. 65). Monet's still-lives are visions of light and color, given form. They are not colored forms lighted from with- out. Herein lies the great distinction between his art and the art of luminists of previous epochs. Like his landscapes, they seem to be snatches of a scene, caught while a shower of multi-colored rays burst down upon them. I recall a basket of fruit upon a table, with melons, apples and grapes scattered about. It was a decoration in the sense that a well-ordered garden of yellow, white and purple flowers is a decoration, because rich in design and color. But it was more than that, it was a revelation of a new emotion which light and color can give. Among the many modem painters of France who have been influenced by the impressionism of Manet [ 141 ] POTS AND PANS and Monet, Emil Jacques Blanche is conspicuous as a still-life painter. In his portraiture sometimes his inter- est in still-life accessories overreaches his interest in his sitter. In nearly all of his canvases it is evident he loves to introduce lacquer screens, bowls of flowers, ornamental objects and the furnishings of his rooms. Sometimes he paints interiors without figures. We cannot say that there is much decorative design in these pictures. He paints what he sees without sufficient selection so that his interiors seem crowded. But brilliant and colorful they are beyond description. He has also painted pure still-lives, generally with great masses of flowers (Figs. 66 and 67). In composi- tion they recall some of the still-lives of Courbet and of Vollon. In other respects, however, they are impres- sionistic. Executed in his premier coup manner, they are fresh, spontaneous and luminous, if lacking in de- sign. An interesting modem art is that of Mme. Sybil Meugens. Her pictures could never have been painted before the time of Manet, Fantin-Latour and the influ- ence of the Japanese. They are first of all arrangements of objects choice and beautiful in themselves Chinese vases, Japanese carvings, rich embroideries and oh jets d'art. With these she combines flowers into a composi- tion which is clearly Japanese with its contrast of packed detail against open spacing. All this is broadly handled with an understanding of the value of pure paint flowing from a full brush backed by a firm hand. There is a very close resemblance between her work and a few of our American women still-life painters. [ 142 ] J. E. BLANCHE, BLUE HYDRANGEAS J. E. BLANCH i WHITE PEONIES, LUSTRE JUG, AND RED LACQUER BOX FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING Thus far we have not discussed the influence of Ce- zanne upon recent still-Hfe painting. Whatever may be thought of this influence, it has been considerable and cannot be ignored. One of the serious painters to be influenced by independent theories is Fehx Vallaton. He was at one time associated with Gauguin, Maurice Denis and the Pont-Aven school. Although an inde- pendent, we can hardly term him an ultra modern; he has not revolted from the historic traditions of painting. He suddenly became known a few years ago for his portraits and interiors engraved on wood with great sim- plicity and decorative quality. As far as I have been able to study his work, his still- life paintings impress me as the most decorative things he has done. Their simplicity approaches closely the flower studies of Fantin-Latour, for he shows a perfect knowledge of design, of the principle of selection. Yet they are bolder in color than Fantin's, very fluidly painted, clear and bright. Vallaton is an example of the modern French artist who, being thoroughly familiar with Post-Impressionist movements, and sympathetic with them, prefers to cling to what is good in the old while embracing what is virile in the new. His art is a reproof to mannerism and eccentricity. Eduard Vuillard is a painter of interiors like those of Pierre Bonnard, except that Vuillard's interiors are ex- tremerly quiet and simple. There may or there may not be figures introduced; if so, they are treated like still- life objects; and sometimes Vuillard does pure still-life studies, groups of mere objects. He approaches Ce- zanne more closely than any other Independent and has [ 143 ] POTS AND PANS little in common with the violent revolutionary tenden- cies of men like Matisse. His independence consists in a matter of fact disregard for drawing; but distortion of objects is not with him an end in itself. One of his still-life interiors is in the Luxembourg and is called "At Luncheon." It shows an intimate picture of a lower class home ; there is no finesse, no love for prettiness, no sentiment. There is, however, in its patchworklike col- oring the same decorative result that Cezanne obtained by his mosaic technique. Such pictures seem like sketches of a gifted colorist to be used later in a finished picture, yet Vuillard intends no more than to suggest. Vallaton and Eduard Vuillard are claimed by the revolutionists in art as members of their cult. It is true both men are sympathizers of this movement, and their association with Bonnard, Maurice de Vlaminck and others has added to their revolutionary reputation. But Vuillard should be termed a protestant, which nowadays is a much more respectable name. It is always difficult for the art historian to be appre- ciative of the new art movements (should they be so- called?) of his own times. His historic viewpoint tends to make him judge by traditional standards. And yet his studies should clearly teach him that during the centuries every reform was of the nature of a revolu- tion, perhaps slow and peaceful, but oftentimes painful. There were always conservative elements entrenched as upholders of an older order, against which the progress- ives had to fight. During the last century these changes, protestations, revolts, reforms whatever one chooses to [ 144 ] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING call them occurred with such ever increasing rapidity that the art critic had scarcely time to become accus- tomed to one revolution when a new one began. The two decades of this present century have intro- duced a series of new experiments in art. The ultra- modern movements cannot be called more than experi- ments, for they are attempts to introduce pure symbol- ism in art, to bring to a close the epoch ushered in by Giotto, and by retracing the steps of progress through the Byzantine period and through the Oriental, to return finally to the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. In the meanwhile the experiments cannot but be pain- ful to a public with an historic consciousness, for they are abrogations of the principle of life which is based upon the preservation and not upon the destruction of the accomplishements of the human race. S5Tnbolism, itself, is nothing new in art. When frankly professed, it may have a deep mystical meaning such as Byzantine art at its best did have. But our modem symbolists are at the same time distortionists; they suggest that symbolism implies distortionism, and in this they court criticism. It is a question whether the distortion of objects has any aesthetic value in itself. In the primitives we can condone it, for with all their misimderstanding of form, they were struggling for mastery; it is the struggle which we admire. Henri Matisse began his career in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. At first he painted in the normal aca- demic fashion. The French government employed him for ten years to make copies of the old masters in the Louvre. He therefore had the solid foimdation de- [ 145] POTS AND PANS manded of a good artist in drawing, composition and technique. In 1913 he had a class of sixty pupils whom he made to study drawing and go through the stiff aca- demic training which he regarded to be essential for a firm foundation. It was while he was copying in the Louvre that Matisse discovered for himself that the classics had be- come a fetich. He began to feel that art needed a great change. If the present day were to produce anything original in art, he felt that painters must throw over- board the whole tradition of the past, and start over again, become again primitive. He then became interested in the wood carvings of African negroes, the sculpture of the natives of Poly- nesia and Java and of the Peruvian and Mexican In- dians. From them he obtained the incentive to seek a primitive vision of form and of color. He became also affected by Persian art, by the patterns and designs of ' the Orient. Many of his pictures show a certain amount of Oriental decorativeness. With no attempt at Natur- alism, they are flat patches of color pure, raw color and as such they are to an extent, decorations. One of his still-lives, exhibited at the Montross