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Abstract
Using William Rothenstein (1872–1945) as a case study, this essay explores the opportunities available for young art writers who were also practicing artists at the turn of the previous century—and the various anxieties that ensued over this dual role. Rothenstein's early contributions to the London periodicals The Studio and The Saturday Review are examined in relation to his one major publication: a 1900 study of Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), the first English monograph on the artist. This was published as part of “The Artist's Library,” a popularizing venture overseen by the writer Laurence Binyon (1869–1943) and incorporating fellow artist-critics such as Roger Fry (1866–1934) and Charles John Holmes (1868–1936). Rothenstein's subsequent retreat from art criticism coincides, it is argued, with the growing professionalism of the practice, led by such scholars as Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), who originally questioned Rothenstein's involvement in “The Artist's Library.” An appendix provides the most comprehensive list to date of Rothenstein's art historical writings.
Acknowledgments
This essay draws on two papers: “Like an Inspired Baedeker: William Rothenstein as Art Writer” (Warburg Institute, October 2012) and “That Notable Fraternity: Combining the Roles of Critic, Artist and Collector in Turn-of-the-century London” (University of York, July 2013). I would thank all those who organized and attended these talks, and gave such helpful feedback. Particular thanks must go to Barbara Pezzini, who encouraged me to explore this topic further, and regularly pointed me in the direction of useful resources—not least her own, excellent work on this subject. I also thank the Yale Center for British Art for covering the costs of images used in this article.
Notes
1 “Advertisement,” Dome 7 (1900): 215–18. The Dome was founded in 1897. For more on the magazine and its relationship to other periodicals of this period, see David Peters Corbett, “Symbolism in British ‘Little Magazines’”: The Dial (1889–97), The Pageant (1896–7) and The Dome (1897–1900),” in The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, vol. 1, ed. Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 101–19. The word “adjutant” was used by fellow contributor Holmes to describe Binyon's role at the press; see Charles Holmes, Self and Partners (Mostly Self) (London: Constable, 1936), 187. For more on Binyon's relationship with Oldmeadow at the Unicorn Press, see John Hatcher, Laurence Binyon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 57–62.
2 Peters Corbett, “Little Magazines,” 116.
3 Hokusai and Giovanni Bellini appeared in 1899, Altdorfer and Goya in 1900. Other titles, beyond those advertised were also being discussed in 1900, including Max Beerbohm on Honoré Daumier, Sturge Moore on Rodin, and Fry on Piero di Cosimo. None of these, however, were ever published, with the series wrapping up after only four volumes; Hatcher, Binyon, 61. Binyon expressed his doubt over Beerbohm's involvement in a letter to Rothenstein: Laurence Binyon to Alice Rothenstein, January 3, 1900, Houghton Library, Harvard University, William Rothenstein archives, Ref: 1148 (hereafter cited as HGTN).
4 Peters Corbett, “Little Magazines,” 116.
5 Almost all of these authors had previously submitted criticism to The Dome. Writers were offered £25 for the text.
6 Holmes's early career was in publishing houses, though in the late 1890s he started writing art criticism, managing the Vale Press, and making his own art. He went on to become a well-respected painter and printer, a regularly published critic (especially for The Burlington Magazine), and a high-profile administrator, including stints as Director of the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery in London. See Holmes, Self and Partners.
7 Rothenstein started exhibiting at the New English Art Club in 1893. Sets of published lithographs include Oxford Characters, 1896, and English Portraits, 1898.
8 See . The quotation is taken from The Spectator.
9 The first phrase was used in the advertisement announcing the series; the second in a letter to D. S. MacColl. See Peters Corbett, “Little Magazines,” 116, and Hatcher, Binyon, 58
10 The books were priced at 2s 6d, and typically came with twenty to twenty-five plates. The texts were short, running to no more than fifty pages.
11 Hatcher, Binyon, 62.
12 Laurence Binyon, “The Popularisation of Art,” in The Civilisation of Our Day, ed. James Samuelson (London: Sampson Low, 1896), 329.
13 Bernard Berenson to Binyon, April 4, 1898, British Library Manuscripts, Loan MS 103/1.
14 Berenson to Binyon, November 25, 1898, British Library Manuscripts, Loan MS 103/1.
15 Rothenstein's background may also have been an issue: he was the son of a German-Jewish merchant, albeit a successful one, and was thus subject to further snobberies and prejudices.
16 Berenson's concession to Binyon regarding Rothenstein: “however if you are satisfied on that score I am”—is, to me, unconvincing. Though Berenson was happy to go ahead with his work on Giorgione, it is clear that he was not at all satisfied with the project. For a recent discussion of the “disinterested expert” or scholar/connoisseur, see Barbara Pezzini, “The Burlington Magazine, The Burlington Gazette, and The Connoisseur: The Art Periodical and the Market for Old Master Paintings in Edwardian London,” Visual Resources 29 (September 2013): 154–83.
