Читать книгу Cubists and Post-Impressionism онлайн

24 страница из 70

Manet painted very few pictures outdoors. In the literal sense he did not belong to the plein air school. Almost all his work was done indoors. But it was in no sense studio-art as we have used the term. He painted in his studio as directly as Monet painted outdoors. He painted a sitter with the same realism that Monet painted a haystack; and if he painted a bull fight from memory or from a sketch, he did it with the intention to reproduce the scene literally.

Whistler had his literal moods, so to speak; his moments when with clear eye and vision unaffected by any conscious play of the imagination he would make marvellously faithful transcripts from life and nature, transcripts so faithful that Monet’s at their best pale in comparison. I recall three exquisite marines which were painted in a boat, the canvases propped against a seat.

But for the most part he painted indoors and with the one end in view—the composition of line and color harmonies more beautiful than anything found in nature, just as the musician seeks to compose harmonies more beautiful than any sounds found in nature.