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RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne Canadian Art Review

William Vaughan, German Romanticism and English Art. New Haven and London, Yale University Press (for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art), 1979. 308 + xii pp., 173 illus., $45.00 Rhodri Windsor Liscombe

Volume 8, Number 2, 1981

URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1075012ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1075012ar

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Publisher(s) UAAC-AAUC (University Art Association of Canada | Association d'art des universités du Canada)

ISSN 0315-9906 (print) 1918-4778 (digital)

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Cite this review Windsor Liscombe, R. (1981). Review of [William Vaughan, German Romanticism and English Art. New Haven and London, Yale University Press (for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art), 1979. 308 + xii pp., 173 illus., $45.00]. RACAR : Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review, 8(2), 172–174. https://doi.org/10.7202/1075012ar

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ carefully examine the relevant icon- ours to elucidate the significance indicates that he will, essentially, ographical traditions and literary for early Victorian British artists concentrate his investigation upon sources. Unfortunately the allegor- and patrons of C.L. Eastlake’s cele- artistic issues rather than fully con- ical tradition in Venetian Renais­ brated déclaration that the Ger- sidering the existence of deeper sance painting is virtually ignored mans possessed the ‘mind of art.’ cultural or even sociological reasons and some of Titian’s most impor­ The book is a revised version of his for the British admiration of Ger­ tant compositions of this genre are 1977 University of London Ph.D. man art. Did, for instance, the hier- either given inadéquate interpréta­ thesis, ‘The German Manner in archical créative values of the major tions (e.g. the Sacred and Profane English Art 1815-1855,’ and joins German painters and the authori- Love [Rome]), or omitted altogether his catalogue, Caspar David Friedrich tarian cast of their predominantly (The Allegory of the Marchese del Vasto 1774-1840 (Tate Gallery, London, royal patrons appeal to the British [Louvre] and The Education of Cupid 1972), and broader historiés, dilettanti and artists who promoted [Rome]). Romantic Art (New York, 1978) and the Germanie taste? Certainly, the Hope again differs from a num- German Romantic Painting (New religious revival sponsored by the ber of recently published studies in Haven, 1980). However, it retains Oxford and Cambridge Move- regarding Ovid’s Métamorphosés as much of the dense, sometimes pro- ments, and proselytized most en- the sole source for the mythological lix prose and uneven structure of thusiastically by A.W.N. Pugin, an paintings or poesie which were sent the thesis genus, and is more a admirer of German art, while to Philip il. He points out that the sériés of essays than a cohesive, seeking social reform helped to artist could read this source only in chronological study. The third counteract the radical forces which Italian, but makes no mention of chapter, for example, entitled ‘The threatened the status quo in available translations. Even in the Depiction of German Subjects by England both before and after the case of that glorious early évocation British Artists,’ contains an essen- passage of the Reform Bill in 1832. of pagan antiquity, The Andrians tially statistical analysis of excessive Other phenomena relative to the where the actual translation is length when compared with the prestige of German culture in known, it does not appear to hâve more relevant issues addressed Britain also receive too little atten­ been used