17 There is not space in this article for a very close reading of Rothenstein's art criticism, which nonetheless deserves further attention, not least because of his influence on his oldest son, the important writer and administrator Sir John Rothenstein (1901–1992).
18 William Rothenstein, Men and Memories II (London: Faber & Faber, 1932), 230.
19 William Rothenstein to Moritz Rothenstein, May 1893: “Just a few words to tell you that I have had an article accepted in the new art paper called ‘The Studio’ & shall have one to do every month,” HGTN. The first “Paris Notes,” which appeared in the first issue of The Studio, was signed “B.” Rothenstein wrote the second and third; see Studio 1 (1893): 38, 80, and 160.
20 Rothenstein would note in his memoirs that Charles Holme, proprietor of the magazine (not to be confused with Charles Holmes) wanted to build on the success he had with the first issue of the magazine—which featured a ground-breaking article on Beardsley—by bringing in young artists and writers: W. Rothenstein, Men and Memories I (London: Faber & Faber, 1931), 134. Hereafter cited as MEMORIES I.
21 See Elizabeth Prettejohn, “Aesthetic Value and the Professionalization of Victorian Art Criticism 1837–78,” Journal of Victorian Culture 2 (Spring 1997): 71–94. Though Whistler was not an art critic as such, his art writings (particularly the “Ten O'Clock” lecture) were incredibly influential for young artists of this generation. See also Pamela Fletcher and Anne Helmreich, “The Periodical and the Art Market: Investigating the ‘Dealer-Critic System’ in Victorian England,” Victorian Periodicals Review 41, no.4 (Winter 2008): 321–51.
22 Pezzini, “The Art Periodical,” 156.
23 For discussion of the early days of The Burlington Magazine, see Caroline Elam, “A More and More Important Work: Roger Fry and The Burlington Magazine,” Burlington Magazine 145 (March 2003): 142–52.
24 Unsigned Review [W. Rothenstein], “The Vale Press,” Saturday Review, July 4, 1896, 17–18.
25 Max Beerbohm, “The New English Art Club,” Saturday Review, April 18, 1903, 483–85. Many more examples could be given, most of them taken from either The Saturday Review or The Burlington Magazine, both of which were closely associated with and/or controlled by this particular group of artists and writers.
26 Significantly, the Carfax combined exhibitions of contemporary artists with Old Master shows, a move which had as much to do with the genuine enthusiasm felt by contemporary artists for their distinguished forebears, as it did with shrewd business. For more on the Carfax and the market for Old Masters, see Pezzini, “The Art Periodical,” 155, and Samuel Shaw, “‘The new ideal shop’, Founding the Carfax Gallery, c. 1898–1902,” British Art Journal (September 2012): 35–43.
27 The series was cancelled almost immediately. As the artist later noted: “Holme was willing to pay me for writing, and I wrote some Paris notes, and reviewed an Academy exhibition—very irreverently, I fear” MEMORIES I, 134. Rothenstein attributes the cancellation of the series to a quarrel with Holme over payment, though it seems just as likely that he could not keep up the regular trips to Paris. The review of the Academy exhibition was written by the French artist Albert Besnard (1849–1934), translated by Rothenstein, and appeared in vol. 3 of The Studio.
28 For example: “Amongst the most refined works in the exhibition were the landscapes of Mr. Charles Conder. Curiously beautiful in conception, the execution is in dreamy harmony with it. Omar [Khayyam] himself might have lazed away a day in those gardens”: William Rothenstein, “Paris Letter,” Studio 1 (1893): 160.
29 See William Rothenstein, “Some Remarks on Artistic Lithography,” Studio 3 (1894): 16.
30 For a comprehensive review of Goya's reception in Britain, including Rothenstein's work, see Nigel Glendinning, Goya and his Critics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977), especially 103–43. It seems likely that Rothenstein did other unsigned work for The Saturday Review, though I have yet to track this down. The Christmas supplement was published in December 1896, with a cover by Rothenstein. Contributors included Herbert Horne, Max Beerbohm, and Robert Cunninghame-Graham.
31 HGTN, Cunningham Graham to William Rothenstein, August 7, 1894. Rothenstein's adventures in Morocco and Spain are recounted in the first volume of his memoirs: MEMORIES I, 215–26.
