the poetry of Corot; but he is a solitary exception. The other Dutchmen paint absolutely in the spirit of their forefathers, turning out pictures of everyday life, soundly worked in the prevalent manner, of convenient size, and with no special emphasis or intention, for that might repel the average purchaser. Their output might, in fact, be open to the accusation of pot-boiling, were it not usually free from the cheap sentiment which the term generally connotes.
The garish vigour of Boecklin in Germany, and of Segantini in Italian Switzerland, has at least the merit of definite personality. This is more than can be said for the average work of their countrymen, who seem to be attracted only by what is showy and superficial in art and nature. Meunier, best known as a sculptor, has painted the forges and blast-furnaces of the Belgian Black Country with a sympathy and power that often remind one of Millet; though a certain outward uncouthness, which in Millet was a natural defect, appears with Meunier to have become a mannerism. Thaulow, the observer of Norwegian snows and floods, is a more attractive but less serious artist. His handling is skilfully varied, while his subjects are chosen with great taste in the matter of colour and arrangement, and are treated with an intimate affection that makes his painting popular as well as personal. In this respect Thaulow's work may be regarded as a sort of half-way house between Continental landscape and that of the British school.
On the Continent, under the leadership of the scientific spirit of France, painters have uniformly viewed Constable as the pioneer of new possibilities in the way of realistic interpretation of natural light and air. In England, even before Constable's death, the artistic world had become accustomed to a moderate degree of realism, owing to the example of the water-colour painters, and was content to go no further. The country was resting complacently after the strain of the Napoleonic wars, and insisted that its art should be something comfortable, something incapable of rousing any strong emotion. Even Turner's fame could not protect him from the jeers of the cultured classes when he grappled with problems of storm or blazing sunlight. It is hardly wonderful, then, that the lesser men should have settled down deliberately to turn out frankly popular pictures, which are still the small change of dealers and auctioneers.
31
