Dramatic Portraiture

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Dramatic PortraitureAuthor(s): Claude PhillipsSource: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 8, No. 35 (Feb., 1906), pp. 299-305+307-309+312-315Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/856583.

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DRAMATIC PORTRAITUREA BY CLAUDE PHILLIPSANE of thefavouriterounds of attack againstmodernartis its extravagance,hevisible effort which it be-trays to strike out newpathsandmakeneweffectsfor thesakeof merenovelty-for the sakeof differing romone'spre-decessor ndone'sneighbour-and not inresponseto inspirationor to impulsionfromwithin. Whethertherebe sufficientjustification or this reproachas regardspainting generally s a question so vastandfar-reachinghat I shrinkfrom evenattempting odiscusst onthe present cca-sion. Lookingto portraiture lone, n so

faras it may be separatedrom the otherbranches f paintinguponwhichit borders,and on occasion inevitably infringes, Istronglyncline to accusemodernartists fan extraordinaryimidity,an extraordinarywantof initiative,a lack of the powerorthe will to penetratebelow the meresur-face of things. True, all the secretsofthe modernpalette,all the inventionsofmoderntechnique,are lavishedupon theportrait,which is, in Englandaboveall,thegagnepain f the artist. He is prodigalenoughof his accumulatedreasure s re-gards he inventionof a mereattitude,asregardsmere technicalcomposition, hedexterous and eye-tickling realization ofwhat he has imagined-if the word be nottoo lofty for that which suffers above allfrom a plentiful lack of imagination. But,save in exceptional instances, he shrinksfrom contact with the inner man, the soulor essence of the human being whom, tooseldom as a labour of love, too often withthe mere skilled labour of the more orless accomplished craftsman, he sets him-self to portray. If ' the proper study ofmankind is man,' then should the portrait-painter, above all, prepare for his task bythe close and sympathetic study of soul noless than body, or rather of both, as one

and indissoluble. Should not a task sogreat-and there is none greater, nobler,loftier in art-be approached with all thepassion of human sympathy, with a certainawe, even, as may well invade him whostands face to face with the eternal mystery,and dares to re-create the created, or, ifyou will, to unveil some of the mysterythat lies before the world half unfolded, yetmay not be read without the interposedvision and guidance of a seer and teacher ?Some great masters, even in these moderntimes, when disinclination grows and growsto face a task so exacting and so noble,have in this sense recognized the greatnessof the effort that must be made when theyattempt from the higher standpoint theportrayal of their fellow-man; and whenthey have done so they have producedmasterpieces that are not so much artisticreflections of the mere human envelope asinterpretations, summings up of the manyand various appearances, the many moodsthat go to make up the man. Such greatmasters of modern days are, among theFrench, David and Ingres ; with ourselvesWatts, and in some happy moments of in-spiration Millais; among the Germans,Len-bach, whom, severely as we may condemnthe artificialities of his technique, we mustperforce recognize as a portraitist whohas presented great men in great momentsof the inner life. Such a master, too, doesWhistler show himself to be in those un-forgettable masterpieces, to which he nevercared to give fellows, the Carlyle and thePortrait of the Artist's kMother. But theaverage portrait-painter, whatever be themeasure of his technical accomplishment,is oppressed by a sense of routine, by anindefinable ennui--and a shyness, too,as regards the human being with whomthus fortuitously, and often as a merematter of business, he is brought intocontact.

At the highest he but seeks to make aTHE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE,NO. 35. Vol. VIII-February, 9go6. BB 299

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Dramatic Portraiturepicture that shall show him master of hiscraft, please the sitter and the sitter's moreexacting kin, and fight successfully withits own class and its surroundings on thewalls of the Salons or the Academy. Whattime indeed has the fashionable portrait-painter for psychology, or anything morethan the rudimentary and distant acquaint-ance that unwritten law prescribes as thesufficient and proper relation between theportrayer and the portrayed ? Com-manding genius even in these circum-stances, and without rendering any accountto itself of that which it does, will illu-minate with the intuition which belongsto it alone the very depths of thehuman individuality, unaware seeminglythat it is going beyond the mere tran-scription of fact. But the tendency of themodern is all in the direction of super-ficiality and perfunctoriness, of timidityand excessive discretion, of an acceptanceof one mood-that which the sitter maydeliberately choose to present, or the painterindifferently choose to accept-as thewhole man, as all that it is the portrait-painter's business to convey. To a certainextent-unless the portrait-painter be greatenough to stand above the unwritten lawin such respects-modern etiquette, modernconventionality, the modern tendency 'notto insist but to pass on,' prescribe to theartist some such mental attitude, some actualprocedure, as arehere indicated. A stronglydefined personality that has preserved itsedges from being rubbed into conventionalsmoothness by the friction of everyday life:what could be more unfashionable? or, asthose whom Nature has herself rubbedsmooth and featureless might put it, whatcould be more 'provincial'? Would it notbe deemed that most terrible of sins, a wantof good taste, to evoke such a personality un-mistakably on the canvas? Unless, indeed,the subject be an actor or a politician, inwhich cases the personality would, aslikelyas not, be an assumed one, or, at any rate,

