Vittore Pisano

Burlington House, is fresh in our mind. There is the work in dark marble, looking as fresh, beautiful, lifelike, and artistic, as it did the day it left the artist's hand. What simplicity, what truth of impression, and what subtle tonality is there seen! Those who remember this masterpiece may have noticed the way in which the outline of the neck is raised, and how untrue it looked close to; but at a distance the impression was perfect, and the suggestion of shadow most beautifully rendered. That the modelling of the mouth is feeble is obvious, but where is perfection? Casts of this work can be had for a mere trine from Bruciani, Covent Garden, and we strongly recommend those who have not seen the original to get one, for a suggestion of such work is better than a gallery of trash. There is another fine specimen of Donatello's work in low relief at South Kensington, but in that there is the mark of the allegorical, and it just misses the distinguished and simple character of the St. Cecilia. We do not care for his Judith and Holofernes, though it is one of the most noted of his works, and owes its renown more to its historical association than to its artistic qualities. Where Donatello relied on nature, however, his work is unsurpassed for truth and. subtlety. It was natural that such a great man should have many followers, but, like most imitators of genius, they copied his bad points and none of his good ones, for these they could not attain to, not being geniuses themselves. The wonderful medals of Vittore Pisano or Pisanello must not be forgotten, as they are well worthy of study. The student can get casts of most of these for a trifling sum, and we strongly recommend him to buy a few casts of Pisanello's medals.

Delia Robbia

The work of the Delia Robbia family is so well known that we must touch upon it, although for most of it we care little or nothing, the medium, a glazed terracotta, being unnatural. Lucca, the greatest of the family, worked, however, at first in marble. Here and there in his work one meets with a beautiful face, and often with fine expressions, but the whole lacks simplicity and fineness. He was more a decorative artist than a sculptor.

M. Angelo Cellini.

Canova.

Thorwald sen.

Modern French sculptors.

Future of

English sculpture.

Of Michael Angelo we have spoken. Benvenuto Cellini, a name well known, was a master in gold-working, but hardly a sculptor. Many lesser names follow, but no immortal is again seen in Italy; for though Canova made a name of some sort, he was no master. After Michael Angelo came imitation and decline. Neglect of nature, together with patronage, killed the spark of art, and so thoroughly killed it that even writers on art who had no art-training were listened to, as Winckelmaun and Lessing, but their work only produced an artificial afflatus, as Canova and Thorwaldsen proved, for both were small men, false in sentiment, and with little or no insight into nature. We say this advisedly, after seeing much of Canova's work and nearly all that of Thorwaldsen. There is no nature in their works, but in addition to a classical sentiment a puerile realism which is still in vogue in Italy to-day in such work as a Pears delights in, " You Dirty Boy" and other trivialities. England, Spain, Holland, and America seem, up to the present, not to have produced a single sculptor, but, in our humble opinion, the young sculptors of England will lead the way in the twentieth century, and the world may look for the advent of an immortal master and for work which will surpass the Greeks. At present France leads the way, and has some strong men in Jouffrey, Aube, Falguiere, Rodin; but there, too, the tendency seems to be towards a fumbling realism and petty motif. There is much talk of French sculpture being in advance of French painting. We do not believe it, and we feel that England is at present the only country where there is any distinct and original school of sculpture, with such modellers as Gilbert and Onslow Ford, and with such a sculptor as Havard Thomas, to say nothing of younger men, the outlook is very bright indeed.

Final Advice

And now we must end the chapter with the final advice to the student to study deeply all good examples of the great artists whose work we have noted, and to leave all others alone. By and by the student will find that he is in a position to compare the good with the bad, then will it be time enough tor him to look at the second-rate work, much of which contains fine passages here and there and special merits of its own; but these cannot be appreciated until the student has considerable knowledge, and that is only to be obtained by a serious study of nature and of the work of the best masters here cited. Finally, we think we have shown that "Naturalism" has been the watchword of all the best artists, and that, after all, there are but few artists in any age. Many painters and modellers and sculptors there be, but artists are few indeed. One point which has impressed us in the inquiry into naturalistic art is the curious regularity with which so-called "imaginative" painters have appeared and made reputations for themselves in the after-glow, so to speak, of the setting sun of naturalism. It would appear that painters who have lived in an age of strong men have got fairly staggered by the good naturalistic work of their age, and have instinctively felt that, being no match for the great masters on their own lines, that their only way to fame and fortune is by eccentricity, and in assuming a superior tone of culture by the production of allegorical or classical inanities. The uneducated of their own generation, thoroughly tired of a naturalism whose aim they have never understood, hail with delight any novelty or new departure, and they praise puerility and falseness of colour as colour, false drawing as idealizing, conventional composition as original, the conventional and modern treatment of draperies beneath which no anatomy is discernible as an idealized and poetic treatment of drapery, and finally, in the subject of the picture they often mistake sentimentality for sentiment and sentiment for poetry. Thus these weaker men rise to fame, and many follow where they lead. But the generation which gave them fame dies, and a new generation, which has forgotten the triumph of the naturalistic masters of the past generation, wearies of them, and naturalistic work is again appreciated. The story of art seems to us like the mercury in a barometer, ever oscillating upwards and downwards, ever up towards the acme of naturalism, and ever down towards the abyss of conventionality and classicism. If we mentally map out the readings of this barometer on a chart, we shall find naturalism triumphant as the apex of each curve, whilst in the ascending curve will be found the strugglers towards naturalism, and in the descending curve the fallers away from naturalism. On the apices of these curves will be found triumphant the masters, such as the sculptors of the Egyptian lions, the sculptors of the Assyrian lion-hunts, Pheidias, Van Eyck, Durer, Holbein, Da Yinci, Titian, Velasquez, Donatello, Rembrandt, De Hooghe, Corot, Millet, Gainsborough, and Whistler.

Barometer of natural-ism.

The masters.