perfect landscape in the world (fig. 32, Plate IX.). In a good
deal of Turner’s later work there was a certain theatrical strain,
and at times even a garishness in colour, while his intense
idealism led him to strive after effects beyond the reach of human
art. We may however put out of view everything in Turner’s
œuvre to which reasonable exception may on these grounds be
taken, and there will still remain a body of work which for
extent, variety, truth and artistic taste is like the British fleet
among the navies of the world.
Among Turner’s chief titles to honour is the fact that he portrayed the sea in all its moods with a knowledge and sympathy that give him a place alone among painters of marine. Marine painting began among the Greeks, who were fond of the sea, and the “Odyssey” and other classical landscapes are stronger on this side than the landscapes of the Tuscans or Umbrians, who cared as little for the ocean as for the mountains. The Venetians did less for the sea in their paintings than might have been expected, and in northern art not much was accomplished till the latter part of the 16th century, when the long line of the marine painters of Holland is opened by Hendrick Cornelius Vroom, who found a worthy theme for his art in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Simon de Vlieger of Rotterdam, who was born about the beginning of the 17th century, was the master of W. Vandevelde the younger (1633–1707), who has never been equalled for his truthful representation of calm seas and shipping. He painted innumerable pictures of the sea-fights of the time between the English and the Dutch, those representing the victories of the Dutch being in Holland, while at Hampton Court the English are triumphant. There are exquisite artistic qualities in the painting of Vandevelde, who is reckoned the canonical master in this branch of art; but the few sea-pieces by Ruysdael, especially the “Dykes” of the Louvre, and the “Stormy Sea” at Berhn, exhibit the element under far more imaginative aspects. Besides Turner there are many British artists of modern days who have won fame in this branch of art that is naturally attractive to islanders.
§ 26. Animal Painting.—In all early schools of representative art from the time of the cave-dwellers downwards, the artist has done better with animals than with the human figure, and there is no epoch of the art at which the portrayal of animals has not flourished. (On Egyptian and Assyrian animals see § 7.) In Greece the representations of animals on coins are so varied and so excellent that we may be sure that the praise given to the pictures of the same creatures by contemporary artists is not overdrawn. In northern art animals have always played an important part, and the motives of medieval decoration are largely drawn from this source, while beast symbolism brings them into vogue in connexion with religious themes. In Italian and early Flemish and German art animals are as a rule only accessories, though some artists in all these schools take special delight in them; and when, early in the 17th century, they begin to take the chief place, the motive is often found in Paradise, where Adam and Eve lord it over the animal creation. If De Vlieger and Ruysdael are the first to show the sea in agitation, Rubens may have the same credit for revealing the passion and power of the animal nature in the violent actions of the combat or the chase. In this his contemporary Frans Snyders (1579–1657), and after Snyders Jan Fyt, specialized, and the first named is generally placed at the head of animal painters proper.
In Holland, in the 17th century, the animal nature presented itself under the more contemplative aspect of the ruminants in the lush water-meadows. True to their principle of doing everything they attempt in the best possible way, the Dutch paint horses (Cuyp, Wouwerman) and cattle (Cuyp, Adrian Vandevelde, Paul Potter) with canonical perfection, while Hondekoeter delineates live cocks and hens, and Weenix dead hares and moor-fowl, in a way that makes us feel that the last word on such themes has been spoken. There is a large white turkey by Hondekoeter in which the truth of mass and of texture in the full soft plumage is combined with a dehcacy in the detail of
the airy filaments, that is the despair of the most accomplished modern executant.
But animals have been treated more nobly than when shown in Flemish agitation or in Dutch phlegmatic calm. Leonardo da Vinci was specially famed for his horses, which he may have treated with something of the majesty of Pheidias. Durer has a magnificent horse in the “Knight and Death,” but this is studied from the Colleoni monument. Nearer our own time the painter of Napoleonic France, Gericault, gave a fine reading, of the equine nature. Rembrandt’s drawings of hons are notable features in his work, and in our own day in France and England the lion and other great beasts have been treated with true imaginative power.
§ 27. Still-Life Painting.—Like portraiture and landscape, the painting of objects on near planes, or as it is called still-life painting, is gradually differentiated from the figure-piece which was supreme in the early, and has been the staple product in all, the schools. Just as is the case with the other subsidiary branches of painting, it appears, though only as a by-product, in the history of ancient classical painting, passes practically out of existence in medieval times, begins to come to a knowledge of itself in the 15th and i6th centuries, and attains canonicity in the Dutch school of the first half of the 17th century. Stilllife may be called the characteristic form of painting of the modern world, because the intrinsic worth of the objects represented is a matter of complete indifference when compared with their artistic treatment in tone, colour and texture. By virtue of this treatment it has been noted (§§ 19, 20) that a study ot a group of ordinary objects, when seen and depicted by a Rembrandt, may have all the essential qualities of the highest manifestations of the art. There is no finer Rembrandt for pictorial quality than the picture in the Louvre representing the carcase of a flayed ox in a flesher’s booth. As illustrating the principle of modern painting this form of the graphic art has a value and importance which in itself it could hardly claim. It is needless to repeat in this connexion what has been said on modern painting in general, and it will suffice here to indicate briefly the history of this particular phase of the art.
The way was prepared for it as has been noticed by the minute and forcible rendering of accessory objects in the figure pieces and portraits of the early Flemish masters, of Dürer, and above all of Holbein. The painting of flower and fruit pieces without figure interest by Jan Breughel the younger, who was born in 1601, represents a stage onward, and contemporary with him were several other Dutch and Flemish speciahsts in this department, among whom Jan David de Heem, born 1603, and the rather older WiUem Klaasz Heda may be mentioned. Their subjects sometimes took the form of a luncheon table with vessels, plate, fruit and other eatables; at other times of groups of costly vessels of gold, silver and glass, or of articles used in art or science, such as musical instruments and the like; and it is especially to be noted that the handling stops always short of any illusive reproduction of the actual textures of the objects, while at the same time the differing surfaces of stuffs and metal and glass, of smooth-rinded apples and gnarled lemons, are all most justly rendered. In some of these pieces we realize the beauty of what Sir Charles Eastlake has called the “combination of solidity of execution with vivacity and grace of handling, the elasticity of surface which depends on the due balance of sharpness and softness, the vigorous touch and the delicate marking—all subservient to the truth of modelling.” In this form of painting the French 18th-century artist Chardin, whose impasto was fuller, whose colouring more juicy than those of the Dutch, has achieved imperishable fame (see fig. 33, Plate X.); and the modern French, who understand better than others the technical business of painting, have carried on the fine tradition which has culminated in the work of Vollon. The Germans have also painted still-life to good result, but the comparative weakness in technique of British painters has kept them in this department rather in the background.