one essentially modified by perpetual re-presentation.The most brilliant, various, and gener-ally accomplished of modern portraitists,Mr. J. S. Sargent, has hardly ever, it istrue, aimed at either the intimate andpsychological or the truly dramatic por-traiture which I am endeavouring todefine. He has sought rather--notimitatively, but in the spirit of a truemodern-to realize in his portraiture grace,alertness, vivacity, the particular momentof energy, the suggestion of life screwedup to its highest physical point ; he holdshumanity at arm's length and will knownothing of its inner and subtler workings-nothing, at any rate, beyond that whichthe physical aspect, the physical individu-ality, suggests and accentuates. But whenhe, in this sense, and with these objects inview, has been most inventive, most daring,either in innovation, or in renewal of a for-mula and standpoint familiar enough in theart of the eighteenth century-when he hasbeen, if not most dramatic and interpreta-tive, at any rate most momentary and viva-cious, then has he met with the strongestopposition from the public, and even fromthe critics. As I have already pointed out,the tendency of to-day is, especially amongourselves, to regard the full revelation of apersonality, unless it be a public and arti-ficial one, as an indiscretion. And notonly this, but to let the natural vivacity ofyouth and beauty, the natural emphasis ofphysical and mental strength, have full playin portraiture, to depart from the com-plete quiescence and passivity of attitudewhich is with the rarestexceptions adheredto as natural and proper-this excites, as arule, a genuine repulsion, and is held to be'in questionable taste.' And yet Mr. Sargent,in his Mrs. Hugh Hammersley, or instance,or his Duchess of Sutherland,or his Mrs.GeorgeBatten, has not approached in daringthe ViscountessCrosbieof Sir Joshua Rey-nolds-that enchantress who flits acrossthe

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5DramaticPortraiturecanvas, and can give the onlooker but afew moments of her enchantment; or theLady Jane Halliday, whom the mastershows wind-tossed on the heath, that shemay but captivate the more surely; orthe irresistible Madame Baccelli of Gains-borough. We shall see how one or twomodern masters, portraying their nearestand dearest, have with the most strikingand poignant effect broken through theunwritten law enforced by a timid, passion-less conventionality: but what they havethus achieved belongs to another branchof our subject, and will be better under-stood a little later on.The discussion of portraiture in artneed not for our present purposes gofurther back than the fifteenth century.If we study the portraits of a Jan vanEyck, a Roger van der Weyden, a Fouquet,or a Memlinc, on the one hand, and onthe other those of a Ghirlandajo, a Peru-gino, an Antonello da Messina, or aGiovanni Bellini, we find the same para-mount desire, on the part of the portrayedas on that of the portrayer, for a truth soabsolute and trenchant that it shall con-vince both contemporaries and posterity.For both North and South the rule, orrather the natural assumption, would,judging by results, appear to have been:'Speakof me as I am; nothingextenuate,Norset downaughtin malice.'In that wonderful period of full bloom inthe life of humanity, the sixteenth cen-tury, the greater complications and thediminishing naivete of life introduced intoportraiture, as into art generally, freshconsiderations. Still it was the truth thatwas sought for; but a truth larger, morecomprehensive, and also more fascinating,than that of the ardent realism, loving yetunrelenting, which marked the precedingage. And it was a truth, too, that mustmake round the human being portrayed anatmosphere of its own, and invisibly, indefi-nitely, yet none the less surely, give the note