gal- leries in New York in 1915, shows an interior with a window through which we look out upon a city street. By the window is a table with a bowl of goldfish and a flower pot. Behind the table is a sofa with pillows, and in the extreme foreground is another table with a bowl upon it. It is very easy to tell what all these objects are. To that extent they are not symbolic, but why they are painted is a mystery, for so clumsy is the draw- [ 146] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING ing, that there is no beauty to the objects. There is no perspective, no atmosphere, no light. Color, of course, there is, but it does not impress one. It appears to be the purpose of the picture to suggest or to symbolize a group of objects and it is left to the beholder's mind to picture their actual beauty. This lack of objective beauty in the pictures of Matisse, makes one question whether this is an art for the eye. It seems rather an art for the mind. To im- derstand these creations, one has to indulge a trifle too much in psychologic and philosophic speculation, and one is often driven to the conclusion that this is not an art at all, but a kind of science. In 1913 James Huneker wrote, "Paris is always the prey of the dernier cri, and Matisse, unless he has been ousted during the last month, is not only the latest cry but we hope the ultimate scream." The distortionists individually cannot be taken seriously, but the symbolist movement, of which they form a part, will undoubtedly claim serious attention. Already out of the experiments of a few ultra-moderns there is developing a new mode of expression which is influencing and has influenced a great body of artists. Finally, at the close of our chapter on French still- life painting we come to a group of "Independents" with whom still-lives appear to be the most popular subjects. I refer to the Cubists. "Cubism" is a cult which professes "the joy of con- fining unhmited art within the limits of a single pic- ture." A still-life picture by a Cubist is an arrange- ment of a number of pictures upon one canvas. The [ 147] POTS AND PANS third dimension is overcome. Let us take Pablo Picas- so's "Nature Morte Espagnole" of 1912. At first sight it looks Uke an impression of a photographic plate which has been exposed several times, and printed in color. And so it looks at second sight and at third sight. There appear to be bottles, glasses, dumb-bells, sheets of paper, books and photographs, distorted, jumbled together and confused. In back of it all is the artistic intention to picture a multitude of impressions which these objects give him. It is true that a group of objects give one an infinite number of sensations. If seen from different angles in different lights, they vary. "Objects have not one absolute form but many." Objects also can suggest an infinite number of associations. A wine bottle sug- gests flowing liquor. If it can be painted corked and standing up, while at the same time open, tilted and pouring wine, there is that much more to be enjoyed. The truth of this philosophy cannot be denied, but whether it be the province of art to record a conflict of sensations is another question. The Cubists have no common principle which guides their work, they revolt against any system, hence their methods differ. Picasso, Metzinger, Leger, Gleizes and Picabia are the most kaleidoscopic in their results. Derain appears to be the most logical in the application of Cubist theories. His pictures are composite, that is, there is more than one visualization of the objects in them, they are "mixed images," to use a Cubist term. But he differs from most of his confreres in being com- paratively simple. As a still-life painter he seems to be more interested in objects themselves and less in a men- [ 148 ] FRENCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING tal analysis of his own sensations concerning them. In his pictures objects partly respond to one's normal per- ception of them. The effect is spiritistic. They are ghost pictures. Tables and flower pots are semi-invis- ible. We cannot conveniently see what is hidden behind or within them. But without effort we can tell that they are flower pots and tables, and for that in a Cubist pic- ture, we must be thankful. These Cubistic still-lives have one interest for us, in that they represent the extreme radical tendency of one wing of the revolutionary movement in art. This is their value in a history of still-life painting and they have no other. [149] CHAPTER 6 Chinese and Japanese Still-Life Painting CHAPTER 6 Chinese Flower Painting It is, perhaps, somewhat stretching the limits of our subject to include Far-Eastern fruit and flower paint- ing. Chinese and Japanese painting is essentially con- ventional, far removed in spirit from the naturalism of the West. Moreover, it employs, for the most part, growing fruits or flowers. If we make a distinction in our study of still-life painting between live and dead animals, should we not consistently make the same dis- tinction between growing and cut flowers? Such dis- tinctions, however, are difficult to maintain. While Chinese and Japanese artists attempted, as a rule, the. representation of growing plants, yet they did a great deal of what we must term still-life painting. What- ever may be our conclusions on this point, the Far-East has exercised so great an influence on modem still-Ufe painting in the West that the latter can hardly be un- derstood without a knowledge of what this influence means. [ 158 ] POTS AND PANS We in the West have become so accustomed to admit- ting that what seems new and surprising to us is as old as history to the East, that we forget the significance of the admission. Of all that is vital to culture, this is especially true, and therefore true of art. Western archaeologists have been fond of pointing out, in defense of the Occident, what Chinese and Indian art owes to the Hellenistic. But Hellenistic art is a mixture itself of Asiatic and Greek elements, and if China owes anything to this art, it is because it in turn reflects the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian. Asiatic art is something peculiar to the geographic background against which it flourished, and through all the centuries of development it breathed a spirit as remote from that of European art as the nature of the Asiatic peoples is remote from that of the European. I refer to the precociousness of eastern art because in China, as early as the Tang Dynasty, 618-906 A. D., landscape art was practiced, and appreciated for itself, indeed given a very high place in the realm of art, as it never had anywhere in the West until the nineteenth century. Not long afterward, this interest in trees and birds and flowers, grew into or led to an interest in piu*e flower painting or still-life. There is always a difficulty on the part of a Westerner in understanding Chinese art. This is due, for the most part, to our ignorance of its historic background. To appreciate a French or an English painting is easy for us, for, unconsciously, we see it against its whole historic background. We are used to chiaroscuro be- cause every picture from Masaccio down to our own [154] CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING days has possessed it, more or less. We are used to a third dimension because the West has accepted Giotto's way of painting. We have our own ideas about natur- aHsm in art, borrowed from remote classic times. So, if we are normal Westerners, not reincarnated from the East, we find it well-nigh impossible to enjoy, at first, a Chinese or Japanese work of art. We may, perhaps, appreciate its decorative qualities, but we absolutely refrain from seeking its subtle qualities of line and rhythm. Since Whistler and Manet we have learned much, but still I believe the above statement is in the main correct. Let us take for a challenge a painting by Ririomin (Li Lung-mien), or by Mu Ch'i (Mokkei), both artists of the best period of Chinese art that period which set the standard for all succeeding ages, and produced a style that is reflected in the humblest fan or Japanese print. A famous painting by Li Lung-mien is his "Yuima" or Buddhist philosopher. We see him seated in abstract meditation. It seems nothing more than a drawing with no realistic surroundings of any kind. The figure is placed against the background of softly tinted paper. It has no cast shadows. The hands and face are unshaded. The wrapped figure seems like a phantom; it is not solid, it is a ghost. In truth, it is the spirit of the great philosopher. Mu Ch'i's famous "Kwannon" may be taken as another example. Again it is the symbol, this time of the serene Deity which we see. As if floating in mid-air, the figure is