ful calm and dignity of the mood. The name of the young man has not come down to us; there is no clue to who or what he was—only this wonderful expression of a mood; and as that itself is so exalted and idealized that it baffles description, posterity has distinguished this picture from others by the vague title, “The Man with the Glove.”
Here, then, is another distinction between these pictures of Titian’s and Holbein’s. The treatment of the former is idealistic, of the other realistic. Both these artists were students of nature, seeking their inspiration from the world of men and things that passed before their eyes. But Holbein painted the thing as it appealed to his eye; Titian as it appealed to his mind.
This, of course, is a difference not confined to these two artists, Indeed, all that we have been saying about these respective points of view can be applied to other artists. So large a subject cannot be exhausted by the comparison of any two pictures; yet from these by Titian and Holbein a considerable insight may be gained.
What is a realist ?- Naturally, one who represents things as they really are. But can anybody do that? If ten men the equals of Holbein in observation and skill of hand had sat down beside him to paint the portrait of Georg Gyze and his surroundings, would their pictures have been identical? Could any two men, even, working independently, paint the ink-pot alone so that the two representations would be exactly alike? Have any two men exactly similar capacity of eyesight? And, if they have, have they also exactly similar minds? The fact is, a man can draw an ink-stand only as its appearance affects his eye and makes a mental impression on his brain. In one sense, we cannot say, “This is what an apple really looks like,” but only, “This is how it presents itself as real to me.”
So, in the strict sense of representing an object as it really is, no painter can be a realist; while, in the general sense of representing an object as it seems real to his eye and brain, every painter may be called a realist.
How then shall we discover the meaning of the word “realist” as used in painting? Let us look for an explanation in the two pictures.
Both painters represented what seemed real to them. But do we not observe that while Titian was chiefly occupied with the impression produced upon his mind, it was the impression made upon the eye which gave greater delight to Holbein? No man who did not love the appearances of things would have painted them with so loving a patience. While to Titian the thing which appeared most real about this man—the thing most worth his while to paint—was the impression made upon his mind; so that what he painted is, to a very large extent, a reflection of himself, a mood of Titian’s own thoughts. Holbein, on the contrary, concentrated the whole of himself upon the man and the objects before his eyes. His intention was simply to paint Georg Gyze as he was known to his friends—a merchant at his office table, with all the things about him that other visitors to the room would observe and grow to associate with the personality of Gyze himself.
We may gather, therefore, that realism, as painters use the word, is a state of mind which makes the painter forget himself and his own personal feelings in the study of what is presented to his eye; which makes him rejoice in the appearances of things and discover in each its peculiar quality of beauty; which makes him content to paint life simply as it manifests itself to his eye, to be, indeed, a faithful mirror of the world outside himself.
It is not because Holbein was a. realist, however, that he is celebrated, but because of the kind of realist he was. You will find that realism often runs to commonplace; a man may see chiefly with his eye because he has no mind to see with; may take a delight in facts because he has no imagination; the material appeals to him more than the spiritual. But Holbein was a man of mind, who attracted the friendship of Erasmus, the greatest scholar of his age, and Holbein made his strength of mind help the keenness of his eye. The result is that the number and variety of the objects in this portrait do not distract our attention from the man, but rather seem to increase our acquaintance with his character and tastes. We recognize the order and refinement which surround him. On the other hand, when we examine the details, we find each in its way exquisitely