of a dramatic contact-akin to that of lifeitself-with the time, the place, the events,the race to which that being belonged.And there were phases of portraiture inwhich the sitter, whether consciously orunconsciously, gave himself wholly orpartially to the spectator, seeking thesympathy of his fellow-man for some tragicpassion of youth, some corroding sorrow,or for joy in light and life and beautytempered by some vague apprehension ofthe future, tearing at the heart-strings--whether of age, death, or renouncement.This is, perhaps, the noblest and mostappealing of all the modes of true portrai-ture. In it Giorgione, Titian, Palma,Lotto, Moretto and Moroni have immor-talized their sitters and themselves: re-vealing, in the glow of artistic and humanpassion that transfigures but does not dis-tort, the very life and soul of these ontheir lips and in their eyes; and in therevelation lifting the veil, too, from allthat is finest and most penetrating in theirown genius. Take, as instances, theAntonio Broccardo of Giorgione at Buda-Pesth, or his Portrait of a roung Man atBerlin; take as more advanced develop-ments of the same phase of thought andfeeling, of the same spiritual enhancedand concentrated by artistic vision, theyoung monk in Titian's Concertat the Pitti(by some still ascribed to Giorgione), or LeJeune Hommeau Gant of the same masterin the Louvre. To him who interrogatesthem in the right spirit these picturesreveal the personages represented in themost intense individuality --of mentalcharacter and physical temperament in one-at that wonderful moment of full-blownyouth merging into manhood, when ardourinsatiable yearns to embrace all that theworld holds of passion and exquisiteness,yet, overshadowed by foreboding already,recoils a little on the verge of realms un-known. How much here belongs to thetime; how much to the individual and the

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iDramaticPortraituretype to which he belongs; how much to theevocative and transfiguring genius of theartist, it is impossible to say. Only theart of Venice and the Venetian territoryat this particular moment of the Renais-sance in its early prime has produced por-traiture of this rare and vibrant sensi-tiveness, of this indefinably pathetic beautyin the interpretation of man. This por-traiture is but vaguely, if at all, suggestedby or reflected in the Italian literature ofthe corresponding period: it is to ourown Elizabethan dramatists-to Shake-speare above all-that we must look for apresentment similarly illumined by divina-tion and sympathy of the all-embracingardours and the tragic fortunes of youth.

This the Venetian does painting his bro-ther. But the Florentine-and the laterUmbrian, too, bred up in the shadow ofhis influence-gives a calmer picture ofhis fellow-man, in which the dry light ofthe intellect predominates over, and keepsin check or in suspense, the passions.Not without a certain note of challengeand suspicion are the Florentine portraitsof the earlier Cinquecento. One feelsthat the sitters do not give themselves un-reservedly to the painter, and that he buthalf reveals them to the spectator. Thereis in contemporary Venetian art nothingakin to the splendid self-assertive insolence,combined with an absolute and deliberatereticence, which marks the haughty patri-cians of Florence as portrayed by Bronzino.And Raphael himself, last and greatest ofUmbro-Florentines, when he sets himselfto portray his fellow-man, loses or putsaside his suavity, and keeps but his Olym-pian calm, exercising to the full, yet with-out loss of breadth or grandeur of vision,a keen penetrating power of analysis thatmakes of his finest portraits tremendousrevelations of personality. It can hardlybe necessary in support of this viewto call attention to the early Angelo Doniand Maddalena Doni, and the much later

TommasoInghirami (though probably onlythe fine copy of a finer original) in thePitti; to the lusty, headstrong, passionateJulius II, which, as a creation at any rate,is Raphael's very own; or to the physicallyrepellent, the mentally disquieting andperplexing Leo X, one of the most surpris-ing interpretations of character, as well asone of the greatest pictorial masterpieces,to be found in the whole range of por-traiture.The seventeenth century has its ownideals of material splendour and imposingmajesty which too often exclude any ap-proach to intimacy between the sitter andthe spectator. The aspect of the humanbeing to be put en ividence by the painteris in so many instances that of officialpomp and dignity, of aristocraticgrandezza,or of material well-being and jollity. Therobust and magnificent portraits of Rubensreveal no effort on the part of the masterto unveil secret depths of idiosyncrasy, andbut rarely the desire to give dramatic pre-sentment of the human being, whether theinner drama of the soul be in question orthe outer drama of definite incident. VanDyck, save in exceptional cases-as in thatoften-repeated portrait of the sour andsuspicious Isabella Clara Eugenia, regentof the Netherlands, which is a veritabletearing of the veil from corrosion of soul-prefers to impart to his sitters, over andabove their own vaguely indicated per-sonality, a measure of his own splendourtempered by refinement, a measure ofhis own attractive melancholy. Rem-brandt is wholly outside this attempteddefinition of the seventeenth century. Ifhe can be openly and obviously dramaticin one or two portrait-groups, to be men-tioned subsequently, his drama in the widerange of his portraiture is mainly that ofthe soul: of his own being in infinitelypathetic development from serious youth,through lusty manhood, to a maturity andold age ennobled by suffering and lifted by

