French Art: Classic and Contemporary Painting and SculptureBrownell, W. C. (William Crary)
General
French Art: Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture
Brownell, W. C. (William Crary)
Art, French; Painting, French; Sculpture, French
to fail to see, in the most characteristic works of this most personal
representative of romanticism, that subordination of the individual whim
and isolated point of view to what is accepted, proven, and universal,
which is essentially what we mean by the classic attitude. One may
almost go so far as to say, considering its reserve, its restraint and
poise, its sobriety and measure, its quiet and composure, its
subordination of individual feeling to a high sense of artistic decorum,
that, romantic as it is, unacademic as it is, its most incontestable
claim to permanence is the truly classic spirit which, however modified,
inspires and infiltrates it. Beside some of the later manifestations of
individual genius in French painting, it is almost academic.
In Corot, anyone, I suppose, can see this note, and it would be
surplusage to insist upon it. He is the ideal classic-romantic painter,
both in temperament and in practice. Millet's subject, not, I think, his
treatment--possibly his wider range--makes him seem more deeply serious
than Corot, but he is not essentially as nearly unique. He is unrivalled
in his way, but Corot is unparalleled. Corot inherits the tradition of
Claude; his motive, like Claude's, is always an effect, and, like
Claude's, his means are light and air. But his effect is a shade more
impalpable, and his means are at once simpler and more subtle. He gets
farther away from the phenomena which are the elements of his
_ensemble_, farther than Claude, farther than anyone. His touch is as
light as the zephyr that stirs the diaphanous drapery of his trees.
Beside it Claude's has a suspicion, at least, of unctuousness. It has a
pure, crisp, vibrant accent, quite without analogue in the technic of
landscape painting. Taking technic in its widest sense, one may speak of
Corot's shortcomings--not, I think, of his failures. It would be
difficult to mention a modern painter more uniformly successful in
attaining his aim, in expressing what he wishes to express, in conveying
his impression, communicating his sensations.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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