James Ensor

There is a modernist connection with yet another of Fry's excursions into the art of a remote culture - this time the art of Islam. When Fry visited the huge and much publicized [There were notices of the exhibition in The Times of 5 Jan., 16 May, 19 Aug., 17 Oct. 1910] exhibition of Mohammedan art at Munich he probably knew that it was stirring the imagination of a number of modern artists. In the summer of 1910 both Henri Matisse and Albert Marquet visited the exhibition and met Hugo von Tschudi, the director of the Staatsgalerie there. Von Tschudi was one of Germany's best known collectors of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art and he was forced to move from Berlin for trying to introduce modern works into the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum. Fry, who recalls a conversation he had with von Tschudi in his essay on El Greco, probably met him on his trip to Munich. His task was to review the Mohammedan exhibition for the Burlington Magazine and the Morning Post but with the Post-Impressionist exhibition to take place in November of that year his head was also filled with new ideas about modern art. The essay is not one of his most successful. Both the scholarship and the speculative interpretation is now well out of date, but it does preserve the freshness of one of the earliest aesthetic responses to the art of Islam. [p. xxiii]

Fry of course did not encourage and promote the worship of [p. xxiii] pure abstraction as Lawrence suggests [D. H. Lawrence's satirical portrait of Fry as the high priest of abstraction . . . . [Phoenix, ed. Edward D. MacDonald, new ed. [1961], p. 565. Lawrence's essay formed the preface to the catalogue of an exhibition of his own pictures at the Warren Gallery in 1927]. [p. xxiii] but he never really solved the problem of representation in art. Indeed Fry himself said that he had 'never denied the existence of some amount of representation in all pictorial art, and that he had 'always admitted the purely representational nature of the presentiment of the third dimension on the flat surface of a picture'; [Mr. MacColl and Drawing', Burlington Magazine, 35 [Aug. 1919]. p. 84] yet much of his criticism fails to make any allowance for what is actually depicted in that third dimension. For example, when he says that in a painting by Renoir 'the planes recede by insensible gradations towards the contour, which generally remains the vaguest, least ascertained part of the modelling' and contrasts this with Cézanne's 'method of suggesting endless recessions of planes' [p. 189], he makes nothing of the important fact that Renoir's study is of an extremely voluptuous nude and Cézanne's is not. [p. xxiv]

. . . . He dealt with the problem again in his discussion of Raphael's The Transfiguration in 'Retrospect'. The peculiar treatment of the subject in this picture, says Fry, can produce a number of feelings in us, but those feelings have nothing to do with he unity of the painting as a configuration of shapes and colours. How, then is our emotional reaction to the subject of a work of art related to our comprehension of line, mass and shape? To this question Fry has no answer . . . . [p. xxiv]

F R Y:
When we look at ancient works of art we habitually treat them not merely as objects of aesthetic enjoyment but also as successive deposits of the human imagination. It is indeed this view of works of art as crystallized history that accounts for much of the interest felt in ancient art by those who have but little aesthetic feeling and who find nothing to interest them in the work of their contemporaries, where the historical motive is lacking, and they are left face to face with Bare aesthetic values . . . . [Art and life, pg. 1]

The new movement has also led to a new canon of criticism, and this has changed our attitude to the arts of other times and countries. So long as representation was regarded as the end of art, the skill of the artist and his proficiency in this particular feat of representation were regarded with an admiration which was in fact mainly non-aesthetic. With the new indifference to representation we have become much less interested in skill and not at all interested in knowledge. We are thus no longer cut off from a great deal of barbaric and primitive art the very meaning of which escaped the understanding of those who demanded a certain standard of skill in representation before they could give serious consideration to a work of art. In general the effect of the movement has been to render the artist intensely conscious of the aesthetic unity of the work of art, but singularly našve and simple as regards other considerations. It remains to be considered whether the life of the past fifty years has shown any such violent reorientation as we have found in the history of modern art . . . . [Art and life, pg. 8]

But the fascination Giotto's art exercises is due in part to his position in the development of modern culture. Coming at the same time as Dante, he shares with him the privilege of seeing life as a single, self-consistent, and systematic whole. It was a moment of equilibrium between the conflicting tendencies of human activity, a moment when such men as Dante and Giotto could exercise to the full their critical and analytical powers without destroying the unity of a cosmic theory based on theology. Such a moment was in its nature transitory: the free use of all the faculties which the awakening to a new self-consciousness had aroused, was bound to bring about antitheses which became more and more irreconcilable as time went on. Only one other artist in later times was able again to rise, by means of the conception of natural law, to a point whence life could be viewed as a whole. Even so, it was by a more purely intellectual effort, and Leonardo da Vinci could not keep the same genial but shrewd sympathy for common humanity which makes Giotto's work so eternally refreshing. [Giotto, pp. 122-23]