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Dramatic Portraiturebreadth and keenness of vision into sub-limity-of the being of others seen throughthe uncompromising realism of outer pre-sentment, in the spiritualized atmospherethat is his own creation. Velazquez, whenexceptionally he breaks away from thedetachment, the severe objectivity whichtemperament and standpoint not less thanofficial etiquette impose, can with the mostincisive effect give grim tragi-comedy orironic farce-as in the famous series ofdwarfs and buffoons at the Prado-or sug-gest beneath outward calm ardoursof tem-perament and smouldering passion, as in theFemmea l'Eventail of Hertford House andthe Spanish GentlemanUnknown of ApsleyHouse. But in Lebrun and Mignard, inRigaud and Largilli&re,n Lely and Kneller,we find more and more a dead wall inter-posed between the onlooker and the truehuman being who may be hiding beneaththe personage represented with so muchpomp and artifice. In portraying a manat this period the effort is, above all,to give his place in the world, his dignity,his official and artificial as distinguishedfrom his human self. In portraying awoman it is her own chief art-l'artde plaire-that the painter strives for, andnot only woman's will in such matters-working then much as it does now-but the conventions, the very atmosphereof the period, impose this point of viewupon her portraitist. And when the seven-teenth merges into the eighteenth century,it is-especially in France-the desir deplaire that sparkles and twinkles in theportraits of both man andwoman-that ani-mates and engrosses the painter even moreabsolutely than it does his sitters. That thisis the case with such brilliant craftsmen as

Carle Van Loo, Nattier, Tocqu', Drouais,and their kind needs no proof. But eventhe greatest French portraitist of that age,Latour, however keenly he might interpretthe true idiosyncrasies of his sitters-andhe prided himself especially on his penetra-

tion in such matters-must needs makethem shine and smile quandmemewith theunflagging brilliancy which was his ideal.The main effort of all the brilliant time wasbriller pour plaire-plaire pour briller; andeven with this admirable master charmhad precedence of character, or exerted itssupremacy to modify character in its ownsense. For the greatest, the most magi-cally interpretative, as well as the mostdecorative, portraiture of the eighteenthcentury one must turn to the sculptorHoudon, the unrivalled portraitist ofD'Alembert, Diderot, Voltaire, Rousseau,Buffon, Franklin, Cagliostro, Mirabeau,Lafayette, and many other famous person-ages, social, political, and literary, of thecourt and the Revolution.Exuberance of life and outward characterrather than subtlety in psychical analysismark the portraits of Hogarth. Vitality,unflagging vivacity and charm, and notdramatic force or divination, are the main-springs of Gainsborough's incomparablyfascinating art. But Sir Joshua Reynolds,who in his portraits of women and childrenis as wholly possessed with the desir deplaire et defaire plaire as any Frenchman ofhis time, often strikes in his male portraitsthe stirring note of drama-not only ob-vious and positive, as in the Admiral Keppeland the Lord Heath4eld,but subjective andpsychical, as in the 'Dr. Johnson and theJohn Hunter-to cite two only amongmany well-known examples of the artist inthis phase.Then the Revolution intervenes, and,not in France alone, there is an absoluteupsetting, often an absolute reversal, ofideals of aspiration and achievement. Stillthe periods of the Revolution, the FirstEmpire, and the Restoration can show inFrance some portraitists of the first rankamong whom Louis David stands out pre-eminent. It is as if he breathed morefreely when for a time he escaped from theself-imposed trammels of his rigid Graeco-

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'Dramatic PortraitureRoman art, and without parti pris was ableto face humanity. As a portrait-group ona large scale, in which the dramatic inten-tion is subordinated to, but not obliteratedby, the faithful presentment of the indi-vidual, his Sacre de l'Impiratrice Josephineknows no equal, save the frescoes ofDomenico Ghirlandajo in the choir ofS. Maria Novella; while for incisive forceand summing up of character his Pius VII,in its several distinct versions, has hardlybeen surpassed. As to one famous workof his great successor, Ingres, a word willbe said a little later on.I have already touched upon the positionof modern art with regard to portraiture,and pointed to the pre-eminence of afew great men whose work is the strikingexception that proves the rule. I need notfurther emphasize my contention as to thesingular diminution of audacity and initia-tive, of dramatic intention and penetrativepower, to be noted in the portraitist properas the nineteenth century, otherwise soaudacious in the brushing away of con-ventions and the facing of truth, passesfrom its beginning to its close. Thisside of the subject is too vast and compli-cated for further development within thelimits of a magazine article.My desire is now to call attention to aparticular phase of dramatic portraiture-which from its very nature has at all timesand in all schools been rare, but which inthis age of self-consciousness, of generaltimidity and perfunctoriness in the con-ception of the portrait, is rarer than ever.I refer to that order of dramatic portraiturewhich in depicting a definite incident or adefinite phase of feeling-uniting or divid-ing two human beings, or, as the case maybe, evoking the passion that from thehuman being portrayed goes out to an-other invisible-combines the expressionof permanent idiosyncrasy which makesthe true portrait with the expression ofthe definite soul-drama or the definite