seated, legs crossed, upon a rock by the waterside. Her draperies, her features, are indicated merely by expressive brush [155] POTS AND PANS lines, in ink, upon the tinted background. The rocks, the water, are but suggested. The rest is left to our imagination. The nearest approach we have to this kind of paint- ing in the West is in the early Byzantine Illuminations. The work of Pollaiuolo or of Botticelli approaches it closely, but the pictures of these artists are not paintings at all, in the Western sense, but tinted line drawings. Western painting in reality shows no relation to the Chinese. The reason for this lies partly in the funda- mental principle of Oriental art, far different from any- thing in historical European art, that art should not aim to reproduce the actual outward appearance of things, with their tactile and spacial values, volume, third di- mension, etc., but to express the emotion that they create in the artist. In other words, there is a mystical idea underlying the whole matter. If we today can understand this it is because we live in an age which has been influenced by Japanese art. It is doubtful if a tenebrist of the Renaissance could have understood it, and certainly not a realist of the type of Courbet. The principle was explained by the eleventh century Chinese essayist and painter Kuo Hsi. He asked, "Why is it that virtuous men love landscape painting?" He answered that it was because the phenomena of nature responded to certain needs of the human soul, and a picture of mountauis and springing waterfalls, with flowers nestled in the crags, would lead men "away from the noisiness of the dusty world and the locked-in-ness of human habitations." In a word, it freed the soul. [156] CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING "A mountain is a mighty thing," he said, "hence its shape ought to be high and steep, freely disposing itself like a man at ease, or standing up with grandeur or crouching down hke a farmer's boy." "Rocks are the bones of the heaven and earth, and, being noble, are hard and deep. Rocks and forests, in paintings, should preeminently have reason. One big pine is to be painted first, called the master patriarch, and miscellaneous trees, grass, creepers, pebbles and rocks, as subjects under his supervision, as a wise man over his petty men." These sayings, and others, prove to us how every char- acteristic form in nature may be compared to a state of mind, as Fenellosa writes, how, for instance, the wonder- ful twisted trees, mighty mountain pines and cedars, loved by these early Chinese and later Japanese, really exhibit the deep philosopher in their great knots and scaly Hmbs that have wrestled with storms and frosts and earthquakes, undergoing a process almost identical with man's life, struggling with enemies, misfortunes and pain. Thus nature becomes a vast and picturesque world for the profound study of character, and nature is not a subject to be copied, but to be used as material for the artist as he pleases. Why should the artist care whether his picture imitates nature if his trees are tree- like and his men manly? But philosophical considera- tions, alone, did not influence the form of Chinese art. The technique of Chinese painting has perhaps as much to do with it. From the very earliest times the Chinese painted on silk and on paper, as well as on the surface of walls. [157] POTS AND PANS But we might say that the roll or screen of silk is to Chinese painting what canvas is to European painting. This is the surface delicate and frail, which does more than anything else to give a unique character to Chinese art. Beautiful in itself, and costly, obviously it should not be hidden behind layers of paint. Therefore, either white or tinted, the silk should show. Upon this the brushwork is to be done but what kind? The analogy between Chinese writing and Chinese painting is very close, and Chuiese artists have often referred to the similarity. Writing was regarded as an art. From their writing done with a brush, the Chinese developed a skill in brush work that we can hardly ap- preciate. Painting began with the thin brush stroke like a pen line, with ink for a medium, upon the silk. We would call it drawing, were it not for the fact that a brush was used. Then, according to the fancy of the artist, or the taste of the period in which he worked, the lines would be filled in, sometimes with pale, sometimes with rich color and gold, or with ink-washes, producing monochromes. So it is the brush stroke that gives Chinese painting its final character; therefore it is by what the brush can do, with its fine hair line, its sweeping curves, its subtle modulations, its dehcate shading upon the silk, that we must judge Chinese painting, technically. The Chinese have throughout all their history accepted the line as a convention for their art. The problem for us is to see what they did with it. Fenellosa has expressed the Chinese feeling in painting thus : "It is not things that we want in art, but the beauty of things; and if this [158] CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING beauty dwells largely in their line, their boundaries of space, their proportions and shapes, and the unity and system of the line rhythms it is a glorious convention that can seize on just that and make supreme music out of it." The artist who did most to make this technique the means of expression par excellence in China was Wu Tao Tzu, called in Japanese Godoshi, a man placed by Chinese critics "at the head of all Chinese painting an- cient or modern." He flourished in the Tang Dynasty between 713-735 A. D. His name is worth noting in our study of still-life painting because he was one of the founders of monochrome painting a style frequently used later in still-life studies. Whether he painted mys- tical Buddhist pictures, rich in coloring, or landscapes in black and white he has been called the father of landscape-painting his line had a power and a rhythm that proved the force and expressiveness of his technique to all succeeding generations. He, with his contem- porary Wang Wei (Omakitsu) who was especially famous for his black and white style in landscape, did most to make landscape painting what it was in China. It was wild nature, fierce and majestic, which these ancients sought the same nature which we in the Western world never understood until the nineteenth century. It was not long before the development of landscape painting led to flower painting, and painting of birds and animals. This natural sequence is exactly parallel to what happened in the seventeenth century in the West. [159] POTS AND PANS The Dutch, the first pure landscapists, were also the first still-Ufe painters. Okakura in his "Book of Tea" has written very beau- tifully of the Chinese love of flowers. And Laurence Binyon also writes with sympathetic appreciation of the charm of Chinese flower painting. "The Chinese artist brings us to the flower," he writes, "that we may con- template it and take from it into our souls something of the beauty of life which neither sows nor spins." As early as the tenth century in the Sung Dynasty, the Chinese possessed that poetic devotion for flowers, philo- sophic in many ways, which we in the West did not claim till the time of Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake and Lowell. The so-called father of bird- and flower-painting in China was Ch'u Hui or Hsii Hsi ( Joki) , a man who in- spired much of Japanese flower painting. He lived dur- ing the transition between the Tang and Sung dynasties, i. e., in the tenth century. Besides his pictures of little birds perched on slender twigs, in full color, and of herons, he was famous for his lotus flowers which were the mod- els for artists in later times. He painted upon coarse silk so that his line was softened, and thus his flowers, when deUcately tinted, had an elusive character so much admired by both the Chinese and Japanese. Huang Ch'uan (Kosen) was a contemporary of Ch'u Hui, of whose work there is an example or probably a copy, in the Freer Collection a peony, remarkable for its many subtle tones of purple and pink. Li Ti and Lou Kuan were two other painters of this time who have left us exquisite designs of rose mallows. By the eleventh century, flower painting was very [160] CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING general, so that when Kuo Hsi (Kakki) , whom we have quoted, wrote his essay on painting he mentions flower painting. "He that wishes to study flower painting," he said, "should put one blossoming plant in an earthen pot, and look upon it from above. He that studies bamboo painting should take one bamboo branch, and cast its shadow on a moonlight night upon a white wall." We have a painting of black bamboo, by Bunyoka, who lived about the year 1100, which seems as if it had been painted from Kuo Hsi's prescription.