ART AND ARTISTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2813, 12 February 1908, Page 87

ART AND ARTISTS.

REMBRANDT.

—A Stucly of His Life and Work. — ■ By Ct. Baldwin Brown, M.A. (Literary World.)

Among the supreme artists of the world l?embrandt has on the whole been fortunate in. his exponents and interpreters. We need o.nly mention Dr Bode"s monumental work on R-embrandt as painter, and M. Emile Michel's more comprehensive ■volume, which in a translation has been made easily accessible to English readers. But there was certainly room for such a volume as Professor Baldwin Brown now adds to the admirable "Red Scries" published by Messrs Duckworth. It js athorough, sound, scholaily work, full .of knowledge and good judgment, and extremely interesting.

Mr Baldwin Brown places Rembrandt among the "Impressionists" — understanding by that term not merely the later school «onspicuously^Tepresented by Monet, but all artists who, from the seventeenth century onwards, have represented Nature by focussing their vision on some single point, round which neighbouring objects group themselves more or less indistinctly, and have been especially sensitive to the general effects of objects so viewed in masses. In his lucid and suggestive analysis of this style of painting, Mr Baldwin Brown points out that it involves first of all selection and gentralisation, then a keen decorative instinct, and finally jaay also involve a creative act of the imagination. If Frans Hals Rembrandt and Velasquez be taken as typical impressionist painters, the first — brilliant in technique as he is — lacks the artistio imagination, the subtle infusion of personality, which give their supreme distinction and value to the works of Rembrandt and Velasquez.

From Mr Baldwin Brown's appreciative chapter on Rembrandt's drawings, in which he emphasises their unique and unapproachable quality, aud from his careful and Bcholarly chapter on the etchings, we must forbear making any quotation. In his very competent and interesting discussion of the paintings, earlier and 1 later, and especially the portraits, he distinguishes Rembrandt's portrait studies, and answers the question whether the actual portraits were "good likenesses." More so than in the case of Rubens, he says, but probably less so than in the case of Velasquez; they were portraits except so far as artistio considerations prevailed over mere prosaio fidelity. One odd thing about Rembrandt* portraits — botn of himself and of other people — was his indifference in regard to age : for instance, in the glorious portrait of Jan Six, he is represented as some 20 years too old. Professor Baldwin Brown's concluding chapters on Rembrandt's methods and qualities as an artist aro altogether admirable, and as representing kis point of view we may make the following citation : —

"Rembrandt is to be distinguished from that large company of artists who, with all the genius and charm they may possess, strike us as intellectually slight or careless. Millais and, in a iesa marked degree, Whistler are conspicuous examples. On the other hand, he was not one of those painters who, like Rossetti or Blake, are fertile in thoughts, but may be said rather to translate their thoughts into_ form and colour than to create directly in the artistic media without any conscious mediation that could be expressed in words. In the case of Rembrandt the artist never recedes from view behind the thinker, and the expression is always a purely artistic act. Rembrandt may be coupled wit'i Oiutto, with Michelangelo, with Dnrer. with J. F. Millet, «* an a-rtist to the backbone, but an artist before whose work, we find ourselves in connnunicatioQ with a jiiind of philosophic depth and power. Ho has not, we feel, been satisfied with the mere outward impression of a fheme, but has penetrated rfr-to its depths and discerned within it what the superficial observer will not even guess at." Mr Baldwin Brown's judgments on the picture* are noteworthy, and represent in the main the best critical standpoint of to<lay. The famous "Les3on in Anatomy" he describes as "an immature, though at the come time an interesting and important production." "The Syndics, on the other hand', he speaks of as Rem-Ibrandt-'s acknowledged masterpiece; and "one of the three or four finest pictures of the world." Discussing the portrait* and dilating at length on the superb qualities of the Six portraits, he sayß, "Rembrandt here transcends from the Rembrandtesque a-nd creates as simply and easily as NatuTe itself." It is a pleasure to commend heartily this fine, discerning, personal study of the great Dutch master. EUGENE DELACROIX. —The Chief of the French Romantics. — "Whatever opinion we may have of the nrt of Eugene Delacroix, the painter is undeniably a great representative figure, interesting moreover as a personality and as a writer on his -art. He has a tie with us in England. He was here in 1825. and passed some happy months with his English friends, Thales Fielding and Bonington. He saw Edmund Kean in "Richard III" and "Othello." He has left on record his admiration for English painting, for Turner, Constable, Wilkie, Lawrenco. The naturalness and the oowr of colouring in the English school strongly affected his own art for a tift»o. Bomngton worked in his studio. Later ho. Was the first to discover what material for painting- wa-s to be found in the Ea~<-t ; in the actual life of Africa he found a Satisfaction for his longing and his dreams. JTqi Delacroix was born iaio the di^ilu?ion-

ment following on the fabulous splendours of the Napoleonic age. "It is the cruel reality of things I flee from," he cried, "when I take refuge in the creations of art." That is the essence of Romanticism ; and this violent revolt from actuality justifies the thinking of Delacroix as the chief of tho Romantics in painting, though he himself disliked the label.

But of what use to escape from everyday existence, some may say, if there is nothing better to escape to than these visions of humanity, torn, convulsed, despairing, struggling; these lowering, livid skies; these desolate seas? There is certainly a weakness in the midst of Delacroix's strength. There is in him too much of emotion for emotion's sake. Ho is vehemently troubled, but_ he can never quite express what he foels : he lives in a turrult and seems to sec nothing beyond.

Delacroix is allied to Michelar golo in his capacity for suffering, his depth of soul; but there is jn the externals of his art a good deal lhat reflects only '"Bvronic" fashion, for which we have quite lost taste. — Saturday Review.