phase of intensified passion which holdstogether these human beings in strictestunion or in the close grapple of mentalcombat that is its antithesis. From this veryspecial and restricted group I would banishonce for all certain famous and admirablestage-dramatic portraits-such as the Mrs.Siddonsas the 7ragic Muse and the GarrickbetweenTragedyand Comedyof Sir JoshuaReynolds, the SophieArnould as Iphignieof the sculptor Houdon, the Rachel as aGreekHeroineof Gr6me, and the Ellen rerryas Lady Macbethof Mr. J. S. Sargent-be-cause in these and all portraits of the classto which they belong the stage personalityobscures the human, the stage-tragedynecessarily arrests and supersedes that innerlife of souls in intimate communion or inintimate antagonism which it is the pecu-liar province of these more truly dramaticportraits to present.Let us take as ourfirstexample the famousJean Arnolphiniand Jeanne de Chenany,hisWIfe,by Jan van Eyck, now in the NationalGallery.' To match the peculiar pathos,the quiet intensity of this representation inart, one must go back to the portrait-sculpture of the Roman tombs, and in par-ticular to that noble group in the Vatican,in which husband and wife, hand in hand,soul to soul, go on, in a perfect union thatnone can now mar, to eternity. Here wehave the one moment of rare and exquisitepathos, that, caught from the pair whoso naively pose before him, Jan has allowedto pierce through the stern, splendid realismof his great life-work, so wholly differentin spirit from that of the more lofty, themore imaginative, the more human Hubert.In the hush produced by some emotiontoo deep and solemn for gesture or wordthe Tuscan merchant and his Flemishspouse stand motionless hand in hand.The features of the astute Italian whomelsewhere (Berlin Gallery) Jan van Eyckhas presented so differently are suffused1 Plate I, page 305.

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'Dramatic Portraiturewith a holy calm, a mystic inner rejoicingas for some great happiness vouchsafed.We may either read here thanksgiving forthe supreme joy that the womb of thebeloved spouse has been made fruitful,or, more simply, an act of mute wor-ship for the harmony and intimate sym-pathy of the two in wedlock. Thetheory, accepted by many German critics,that we have here the betrothal of thepair is controverted by the costume andgeneral aspect of the lady, as well as bythe whole spirit of the picture. Sucha betrothal is foreshadowed in the AffancedCoupleobtaininga Ring from St. Eligius, byJan's imitator, Petrus Christus (collection ofBaron Oppenheim at Cologne), a dramaticportrait-piece which is just on the border-land between true portraiture and genre,and lacks the solemnity of Jan's greatmasterpiece.The Yean Arnolphiniandhis Wife remainsunique in Netherlandish art, both in con-ception and spirit, untilwe come to Rubens,who, in the Portrait of the Artist with hisFirst Wife, Isabella Brant (Alte Pinakothekof Munich), gives to the world a pictureless lofty in spirit, less intimate in emotion,than the Van Eyck, but yet singularlybeautiful in the warmth and fullness withwhich it expresses the union, physicaland moral, of two human beings stillin the heyday of life and hope. And howmuch nobler in spirit is this family picturethan the magnificent Rubenswith his SecondWife, HIlne Fourment (formerly at Blen-heim, and now in the collection of thelate Baron Alphonse de Rothschild)., Inthe one instance the true consort, not involuptuous delight only, but in all thevicissitudes of life; in the other the fresh-ness and fairness of unsullied flesh covetedand adored, the submission of youth andbeauty paid for with pomp and splendour.Progression in the contrarysense is shown intwo great portrait-pieces by FransHals. Theearlier one, which is the more spontaneous,

