New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-11-27
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EDWARD BURNE-JONES.
4 PAINTER AND THE VAGUE.


realists and dcaists OF modern art are engaged
with an elifyng disregard Of the fact that no
amount Of talk can ever settle question
which, by the very nature OF its being, is fated
10 settle itself an individuals identification Of
himself with either camp has the appearance. 20
the casual eve, of formal reply to the challenge
Under which King Bczonian p The artist. the
real artist does not definitely reply he does not
choose in the street sense. His realism. or ms
idealism, by which We are TO understand his
point of view; his attitude toward his subject,
not the actual stuff which he elects 10 paint, is
the natural and irresistible outcome Of his char
acter-of his GOd-giyen genius. But there comes
a crisis and very early il comes, too, in which
he must perform act OF deliberate selection. and
IN which he is influenced only partly by tempera-
ment by natural bent, and much more by environ
nent; by education and by that mixture of IN
tuitive and self-conscious preference which we
call taste. lie il called upon TO decide whether he
shall living in the present work in it, in the past,
on in the debatable time in which the figures
of poetry, legend and myth have their being
whether he shall lay himself open TO the world
about him, weep with il, laugh with il, share in
its movement and color, and leave to posterity
memorial, not merely of himself but Of his
tme-or betake himself 10 place apart,
attempt 10 euRrdlD upon lilc lllc OF HIS
poraries, and upon that of the men who follow
him and them. images from his own magma
ton OF rechaufes from the dim realms of history
and romance. 1t is not our purpose to discuss
the merits of either course which the artist is
at liberty to pursue, but this book on Edward
Burne-Jones is a provocation TO insist upon what
a man should do when he decides for the second of
the two paths, 70 protest that while the idoalza-
ton of real things for all its value can still,
under certain conditions, be omitted and the re-
suit be good art. the realization Of ideal things,
or, TO put it more accurately, a treatment of
them that shall be in a degree realistic, is abso-
iutely necessary to the making of good art
You cannot impose abstraction upon man as
living thing. You cannot make him believe III
your creations unless you believe in them your
self. We would not accuse BuIne-JOncs of in
sincerity, but his beautiful figures remind u,
that the faith which is evidence OF things not seen
except by express illumination, is difficult of COM
munication TO others, and that the evidence
may not always carry weight The painter Of
romance, the painter of Merlin and
Vivian" of Sir Galahad" of King Cophetua
and the Beggar Maid"; the painter of myth, OF
Pan and Psyche" Of THE Feast of Pcleus4
the painter of alesory, of The Six Days of
Creation" OF The Wheel of Fortune" the
painter of such things these is, we say, broadly
speaking. a painter of visions Now, the first
and eternal obligation OF a painter of visions
is 10 body forth tie figures he sees 50
that what is reality TO him and them in the
sphere of Imagination shall he reality TO US in
the sphere of imagination plus canvas and paint.
Michael Angelo, Signorelli, Botticel, in their
different ways, illustrate the kind of art in which
this Obligation is discharged 10 the full. Fairy
like and eXquisitely ideal as it is, there is 10
picture in Europe-no, not even in the galleries
of Ansterdam-wh is more profoundly real than
Botticelli's Primavcra.'
To know the works of BUrne-JOnes and 70
sympathze with their author is to separate them
from the works of ill but one two other Eng
ish artists of the present century, to place them
lofty height and to enjoy them and prize them for
the unreality which distinguishes them. In that
unreaty is Burne-Jones's charm. In it is also his
defect Why it is defect we have already
indicated. There is an aloofness about the SEX
less creatures Of his strange compositions which is
unforgetable. ravishing but which seems ta Us
fatal 10 the worldwide and thoroush-going appro-
baton which Mr.. Bell apparently believes is to
descend upon the object of his eulogy For
eulogy ana nothing else is what bis record and
review amount to. 1t is divertng, this attitude
of some English writers toward English art-an
attitude something like that which an English
critic once attributed TO the Germans, as Of hav-
ing "a great standing army and wanting a great
literature TO match. England is great in 50 many
ways that il doubtless comes hard to admit that
she is only great in her art with reservations:
and when writer like Mr. Bell sets about the
making Of such record and review as this
under consideration he loses an sense Of critical
pOse, pungcs into superlatves AMI lands his hero
10 the skies. In his most vivacpus chapter, that
" Burne Jones's art and his critics." Mr. Bell
is very hard upon some poor, unnamed writer in
The Magazine of Art" who docs not admire
Burnc-Joncs, AMI has written, we must a-init.
some brilliantly stupid things about his pictures
as, malaprOpos of the artists "Annuncation
But we think llr Bell was ill-advised in print
ing, in the italics OF sarcasm, the deliverance Of
that same critic in reference to what he con-
sdered the eneminacy of Burne-Jones Even
PeruginO, gliding he did now and then into
feminine tenderness, was virile." The sentence
is not pretty it is discomforting to think of
Pcrugino gliding, no matter what his object; but
it is true that lie was virie, and it is true that
Burne-Jones is not 1t is with haf-reference TO
this that we have called his figures scxless One
of Mr. Burne-Jone's critics objects because the
former seeks TO create for himself beau
tiful world 'twiNt heaven and EARTH and TO people
it with children Of his own imagining" and We
agree with Mr.. Bell that that is :" the strangest
structure TO fasten an artist that ever saw the
light in print" Nevertheless, when the outsider
is permitted to enter that world he wishes TO be
allie TO recognize the children His imagina-
ton Graves an Olympan Jove martial Mars.
"a passionate Pygmalion, a womanly Virgin, and
none Of these does he find He
cannot come close to the character of one
Of Burne-Joness figures. because that
character is never forccfully and masterfully ex-
pressed. There is, we repeat an aloofncss an
air of "A world not only unknown. but incom-
prchcnsble about the entire company Of per-
sonagcs The same quality is not altogether
10 students of Rossett. the artist
under whose guidance Burnc Jones formed himself
and for whom he cherished enthusiasm that
drove him 90 something very like alteration. To