^ It is a land- scape, but the landscape is lost in mfst ; across this back- ground passes the shadow, or so it seems, of two tall, graceful bamboo branches, in simple washes, each leaf indicated by one brush stroke, so well composed and spaced that the effect is wonderfully decorative. These bamboo studies have been repeated in every age of Chi- nese art up to the present time. It is stated that Chinese artists spent their whole lives studying conscientiously the rhythmic movement of the bamboo stalks, as these swaying, delicate branches seemingly expressed the elusiveness of the human soul. In the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japanese prints bamboo designs were frequently employed, the artist still inspired by the classic decorations of Kuo Hsi and Bunyoka. When Ch'ien Shun-Chii (Shunkio) in the thirteenth century, painted his "Crumpled Camellias,"^ he, too, seems to follow Kuo Hsi's advice. They are painted from above, one single plant, with one full opened flower, and two half opened, and by means of eliminating all 1 Reproduced in Fenellosa, II, p. 26. 2Rep reduced in Fenellosa, II, p. 54. [16J] POTS AND PANS superfluous background details, he arrives at the essen- tial character of the flower, its wax-like lustre, its decora- tive form, the way it joins the stem. He cares for noth- ing else. This is true also of the art of Wang Jo-Sui, another great flower painter of the thirteenth century. The central idea is insisted upon. I believe that the decorative quality of so much of Chinese and later Jap- anese art is due chiefly to this insistence upon one point in a picture, and the daring elimination of all else. The Chinese and Japanese deliberately refrained from say- ing all that they had to say. The background being left neutral and the accessories subdued, the effect is natural- ly formal and flat, and, as we know the Chinese care- fully studied boundaries of space, the result is decorative. The value of still-life painting was so well appre- ciated in the Sung and Yuen dynasties, which, with the Tang, formed the creative age of Chinese art, that when the Emperor Hui Tsung in the twelfth century cata- logued the classes of paintings in China, out of ten kinds, four are of decorative still-life character, namely, "Drag- ons and Fish," "Birds and Flowers," "Ink Bamboos" and "Vegetables and Fruit." What we learn from Chinese flower painting, and Chinese still-life in general, is first, the value of pure line; second, the decorative importance of free spaces; third, the possibility of being minute in details without slavish imitation. The Chinese artists, following Ch'u Hui (Hsu Hsi-Joki) were delicately minute, and faith- ful to the object they portrayed, but never did they in- sist on a mere reproduction of what they saw. They attended to the drawing of each petal and stamen only [162] CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING SO far as their lines expressed the character of the flower. What details there were, were happily contrasted against open spaces, their compositions were creations, not imi- tations, in that they were studiously built up to make their decorative effect. There was nothing reaUstic whatever about this art, hence Chinese still-life painting is the very antithesis of European, i. e., Dutch and French. As we shall see, these principles were followed by Japanese artists and, through Japanese art, had a de- cided effect upon nineteenth century painting in the West. II Japanese Still-life While the greatest epoch for still-life painting in Japan was the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and our chief interest lies here, it is necessary to cast a retro- spective glance upon what was going on in the art world of Japan before this time. Early Japanese art is Buddhistic, that is, essentially religious, hieratic and mystic. In the fifth century, con- quered Korea a highly civilized state, permeated with Chinese culture turned upon her conquerors and peace- fully enslaved her barbaric Japanese overlords by intro- ducing Chinese art and the Buddhist religion into Japan. From these two sources sprang two streams of influence. Buddhism imparted a national artistic tradition to Japan; Indian, and behind them Hellenistic Greek forms were introduced, with a love for richness of effect and the use of color with gold. At the same time there [ 163 ] POTS AND PANS flourished alongside of the Buddhistic, the Chinese tradi- tion of line painting which was secular rather than re- ligious, freer, allowing greater play for individual ex- pression. Under different names, such as Tosa and Kano, these two great movements in art continued to flourish in Japan up to modem times. It is needless to say that the Chinese line tradition was that which even- tually gave rise to most of the still-life painting in Japan, although the national hieratic school also pro- duced much decorative flower painting. It would seem natural that there should have been a continuous minghng of the artistic culture of both the great oriental empires, but as a matter of fact at times Japan definitely cut herself off from Chinese influence, and for centuries, up until 1368, there was a complete breach between the two countries, during which period feudal Japan developed a national art elaborate, rich and ornamental. But with the advent of the Ming Dynasty in China, and the reign of the liberal Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu the Lorenzo de Medici of Japan a new era commenced, when Chinese, especially Chi- nese Sung culture was warmly welcomed. Then the ancient hieratic tradition died out as a creative, national school, to be revived later in the seventeenth century with the decorative screen painters. The history of Jap- anese art shows us a series of recurrent renaissances, al- ways due to Chinese influence, alternating with periods of strict isolation when Japanese nationahsm asserted itself. Josetsu, the founder of the fourteenth century Renais- sance, was possibly Chinese himself; his pupil Shubun [ 164] CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING was a Chinaman; they were both trained in China as were also their two famous followers Sesshu and Kano Masanobu. All of these men painted in Indian ink, lightly tinting their silk backgromids, in the classic Chi- nese manner. It might be said that they transported Chinese art to Japan, for after this time, Chinese art as a creative force died out, while the greatest period began for Japan. In the fourteenth century countless works of Chinese art were imported to Japan ^happily, as subsequently they might have been destroyed in China. Sesshu was perhaps the most forceful, the most orig- inal master of these Chinese-trained artists. When he returned from China, he brought with him the style of the old Tang and Sung masters, force and expressive- ness of line, richness of tone, subtlety in monochrome, while to these he added a quahty, distinctly Japanese and at the same time his, spirit. He was more versatile in line than was possibly any Chinese painter for he could wield his brush with soft, gentle, modulating strokes in the true painter's style, or with crisp, strong, sketchy lines like an etcher's. There is a painting on paper by Sesshu in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts of a pine branch with cherry blossoms and a pigeon. The pine needles are drawn with bold, decorative strokes, while in contrast the pigeon is delicately modelled. Sesshu was the master of Kano Masanobu, the first of the great Kano school. Both did flowers, but Utanosuke, Masanobu' s son, was preeminent in this branch of painting. His style went back to Hsu Hsi ( Joki) the "father" of flower painting in the tenth cen- tury. Unlike many of the Japanese painters, but like [ 165 ] POTS AND PANS Hsu Hsi, his outlines were soft, while his color tones often mere monochromes, were so richly, yet so deli- cately brushed in that his birds and flowers seemed shaded even modelled as solidly as any European painting. Besides the painting of birds and flowers, true still- life painting flourished in the Ashikaga period. Fruits and vegetables were frequently painted. In the Boston Museum there are two paintings on paper, in ink, faintly tinted with color, by the sixteenth century painter Yamada Doan. One shows simply two melons, grouped together; the other, three egg plants (Figs. 68 and 69). About the year 1600 began the Tokugawa period in Japanese art, which lasted down to 1868, during which time Japan was again shut off from foreign influence, and developed her Chinese heritage along national Japanese lines. In the seventeenth century