by Hope to provide the elsewhere. Nevertheless, within the tion, such as the pre-eminence of interprétation given. confined boundaries Vaughan es- German Classical scholarship or the The importance of such works as tablishes in the Introduction, those course of Anglo-German relations The Andrians in the history of West­ issues are thoroughly researched through the century. Even ac- ern painting is rightly emphasized and the author présents interesting cepting the restriction to the artistic in the author’s conclusion, but it is material on early to mid-nine- perspective, the ‘crisis’ in British not really clear in the reader’s mind teenth-century English and Ger­ History Painting, which Vaughan why the author believes this to be man art and aesthetics. Chief isolâtes as a primary factor, was so. This is in marked contrast to his among his contributions are the apparent well before the 1830s and discussion of other aspects of the information about a number of sec- the onset of Germanism ; indeed, artist’s work, especially the clear ondary and tertiary English paint- the problem was considered to be and convincing case for Titian’s ers such as William Cave Thomas endemic by some, James Fergusson rôle in the establishment of the con­ or Joseph Severn, British attitudes writing to his friend, Sir A.H. ventions of aristocratie portraiture to History Painting and ecclesias- Layard, on 24 September 1883 which is made throughout the book tical art, and a useful review in Engl­ about the proposed décoration of and in the conclusion. ish of the development of German the dôme of St. Paul’s Cathédral : Charles Hope is well aware of the aesthetic theory. In these respects ‘The fact is, I know no artist or fact that he has written a controver- the book is a welcome addition to architect in this country, who sial book, particularly in regard to the more specialized literature on has the smallest conception of what the development of Titian’s style the German Nazarenes and their is wanted ...’ (British Library, b.m. and the iconography of his paint­ influence, notably Keith Andrew’s add.ms 39036, no. 320). Similarly, ings. It is to be welcomed for it The Nazarenes (Oxford, 1964), and the emergence of other artistic should provoke serious rethinking the catalogue of the 1977 Frankfurt influences which might explain the about some of the great master- Exhibition, Die Nazarener, and such demise of the German taste from pieces of European painting. studies of the English context as the late 1850s - and its décliné is T.S.R. Boase’s English Art 1800- but briefly charted - is not intro- WARREN TRESIDDER 1870 (Oxford, 1959). duced into the preliminary discus­ McMaster University, Hamilton Some of the limitations of the sion of the subject. One such is book are immediately apparent in [apanese design, which also em­ the Introduction, which, being a phasized formai clarity, actually distillation of the succeeding chap- represented by a decorated lantern ters, is, incidentally, the most read- in the middle ground of J.E. William vaughan German Roman- Millais’s ‘Garden Scene,’ 1849, that ticism and English Art. New Haven able section. Having noted the in- disputable influence of German art is, not altogether appropriately, and London, Yale University Press reproduced on the dust jacket. (for the Paul Mellon Centre for upon early Victorian British paint­ ing and décoration, Vaughan justly Lastly, it is perhaps regrettable that Studies in British Art), 1979. remarks that it is ‘less easy to déter­ reference was not made in the 308 + xii pp., 173 illus., $45.00. mine what precisely it implied, and Introduction to the other side of In German Romanticism and English what the English gained from their the artistic intercourse between the Art Dr. William Vaughan endeav- encounter with it.’ But what follows two nations, as the architect K.F

