DOI Artikel:
Khnopff, Fernand: A great Belgian sculptor: Constantin Meunier
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20712#0028
A Letter
Christ of the humiliated and despised : the poor
emaciated body, as the old Gothic masters de-
picted it; the head, heavy with all its vicarious
agony, bowed down in an overwhelming depression
as though he were never to hear in heaven the
promise of redemption.
“ In this supreme achievement we find once
more asserted the sombre character of Constantin
Meunier’s work, considered as a whole, as it may
in the future, or even already, be studied in its
integral development at the Brussels Museum.
“ The grave, which his serious cast of thought
made him bear ever in mind, will to-day receive
his mortal remains. But we confidently
believe that the man who was so dear
to us, so good and so great, has not
worked, has not striven, has not suffered
in vain. Though dead he is not lost to
us ; he has but become a glorious source
of light.” _
attempts have been made to improve costume;
there is the “ aesthetic or artistic ” attempt, and the
“ rational ” attempt — the first without common
sense, the second without beauty sense. The
“aesthetic” period of 1880, when people walked
about muddy streets trailing fourteenth-century
dresses of pale green or sickly yellow—dresses
possibly made by amateurs who know nothing of
sewing or dressmaking—did much to discourage
further attempts of an artistic nature.
The “rational” dress reformers gave us the
square-toed boot, the “bloomer” costume, and
revelled in ugliness generally. The fourteenth-
We have received the following letter
on the subject of dress from Miss Mary
Houston :—Though English architects,
decorators, and craftsmen have, during
the last twenty years, done much to
create a general improvement in taste
with regard to our surroundings, there
has been no such change effected in our
notions of what is best and most appro-
priate in costume.
It ought to be unnecessary to say that
the function of art is not necessarily to
paint pictures or illustrate books, but to
make beautifully everything we do make ;
in short, to beautify life generally.
When one looks at the costume in any
modern street one cannot but feel that
our art has failed in accomplishing its
function.
Will anyone maintain that it is possible
to make a decorative panel—-equal in
colour, composition, and beauty of form
in detail to a fifteenth or sixteenth
century tapestry, or to a painted tempera
panel from an Italian marriage coffer—
out of the daily procession of our best
dressed people in their motors and
carriages in Hyde Park ?
Even in portrait work, compare The
Portrait of a Tailor by Moroni and
the subjects of Holbein’s portraits with
the sort of accessories a portrait painter
has to wrestle with to-day. Some
10
“LE SEMEUR” BY CONSTANTIN MEUNIER
(Photograph by P. Becker)
Christ of the humiliated and despised : the poor
emaciated body, as the old Gothic masters de-
picted it; the head, heavy with all its vicarious
agony, bowed down in an overwhelming depression
as though he were never to hear in heaven the
promise of redemption.
“ In this supreme achievement we find once
more asserted the sombre character of Constantin
Meunier’s work, considered as a whole, as it may
in the future, or even already, be studied in its
integral development at the Brussels Museum.
“ The grave, which his serious cast of thought
made him bear ever in mind, will to-day receive
his mortal remains. But we confidently
believe that the man who was so dear
to us, so good and so great, has not
worked, has not striven, has not suffered
in vain. Though dead he is not lost to
us ; he has but become a glorious source
of light.” _
attempts have been made to improve costume;
there is the “ aesthetic or artistic ” attempt, and the
“ rational ” attempt — the first without common
sense, the second without beauty sense. The
“aesthetic” period of 1880, when people walked
about muddy streets trailing fourteenth-century
dresses of pale green or sickly yellow—dresses
possibly made by amateurs who know nothing of
sewing or dressmaking—did much to discourage
further attempts of an artistic nature.
The “rational” dress reformers gave us the
square-toed boot, the “bloomer” costume, and
revelled in ugliness generally. The fourteenth-
We have received the following letter
on the subject of dress from Miss Mary
Houston :—Though English architects,
decorators, and craftsmen have, during
the last twenty years, done much to
create a general improvement in taste
with regard to our surroundings, there
has been no such change effected in our
notions of what is best and most appro-
priate in costume.
It ought to be unnecessary to say that
the function of art is not necessarily to
paint pictures or illustrate books, but to
make beautifully everything we do make ;
in short, to beautify life generally.
When one looks at the costume in any
modern street one cannot but feel that
our art has failed in accomplishing its
function.
Will anyone maintain that it is possible
to make a decorative panel—-equal in
colour, composition, and beauty of form
in detail to a fifteenth or sixteenth
century tapestry, or to a painted tempera
panel from an Italian marriage coffer—
out of the daily procession of our best
dressed people in their motors and
carriages in Hyde Park ?
Even in portrait work, compare The
Portrait of a Tailor by Moroni and
the subjects of Holbein’s portraits with
the sort of accessories a portrait painter
has to wrestle with to-day. Some
10
“LE SEMEUR” BY CONSTANTIN MEUNIER
(Photograph by P. Becker)