Needless to say, when I first made my acquaintance with Charles Strickland, I did not see much in him.However, most people now recognize his greatness.By greatness I do not mean that greatness attained by successful politicians, or by meritorious servicemen, for the greatness of such men has to do with their position, not with their personal character.Once time passed, the aura on them faded away.It is not uncommon to find that a retired prime minister was nothing more than a bombastic politician, and that a commanding officer without a single soldier is now nothing more than a short-lived hero in the shop.But the greatness of Charles Strickland is genuine, and you may not like his art, but you cannot resist the interest it arouses anyway.His work catches your eye and touches your heartstrings.Gone are the days when he was ridiculed, and his defense was no longer considered an eccentricity, nor his admiration an anomaly.His flaws do not hide his strengths, and even his shortcomings become natural in people's eyes.His place in the arts is uncertain, and the compliments of his admirers and the scorn of his detractors may be capricious, but there is no doubt that he was gifted.In my opinion, the most interesting thing about art is the personality of the artist.If the personality is extraordinary, no matter how many shortcomings the artist has, I am willing to forgive.I think Velázquez is a better painter than El Greco, but his painting style and subject matter are commonplace and lack freshness, which inevitably makes people's admiration for him greatly reduced.As for the painter Greco from Crete, his works are full of sensuality and tragic mood, as if dedicating the mystery of his soul as an eternal sacrifice.Artists, whether they are painters, poets or musicians, will use their sublime or wonderful works to decorate the world and meet people's aesthetic needs, but this is similar to human sexual instinct, beautiful and not without brutal.Great artists will show their works together with their own great talents. Finding the artist's secrets is like reading a detective novel, which is an unstoppable feeling. It is also like the universe is full of mysteries, and the fascinating thing is that you can't find the answers.Even Strickland's most unremarkable work hints at his eerie, complex, tormented personality.Undoubtedly, it is these characteristics that make it impossible for those who do not like his work to ignore them.It is also precisely because of this that so many people are excited and curious about his life and character, which arouses their strong interest.

It was not until four years after Strickland's death that Maurice Hurey wrote an article and published it in the "French Courier". Critics bound by tradition blazed a new path.In France, there has been no critic with such undisputed authority for a long time as Hurey, and his views are absolutely impressive.His praise of Strickland seems to have been exaggerated, but what has been said of the painter later proves that he was right.Strickland's reputation today is based on his original judgment. The painter's rise to fame can be said to be one of the most romantic events in the history of art.Some painters arrogantly claim that laymen don’t understand the art of painting at all, so the best way for ordinary people to express their appreciation for paintings is to shut up and draw out a check. I don’t agree with this statement, because art is the expression of emotion, and emotion It is common and understandable to all human beings.Therefore, it is as absurd to say that art can only be appreciated by artists, as that exquisite craftsmanship can only be fully understood by skilled craftsmen.But I also admit that critics who have no actual knowledge of painting technique can rarely make really worthwhile opinions about paintings, and I know nothing about paintings myself.Fortunately, I need not run the risk of commenting on this point, because my friend Mr. Edward Legatt, a capable writer as well as an accomplished painter, has written in one of his Strickland's work is adequately explored in a small book with a beautiful and exemplary style which, sadly, is far less respected in most parts of England than in France .

Maurice Hurey's famous essay on the life of Charles Strickland was designed to whet the reader's appetite for curiosity.Beneath the grim affection for art he expresses a sincere desire to call wise attention to an original genius.However, Hurey is a master of writing, he will not be ignorant of the truth that "everyone has curiosity", and he has easily achieved the desired effect in this way.Those who had been in contact with Strickland in the past - some writers knew him in London, some painters met him at the Café Montmartre - were surprised to find that they thought he was just A failed painter, now it seems like a different person, a real genius, and missed them.His name began to appear in a series of articles in French and American magazines, someone would write his recollection, another's appreciation of his paintings, and these articles would add to Strickland's reputation , but aroused the curiosity of the public, but could not fully satisfy their curiosity.The articles on Strickland are very popular with readers, and the industrious Wertbrecht-Rothholz has a list of authoritative articles in his voluminous monograph.

The capacity for myth-making is inherent in man, and the lives of those who stand out, whether astonishing or mysterious, are recounted, and there is a passion for inventing a kind of legend, and a frenzy for it. Unwaveringly.It is a romantic protest against mediocrity.All kinds of events in the legend have become the most reliable pass for the hero to go to immortality.Sir Walter Raleigh is hallowed in people's memory not so much for his feat in discovering and bearing England's name as for spreading his cloak on the ground for Queen Elizabeth to tread on episode.A cynical philosopher would laugh at this thought.Charles Strickland lived in obscurity and made many enemies and few friends during his lifetime. It is not surprising that those who wrote about him had to make up for the lack of collected data with active imagination.But it is obvious that, although not much is known about Strickland's life, a sufficiently romantic literati can find a great deal of perfunctory material in it. There is also an abnormally rough side in his personality, and there are many tragic and sad experiences in his fate.After a time a legend arose out of this material, against which even wise historians dare not attack.

