New-York tribune., 1902-08-24
CONNOTSSECRSRIP.

In the current number of The Nineteenth
Century" there is a suggestive paper on old
Masters and Modern Critics" by Mr.. c. L. East
lake writer of much experience. if not of
nquestioned authority. He has, on the whole,
more faith in the old masters than in their
modern commentators an attitude we can well
understand, though IT is impossible to follow
him in all his conclusions. When man, for
instance, pours equal admiration he says,
ION the works of Van Eyck and Rubens. one
may be excused for doubling his sincerity. II
"he really enjoys both he is not likely 10 be
qualified Judge of either. But your modern
"art critic discourses glibly OF each IN turn.
''and would have you believe that the aims and
methods of every master are equally familiar
TO him" Glibness anywhere is obnoxious
But the art critic whose taste is not eclectic,
who cannot appreciate Rembrandt because he
appreciates Botticelli, who is confused when
he turns from Mantegna TO Veasquez. from
Hogarth to Vatican from Ingres TO Degas, Is
not worth his salt The first duty of the critic
is to avoid preoccupation with any one school
or master. Bur Str. Eastlake is not necessarily
mistaken as to tie mote in his brothers eye
because he happens 10 have beam In his own.
What he chiefly seeks to do is TO exhibit the
necessity for modesty In art criticism, show
ing as a warning how one writer after another
has been corrected or invalidated and on this
point he is sound
Connoisseurship has been, with man like
Fromentin, say, an affair of genius and con-
structive thought. 1t has been, and to-day very
often is nothing more than treacherous sup
port for mediocre minds. Like Mesopotama, 1t
Is fine mouth filling word, but used as sort
of incantation It spells foolishness. 1t conDotes
no hard and fast principle, no single infailbe
touchstone or formula, but. like morals or man.
ners is an attribute of the individual which pro-
ceeds as much from instinct as from the man
date Of society It's value depends altogether
upon what the connoisseur himself brings to
the practice of it. If he brings an Unborn feel
ing for art. sympathies wide as the history
of art Itself. and an absolutely open mind, pa
tient study of the masters will reward him He
will arrive at the goal of all true connoisseur-
Ship the power of telling q good picture from
n bad one If on the other hand, he commits
himself to a school and makes a fetlch of a
method IN MoreIli and many after him have
done. he is lost
Mr. Eastlake Is gratifyingly just to Ruskin,
who has too often been laughed out of court
by the self-eected lawgivers OF the present gen
Grafton. He is aware Of his authors defects,
but adds that his taste was always in the
right direction" and. though this overstates the
case il is undoubtedly true that Ruskin
achieved an enormous amount OF good crti-
cism. He wrote i'll kindlins terms OF the best
masters. He made the latter better understood
by thousands. He is TO this day, in such a
description as that of Botticells Judith" pro-
foundly inspiring. To forget all this and TO
scorn him because he did not happen to ap
precate a picture of Mr.. Whistler's Is. If we
may be permitted to say so. to be absurd. There
were great men before Agamemnon. There have
been critics who knew not Joseph. From the
time when Diderot was writing his Salons
In France and Sir Joshua was composing his
.Discourses' in England there have been critics
whose Judgments If sometimes wrong, have
often been abundantly right, and whose elo-
uuence has lost nothing Of its force because
they have been In happy ignorance OF that
canon of criticism which is based on the com
narison of noses and ears In the paintings Of
the masters. II we are to throw Ruskin over
board Fromentin. Gautier. Stendhai Pater and
several others equally valuable must go. too.
The truth is that in the natural reaction
against Ruskin connosseurship has gone to the
other extreme and his sentimentalities-if
take him at his worst-have given place to
idoatrous mysteries over Manet. Degas and
Whistler quite as ridiculous and misleading.
The morpholocical method of Giovanni Morelli.
often productive in his hands of valuable re-
suits. but no more infalible than any Ruskin-
ian hypotbesis, became the cornerstone Of
school in which the worst whimscalities Of the
English writer are !mmeasurably surpassed