there was a great revival of the national color style. Koyetsu was the leader of this movement. He founded a great decorative school which loved splendor, golden back- grounds, bold color schemes, and impressionistic effects. There is little of the Chinese line-tradition in this school ; on the other hand it was a retimi to the old national ideas concerning art, rich and magnificent like the Bud- dhistic paintings. It was also an essentially national school in that Japanese plant forms were used in decora- tion, and it was par excellence the era for gorgeous flower compositions. There is a screen in the Freer collection by Koyetsu, with a background of silver leaf, against which fall in true vine-like fashion, great sprays of ivy leaves in dull [166] CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING red and olive and silvery green. There are no outlines; the beauty is in its pattern and arrangement. Another screen in the Freer Collection/ by Koyetsu, is of silver, upon which in lively colors is designed what seems almost a tangle of American Indian cornstalks, with great sweeping leaves and tossing tassels. In the midst of these intertwine the stems and flowers of morn- ing glories, and, shooting off through the maze is a large scarlet coxcomb. Even such a brief description as this conveys the richness of the composition, which no painter, save a Japanese, could have arranged in a deco- rative way, giving at the same time great richness of color with expressiveness of line. There is an impres- sionism about this work which seems extremely modem. A companion com screen in the Freer Collection is of gold instead of silver, upon which again are the cornstalks, morning glories, coxcombs, a marvel of con- trasting colors, olive greens, reds, pale blues, pinks and yellows, so well spotted as to leave a clear and certain decorative impression. Sotatsu, a contemporary of Koyetsu, was likewise famous for his color design (Fig. 70) . In this the two painters more closely approach the European conception of what painting should be, than do the followers of the line tradition. Sotatsu is con- sidered by Japanese art critics as the greatest flower painter after Utanosuke. There are two screens of his in Boston, in gold, with the color thickly applied in impasto over the background, without line. Other screens of the same artist are to be found in the Freer collection. Sometimes he uses dull 3 Reproduced in Fenellosa, II, 124. [167] POTS AND PANS gold backgrounds, and color transparently washed over it, allowing the gold to show through, but, unlike Koy- etsu, he is less impressionistic, being infinitely minute and delicate preferring smaller forms. One of his screens is decorated with peonies and morning glories, mingled with their leaves and the tall blades of grasses. The background is of a pale rose color, the leaves of various hues of brown. The decoration is massed toward the lower right-hand side where three large white peony flowers stand out Itmiinously against the background of brown and greenish leaves, while above are three other pink flowers. Another screen of Sotatsu's represents large clumps of asters, with grasses, massed according to their color. The flowers are painted delicately but flatly in large decorative groups, with smaller clumps of poppies in- terspersed. The effect is both rich and elegant. Sotatsu's drawings do much to help us understand the process of his art. Minutely complicated leaves and stems, mazes of vines, reeds and grasses of every form, tall, slender iris stalks, large elephant ears, delicate wis- taria, he will contrast one against the other, these masses relieved by a plain background so that the whole panel is never covered. But standing out from the midst of these intricate mazes will be always some large flower. Thus he enriches his design with every contrasting shape and form. Korin, who lived from 1660 to 1716, is perhaps the greatest of the impasto decorators. He is not unhke Koyetsu, painting upon gold, with naturalistic designs of flowers, plants and grasses. In the Freer collection is [168] SOTATSU POPPIES, WHEAT AND NATANE FLOWERS CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING a screen painted by him, of gold, designed with sprays of chrysanthemums, naturally rendered, with their stems, leaves and flowers. His iris screens for which he was especially renowned are nimierous. One reproduced in colors by Fenellosa, shows what remarkable decorative quality can result from absolute naturalistic treatment. The design consists of nothing but a continuous group- ing of blue irises waving their tall stems among their pointed leaves. Korin, like Sotatsu, loved to contrast various flower and leaf forms. One of his screens representing "Flowers of the Seasons," is a continuous frieze of peach blossoms, primroses, columbine, irises and other early flowers against a neutral background, but growing naturally the decorative quality being due to Korin's contrast of large forms against small, and dark color against light. Korin's sketches of flowers were frequently copied in woodcuts in the next century. They are broadly treated with very little color and were admirable in serving to stamp upon the art of wood engraving that simplicity for which it became noted. Up to the sixteenth century Japanese art of whatever school had, like the Chinese, been aristocratic. Painting had been considered the privilege of noble birth "a gentle art" and pictures or decorations were made chiefly for the palaces of royal and wealthy patrons, or for the temples. But at this time there arose a more popular and genre school, founded by Matahei, living 1578-1650. It was this school which found its chief ex- pression eventually in wood-engraving, and therefore [169] POTS AND PANS was based upon the old Chinese line tradition rather than upon the Japanese color design. Tanyu was a painter who was studying life about him. He made thousands of studies of fish, birds, reptiles, insects and flowers. But Monorobu, 1647-1695, did most to estab- lish the school. He painted scenes from the life of the people, their pleasures, dancing girls, flirtation scenes, the stage, etc., mostly in Yeddo (Tokio), hence the name Ukijo-je, "painting of the floating world." Be- cause these pictures were made for the populace and must necessarily conmiand but a small price, the incen- tive arose to reproduce them in prints. Harunobu (1718-1770) was the founder of Japanese wood printing in the style familiar to us in the West. With him continued the essentially naturalistic move- ment in Japanese art (Fig. 71). Shigenaga, his master about 1740, started two-color printing previously prints had been hand-colored upon a plain background but Harunobu used many colors, first giving his back- grounds soft grey or green coloring, and then, by in- creasing the numbers of his blocks, multiplied his colors until finally fifteen were applied by as many blocks. The year 1763 marks the date of his first real polychrome print. It was Harunobu who popularized the surimono the New Year or Announcement card a square, small-sized picture which was later used principally for still-life. In the Peytel Collection, Paris, there is a veritable still-life print by Harunobu which illustrates perfectly the influence of the ancient Chinese tradition, through Sesshu and Josetsu. It is a vase of flowers. The back- [ 170 ] HARUNOBU VASE OF FLOWERS AND RISING MOON COLLECTION OF J. PEYTEL, PARIS CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING ground is softly tinted grey, with clouds, above which rises a full moon, pale and silvery. The vase of flowers, a large, crater-shaped urn, with three small grotesque- headed feet, takes up the lower half of the composition. As if growing in sand, a group of small flowers, with their stems and leaves, peer out over the edge all deli- cately designed in pale colors. The whole is an arrange- ment in greys, ochres and pale pinks, but the clearness of the colors gives it a luminosity for which Harunobu was famous. But perhaps it was Hokusai (1760-1849) who did most to promote still-life painting. He it was who used the surimono form so extensively that it became popular with his many pupils and followers. As a painter who endeavored to picture the entire cycle of human inter- ests, he gave his attention to genre subjects of trivial character, historical and legendary tales, landscape, animal life, flowers and pure still-life of inanimate ob- jects. Between 1830 and his death, he produced a set of ten large flower pictures, a set of ten smaller ones, and a large study of chickens. His large "Lobster and Pine Branch" in the Vever Collection, Paris,* which may be considered a true still-life picture, is a fine example of decoration. The title itself