That the artists are excited - never more so - is no wonder, for here is an old master who is not merely modern, but actually appears a good many steps ahead of us, turning back to show us the way. Immortality if you like! But the public - what is it that makes them 'sit up' so surprisingly, one wonders. What makes this El Greco 'count' with them as surely no Old Master ever did [pp. 142] within memory? First, I suspect, the extraordinary completeness of its realization. Even the most casual spectator, passing among pictures which retire discreetly behind their canvases, must be struck by the violent attack of these forms, by a relief so outstanding that by comparison the actual scene, the gallery and one's neighbours are reduced to the key of a Whistlerian Nocturne . . . . [El Greco, pp. 142-43]

In spite of all the attacks of critics, in spite of the development of emphasis and high flavour in modern romantic landscape, which might well have spoilt us for his cool simplicity, Claude still lives, not, indeed, as one of the gods of the saleroom, but in the hearts of contemplative and undemonstrative people . . . . [p. 154] Claude's view of landscape is false to nature in that it is entirely anthropocentric. His trees exist for pleasant shade; his peasants to give us the illusion of pastoral life, not to toil for a living. His world is not to be lived in, only to be looked at in a mood of pleasing melancholy or suave reverie. It is, therefore, as true to one aspect of human desire, as it is false to the facts of life. It may be admitted that this is not the finest kind of art - it is the art of a self-centered and refined luxury which looks on nature as a garden to its own pleasure-house - but few will deny its genial and moderating charm, and few of us live so strenuously as never to feel a sense of nostalgia for that Saturnian reign to which Virgil and Claude can waft us. [Claude, p. 161]

Cézanne had no intellectual independence. I doubt if he had the faintest conception of intellectual truth, but this is not to deny that he had a powerful mind. On the contrary he had a profound intelligence of whatever came within his narrow outlook on life, and above all he had the gift of expression, so that however fantastic, absurd, or naive his opinions may have been they were always expressed in such racy and picturesque language that they become interesting as revelations of a very human and genuine personality.

One of the tragi-comedies of Cézanne's life was the story of his early friendship with Zola, followed in middle life by a gradual estrangement, and at last by a total separation. It is perhaps the only blot in M. Vollard's book that he has taken too absolutely Cézanne's point of view, and has hardly done justice to Zola's goodness of heart. The cause of friction, apart from Cézanne's habitual testiness and ill-humour, was that Zola's feeling for art, which had led him in his youth to a heroic championship of the younger men, faded away in middle life. His own practice of literature led him further and further away from any concern with pure art, and he failed to recognize that his own early prophecy of Cézanne's greatness had come true, simply because he himself had become a popular author, and Cézanne had failed of any kind of success. Unfortunately Zola, who had evidently lost all real aesthetic feeling, continued to talk about art, and worse than that he had made the hero of L'Oeuvre a more or less recognizable portrait of his old friend. Cézanne could not tolerate Zola's gradual acquiescence in worldly ideals and ways of life, and when the Dreyfusard question came up not only did his natural reactionary bias make him a vehement anti-Dreyfusard but he had no comprehension whatever of the heroism of Zola's actions; he found him merely ridiculous, and believed him to be engaged in an ill-conceived scheme of self-advertisement. But for all his contempt of Zola his affection remained deeper than he knew, and when he heard the news of Zola's death Cézanne shut himself up alone in is studio, and was heard sobbing and groaning throughout the day. [p. 183]

The longer one looks, the deeper does Renoir retire behind veil after veil of subtlety. And yet, compared with some modern artists, he was, after all, easy and instinctively simple. Even his plastic unity was arrived at by what seems a more natural method than, say, Cézanne's. [p. 188] . . . . An Ingres arrived at the simplified statement necessary for great design by a process of gradual elimination of all the superfluous sinuosities which his hand had recorded in the first drawing from nature. Renoir seems never to have allowed his eye to accept more than the larger elements of mass and direction. His full, rounded curves embrace the form in its most general aspect . . . . Like Titian's, Renoir's power of design increased visibly up to the very end of his life. True, he was capable at all periods of conceiving large and finely co-ordinated compositions, such as Les Parapluies and the Charpentier Family, but at the end even the smallest studies have structural completeness. [Renoir p. 189]

The work of re-reading and selecting from the mass of my writings as an art critic has inevitably brought me up against the question of its consistency and coherence. Although I do not think that I have republished here anything with which I entirely disagree, I cannot but recognize that in many of these essays the emphasis lies in a different place from where I should now put it. Fortunately I have never prided myself upon my unchanging constancy of attitude, but unless I flatter myself I think I can trace a certain trend of thought underlying very different expressions of opinion. Now since that trend seems to me to be symptomatic of modern aesthetic, and since it may perhaps explain much that seems paradoxical in the actual situation of art, it may be interesting to discuss its nature even at the cost of being autobiographical.