the moregenuinely nspiredpicture-FransHals with his SecondWiy?,LysbethReyniers(Rijks Museum of Amsterdam)-betraysthe lower love for the well-favouredyoungmatron, and a somewhat gross revelling onthe partof both in the materialjoys of life.In a considerablyater piece, TheFamilyofthe Painter collectionof ColonelWarde,andrecently reproducedby the ArundelClub),we see the master with this same wife,now the fast-ageing mother of childrengrown tall and vigorous. Here is thenote of jollity still, but with it that of anincreased gravity: the hand-graspwhichhere unites Hals to his Lysbeth meansthanks for faithful service and the caresof life equally borne. But somehow thepainter of unbridledvivacity and the ex-terior life does not succeed in wholly con-vincing the spectator of his more seriousmood, or in securing the sympathy forwhich he makes so obvious a bid. Rem-brandthassignally failed to give thejoie devivre which is of the very essenceof Hals'sart in the well-known Portraitof theArtistand Saskia n the Dresden Gallery,a groupdownrightvulgar in the forced expressionof merematerialluxuryandvoluptuousness,and yet not trulyjoyful orvivacious. Buthe has taken his revenge in that beautifullate work, the so-calledJewish Bride of theRijks Museum-really the portrait-groupofa Dutch marriedcouple-which inbeautyand intimacy of sentiment recalls,thoughit does not quite equal, the Van Eyck.Next, turning to Italy, we come to awork by Domenico Ghirlandajo,2 painterwhose reserve and complete-perhaps' toocomplete-possession of self have been tooreadily condemned as stolidity and cold-ness, though in the supremelyfine Deathof St. Francis of the SS. Trinita at Flor-ence he has produced one of the mostloftily and intimately pathetic works ofthe whole Quattrocento. This strange,and strangelybeautiful, Old Man andBoy2 Plate I, page 305.

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iDramatic Portraiture(No. 1322 in the Louvre) has no exactparallel in Italian, or, indeed, in any art.Like most of the exceptional portraits withwhich, not from the technical but thespiritual point of view, we are now deal-ing, it could only have been realized by anabsolute and willing consent to self-revela-tion on the part of the sitters, by an entiresympathy, a true divination on the part ofthe painter. This ill-favoured old Floren-tine, terribly, irretrievably disfigured toboot by some insidious disease which hemakes no attempt to disguise, lets his wholesoul go out to the little boy-his grand-child, perhaps-who, oblivious or regard-less of this repulsive affliction, stretchesout his little arms to clasp the wrinkledneck, uplifting his face radiant with loveand trust to the countenance, no longergrotesque or repulsive, but transfiguredintobeauty, that bends to meet it in this mo-ment of perfect union. We may, nay, wemust, read into the picture-for here theartist, usually so reticent, has left us nochoice-the infinite bitterness, but also theinfinite consolation that this life knows.The dramatic portrait is much less theexception in the full Renaissance than it isin the fifteenth century. In Germany,and in northern art generally, portrai-ture of this class is at once symbolic anddramatic. Take as an instance the extra-ordinary portrait-group that Hans Burgk-mair in his last years painted of himselfand his wife (Imperial Gallery of Vienna).3That the Augsburg painter could on occa-sion be intensely dramatic, his famouschiaroscuro woodcut, Death the Strangler,gives the most ample proof. In this paintingthere is the usual conventional moralizingabout death that pervades the art of Germanpainters and engravers at this period; butthere is much more than this. The lovinghusband, whose sad glance betrays hispity, has been cruel to be kind; his hard-featured elderly spouse is compelled to pose

stripped of headgear and adornments, andto show the ravages of time and care alluntempered in the broad light of day.Traces of the struggle and the recoil fromthe truth thus cruelly thrust upon her arestill to be seen in the unquiet features, andthere is little need, indeed, of such furtherreminder as that which is afforded by thetwo skulls reflected, in lieu of humanvisages, in the mirror. For the woman,surely death has no pangs more bitter thanthis foreshadowing of corruption.Even Holbein, the reserved,the objective,has given us in the SirBrian Tuke,rreasurerof HenryVIII (Alte Pinakothek at Munich)-no doubt, at the express bidding of hissitter-a portrait of this type, though onethat is far more symbolic than dramatic.Death with his scythe hovers at the backof the richly-robed official, and with in-trusive finger points to the sands fastrunning out in the hour-glass placed beforehim. Here the soul-drama is wholly inthe face of the man portrayed, which sowonderfully expresses bitterness overcome,the inevitable faced-acceptance of man'sdestiny-and yet no forced contempt forthe ephemeral dignities and splendours oflife.

In the Venetian portraiture of theCinquecento, especially in the portraitureof men, drama, whether the outcome oftemperament or of event, or of both, isever latent. We are often enabled to divinethe tragedy without the aid of gesture orsymbolic adjunct, almost without the guid-ance of definite facial expression. Butsome of the likenesses of this time aredeliberately and intentionally dramatic.There is in the Colonna Palace at Rome aportrait by Tintoret-styled simply AMusician, if I remember rightly-in whichthere is surely intended some self-reve-lation. A man of middle age, of an aspectsombrely, intensely passionate, though hishair is streaked already with grey, sitsmusing, with one hand on the keyboardPlate II, page 309.