However, a sensible historian should be accurate, and the Reverend Robert Strickland is clearly not one of them.He declared that his father's biography was written to "dispel some misunderstandings in the street talk", especially about the false rumors about his father's later life, which had "brought great pain to living relatives".It is obvious that the well-known accounts of Strickland's life dishonor a respectable family.I read this biography as a kind of entertainment, and am secretly glad that it is written so lifelessly and dryly.Mr. Strickland is portrayed in the book as a model husband and a good father, a modest gentleman with an easy-going temper, hard work and good conduct.This contemporary clergyman has acquired, in his studies of biblical hermeneutics, a certain astonishing ability to speak right and left, the subtlety of which, as a dutiful son, Robert Strauss When Pastor Rickland "interpreted" the various deeds of Nai's father's life, he always found certain details very conveniently, which enabled him to obtain a prominent position in the church when the time came. It was as if he had put on the bishop's leggings.Although it takes great courage to do this, it will also take certain risks, because when Strickland's reputation was growing, those generally accepted legends did not have a good influence on his reputation.His art has so much appeal to a lot of people, either because people were disgusted with his character or sympathetic to his death.Strickland's son's whitewashed biography of his father has poured cold water on his father's admirers.One of the most important works of Strickland's life, The Samaritan Woman, was sold to Christie's immediately after the publication of the biography, while people were still talking about it. But it is no accident that the final auction price was £235 less than nine months earlier.At that time, a well-known collector bought the painting, but he passed away suddenly, so the painting was re-auctioned.The strength and originality of Charles Strickland alone would have been far from worth the price of his paintings if the extraordinary human capacity for mythic epics could not counteract the effect that a story could not satisfy human curiosity. There is such a big difference between before and after.Fortunately, it didn't take long for Dr. Wittbrecht-Rothholz's works to come out, which finally reassured all art lovers.

Dr. Wittbrecht-Rothholz belongs to the school of historians who believe that human nature is as bad as it is, and that there is no worst but worse.Of course, the works of this school of historians will certainly bring more pleasure to the reader than those writers who deliberately make legendary heroes into virtuous gentlemen and disappoint people.For my part, it would be a pity if the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra was written as merely an economic alliance.Similarly, to convince me that Tiberius was as irreproachable a monarch as King George V of England, I am afraid that more evidence than existing materials should be produced to prove it. Thankfully, there does not seem to be any at present.Dr. Wittbrecht-Rothholz employs such logic in his review of the biography of the Reverend Robert Strickland, whose naive biography makes one's feelings about the unfortunate man inevitable. some kind of sympathy.The place where the pastor deliberately evaded for the sake of decency was attacked as hypocrisy; the place where he exaggerated was severely condemned as a lie;For the biographer, these small mistakes in the work should be blamed, but for the son of the protagonist of the biographer, they are excusable.Unfortunately, the Anglo-Saxons seem to have been implicated in this too, and have been accused of being prudish, deceitful, conceited, deceitful, cunning, and even culinary.Personally, I think the Reverend Strickland has been too hasty in dismissing the well-established notion that his parents were "not very happy".In his biography he cites a letter from Paris by Charles Strickland describing his wife as "a fine woman," and Dr. Wertbrecht-Rothholz described the letter as The original passage was reproduced, and the original meaning of this sentence in the original passage is this: "Let God curse my wife, she is really a 'good enough' woman, I really hope she can go to hell." Such a treatment of unpopular evidence, even in the days of the Church's heyday, seems greatly inappropriate.

Dr. Wittbrecht-Rothholz was an ardent admirer of Charles Strickland, and he was in no danger of whitewashing him.But he has a keen eye for all base motives that lie beneath the surface of innocence.He was part psychopathologist and researcher of art, and no subconscious secret could be kept from him, and no one who probed the secret could see deeper meaning in ordinary objects like he did.The mystic sees the unspeakable, the psychopathologist sees the unspeakable.We are amazed at the erudite writer's eagerness to scour out every anecdote that discredits his hero.Whenever he finds some instance of a hero who is cruel or mean and selfish, his heart warms to him, and when he finds some forgotten story with which he can mock the Reverend Robert Strickland When he is filial, he will be as happy as an inquisitor judging a heretic.His assiduity is truly admirable, and no trifle can escape from his pen. If Charles Strickland has a laundry bill unpaid, the details are recorded in detail; Half a crown was not repaid, and no detail of this debt would have been overlooked.