FROMENTIN AS A CRITIC
establish in old pamtmg, he had discovered in poetry long before.
In his novel, where he could draw directly upon his memories, he
had described with a precision, uncommon in such matters at that
time, the genesis of a poem in the thought of
his
hero while walking,
and noted the sudden gestation of rhythms and images, a description
that anticipates in its principle a similar account by Paul Valery.
Fromentin's search for the personality in the painting sometimes
suggests a scientific aim, as if he were looking for psychological laws.
These are presupposed, of course, in any statement that explains the
quality of a work by the character of its maker. Fromentin under–
takes even to reconstitute the little known character of Ruisdael, in
discreet touches and questions, from the peculiarities of his
art.
A
painting, he thinks, is an infallible clue to the state of mind of its
author at the moment of creation. And in this attempt he precedes,
like other critics, the experimental psychologist who studies the indi–
vidual aspect of motor behavior and fantasy.
But more important to Fromentin than genetic or diagnostic
insight is the direct vision of the work itself as stamped with the
qualities of a great individual. He can speak then of the execution
or colors or arrangement as noble, generous, passionate or candid,
as possessing, in short, the attributes of a superior humanity. Since
painting in his time no longer represented ideal types of man, having
lost its older connection with religion and myth, and the value of art
(even of the past) was measured by the subtlety of the craft and the
delight in colored pigment, this rapturous perception of the human,
with
all
its modalities, in the sensory matter of the work was an im–
portant revelation; it guaranteed to what might otherwise have
seemed little more than a virtuoso craftsmanship the possibility of a
profound expression of a hidden personal world.
Throughout Fromentin's book we sense the full humanity of art
and the critic's position as a man. His enthusiasm for Rubens is a
judgment of a quality of human life. Fromentin has an image of
man's greatness; he throbs and kneels when he encounters it in a
painting. It is both in the conception of the subject and in the exe–
cution. It is the face and gesture of Saint Francis at his last commu–
nion and it is in the colors and brushwork of the naked body of
Christ. Only a great man could have conceived and produced these
things.
The harmony of tones is matched by the moral perfection of
27
