Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1909 (Heft 26))

without making use of what his forerunners did,
why he is throwing away centuries of evolution.”
“ But how about impressionism in painting ?”
‘‘Supposing a picture is highly finished,
you see at one view all that it has to tell, while
in a painting that is more or less suggested you
discover something new each time you return
to it.
“Suggestion! What a lot of humbug there
is in that expression! If you want a supreme
example of suggestion go and look at Turner’s
‘Garden of Indolence,’ in the gallery outside.
You may visit it every day in the year and get a
fresh idea of what it means each time without
ever reaching at the one Turner intended to
express, and heaven knows what that was
exactly. There is a certain class of persons
that is very fond of talking of a certain class of
pictures as ‘enjoying’ them, and this class is
especially strong in female gushers. The
enjoyment they get is sensuous, but that is
wrong in art. I am sick of this talk of ‘enjoying’
pictures, sick of the ‘mysteriousness’ discovered
in paintings. The same ‘cranks’ who discover
these mysteries search for the meanings of
Browning, and Browning himself confessed
he did not remember exactly what he meant
when he wrote certain lines.
UNREST IN ART
“Philistine you may think me, but I find
the same trouble with the music of Wagner and
his followers. They start with a melody and
then get up their heads against a wall and
never finish it. There is a state of unrest all
over the world in art as in all other things. It
is the same in literature as in music, in painting,
and in sculpture. And I dislike unrest.”
And Sir Purdon’s appearance tells even better
than his words that, hard-working man though
he is, he is an apostle of rest.
“I was brought up as an architect,” he goes
on to say. “ I learned in my youth the necessity
of good foundations and of good structure.
I am inclined to apply the laws of architecture
to the other arts. The technique of the impres-
sionists was invented in the absinthe shops of
Paris. Meissonier and such men were pooh-
poohed by men who either couldn’t do such
work or would not take the trouble to do it.
Clever men have fallen victims to the fashion
of the day. It’s a pity. They are simply dis-
figuring canvases with kaleidoscopes of color
to try and hide from the public that they have
not the energy or power to do good work.

“Look at the Austrian impressionists! They
are proud of being ‘decadents.’ Look at
Aubrey Beardsley, supreme as a draughtsman,
and yet how he disfigured his art.”
THE STUDY OF ANATOMY
“George Russell, the famous English pastel-
list, used to say to his pupils, ‘Learn anatomy
thoroughly and then forget all about it,’ ”
suggests the reporter.
“And Russell was right, to a great extent,”
replies Sir Purdon. “But your former knowl-
edge of anatomy, even if you forget all about
it, should prevent your making mistakes.
It should have prevented Rodin turning the
muscles upside down, as in his St. John; it
should have prevented his showing muscles
in knots, for he should have known that a
muscle begins in a bone and ends in a bone.
But even Michael Angelo made such mistakes—
forgot too much about what he had known of
anatomy.”
The reporter had, on his way to Sir Pur-
don’s office, noticed two young women going
into ecstasies over some of Blake’s drawings,
because they were “so old.” He mentions the
incident.
“A Blake is not worth the paper it’s on,
and yet we have to pay hundreds of dollars for
one of his drawings. It is not everybody who
can understand Blake’s writings, and if you
don’t, you cannot comprehend his pictures.
But come into the gallery and I will be able to
express better some of my opinions of paintings
by illustration,” says the Museum’s director.
HIGHLY FINISHED PAINTINGS
Just outside Sir Purdon’s office, in the
Vanderbilt collection, hangs Alphonse de
Neuville’s “Le Bourget,” representing the
scene of the taking of that village by the
Germans after its gallant defence by a small
French force.
“Now,” says Sir Purdon, “here is a picture
which I consider a model painting of an
historical event, and when Mr. Vanderbilt
takes ‘Le Bourget’ away it will be a decided
loss to the museum. It is highly finished as,
all historical paintings and such as are ordered
by governments to record particular events
should be, for posterity does not in these cases
want anything to be left to the imagination,
needs no suggestion. How could the story be
better told ? Look at the short French colonel
who defended the village with two companies
against that artillery. Look at the giant

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