1?2 RACAR / VIII / 2 Schinkel’s appréciation of British appreciated until the 1840s, fos- Unions. And the most popular Ger­ Industrial Révolution design and tered by groups of British artists man artist in England was Wilhelm the legacy of Hermann Muthesius’s and connoisseurs rallier than by the von Kaulbach who moderated the praise of the British Arts and Crafts Saxe-Coburg court. The taste for revitalist manner with more elabo- Movement. German culture had developed on rate design and illusionism so that Nevertheless, it would be unjust the basis of a succession of factors: the majority of young English art­ to cast aside the approach outlined the interchange resulting from the ists who travelled to Germany were in the Introduction, even if, as will close commercial ties, exemplified attracted to his studio. Vaughan become évident, the resuit is epi- by Charles Aders, the German mer- concludes this chapter by noticing sodic. Having identified the uncer- chant in whose London house that the larger commissions tainty in British art during the Blake met Cornelius’s pupil, Jacob awarded to Germans were for 1830s and the conséquent attrac­ Gôtzenburger (who was to paint stained glass Windows and that their tion of the more assured Germans murais in Bridgewater House and chief influence was transmitted like Overbeck or Schnorr von Alnwick Castle, 1850-1860); the through book illustrations, the Carolsfeld, Vaughan questions why trade in contemporary German lit- ‘emphasis on cohérent composition’ the ‘impact of German art pro- erature and illustrated books, pro- being ‘coextensive with the élé­ duced a spirit more of émulation ... moted by, among others, Rudolph ments of revitalist art that had pre- that of imitation.’ In response he Ackermann, whose 1817 édition of occupied English observers since cites the contrast between the Ger­ Dürer’s Prayer Iiook entered the col­ they first encountered it.’ man stress on didactic content and lections of Sir Thomas Lawrence The second chapter, ‘The Mind form and the British preference for and Richard Cosway ; the friend- of Art,’ explores English admira­ colour and visual appeal, and rela­ ships formed at Rome between the tion for the intellectual superiority tive disinterest, John Flaxman and Nazarenes and English artists and of German art. Vaughan préparés William Ottley notwithstanding, in publicists like John Scott, briefly to the reader by claiming that the aus- primitivism. To those reasons he be editor of the London Magazine, terity of the Nazarene style encour- adds the naturalist tradition in Brit­ and patrons like Lord Shrewsbury aged its explanation in non- ish painting and the disinclination and Nicholas Wiseman, leaders pictorial terms, and that the style to import the authoritarian values respectively of the Roman Catholic was linked to the development of of German society (which this laity and ecclesiastical hierarchy. the concept of aesthetics by Ger­ reviewer interprets differently). Such links were reinforced by the man post-Kantian philosophers. The conflicting attitudes were most writers who continued the work of This drawing together of German évident in the 1843-1846 compéti­ Madame de Staël, whose De art and philosophy (Vaughan’s use tions to select the artists who would L’Allemagne had been published in of the word ‘élision’ to explain this decorate the Houses of Parliament English in 1813. Mrs. Jameson’s tendency is surely a slip in vocabu- under the direction of the Fine Arts Visits and Sketches at Home and lary) was recognized by Thomas Commission, which had been Ahroad, 1834, provided English Carlyle, who regarded German aes­ chaired by Prince Albert from readers with lengthy descriptions of thetics as fundamental to ‘spiritual 1841. The standards were Ger­ the major centres, Düsseldorf and régénération in the arts.’ German manie, but the actual murais less so, Crown Prince Ludwig’s remarkable aesthetic theorists contributed pro- partly due to the continuation of ‘art city,’ Munich, and praise for the foundly to the Romantic view of essentially Venetian traditions and official encouragement of High art, Friedrich von Schiller, for one, the rise of new ideas in England as Art, but an ambivalence towards in his Aesthetic Letters, associating the represented by the Pre-Raphaelite German primitivism. More enthusi- awareness of beauty with that of the Brotherhood. Members of this astic were the Frenchmen, Count self and with the concept of liberty, group had been inspired by the Raczynski and Hippolyte Fortoul, while denying the possibility of Nazarenes and the direetness of the former regarding the modern reviving past cultures. He also German nineteenth-century prints Germans as the successors of the equated the content of form with in their student years, but subse- ancient Greeks and Renaissance the content of subject and stressed quently espoused what might be Italians - a view, characteristically, artistic freedom. As significant, esti­ termed the cause of modernism. tempered by dislike of German mâtes Vaughan, was the conclusion For Vaughan then, the German extremism in artistic expression as of the Schlegel brothers that art influence, first nurtured by con­ registered by Lady Eastlake in her should express the âge as well as tacts between individual English review of Raczynski’s Histoire de l’Art aiding in the process of cultural artists and Nazarenes was mainly moderne en Allemagne, 1836-1841, génération. The complexities of that of a catalyst. printed in the 1846 Quarterly their thought, coupled with the Having incised this outline, if nei- Review. That réservation, not dominance of empiricism and utili- ther so précisé nor so persuasive as shared by ail English critics, as tarianism in English philosophy the engravings of Alfred Rethel, the witness S.C. Hall’s déclaration as and the pragmatical approach to author proceeds to add hatchments late as 1866 that German art was art of even Eastlake (who yet drew to the picture of German art in ‘first in Europe’, partially explains upon German theory in his Contri­ Britain 1800-1850. He begins by the relative lack of patronage of butions to the Literature of the Fine recalling that German artists, German artists. Another factor was Arts, 1848) delayed and diluted the mainly portrait painters, had the desire to patronize native artists acceptance of German aesthetics. worked successfully in England, but which, nonetheless, led to the The attempt to strike a balance states that the existence of a Ger­ importation into England of a ver­ between the twin thèmes of the man School of Art was not fully sion of the Kunstvereine, or Art book - the burgeoning of German