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PORTRAIT OF AN UNKNOWN MAN, BY LORENZO LOTTO; IN THE BORGHESE GALLERY, ROME.FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDERSON, ROME

PORTRAITS OF THE PAINTER AND HIS WIFE, BY HANSOF VIENNA. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY J. LOEWY



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PORTRAITS OF MERE ANGELIQUE OF PORT ROYAL (CATHERINE-AGNES ARNAULD) AND SORUR CATHERINE )DESAINTE-SUZANNE (CATHERINE-SUZANNE DE CHAMPAIGNE), BY PHILIPPE DE CHAMI'AIGNE; IN TI E LOUVRE.FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HANFSTAENGL

PORTRAITS OF A MOTHER AND SON, BY EUGENE LCARRIERE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BYGOUPIL ET CIE, BY KIND PERMISSION OF Les Aits

DRAMATIC PORTRAITURE, PLATE III



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)Dramatic 'Portraitureof a harpsichord; behind him the sungoes down in stormy lurid glow on anagitated sea. Is it not as if the sitter andthe painter intended to hint that here wassome sorrow gnawing at the heart, darkand uncontrollable as the billows of thesea-a sorrow that even such music as' Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek'could not assuage ? Lorenzo Lotto, who isever in a condition of intimate tremuloussympathy with his sitters, makes a still moredirect appeal on behalf of the passionatepilgrim, his hero, in a famous portrait inthe (now nationalized) Borghese collectionat Rome.4 A man splendidly clad, in theheyday of life and seemingly of strength,stands fronting the spectator, with one handpressed hard to his side, the other crushingdown roses-flowers, buds, and leaves-and leaving bare amidst their fairness ahorrible little skull: infinitely touching isthe appeal of these eyes that have no hopein them, but only mute revolt against un-merited fate --yet plead to man thebrother for the sympathy that may sootheand console anguish of body or of mind.Portraits such as these seem a very cry ofthe soul, a relief to pent-up agony. Thepoint has been reached that Torquato Tassotouches in the last scene of Goethe's tragedy:Nein, Alles ist dahin nur Eines bleibt:Die Thra*ne at uns die Natur verliehen,Den Schrei des Schmerzens wenn der MannzuletztEs nicht mehr triigt---There would appear to be some strangeindescribable relief to tragic passion in itsportrayal thus. It is the equivalent of thetears that for one blessed moment drownthe smouldering fire and fall like balmupon the wound that it has made.The Italian Nobleman, by Moretto, No.299 in the National Gallery, is anotherinstance of a portrait dramatic in intention;but here the dignity and reserve of thepainter get the upper hand, and we can butguess at the causes of the melancholy which

overclouds, even if it does not subjugate,splendid manhood. Titian's marvellousCharles V at the Battle of Miihlberg (PradoGallery) - the greatest portrait of theworld's greatest portrait-painter-is in ahigher and more comprehensive sensedramatic; and that with no departurefrom the most absolute repose and reserve.Caesar, solitary in victory as in defeat, israised so high above his fellow-man, thathe can commune with God alone, and withNature, which is but a manifestation of theDivine. Small, pale, fading already outof life, he is yet in his haughty composure,in his impenetrable reserve, as majestic asthe half-divine Pharaoh, and more tri-umphant than Alexander himself.As an example of seventeenth-centuryportraiture in this rarephase I have selecteda celebrated piece in the Louvre by Philippede Champaigne,5 a painter who like Ghir-landajo has often, and not wholly withoutcause, been accused of coldness and exces-sive reserve, but who here under the stressof personal emotion has created a workunique in ardour of aspiration as in quietintensity of pathos. The personages repre-sented are the Mother Superior of PortRoyal, Catherine-Agnes Arnauld, and thepainter's own daughter, Sister Catherine-Suzanne de Champaigne. The Sister hadsufferedduring fourteen months from a ma-lignant fever; and, when the doctors des-paired,hadbeencured through the persistentand untiring prayer of the Mother Superior.Philippe de Champaigne, the accreditedpainter of Port Royal, in order to expresshis gratitude and to commemorate thiswonder, painted, in 1662, the picture herereproduced. Himself he works a wonderhere for which it is hard indeed to find aparallel in art. Of the two nuns repre-sented we have the absolutely veracious,the wholly unflattered, portraits; yet theardour of their devotion, the austere joy oftheir thanksgiving, transfiguresthe homeli-

