ON ART AND ARTISTS BY MAX NORDAU AUTHOR OF “DEGENERATION” TRANSLATED BY W. F. HARVEY, M.A. LONDON T. FISHER UNWIN ADELPHI TERRACE MCMVII [_All rights reserved._] CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. The Social Mission of Art 1 II. Socialistic Art—Constantin Meunier 30 III. The Question of Style 44 IV. The Old French Masters 56 V. A Century of French Art 70 VI. The School of 1830 96 VII. The Triumph of a Revolution— The Realists 107 Alfred Sisley 123 Camille Pissarro 133 Whistler’s Psychology 145 VIII. Gustave Moreau 155 IX. Eugène Carrière 166 X. Puvis de Chavannes 185 XI. Bright and Dark Painting—Charles Cottet 201 XII. Physiognomies in Painting 217 XIII. Auguste Rodin 275 XIV. Resurrection—Bartholomé 294 XV. Jean Carriès 308 XVI. Works of Art and Art Criticisms 320 XVII. My Own Opinion 336 Index 349 ON ART AND ARTISTS ON ART AND ARTISTS I THE SOCIAL MISSION OF ART There exists a school of æstheticism which laughs contemptuously at the mere sight of this superscription. Art having a mission! What utter nonsense. A person must be a rank Philistine to connect with the idea of art the conception of a non-artistic mission, be it social or otherwise. Has a work of art any other mission than to give pleasure by beauty? It strives to attain no goal that lies outside of itself. It is its own object, and whoever assigns to it another, sins against the sanctity of art. This is, in short, the theory of art for art’s sake: _l’art pour l’art_. I deem this theory false and a hallmark of crass ignorance, for psychology and the history of civilisation and art, the history of all arts, prove irrefutably the vanity and worthlessness of the concept that denies to art any other task and mission than that of being beautiful.