In my work as a critic of art I have never been a pure Impressionist, a mere recording instrument of certain sensations. I have always had some kind of aesthetic. A certain scientific curiosity and a desire for comprehension have impelled me at every stage to make generalizations, to attempt some kind of logical co-ordination of my impressions. But, on the other hand, I have never worked out for myself a complete system such as the metaphysicians deduce from a priori principles. I have never believed that I knew what was the ultimate nature of art. My aesthetic has been a purely practical one, a tentative expedient, an attempt to reduce to some kind of order my aesthetic impressions up to date. It has been held merely until such time as fresh experiences might confirm or modify it. Moreover, I have always looked on my system with a certain suspicion. I have recognized that if it ever formed too solid a crust it might stop the inlets of fresh experience, and I can count various occasions when my principles would have led me to condemn, and when my sensibility has played the part of Balaam [Balak called upon Balaam to curse the children of Israel, but God said, 'Thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed' [Num. 22:12] with the effect of [p. 199] making temporary chaos of my system. That has, of course, always re-arranged itself to take in the new experience, but with each such cataclysm it has suffered a loss of prestige. So that even in its latest form I do not put forward my system as more than a provisional induction from my own aesthetic experiences.

I have certainly tried to make my judgment as objective as possible, but the critic must work with the only instrument he possess--namely, his own sensibility with all its personal equations. All that he can consciously endeavor is to perfect that tool to its utmost by studying the traditional verdicts of men of aesthetic sensibility in the past, and by constant comparison of his own reactions with those of his contemporaries who are specially gifted in this way. When he has done all that he can in this direction - and I would allow him a slight bias in favour of agreement with tradition - he is bound to accept the verdict of his own feelings as honestly as he can. Even plain honesty in this matter is more difficult to attain than would be supposed by those who have never tried it. In so delicate a matter as the artistic judgment one is liable to many accidental disturbing influences, one can scarcely avoid temporary hypnotisms and hallucinations. One can only watch for and try to discount these, taking every opportunity to catch one's sensibility unawares before it can take cover behind prejudices and theories.

When the critic holds the result of his reaction to a work of art clearly in view he has next to translate it into words. Here, too, distortion is inevitable, and it is here that I have probably failed most of accuracy, for language in the hands of one who lacks the mastery of a poet has its own tricks, its perversities and habits. There are things which it shies at and goes round, there are places where it runs away and, leaving the reality which it professes to carry tumbled out at the tail of the cart, arrives in a great pother, but without the goods.

But in spite of all these limitations and the errors they entail it seems to me that the attempt to attain objective judgments has not altogether failed, and that I seem to myself to have been always groping my way towards some kind of a reasoned and practical aesthetic. Many [p. 200] minds have been engaged alongside of mine in the same pursuit. I think we may claim that partly as a result of our common efforts a rather more intelligent attitude exists in the educated public of today than obtained in the last century. [pp. 199-201]

. . . . Tolstoy saw that the essence of art was that it was a means of communication between human beings . . . . [p. 205]

It was, I think, the observation of these cases of reaction to pure form that led Mr. Clive Bell in his book, Art, to put forward the hypothesis that however much the emotions of life might appear to play a part in the work of art, the artist was really not concerned with them, but only with the expression of a special and unique kind of emotion, the aesthetic emotion. A work of art had the peculiar property of conveying the aesthetic emotion, and it did this in virtue of having 'significant form'. [p. 206]

. . . . Supposing, then, that we are able to isolate in a work of art this purely aesthetic quality to which Mr. Clive Bell gives the name of 'significant form'. Of what nature is it? And what is the value of this elusive and - taking the whole mass of mankind - rather uncommon aesthetic emotion which it causes? I put these questions without much hope of answering them, since it is of the greatest importance to recognize clearly what are the questions which remain to be solved.

I think we are all agreed that we mean by significant form something other than agreeable arrangements of form, harmonious patterns, and the like. We feel that a work which possesses it is the outcome of an endeavor to express an idea rather than to create a pleasing object. Personally, at least, I always feel that it implies the effort on the part of the artists to bend to our emotional understanding by means of his passionate conviction some intractable material which is alien to our spirit.

I seem unable at present to get beyond this vague adumbration of the nature of significant form. Flaubert's 'expression of the idea' seems to me to correspond exactly to what I mean, but, alas! he never explained, and probably could not, what he meant by the 'idea'.

As to the value of the aesthetic emotion - it is clearly infinitely removed from those ethical values to which Tolstoy would have confined it. It seems to be as remote from actual life and in its practical utilities as the most useless mathematical theory. One can only say that those who experience it feel it to have a peculiar quality of 'reality' which makes it a matter of infinite importance in their lives. Any attempt I might make to explain this would probably land me in the depths of mysticism On the edge of that gulf I stop. [Retrospect, p. 211]