PORTRAIT-PAINTING.
PROFESSOR HERKOMER and Mr. Harry Furniss have been lecturing upon portrait- painting. The same higli ideal of the role of por- traiture, the same fear of deteriorating circumstances at work lowering the ideal of art, animate the two discourses.
The shafts of Mr. Furniss's brilliant banter, as of the Professor's earnest rhetoric, are alike directed against the run by the public upon the fashionable portrait-painter, tending to give value to a portrait because of the signature attached to it, rather than on account of the excellence of workmanship. ' It is not too much to say that a fashionable por- trait-painter often receives ^£900 for his name, and oPlOO for the value of a picture as a portrait ; it is the artist's autograph, with a dashed-off something attached,' said Mr. Furniss. ' I can,' said the Slade Professor, 'get ten young men, any one of whom would do a portrait for £5Q as well as a better- known man will for £500. Indeed, portraits by young men are really, as a rule, better, for they are generally better studied and more carefully wrought out.' The two illustrious lecturers put their finger here upon the most deteriorating influence threatening the art of portraiture. Our painters seem to pursue it in a pot -boiling spirit, and yet, fine portraits can be painted only when the artist has a high ideal of his mission. This is essentially the branch of art that requires an ever-sustaining enthusiasm. The portrait-painter who does not consider the work upon which he is engaged as a sort of tracking of a human soul, fulfils his task inadequately. Portraits may be considered in the light of documents of inestimable value, bringing home, as no written chronicles can, the effect that the habits of life, its current of ideas, its glory, its strain and stress, have upon the social aspect of an epoch. The subtle and unceasing influence of surrounding circumstances, as well as that of the inner life, upon the physiognomy of men and women, is the lesson the portrait-painter teaches to unobservant iiumanity. The portrait-painter is a ' Diviner of souls,' cunning also at expressing how the mystery of per- sonality imbues as a perfume the aspect of the sitter. The complaint that there are too many portraits in the Royal Academy and other exhibi- tions is a fatal verdict upon their insincerity. There should be no dulness associated with the thought of portraits ; they should be as interesting as well-written memoirs, as fascinating as romances. A portrait qui ne dit rieii, that does not speak to us. as a spirit might speak in silence, is a failure, skil- fully as may be painted all its accessories. Mr. Furniss, urging the necessity to understand the sitter's individuality, eloquently describes the pains which a Japanese artist will take to study what he wishes to paint. He will travel any dis- tance to watch the blossom, growing, budding, blooming, fading. He will live with it, day by day, mentally noting every detail. The witty lecturer could not expect our rushing and bustling genera- tion to submit to this almost penal toil. But there are revealing moments when the clue to a human being's nature is given. An illustrious French portrait-painter of a generation ago would refuse to paint any man or woman with whom he had not lived for some days under the same roof. During that period of common existence he was always on the watch for a look, a glance, that might give him the key to the mystery of what life and thought had made of his sitter's soul. An example of the same principle of lying-in-wait for a revelation, applied to another branch of art, is to be found in an account of Turner's mode of work, given by one who accompanied him on a sketching- tour. His companion had plodded for hours, it might be for days, at a sketch of the chosen spot, while Turner lay idly stretched upon the grass. There would come a gleam of sunshine, or the shadow of a passing cloud, and Turner, springing to his feet, would seize his brushes and colours, and in a moment all the glory of the scene was jotted down. Thus it was afterwards painted in Turner's picture.
The portrait-painter must essentially be the im- pressionist; quick to discern and seize what is peculiar and individual in his sitter, and by skilled and disciplined use of detail to give clearness and vigour to his interpretation of his model. Professor Herkomer maintains that the portrait-painter must sink his identity as far as possible in that of his sitter. We admit to finding a certain difficulty in understanding what the illustrious painter exactly means by sinking his individuality. A vigilant attitude of mind seems to us better to characterise the student of human nature. Jean Quentin Latour, the unrivalled portrait-painter of the eighteenth century, used to say, ' My sitters think that I am copying their features only. I plunge into the depth of their nature, and seize their whole personality.' This master in the art of depicting the physiognomy of his sitters has given the clue to his method in his recorded conversations with Diderot. 'Every human being,' he said, ' must have suffered
