Chapter I
I
confess that when first I made
acquaintance with Charles Strickland I never for a
moment discerned that there was in him anything out of the
ordinary. Yet now few will be found to
deny his greatness. I do not speak of that greatness which is achieved by the
fortunate politician or the
successful soldier; that is a
quality which belongs to the place he occupies rather than to the man; and a change of circumstances reduces it to very
discreet proportions. The Prime Minister out of
office is seen, too often, to have been but a
pompous rhetorician, and the General without an army is but the
tame hero of a market town. The greatness of Charles Strickland was
authentic. It may be that you do not like his art, but at all events you can hardly
refuse it the
tribute of your
interest. He disturbs and arrests. The time has passed when he was an
object of
ridicule, and it is no longer a mark of
eccentricity to
defend or of
perversity to
extol him. His faults are accepted as the
necessary complement to his merits. It is still
possible to
discuss his place in art, and the
adulation of his admirers is perhaps no less
capricious than the
disparagement of his detractors; but one thing can never be
doubtful, and that is that he had
genius. To my
mind the most interesting thing in art is the
personality of the artist; and if that is
singular, I am willing to
excuse a thousand faults. I
suppose Velasquez was a better painter than El Greco, but
custom stales one's
admiration for him: the Cretan,
sensual and
tragic, proffers the
mystery of his
soul like a standing
sacrifice. The artist, painter, poet, or musician, by his
decoration,
sublime or beautiful, satisfies the
aesthetic sense; but that is
akin to the sexual
instinct, and shares its barbarity: he lays before you also the greater gift of himself. To
pursue his secret has something of the
fascination of a
detective story. It is a
riddle which shares with the
universe the
merit of having no answer. The most
insignificant of Strickland's works suggests a
personality which is
strange,
tormented, and
complex; and it is this surely which prevents even those who do not like his pictures from being
indifferent to them; it is this which has excited so
curious an
interest in his life and
character.
It was not
till four years after Strickland's death that Maurice Huret wrote that
article in the Mercure de France which rescued the unknown painter from
oblivion and blazed the trail which succeeding writers, with more or less docility, have followed. For a long time no
critic has enjoyed in France a more
incontestable authority, and it was
impossible not to be
impressed by the claims he made; they seemed ; but later judgments have confirmed his
estimate, and the
reputation of Charles Strickland is now firmly
established on the lines which he laid down. The rise of this
reputation is one of the most
romantic incidents in the history of art. But I do not
propose to deal with Charles Strickland's work except in so far as it touches upon his
character. I cannot
agree with the painters who
claim superciliously that the
layman can
understand nothing of painting, and that he can best show his
appreciation of their works by
silence and a cheque-book. It is a
grotesque misapprehension which sees in art no more than a craft comprehensible perfectly only to the craftsman: art is a
manifestation of
emotion, and
emotion speaks a
language that all may
understand. But I will
allow that the
critic who has not a
practical knowledge of
technique is
seldom able to say anything on the
subject of real
value, and my
ignorance of painting is
extreme. Fortunately, there is no
need for me to
risk the
adventure, since my friend, Mr. Edward Leggatt, an
able writer as well as an
admirable painter, has exhaustively discussed Charles Strickland's work in a little book[1] which is a
charming example of a
style, for the most part, less happily
cultivated in England than in France.
[1] "A Modern Artist: Notes on the Work of Charles Strickland," by Edward Leggatt, A.R.H.A. Martin Secker, 1917.
Maurice Huret in his
famous article gave an
outline of Charles Strickland's life which was well
calculated to
whet the appetites of the inquiring. With his
disinterested passion for art, he had a real
desire to call the
attention of the
wise to a
talent which was in the highest
degree original; but he was too good a
journalist to be
unaware that the "
human interest" would
enable him more easily to
effect his
purpose. And when such as had come in
contact with Strickland in the past, writers who had known him in London, painters who had met him in the cafes of Montmartre, discovered to their
amazement that where they had seen but an unsuccessful artist, like another,
authentic genius had rubbed shoulders with them there began to appear in the magazines of France and America a
succession of articles, the reminiscences of one, the
appreciation of another, which added to Strickland's
notoriety, and fed without satisfying the
curiosity of the
public. The
subject was
grateful, and the
industrious Weitbrecht-Rotholz in his
imposing monograph[2] has been
able to give a list of authorities.
[2] "Karl Strickland: sein Leben und seine Kunst," by Hugo Weitbrecht-Rotholz, Ph.D. Schwingel und Hanisch. Leipzig, 1914.