4 Plate II, page 309. 5 Plate III, page 312.cc 313



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Dramatic 'Portraitureness of their feature, andlights it from withinwith an unearthly radiance. Not this alone ;but there is here indefinably, yet none theless surely suggested, the Calvinistic severityofJansenism, the rigid banishment of volup-tuous ecstasy from the purified aspirationof faith, the inflexible renouncement ofall that outwardly beautifies religion-offlowers, of art, of music, of all, indeed,that is not prayer and self-effacement.We must on this occasion pass overthe eighteenth century, from which-forreasons already sufficiently indicated-there is but little to glean for our presentpurposes. It has been seen that LouisDavid, who must count as a precursor andpioneer of nineteenth-century art,can whenhe comes close to humanity charge hisportraits with an extraordinary intensity.In a group such as the strangely repellentyet strangely fascinating Madame Morel de'Tangryand her Two Daughters (Louvre),the paramount intention is to repre-sent and to characterize with an un-relenting truth. Yet here is irresistiblysuggested a tragedy which has but little todo with outward events. The grim olddame, with her unabashed ugliness, herunabated vitality, so irresistibly, and, as itwere, unconsciously asserts her dominantpersonality, so utterly seems to relegate tothe background the faded,forlorn old maids,her daughters Dramatic in quite anotherway is Ingres's splendid portrait of Louis-Fran9ois Bertin, founder of the 'ournal desDebats and father of modern journalism(Louvre). This is pre-eminently l'hommede bien, the strong, intellectually combativebourgeois of the higher class, the finest typeof Frenchman quite obviously, too, heis lying in wait for his adversary, andaccumulating force in order the better tocrush him under the weight of his argu-ment. Again we have the permanentcharacter and the incident of the moment-the one not defeating but completingand emphasizing the other.

The nearer we approach to moderntimes the rarer becomes this exceptionalclass of portraiture which I have nowmade some attempt to define and to illus-trate: perhaps because, under the stress andthe bewildering complications of modernlife, the self, the true personality, inevitablybecomes fainter and fainter, less and lessclearly defined in outline, less and less will-ing, moreover, to reveal itself frankly at amoment when some drama of the soul orsome drama of outward event causes it toflame up in redoubled intensity, and tostand out clearer, it may be, than everbefore or again, in the blaze of its ownlight. One or two examples occur to mealmost at random which may take rankwith the dramatic masterpieces of the pastages. Henri Regnault's equestrian portraitof General Juan Prim leading the Spanishrevolutionists of 1868 (Louvre) is appro-priately melodramatic in audacity and vio-lence. With an intuition that belongs togenius alone the portraitist has depictedthe hero of pronunciamentos,he soldier offortune, full of boastfulness and self-asser-tion, yet not of self-reliance, or that noblerpride that comes of it.Franz von Lenbach presents the pro-tagonists of his great gallery of portraitsat their highest pitch of intellectual inten-sity, even if not actually with definitedramatic intention. In a late portrait ofhimself depicted as tenderly holding uphis little girl and gazing fixedly out of thecanvas (Society of Portrait Painters at NewGallery), his passion-not paternal only,almost maternal in its fierceness-flames upwith a vehemence which has in it some-thing awe-inspiring: here is unmistakablydrama, though we are neither able norwilling to pry into its hidden depths. Asa last example, and one fortunately of themost consoling pathos and beauty, I givethe Portraits of a Mother and Son, byM. Eughne Carribre(New Salon of I9o5).

6 Plate III, page 312.314



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Dramatic PortraitureEnwrapped in the mist of doubt andsorrow that for this great artist is sym-bolical of life, these figures appearbut thenobler, the moreprofoundlymoving. Thissoul-drama of love and union absoluteandunbroken-proof against all outward cir-cumstance-is too sacred to permit ofanalysis, or to requireit. Here the great-ness and sobriety of Carriere'sart, the in-tensity of his sympathy, raise him to theranks of the immortals.Not all of art, indeed, but all of life is inthese portraits. Only perfect accomplish-ment, only assuredmasteryat the serviceof genius, only the most intimate compre-hension, can at times of spiritual as wellas artistic impulsionevolve them from thecanvas.For one moment all pales before themthat is not the true fervour, the trueradiance of art sacred in the highest andwidest sense; for one moment the crea-

tions of the imagination cease to gladdenwith the rainbow hues of their beauty.I am hauntedby the old legendthat tellshow the Muses were banishedwith theGods of Heathendom to Hell, and only onAll-Souls' Day were summonedto Heavento singbeforethe Eternalandthe HeavenlyHost. When they lifted up their voicestheir song, clouded with all the woes ofearth, weighed down with the sighs andtears of a world, sounded strangelyharshand discordantto the Angels, who knewbut the pellucid clearness of their ownheavenly chants. But little by little thisstrange harsh music by the passion andthe power of its soul-piercing harmoniesstirred and troubled depths that in all thepure shadowless radiance of celestial joyshad remained clear, cold, and unruffled.That day there was a sound of weep-ing in Heaven, and the Angels sang nomore.

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Dramatic Portraiture