The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-12
A French Critic on Rival National Arts.


school of painting and sculpture might bs
deemed the most favored in the whole world.
Unfortunately the amount of art-criticism
which sees the light in Paris is out OF all
proportion TO any good result recorded. Pro-
phets may pipe, yet painters will not always
dance; they may mourn, and yet artists will
not lament. And wherefore this perversity
Partly because the teachers deserve not
hearing. They often lack knowledge they
are generally wanting in earnestness they
descant with equal fervor on Madonna or
ballet dancer, and prove their vocation alike
when they write of Christian art or of the last
drama put upon the stage. A French critic
is not so much serious as smart; he makes
reason give place to repartee; his wit has
none Of the weight of wisdom. Thus Edmond
About, for the sake of laughter, will make as
a comic actor "Un Voyage q travers pExpo-
sition des Beaux-Arts," while ThGophile Gau-
tier discourses on "Les Beaux-Arts en- Eu
rope'' with the brilliant 1ippant pen of
Partisan feuilietoniSte. Yet on the other
hand we gladly admit that France can boast
of a band of critics serious, searching,
and calmly judicial. Such high and
rare qualities, for instance, have been
usually recognized in Les Etudes of Gustave
Planche; a like sobriety, also, we esteem in
the well-weighed criticisms of Maxine du
Camp. Seldom, however, has it been our
good fortune to find sparkling wit in alliance
with sober wisdom; in Paris, as elsewhere,
either quality may be met with in isolation,
but seldom both in cooperation. Thus, for
example, M. Ernest Chesneau, the author of
the volume before us, is rather ploddipg than
brilliant; he is accustomed to labor upon
topics through series of years; he natures
his ideas step by step. Hence the several
works which, from time to time, he has given
to the public, have acquired somewhat
unusual solidity. His judgments, as we shall
proceed to show, if not absolutely beyond ap-
peal, may be quoted in any critical court of
Europe as grave authorities.
Even from French critic we can expect
little that is new and sparkling respecting
such we'll known phases in English art and
literature as the pictures of the Pre- -R Afael-
lites and the writings of Mr.. Ruskin. Yet
Journalists across the Channel continue to find
matter for endless amazement and merriment
in the lawless evolutions and the startling
eccentricities of the teacher and his supposed
disciples M. Chesneau Justly assigns the
collective phenomena to certain common
causes, and, coming late into the field, he is
able to take q wide survey of the entire move
ment, and to give to abnormal pictorial pro-
ducts their true position in the development
and history of the worlds art. He declares
that 'the brotherhood is scattered, that the
faith is surrendered save perhaps by Mr..
Holman Hunt. "The Light of the World''
he designates, with some irreverence, "The
Divine Diogenes:" he supposes that "Christ
and the Doctors" which "some years since
threw all London into commotion," might
possibly satisfy Earthquakes, theologians,
and ply siognomists;' but, alas he adds,
how difficult is it to content stout le monde
ct son valet" A Jewess, after having
pondered over this picture, gravely OBJ
served:-"Cela est fort beau; settlement, on
volt que fauteur ne connaissait pas le trait
distinotif de la race de Juda il donn6 a ses
docteurs les pieds plats, qui sont de la tribu
de Ruben, tandis que les hommes de Juda
avaient le coude-pied csmbr6." The critic
next passes under review another picture,
which in its day produced no slight sensation
1.-THE Afterglow in Egypt" Again, M. Ches-
neau identifies, perhaps too closely, Mr.. Hol-
man Hunt with 'the aesthetics of the school
whereof Mr.. Ruskin is the chief" The au-
thor, as usual, mingles satire with eulogy;
he extols the merits of this marvellous product
of industry and study, elaborated "with pa
thence which defes the most attenuated and
subtle imaginations of Lilliput," and which
shows "the application of the most admirable
or the most tOolish-principles of Mr.. Rus
kim" The studiously pictorial passage with
which the writer clinches his criticism on this
Egyptian figure is so pre-eminently French,
so little like anything we are accustomed to
encounter in current English literature, that
We transcribe it for the edifcation, or rather
"Yet she dlsquiets me, this mournful figure,
and would fain decipher the enigma of the
Sphinx. Shall propose new Interpretation?
zee her no longer as royal wife or daughter.
nor yet as goddess; l behold the image of
modern Egypt In these eyes without sparkle
black, haid, impenetrable by light as an ex-
tinguished coal-in this fatal immobiity, as in
this voluptuous amplitude of slave orcourtesan,
seek the symbol OF Egypt, discrowned of the
grandeur of her ancient civilization, fallen from
her In tellec ctual royalty, reduced simply to the
abundance which the mud of the Nile, and
eternal nature, grant unto her fertile climate.
But why does sue turn her back upon the liver,
ruins OF her former power now fallen, prone
upon the bank? Under the weight of the heavy
grain she stands firmly, firm as granite, and,
like granite without life; she has only vegeta
tive life, animal life, and deep within, glow a
light q remembrance
"By aid of msgination other solutions of this
riddle may be found l leave such task to tue
patient spectator, and here is just the manifest
error OF this symbolic theological picture; it
possesses the slight fault of being unintelli-
glble, or at least-What amounts to the sane -
there may appear interpreters"
French critics are somewhat behind the day
in assigning to Mr.. Ruskin dominant infiu-
ence over the exhibitions and art products OF
the year. nj. Chesneau devotes chapter to
the enigmas which Mr.. Euskin's disquisitions
and rhapsodies present. In Paris the art
prophet of Denmark Hill has been regarded
rather as phenomenon than as a genius, and
his performances would perhaps have been
merely passed over as too sublime to be
comprehensive, had they not come from
England with reputation already achieved
Even on the Continent it has been found
out that he is somewhat errant and eocen
trio, fantastic and inconstant. Enthusiasm
and command of language have been accorded
to Mr.. Ruskin, but not sobriety or soundness
of judgment. His Ell r0rs are supposed to lie
in d0gmatism and paradox, in a propensity Il