The next generation which had grown up during the excitement of the Revolution and of the wars of the Empire rebelled against this art of reason. Gericault who died very young, and his friend, Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), were inspired by the English landscape painters and introduced their brilliant colours and free methods. Delacroix fought classicism with a "hate of systematic painting," but he, himself, distorted truth. For this reason his portraits are inferior to his compositions. A pupil of David, Jean Baptiste Dominique Ingres (178o-1867), enriched the field of portraiture with admirable pencil drawings. His painted portraits do not possess the same charm. His pupil Flandrin continued his decorative style. The revolt against Ingres and Delacroix was led by Courbet (1819-1877) who introduced the realism of the great Spaniards and Dutch into French art. In his "Funeral of Ornans" every figure is a portrait painted directly from the model. Rebell ing against classicism and romanticism alike, he wanted to paint the life of his time in a method which his contemporaries could understand. That is the most important lesson taught by modern art, that beauty is all around us, if we only have eyes to see it.
In Germany his friend Wilhelm Leibl (1844-1900) had a similar healthy influence on art there. His portraits are the best painted in modern Germany.
From now on most of the best French portraits are painted by artists who did not take up portraits as a vocation. Daumier did a striking portrait of Berlioz. Jean Francois Millet's (1814-1875) portraits of his family and friends are as virile and as full of pathos, emotion and tenderness as his compositions. The land-. scape painter Corot (1796-1875) made a great contribution to modern painting with his exquisite portraits of woman. He sees women as pure nature, without sentimentality, and he is com parable to Jan van der Meer of Delft in the beauty of his colour and the strength of his construction. The portrait is the touch stone of an artist's ability.
With the facilities of modern transportation Paris and Munich become centres of art, to which all nationalities flock, giving and taking freely. Photography and international exhibitions make the whole world familiar with works of art soon after they are pro duced, and it is difficult to trace influences. Art becomes cosmo politan.
Nothing bore richer fruits than the discovery of Japanese art. Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas (1834-1917) realized the value of flat decorative treatment. Tired of the harsh, cold studio light they posed their sitters in the open. Renoir (1841-1919) delighted to bathe them in direct or reflected sunlight.
Their example was followed by Mary Cassatt in America, Anders Zorn in Sweden, Peter Severin Kroyer in Denmark, Sorolla y Bastida in Spain and by many others. Art is at last free from the nightmare of classicism.
James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) by birth an American, was a great admirer of the Japanese and through his writing as well as his painting focussed attention on the necessity of decorative qualities in a portrait. No one knew better than he the value of the silhouette against a background rendered interest ing by discrete arrangement of flat spaces.
His compatriot John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), who like him spent most of his life abroad, became one of the most popular portrait painters. He never profited by the modern ideas of colour, but had more originality than William Chase the Ameri can, the Englishman Orchardson, the German Lenbach, the French man Bonnat and similar artists.
Eugene Carriere (1849-1906) and Fantin-Latour in France, Franz von Stuck in Germany, Evenepoel in Belgium, Bocklin in Switzerland, Albert Edelfelt in Finland, Joseph Israels in Holland, Abbott Thayer and George Bellows in America were artists whose portraits reflect the spirit of their countries.
Cezanne marks a return to the colour and design which delight in the stained glass of the best period. Will the artist arise who combines these qualities with the profound knowledge of the human form and character necessary for great portraiture? While the old masters excelled in portraits of men, man's mod ern attire makes it most difficult for an artist to obtain satisfactory results. The harsh collar, the drab colouring and the standardized cut all unite to ruin the effect of the finest head. Women, on the contrary, have much greater freedom than the women who posed for the old masters, with their rigid garments and their stiff atti tudes prescribed by fashion and convention. However, the use of cosmetics is a great drawback. Rouge, lipstick and powder con ceal, camouflage so to speak, the fine modelling on which a great portrait depends and they defeat their own purpose by rendering the surface of the skin opaque. The natural skin is semi-trans lucent and therefore more luminous than anything that can be applied to it. As long as cosmetics are generally used there is little hope that the finest type of portrait will be appreciated. Paint and powder are used to deceive, to produce an artificiality which does not give beauty to commonplace, and which makes common the most beautiful.