The
faculty for
myth is
innate in the
human race. It seizes with
avidity upon any incidents, surprising or
mysterious, in the
career of those who have at all
distinguished themselves from their fellows, and invents a
legend to which it then attaches a
fanatical belief. It is the
protest of
romance against the
commonplace of life. The incidents of the
legend become the
hero's surest
passport to
immortality. The
ironic philosopher reflects with a smile that Sir Walter Raleigh is more
safely inshrined in the
memory of mankind because he set his
cloak for the Virgin Queen to walk on than because he carried the English name to undiscovered countries. Charles Strickland lived obscurely. He made enemies rather than friends. It is not
strange, then, that those who wrote of him should have eked out their
scanty recollections with a
lively fancy, and it is
evident that there was enough in the little that was known of him to give
opportunity to the
romantic scribe; there was much in his life which was
strange and terrible, in his
character something
outrageous, and in his
fate not a little that was
pathetic. In due course a
legend arose of such circumstantiality that the
wise historian would
hesitate to
attack it.
But a
wise historian is
precisely what the Rev. Robert Strickland is not. He wrote his
biography[3] avowedly to "
remove certain misconceptions which had gained
currency" in regard to the later part of his father's life, and which had "caused
considerable pain to persons still living." It is
obvious that there was much in the commonly received
account of Strickland's life to
embarrass a
respectable family. I have read this work with a good deal of
amusement, and upon this I
congratulate myself, since it is colourless and
dull. Mr. Strickland has drawn the
portrait of an
excellent husband and father, a man of kindly
temper,
industrious habits, and
moral disposition. The
modern clergyman has acquired in his
study of the science which I believe is called
exegesis an
astonishing facility for explaining things away, but the
subtlety with which the Rev. Robert Strickland has "interpreted" all the facts in his father's life which a
dutiful son
might find it
inconvenient to
remember must surely lead him in the fullness of time to the highest dignities of the Church. I see already his
muscular calves encased in the gaiters episcopal. It was a
hazardous, though maybe a
gallant thing to do, since it is
probable that the
legend commonly received has had no small share in the growth of Strickland's
reputation; for there are many who have been attracted to his art by the detestation in which they held his
character or the
compassion with which they regarded his death; and the son's well-
meaning efforts threw a
singular chill upon the father's admirers. It is due to no
accident that when one of his most important works, The Woman of Samaria,[4] was sold at Christie's shortly after the
discussion which followed the
publication of Mr. Strickland's
biography, it fetched POUNDS 235 less than it had done nine months before when it was bought by the
distinguished collector whose sudden death had brought it once more under the hammer. Perhaps Charles Strickland's
power and
originality would
scarcely have sufficed to turn the
scale if the mythopoeic
faculty of mankind had not brushed
aside with
impatience a story which
disappointed all its
craving for the . And
presently Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz produced the work which finally set at rest the misgivings of all lovers of art.
[3] "Strickland: The Man and His Work," by his son, Robert Strickland. Wm. Heinemann, 1913.
[4] This was described in Christie's catalogue as follows: "A nude woman, a
native of the Society Islands, is lying on the ground beside a
brook. Behind is a
tropical Landscape with palm-trees, bananas, etc. 60 in. x 48 in."
Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz belongs to that school of historians which believes that
human nature is not only about as bad as it can be, but a great deal worse; and
certainly the reader is safer of
entertainment in their hands than in those of the writers who take a
malicious pleasure in representing the great figures of
romance as patterns of the
domestic virtues. For my part, I should be sorry to think that there was nothing between Anthony and Cleopatra but an
economic situation; and it will
require a great deal more
evidence than is ever
likely to be
available, thank God, to
persuade me that Tiberius was as blameless a
monarch as King George V. Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz has dealt in such terms with the Rev. Robert Strickland's
innocent biography that it is
difficult to
avoid feeling a
certain sympathy for the unlucky
parson. His
decent reticence is branded as
hypocrisy, his circumlocutions are roundly called lies, and his
silence is vilified as
treachery. And on the
strength of peccadillos,
reprehensible in an
author, but excusable in a son, the Anglo-Saxon race is accused of prudishness,
humbug, pretentiousness,
deceit,
cunning, and bad cooking. Personally I think it was
rash of Mr. Strickland, in refuting the
account which had gained
belief of a
certain "unpleasantness" between his father and mother, to
state that Charles Strickland in a letter written from Paris had described her as "an
excellent woman," since Dr. Weitbrecht-Rotholz was
able to print the letter in
facsimile, and it appears that the
passage referred to ran in
fact as follows: God damn my wife. She is an
excellent woman. I wish she was in hell. It is not
thus that the Church in its great days dealt with
evidence that was unwelcome.