indicates the interesting color contrasts in green. The lobster, boldly designed, twisting about on his tail, his great antennae stretching clear across the panel, forms a striking contrast to the delicate needles of the pine branch. In his decorative flower panels Hokusai adhered to * Reproduced in von Seidlitz, p. 172. [171] POTS AND PANS the principles of the great older masters of design, sweeping his forms across the panels. Unlike Korin and Sotatsu, he preferred large flowers, and seems to have been inspired rather by Chien Chmi Chii (Shunkio) and Joki, taking parts of a large plant or vine, as though his picture represented a seg- ment. But he had none of the subtlety and delicacy of these masters. His compositions are seldom filled, never crowded, as he depended upon large bare spaces to in- crease the decorative effect. Some of his compositions of flowers in the British Museum are especially rich, where he has placed great open red and pink flowers, dangling on their tall stems amidst their luxurious leaves, against a plain background of rich blue. There is little shading to his leaves and petals, as it is not depth of tone nor volume that is demanded of a print, but simple washes of color and bold contrasts. Hokusai was one of those Japanese artists who loved to play with their art. Von SeidUtz very justly remarks that the fimdamental idea in any rhythmic art, like the Japanese, is that of play. Hokusai never tired of experiments, of caprices; the trivial or the serious was always treated with the same spontaneous freedom, and his still-life pieces were the result of the playful impulse that so often animated him. Two of Hokusai's pupils paid special attention to still- lives in surimono form. I have before me a nimciber of little greeting cards by Gakutei, Hokkei, Shinsai, and others. Many of these are very charming trivialities. Hokkei is the most talented of the group. One of his surimonos represents a black lacquered chest with gold and silver [172] HOKKEI, SURIMONO OR GREETING CARD CHINESE AND JAPANESE STILL-LIFE PAINTING ornaments, and open drawers out of which streams a quantity of clothing (Fig. 72). It is a composition in subtle brown, reds, blacks, gold and silver. Another Hokkei likewise shows a black chest, over which is thrown an actor's wardrobe of strange garments. Shin- sai was a very prolific artist in surimono. One of these before me represents a screen, lacquered brown and black, a bow and quiver of arrows old Japanese weap- ons and a vase of twigs. Another Shinsai represents a zylophone table, a black lacquered box, with actor's equipment. Still another shows us a lacquered table with a piece of bric-a-brac upon it, while on the floor is a box of clothing. As with all still-life painting, whether western or oriental, the apparent triviality of the objects portrayed has httle to do with the aesthetic character of the pic- ture. In the case of the surimonos, as with the flower arrangements of Harunobu, the decorative treatment, the design, is the principal thing. As we have seen, with the exception of Koyetsu, Korin and the colorist school of Japan, all Chinese and Japanese still-life was con- cerned most with line. When the western world late in the nineteenth century was confronted for the first time with this historic art, they witnessed the negation of all that the old masters of Europe had made traditional. [173] CHAPTER 7 Modern Dutch Still-Life Painting CHAPTER 7 "Art *was our national glory," writes the Dutch critic Max Havelaer, "it is Thow our national sin." It is difficult for a people with a great past to ap- preciate their own present, and the Dutch look back upon a Golden Age whose splendour has forever van- ished. That Golden Age was, of course, the seventeenth century. But Hollanders look back almost as proudly, and perhaps more fondly, because the memory is more fresh, upon the Renaissance of the nineteenth century. In Israels they delight to see a reflection of Rem- brandt, imperfect to be sure, but still resembling him. Not since the seventeenth century has any man, save Millet, painted age and human suffering with the sym- pathy of Israels. In the great Bosboon they find the old painters of church interiors reborn, Pieter Neefs, Jacob van Vliet and Emmanuel de Witte; only Bos- boom seems to fill the ancient churches with far more of their true religious spirit than any of his predecessors have done. In Christoffel Bisschop, painter of Frisian life, in Kever, Artz, Neuhuys and Blommers, all painters of peasant types and of cottage interiors, the Little Mas- [177] POTS AND PANS ters littler still perhaps appear again in modem guise. In still-life painting, too, the old Dutch masters were revived in Maria Vos, Adriana Haanen, van de Sande Bakhuysen and AUebe. But best of all are the landscape painters of the nineteenth century, for the Maris brothers, Jongkind, Mauve, Poggenbeek, Weis- senbruch, Theophile de Bock, Gabriel and Roelofs surpass anything that was done in landscape in the Golden Era. One single painter of the seventeenth century alone hold his own in modem landscape. When one stands before Veraieer's "View of Delft" in the Mauritzhuis, The Hague, one realizes that Veraieer is not an Old Master, but a modem one. The Hague group of painters formed a truly great school. They represented a Period in Dutch art. Founded on national traditions although influenced by the Barbizon they took their inspiration from Dutch life and Dutch scenery. They were thoroughly Dutch themselves. The Hague painters found or could find their fellow countrymen in the same environment, pretty much, that surrounded them when the seventeenth century masters flourished. The same skies hovered overhead, the same thatched or tile-roofed cottages and windmills dotted the landscape. The same rugged folk married, bore large families of children, lived their lives of hardship mixed with pleasure, as in the age two hun- dred years before. Today, as we look on the works of these painters most especially those of Jacob Maris, Mauve and Bos- boom we find an old-master quality in them. And yet they are, or were in their day, modem. They are more [178] MODERN DUTCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING personal, more impressionistic, more colorful; that is why they are modern. And they have that quality called style, by which we can always tell a Bosboom or a Maris or a Mauve; that is why they are masterpieces. Naturally, now that these men are all dead, we have taken it for granted that art in Holland has died with them. The Dutch themselves, many of ihejoot, have taken the same attitude, for that is the way with every generation to think that art is dead. But where is the artist who will believe it? Fortun- ately there is another side of the story. That still-hfe painting is highly appreciated today in Holland is revealed by the Dutch art critic Albert Plasschaert who writes very feelingly on the subject.* He says that the art of Holland is essentially that of still-life an art of quiet and sober things. One of his passages about still-life is worth quoting: "You must know how quiet things can stand in their kingdom of a room, if you wish to enjoy still-hfe. . . . Still-life is the vase of roses in a room on which shines the late golden Hght of evening. Still-Ufe is the hght the restful light seen through an open doorway, in a far-off room, like an illusion. Still-life is the speech of lifeless things, the admission that things can speak. Still-life is the glass of water ^the fleeting ghmmer of the water, like burnished metal. Still-hfe is the bouquet of field-flowers, or the death's head with a wine-red cloth, or the ceramic tile on which Love flees, or the wax- hke shine of anemones, many anemones. Still-life is all these, and, too, it is the gentle confession of the heart." i"Het Zien van Schilderijen," Arnhem, 1919. [179] POTS AND PANS And again he writes, "Seek in a still-life stillness and meditation. You may find there action, drama and passion, but the best still-life is that wherein inward calm is attained in quietness." Such passages show an unusual mystical interpreta- tion of still-life painting. But what he says is true, for in the pictures of the greatest masters of still-life, like those of Kalff, Chardin and Latour, or of Vollon, Dearth and Carlsen, there is a serenity and calm which induces mystical contemplation. One can be extremely hopeful for modem Dutch art when still-life painting is so well appreciated and understood. It would be rash to say that a great period a new epoch is beginning in Holland, but it is clear to any- one visiting the exhibitions of contemporary art, where the works of various living painters are hung together, that a decided and interesting development is taking