Whistler's "Venice", and in Guardi's vision of cupolas,
stairways, roofs, gondolas, and waterways. Monet sees clearly, and he
sees truly, but does he see beautifully? is his an enchanted vision?
And is not every picture that fails to move, to transport, to enchant,
a mistake?
A work of art is complete in itself. But is any one of these pictures
complete in itself? Is not the effect they produce dependent on the
number, and may not this set of pictures be compared to a set of
scenes in a theatre, the effect of which is attained by combination?
There is no foreground in them; the cathedral is always in the first
plane, directly, under the eye of the spectator, the wall running out
of the picture. The spectator says, "What extraordinary power was
necessary to paint twelve views of that cathedral without once having
recourse to the illusion of distance!" A feat no doubt it was; and
therein we perceive the artistic weakness of the pictures. For art
must not be confounded with the strong man in the fair who straddles,
holding a full-grown woman on the palm of his hand.
Then the question of the quality of paint. Manet's paint was beautiful
as that of an old master; brilliant as an enamel, smooth as an old
ivory. But the quality of paint in Monet is that of stone and mortar.
It would seem (the thought is too monstrous to be entertained) as if
he had striven by thickness of paint and roughness of the handling to
reproduce the very material quality of the stonework.
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