There is a furtive and peculiar expression of eager
anxiety betrayed in his face, as if the bitterness of his own blasted
eternity could find a momentary consolation in this success. It is the
expression of a general, who has staked all his fortune on one die. Of
the figure of Jesus I could not judge, in its unfinished state.
Whether the artist will solve the problem of uniting energy with
sweetness, the Godhead with the manhood, remains to be seen.
The paintings of Jesus are generally unsatisfactory; but Schoefier has
approached nearer towards expressing my idea than any artist I have
yet seen.
The knowing ones are much divided about Schoeffer. Some say he is no
painter. Nothing seems to me so utterly without rule or compass as
this world of art Divided into little cliques, each with his
shibboleth, artists excommunicate each other as heartily as
theologians, and a neophyte who should attempt to make up a judgment
by their help would be obliged to shift opinions with every circle.
I therefore look with my own eyes, for if not the best that might be,
they are the best that God has given me.
Schoeffer is certainly a poet of a high order. His ideas are beautiful
and religious, and his power of expression quite equal to that of many
old masters, who had nothing very particular to express.
I should think his chief danger lay in falling into mannerism, and too
often repeating the same idea. He has a theory of coloring which is in
danger of running out into coldness and poverty of effect. His idea
seems to be, that in the representation of spiritual subjects the
artist should avoid the sensualism of color, and give only the most
chaste and severe tone. Hence he makes much use of white, pale blue,
and cloudy grays, avoiding the gorgeousness of the old masters. But it
seems probable that in the celestial regions there is more, rather
than less, of brilliant coloring than on earth. What can be more
brilliant than the rainbow, yet what more perfectly free from earthly
grossness? Nevertheless, in looking at the pictures of Schoeffer there
is such a serene and spiritual charm spread over them, that one is
little inclined to wish them other than they are. No artist that I
have ever seen, not even Raphael, has more power of glorifying the
human face by an exalted and unearthly expression. His head of Joan of
Arc, at Versailles, is a remarkable example. It is a commentary on
that scripture - "And they beheld his face, as it were the face of an
angel."
Schoeffer is fully possessed with the idea of which I have spoken, of
raising Protestant art above the wearisome imitations of Romanism.