place. In spite of the great differences between the painters, perhaps more violent than between any paint- ers of the same land in previous times, there is a note in conmion. There is something in the exhibitions, as entities, which proclaims them to be of the twentieth century and Dutch. For the best ^which are not eccen- tric ^we detect that the Dutch attitude toward life is after all pictured here ; and because we see Dutch types and Dutch homes and Dutch furnishings, we find some- thing in common with the Dutch art of the past. And yet the great difference at first overwhelm- ing, and obliterating all similarities to anything past ^is the new vision, a vision above all of color, iatense, vibrating color, at the expense of sub- [180] MODERN DUTCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING tleties of tone. Tonalism? it is a thing of the past or so it appears at first. And then one becomes aware of new purposes the decorative and the symbolic. This new art is not so much of the heart as of the eye. One's heart is not touched, as with poetic sadness at the pic- tures of Israels or Artz, but one's eyes are delighted. This is not a poetic, a literary, a philosophic nor a moral- istic art, but a sensuous art, at times mystical, emotional, but in a different way from anything before. There is color, design and pattern. The appeal is to the out- ward eye. And yet the inward eye also responds, for "Beauty is its own excuse for being" and has its own mysterious need in om* spiritual life. It must not be forgotten that of the great schools of the seventeenth century, the still-life tradition in Holland alone remained unbroken through the centuries. Still- life painting was not affected by the French regime. It lingered longest, and was kept alive by Art Schouman (1710-1792), Jan van Os (1744-1808), Maria van Os (1780-1862) , and Adriana Haanen (1814-1895) . In the realm of still-life painting today the Dutch are true to their national tradition. Faithful, we should say, as far as subject matter is concerned, to an interest in objects because of what they can express. And the Dutch are also true to their creative sense, in making new discoveries, in finding new possibilities in the visible world. In still-life painting some of the most original work that is being done in any part of the world is being done in Holland. I shall commence by going back to the older painters. Of Maria Vos (1824-1906), I have already written in [181] POTS AND PANS the chapter on the seventeenth century schools. Al- though of the mneteenth century, she was a re-incarna- tion of the old masters, and second to none. She could do everything, almost, that the old still-life masters could do, rich decorative objects in the style of Kalff, dead game and poultry in the style of Fyt or Weenicx, or fruit and flowers in the style of Van Aelst (Fig. 73) . Another good still-life painter of the nineteenth cen- tury is Allebe, a veteran painter, still Uving. His pic- tures are small but very refined. Generally a basket of strawberries, or a bunch of asparagus is all he attempts. With him we have not reached the new decorative for- mula we are still in the intimate period. Van de Sande Bakhuysen attempted the style of van Huysum, in his still-life pictures the large collection of fruit on a stone table supposedly out of doors. His work is not so meticulous as van Huysum's, although he is a bit botanical. He could hardly be called modem. The still-life painters of the older generation are al- most too numerous to mention. Mevrouw Bisschop Robertson painted breakfast pieces in the style of the old Haarlem school, yet more modem in technical treat- ment. Her coloring shows the influence of Courbet; her pictures are therefore reaUstic but not colorful. Van Beyeren has his disciples in Holland as well as in France. WilHam Roelofs, Jr., the son of the well- known landscapist, has painted fish, slices of haddock with brown jugs and breakfast dishes. Yongkint is an- other disciple of van Beyeren. His fishes with cauH- flower or other vegetables are quite in the spirit of the old masters, with a trifle more brightness of coloring. [182] MARIA VOS, STILL-LIFE BOYMAn's museum, ROTTERDAM MODERN DUTCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING But with all these painters I have not yet touched upon any who show that modem freshness of vision, or fertility of invention which I have said were character- istic of still-life painting in Holland today. With all our admiration for national traditions in art, we are eager to find in each age an expression that is new. Willem Witsen is undoubtedly one of the most dis- tinguished of Dutch painters. Distinguished? Yes, in that his work shows a power, a grasp, an understanding which is exhibited only by a great individuality. It does not reflect the art of any other man. His more youthful work does. Some of his early street scenes and build- ings show that he began where Koekhoek, Springer and Klinkenberg left off, being very careful studies of sun- light and shadow with rather too much minute architec- tural detail. Then, as his work develops, one is re- minded of Bastert, and still more of Vermeer. But later he loses that imitative objectivity, and his buildings become more subjective expressive. One of the very finest still-lives in any Dutch gallery is Witsen's study of chrysanthemums in the Stedelyk Museum of Amsterdam. It is a large canvas, with noth- ing more than a copper cauldron filled with an enormous bunch of small yellow flowers. These are impression- istically rendered broadly handled for distant effect, and yet each flower is distinct and full of character. They are as bright a yellow as can be imagined, with a full light sparkling upon them. For richness of color, boldness of design and simplicity of arrangement the canvas is unsurpassed. [183] POTS AND PANS Another flower painter is Floris Verster of Leiden. A prolific painter, simple in his arrangements, and treat- ing flowers for their own sake, he might almost be called the Fantin-Latour of Holland today. Yet he is unlike this French painter in that he often sacrifices form for color. When he paints peonies, it is their gorgeousness alone he cares about; when he paints nasturtiums, it is their brilliancy and not their form. Herein is his mo- dernity. Sometimes he seeks purple color schemes and when he does this, it is clear he has been influenced by the school of Monet. He is above all a luminist. In originality of design, ingenuity of subject matter and decorative quaUties, Lizzy Ansingh deserves first place among all modern Dutch still-life painters. Wher- ever her work appears, it has the greatest distinction. Her subject matter is dolls ^Japanese dolls French dolls old-fashioned Dutch dolls any kind she finds. But one scarcely realizes they are dolls. Take, for ex- ample, her "Awakening" in the Stedelyk Museimi, Am- sterdam. (Her titles, too, deserve attention, suggesting, like the pictures themselves, something beyond the ob- jective fact.) It is like a picture by Arthur Rackham or Edmund Dulac, only far more interpretative of an original conception. It seems to be suggestive of a fairy tale, yet not illustrative. One should say it is not imita- tive of an oriental style, but Asiatic in spirit, at any rate, exotic. Then one looks intently and sees in the amazing design Japanese dolls, peacock feathers and gorgeously plumaged birds. The color scheme is blue and green. It might be the bottom of the sea, so like another world it appears. [184] j|M|k||^ ft ^^^Bi '^krt '' LIZZY ANSINGH, DE VERSTOOTENE (THE CAST-OFF TOYS) MODERN DUTCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING Sometimes her work reminds one of the later pictures by Henry Golden Dearth. One of her studies, entitled "De Verstootene" ("The Cast-Off Toys") (Fig. 74), with Japanese dolls, is treated in the style of ancient Japanese battle scenes. The little figures, clad in red and black, seem to be swinging their arms like warriors. Two other women painters of still-life are highly ap- preciated in Holland today Suze Robertson and Coba Ritsema. Suze Robertson is not so distinctly original in her subject matter as Lizzy Ansingh. She is content with the bottles and jars, the plates, vegetables and fruits familiar to us in the older masters. She is dis- tinctly modem, however, in her broad handling. There is great strength in her design, and what distinguishes her most perhaps in the seriousness of her work. Her coloring adds to this, for while it is bold and often vig- orous, it is sombre, hke tragic music. Coba Ritsema, like Suze Robertson, is a forceful painter who handles her pigment broadly, aiming for plastic effect. Sometimes her arrangements are quite striking, on account of their simplicity. She