32 HGTN, William Rothenstein to Moritz Rothenstein, March 1895.
33 Glendinning, Goya and his Critics, 141.
34 Glendinning, Goya and his Critics, 111–3.
35 William Rothenstein, “Goya I,” Saturday Review, September 5, 1896, 235. The second review appeared two weeks later “Goya II,” Saturday Review, September 19, 1896, 307–8.
36 Rothenstein, “Goya I,” 235.
37 It is worth noting in passing that Rothenstein's early essays were published under the name “Will Rothenstein.” It is only in 1900, with the publication of the book on Goya, that he graduated to the marginally more learned “William Rothenstein.”
38 Frederick Wedmore, “Some Younger Etchers,” Studio 6 (1896): 84.
39 Quoted in Robert Speaight, William Rothenstein: Portrait of an Artist in his Time (London: Eyre & Spottiswode, 1962), 105. By the time Rothenstein worked up these articles into his book William Wilde was dead, so we do not know what he made of the second attempt at writing about Goya.
40 Both of the paintings were reproduced in the 1900 study. The first is now considered a false attribution. See Nigel Glendinning, “Goya and England in the Nineteenth Century,” Burlington Magazine 106 (January 1964): 4–14.
41 HTGN, William Rothenstein to Bertha Rothenstein, undated [August 1895?].
42 MEMORIES I, 22–25.
43 See note 26 above.
44 The book was delayed for well over a year, due to endless revisions and distractions (Rothenstein was married in 1899, and ill for much of that autumn).
45 William Rothenstein, A Plea for a Wider Use of Artists & Craftsmen (London: Constable, 1916); William Rothenstein, Two Drawings by Hok'Sai (Gloucestershire: Essex House, 1910).
46 See appendix for more details.
47 HGTN, William Strang to William Rothenstein, January 1897.
48 It is not impossible that Rothenstein contributed unsigned articles to The Burlington Magazine and other journals after 1903, but I have yet to find any concrete evidence of this.
49 For further discussion of this poem, see Pezzini, “The Art Periodical,” 164–66.
50 See, for example, Dugald Sutherland MacColl, “Probity and Parti-Pris,” Saturday Review, November 10, 1900), 583; F J M, “GOYA,” Speaker, October 13, 1900, 49; and [Unsigned], “Goya,” Athenaeum, February 9, 1901, 181. The latter notes that “Mr. Rothenstein's style, while still savoring of the amateur, is decidedly attractive.” Though Roger Fry was writing for The Athenaeum, this review does not seem to have been by his hand.
51 “I believe at the time I was perhaps more under the influence of Rembrandt than of Goya” he admitted to Roger Fry in 1909; letter quoted in Max Beerbohm and William Rothenstein, Their Friendship and Letters, 1893–1945, ed. Karl Beckson and Mary Lago (London: J. Murray, 1975), 9.
52 Note, for instance, the consistent use of the words “humanity” and “probity.” The Oscar Wilde connection is made most clear in Rothenstein's use of the phrase “imagination for reality” to describe Goya: a clear adaptation of the phrase “imaginative reality” that Wilde uses to describe Honoré de Balzac in his Decay of Lying (first published in 1889). Where Rothenstein departs from Wilde is in his attack on English artists for their “general tendency . . . to seek inspiration from pictures rather than from Nature”: Rothenstein, Goya, 2, 28. Some passages in the book are repeated word for word from The Saturday Review essays, though the more florid sentences have, on the whole, been cut. Compare, for instance, his description of the church of San Antonio de la Florida in the first Goya essay (p. 253) with the slightly shortened passage in the book (p.18).
53 For more on Orpen's reaction to Goya and Spanish art in general, see Kenneth McConkey, “Orpen's Hispanic Repertory,” British Art Journal 7 (2006/2007), 62–69, and Kenneth McConkey, “The Theology of Painting: The Cult of Velázquez in British Art at the turn of the Twentieth Century,” Visual Culture in Britain 6 (2005): 189–205.
54 Rothenstein painted Berenson's portrait in 1907. Berenson would become a good friend and mentor of Rothenstein's eldest son John.
55 See Shaw, “The ideal shop,” 39–40, for more on this.
56 MEMORIES I, 245.
57 HGTN, undated Notebook (marked S.O.), Ref 1148.3.
Additional information
SAMUEL SHAW is currently Post-Doctoral Associate in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut. He received his doctorate from the University of York in 2010, and has taught courses at both York and the University of Warwick. He has written extensively on the life and work of William Rothenstein, on whom he has co-curated an exhibition, due to open at the Cartwright Hall Gallery, Bradford (West Yorkshire), in March 2015. Wider interests include the representation of the industrial landscape in early twentieth-century British art, the relationship between Edwardian artists and the art market, and the concept of “austerity” in relation to Edwardian painting.