For three weeks the pens of art critics, painters, designers, and
engravers have been writing about this picture--about this rough
Bohemian who leans over the cafe table with his wooden pipe fixed fast
between his teeth, with his large soft felt hat on the back of his
head, upheld there by a shock of bushy hair, with his large battered
face grown around with scanty, unkempt beard, illuminated by a fixed
and concentrated eye which tells us that his thoughts are in pursuit
of an idea--about one of the finest specimens of the art of this
century--and what have they told us? Mr. Richmond mistakes the work
for some hurried sketch--impressionism--and practically declares the
painting to be worthless. Mr. Walter Crane says it is only fit for a
sociological museum or for an illustrated tract in a temperance
propaganda; he adds some remarks about "a new Adam and Eve and a
paradise of unnatural selection" which escape my understanding. An
engraver said that the picture was a vulgar subject vulgarly painted.
Another set of men said the picture was wonderful, extraordinary,
perfect, complete, excellent. But on neither side was any attempt made
to explain why the picture was bad or why the picture was excellent.
The picture is excellent, but why is it excellent? Because the scene
is like a real scene passing before your eyes? Because nothing has
been omitted that might have been included, because nothing has been
included that might have been omitted? Because the painting is clear,
smooth, and limpid and pleasant to the eye? Because the colour is
harmonious, and though low in tone, rich and strong? Because each face
is drawn in its distinctive lines, and each tells the tale of
instincts and of race? Because the clothing is in its accustomed folds
and is full of the individuality of the wearer? We look on this
picture and we ask ourselves how it is that amongst the tens and
hundreds of thousands of men who have painted men and women in their
daily occupations, habits, and surroundings, no one has said so much
in so small a space, no one has expressed himself with that simplicity
which draws all veils aside, and allows us to look into the heart of
nature.
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