has a very personal way of interpreting objects, but per- haps she is most talented as a colorist. A painter who shows the same fertihty of invention as Lizzy Ansingh is Dysselhoff. He paints scenes in the great aquaria of Amsterdam. As if viewed from within the depths of the sea, his fishes seem to swim in actual water. On the bottom are bizarre aquatic plants, [185] POTS AND PANS sea anemones with their wide-open mouths, monsters with streaming tentacles and every kind of weird finned being, both beautiful and ugly. Sometimes he confines his sea animals to lobsters live green lobsters, an un- familiar sort to art. Van Hoytema is perhaps the strongest painter of pure decorative design. One sees at once in his work that he has been inspired by the famous seventeenth century decorators Hondekoeter and Weenicx, while he is at the same time mostly influenced by the Chinese and Japanese. These two influences are not conflicting. His landscapes have all the suggestive quahties of the Jap- anese, being carefully designed; 'his compositions of birds are splendid in arrangement and delicate in detail. The ingenuity of some of these modem Dutch decora- tive painters strikes one particularly in viewing the work of Goedvriendt. Goedvriendt paints mushrooms and toad-stools, great specimens with magnificent red, yel- low or green heads dangerous, poisonous-looking de- formations, but yet how weirdly beautiful! Goed- vriendt's mushrooms are growing out of doors, that is, they appear to be springing out of the leafy mold of the woods, but the darkness of the tree trunks behind them is more like that of a tapestry curtain. These mush- rooms are, we believe, not studies of life, but composi- tions of a very original character. Most of these painters just mentioned may be called decorative, exotic, still-life painters. With the others [186] MODERN DUTCH STILL-LIFE PAINTING they form a group whose work will certainly last. More names could be added, for still-life painting is popular with modem artists. There is de Zwart who loves the rich reds of geraniums, and Hobbe Smit who prefers the decorative effects of Chinese vases with flowers. Van Wyngaerdt with his lobsters, copper kettles and jugs shows the influence of Manet, while Jan Sluyters with his decorative patches and distorted drawing shows the influence of Cezanne. Independent of any influence, apparently, is de Winter, called an Expressionist, who seeks the mystical symbolism of flowers. The list could go on, but it is far from the purpose of this chapter to be encyclopaedic. It is enough to indicate the work that is being done today in the land where still-life painting was bom. [187] CHAPTER 8 American Still-Life Painting CHAPTER 8 I. Flowers Lataege, 1835-1910 John Laf arge returned to New York from his travels in Europe in the winter of 1857-58. He had not yet started on his career as a painter ^he still intended to take up law. But, as we know, he was destined to be an artist, and not a year had elapsed after his return before he had thrown himself heart and soul into his life work. Curiously enough, his first pictures were landscapes and still-Hves. From 1859 throughout the sixties he pro- duced the series of flower studies which gave him a po- sition alongside of Fantin-Latour as one of the great interpreters of flowers in the nineteenth century. It was curious that his first pictures should have been still-Uves or flower studies, because the painting of flowers was not considered at that time, in America at least, to be a very high aim in art. What training La- farge had received, what influences had been exerted upon him, were either academic or romantic. Although no young man could have enjoyed a more liberalizing, [ 191 ] POTS AND PANS cosmopolitan training than he, there was little inspira- tion in the art schools of Europe for a still-life painter. Certainly neither the atelier of Couture, nor the associa- tion of the Pre-Raphaehtes would have tinned Laf arge's thoughts to flower painting. Fantin-Latour, VoUon, Bonvin and the rest were all of his own age and had not yet done their remarkable still-life work. Even Courbet had not arrived at his still-life period. In America there was no precedent whatever for flower painting. It is difficult for us to put ourselves back, in thought, to those provincial times, when, in America, not even the Barbizon painters were known. American art was still a part of the English school. Artists outside the domain of portraiture occupied them- selves with the historical episode or romance, or with the familiar sentimental genre. In landscape the romantic or grandiose was considered to be the only kind sublime enough for art. "The Hudson River School" was struggling to express the individual beauties of Amer- ican scenery. Much good work was done, but it must be admitted that the middle of the nineteenth century was a period when art had sunk to a very low ebb. The great portrait painters of England and the few in America were dead. The Pre-Raphaelite movement was just awakening England, but nothing was as yet awakening America. Because of the decay of the Eng- lish school and of the Puritanic prejudice against the French, American artists had turned to Diisseldorf the centre of romance and to Munich for inspiration. They could scarcely have timied to a worse source. For Lafarge with his Parisian connections, to have [192] AMERICAN STILL-LIFE PAINTING started out as a painter, of whatever kind, in America, was therefore a courageous experiment on his part. But he met with William Morris Hunt, a Paris-trained man. With his encouragement and assistance it was possible for Laf arge to continue. We have not yet accounted for his interest in flower painting. This was due to his knowledge of and appre- ciation for Japanese art. That Lafarge so early in hfe, and so early in the nineteenth centiuy, should have un- derstood the significance of the Japanese is no sKght in- dication of his keen aesthetic insight. Japanese prints had only just been introduced into the West. There were few artists who saw anything in them beyond their decorative character, and this was considered to be so trifling as to be fit only for fans and seashore cot- tages. Lafarge, from the very first, and independently, saw the importance of this oriental art. Whistler, Manet, Monet, and a few others in France, it is true, were experimenting with Japanese design and tonality, but it must be remembered we are speaking of 1860. Lafarge's flower-studies are by no means adaptations of Japanese designs. They are not even Japanesque in character. On the contrary, they are thoroughly west- ern, naturalistic and painted from direct observation. Lafarge was sensible enough to know that as the in- heritor of western traditions in painting, and accustomed as he was from infancy to certain media and tools, certain ways of looking at things, he would find it impossible to throw over every accepted formula and instead to take over oriental formulas and an oriental point of view. But it was clear to him, as it has become clear to us, [19S] POTS AND PANS that the Chinese and the Japanese knew mfinitely more about flower painting than Europeans did, especially more about the decorative expressiveness of flowers. The difference may best be understood by comparing flower painting in Europe up to Laf arge's time with the Japanese. In the West, de Heem, Mignon and van Huysum had been the accepted masters of this art. They had established an infinitely delicate style, minute- ly accurate and highly ornate. While their own products are to be highly valued for their sumptuousness and richness, their influence was bad, as it led to a photo- graphic literalness or reaUsm, which in the hands of their followers became mere imitation. The Japanese, on the other hand, as we have seen, were more impression- istic, that is, they represented the character, the spirit of flowers, but more than that they sought to express the decorative value of them. This is what Laf arge did (Fig. 75). Lafarge sought the spirit of flowers rather than their botanical form. RecaUing his early flower studies, he himself said, "There were certain in which I tried to give something more than a study or a handsome arrange- ment. Some few were paintings of the water-lily, which has always appealed to the sense of something of a mean- ing a mysterious appeal such as comes to us from certain arrangements of notes of music."^ His "Wild Rose and Water Lily" in the possession of Mr. M. B. PhiHpp of New York illustrates as clearly as any of his pictures this subjective feeling. It represents the margin of a pool where a clump of wild roses is reflected 1 Cortissoz, p. 136. [ 194 ] H gS *"<#> :z;h ir ^"'2 fi^. -'*iK sS C^.--f o '^^^SiaH "*^^.. -. <:^ =>*. o<< "9