DOI Heft:
No. 259 (October 1914)
DOI Artikel:Wood, T. Martin: The Grosvenor House exhibition of French art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21211#0012
The Grosvenor House Exhibition of FrencJi A rt
will not even choose the moment which it will
represent, every moment is of such importance.
It is not the spectacle of the ballet, for instance,
that interests him; his art is dedicated to the
element of reality in what is artificial. The
practising school fascinates him even more than
the stage. He cares there for the personality of
each dancer even while she surrenders it to the
impersonality of her art.
With Cezanne's art we turn sharp off into another
world. It is curious that a school should since
have arisen attempting to base upon the art of
Cezanne its theory that art can be disconnected
from human association. The art .of Cezanne
reflects the humanity of a local world as acutely
as the art of Degas. A singular appearance of in-
competence characterises Cezanne ; with this, how-
ever, is coupled a great feeling for architectural
plan as the basis of design in painting. And he
applied himself to the values perceived in colour
relations, trying to disengage them from the values
imposed by the influences of light and shade.
It is always an artist of severe limitations who
isolates some feature of art to the extent of pro-
viding a motive for an entirely new departure in
the next generation, and it fell to Cezanne to show
the way to a new order of beauty in painting.
Every master's work shows three periods : the
first, in which a hill is ascended ; the second, in
which the summit is attained—when for the first
time execution reflects mental vision withont com-
promise ; the third, in which the artist has made
his home among the very difficulties that once
appalled him. In the first the artist frequently
surprises himself as well as others, and to this
period belong those experiments which in the
study of the works of old masters confound the
makers of attributions. The work of each of these
periods has its special value. It is only in the
first that we meet all the intensity of which the
artist is capable. But it is in the middle period
that he seems to surpass himself; everywhere the
touch is vital, everything is at a pitch which cannot
be sustained. It is in the third—generally the
longest period—that the work is most personal;
by that time painting has become nearly as natural
as breathing, and it is this easiness which often
gives work of this stage a charm even where it has
become shallow.
Renoir was another master whose work con-
"LA TASSE DE THE" ( The property of Mons. KiUkiani) BY MARY CASSATT
6
will not even choose the moment which it will
represent, every moment is of such importance.
It is not the spectacle of the ballet, for instance,
that interests him; his art is dedicated to the
element of reality in what is artificial. The
practising school fascinates him even more than
the stage. He cares there for the personality of
each dancer even while she surrenders it to the
impersonality of her art.
With Cezanne's art we turn sharp off into another
world. It is curious that a school should since
have arisen attempting to base upon the art of
Cezanne its theory that art can be disconnected
from human association. The art .of Cezanne
reflects the humanity of a local world as acutely
as the art of Degas. A singular appearance of in-
competence characterises Cezanne ; with this, how-
ever, is coupled a great feeling for architectural
plan as the basis of design in painting. And he
applied himself to the values perceived in colour
relations, trying to disengage them from the values
imposed by the influences of light and shade.
It is always an artist of severe limitations who
isolates some feature of art to the extent of pro-
viding a motive for an entirely new departure in
the next generation, and it fell to Cezanne to show
the way to a new order of beauty in painting.
Every master's work shows three periods : the
first, in which a hill is ascended ; the second, in
which the summit is attained—when for the first
time execution reflects mental vision withont com-
promise ; the third, in which the artist has made
his home among the very difficulties that once
appalled him. In the first the artist frequently
surprises himself as well as others, and to this
period belong those experiments which in the
study of the works of old masters confound the
makers of attributions. The work of each of these
periods has its special value. It is only in the
first that we meet all the intensity of which the
artist is capable. But it is in the middle period
that he seems to surpass himself; everywhere the
touch is vital, everything is at a pitch which cannot
be sustained. It is in the third—generally the
longest period—that the work is most personal;
by that time painting has become nearly as natural
as breathing, and it is this easiness which often
gives work of this stage a charm even where it has
become shallow.
Renoir was another master whose work con-
"LA TASSE DE THE" ( The property of Mons. KiUkiani) BY MARY CASSATT
6