RACAR / viii / 2 ’73 culture and its limited and episodic written to G.R. Leslie from Rome in Pugin at Rome in 1847, order impact in England - is abandoned 1821, ‘The Germans here are cer- that any style of architecture should in the subséquent chapters. The tainly a great race of artists. Their exactly suit the living rationale of third, ‘The Depiction of German manner is not to be tolerated, for the nineteenth century, it should be Subjects by British Artists,’ is turgid they imitate Perugino and Giotto’ the living architecture of the nine­ by comparison with preceding and lack ‘colour and effect.’ teenth century ...’ material, despite the amusing Through an analysis of the painters The imbalance conséquent upon account of Turner’s vain attempt to who participated in the Parliament the author’s constricted study of win royal patronage through the compétitions and at greatest length this variable theme affects the épi­ choice of German sites during the the art of Dyce, the author further logue. We are told that the German 1840s. The categorized review of reveals the partial acceptance of influence lingered on but hardly art works from topography to liter- German ideas of composition and informed as to the history of its ary thèmes produces a repetitious style. If nine of the main contest­ demise or the other than stylistic rehearsal of chronologies, an ants, among them G.F. Watts, had reasons for that change in taste. impediment which also affects the studied in Munich between 1838 Following a short and inconclusive succeeding chapters: iv, ‘F.A.M. and 1840, their submissions for the tussle with subséquent interpréta­ Retzsch and the Outline Style’ ; v, final stage of the compétition in tions of the phenomenon of the ‘The Decorated Page and the 1846 ail exhibited an increased il- mid-nineteenth German style, the Woodcut Style,’ and vi, ‘The Ger­ lusionism and richer colour than text. peters out with one questiona- man Manner and English History did their mentors; interestingly, ble generalization, that German art Painting.’ However each contains the chief competitors, Dyce and was only admired as a School dur­ useful information, the first two Maclise, had travelled to Italy and ing that period, ignoring the pres­ adding perceptive commentaries France. An estimation of the coun- tige of German Expressionism, and on the art of Retzsch and Rethel ter influence of French academie the truism that the appréciation of to the reconstruction of their in­ painting would hâve been instruct­ style is ‘at ail times a matter of fluence on English artists, embrac- ive at this point. Instead Vaughan conditioning.’ ing Daniel Maclise, the young Mil- ends by briefly discussing the trans­ An écho of the unevenness of the lais and D.G. Rossetti. Rethel’s formation made by members of the argument mars the otherwise hand- Nibelungen illustrations of 1840 p.r.b. to German religious pictorial some production of the book, as the spawned British progeny like S.C. thèmes and motifs in order to numbering of the plates, especially Hall’s Book of British Ballads, 1842, achieve the powerfully direct ima- in the later chapters, is not infre- comprising woodblocks designed gery présent in, say, William Hol- quently incorrect. In othei' respects by the new aspiring historical paint­ man Hunt’s ‘Light of the World,’ the author is well served. The print- ers including William B. and David 1851. ing is élégant and legible and the Scott, Dadd, Frith, O’Neil and John The last chapter, ‘Dyce and illustrations plentifui and well Franklin. The mode persisted into Ecclesiastical Art,’ opens with con­ reproduced, most in sight of the the late Victorian period as evinced sidération of the scant confidence relevant passages in the text. If the by the combination of the décora­ in British artists displayed by the style of writing and organization of tive page with the woodcut style in Anglican Church - Beresford the material are deterrent, the con­ William Morris’s Kelmscott Chaucer Hope, patron of the celebrated Ail tents, including the excellent bibli- of 1895. Saints, Margaret Street, London, ography and notes, will be an asset Less straightforward was the was pleasantly surprised by the to the student of nineteenth- inspiration of German art upon compétence of Dyce and Horsley - century British and German art. English History Painting, for ail and concludes with the rejection of the prestige accorded to German Dyce’s illusionist stained glass RHODRI WINDSOR LISCOMBE qualities in the advertisement for design. The author's account of the University of British Columbia the 1842 Parliament compétition Germanism in Dyce’s religious art, signed by Eastlake; the judges his abortive attempt to emulate the would be ‘disposed to mark their German woodcut in a sériés on the ELIZABETH GII.MORE HOLT The Tri- approbation’ of entries that dis- life of Christ, his move away from umph of Art for the Public : The played ‘précision of drawing ... and historicism to naturalism and his Emerging Rôle of Exhibitions and Crit- a style of composition less dépend­ criticism of the opacity of German ics. Garden City (ny), Anchor ent on chiaroscuro than an effective stained glass, is lengthy but con- Press/Doubleday, 1979. 530 + xxviii arrangement.’ In Chapter vi fused. Since the German influence p., 48 illus., 7.50 $ (broché). Vaughan distinguishes between the in this respect transpires to hâve wai.j’er cahn Masterpieces : Chapter few major artists, notably William been secondary, the reader might on the History of an Idea. Princeton, Dyce, Maclise and Ford Maddox be forgiven for regretting that Princeton University Press (Prin­ Brown, for whom the ‘study of Ger­ other issues, such as the concern for ceton Essays on the Arts), 1979. man art provided a fundamental relevance in ecclesiastical art of the 168 + xix p., 53 illus. change of aesthetic outlook,’ and apparent German legacy in the those more numerous, but short- work of Edward Burne jones, do Parmi les publications d’Elizabeth lived, imitators like E.M. Ward and not receive further treatment. The Gilmore Holt, chaque chercheur J.C. Horsley. Here he expands first could explain the growing dis- connaissait jusqu’à ce jour l’excel­ upon the fears of a German ‘take taste for German revivalism, Cardi­ lente Documentary History of Art dont over’ and divergence of attitudes nal Newman, for example, com- l’utilité n’est pas à démontrer. Voici summed up by Severn in a letter menting after meeting A.W.N. qu’Elizabeth Gilmore Holt met à la

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