Paul George Konody

Early writing and opinions

Konody was the art critic for The Daily Mail and The Observer, writing for the latter until his death.^[5] He was also the editor of The Artist from 1900 to 1902, and wrote numerous articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica and the Dictionary of National Biography. He was a master of the Junior Art Worker's Guild from 1903 to 1904.^[3] He wrote volumes on Walter Crane and Diego Velázquez in 1902 and 1903, respectively, and described the works of Filippino Lippi for a 1905 volume published by the Newnes's Art Library,^[6] writing of Lippi that "some of his qualities show him to be the most subtle psychologist of his time, the most modern in spirit of all the artists of the Renaissance".^[7] In 1908, Konody published a volume on Raphael for the a series of "The Masterpieces in Color" for the publishing company of Frederick A. Stokes.^[8]

In 1910, Konody notably dismissed some of the paintings of Vincent van Gogh as "merely the ravings of a maniac".^[9] That same year, Konody disputed the claims of German art historian Wilhelm von Bode that a bust of Flora acquired by Bode's Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin was an original work of Leonardo da Vinci. Konody "waged war on Dr. Bode's claims through the columns of the London Daily Mail".^[10] Konody's evaluation was proven correct, as it was later exposed that the sculpture was likely created by English sculptor Richard Cockle Lucas, centuries after the time of Leonardo.^[10][11][12]

Konody's 1911 book, The Louvre, with Maurice W. Brockwell, was well-reviewed in The Guardian, which found it to be "a large and substantial volume" with "scholarly and well balanced" accounts of the painters.^[13]

Response to Futurism and evaluation of the Isleworth Mona Lisa

Konody was not so well-disposed towards certain artistic trends of his own time, joining other critics in dismissing Post-Impressionism and Futurism, describing some works of Cubism as "unintelligible", and referring to a 1912 showing of Futurist works as a "nightmare exhibition".^[14] He similarly objected to a growing trend inspired by Post-impressionism of decorating children's nursery rooms with colorful designs, which he suggested would "delight the infant who can scribble on the wall in perfect harmony with the design", but which adults would find distracting, and eventually boring.^[15] In 1914, Konody was one of a handful of critics who received "BLESSes" from the Vorticist literary magazine, Blast, asserted to be for supporting the magazine and other recent developments in art.^[16] The honor was ironic, given that Konody, along with J. C. Squire, were noted to have been more hostile than favorable to Blast,^[17] with Konody describing it as "a strange mixture of seriousness and facetiousness, common sense and absurdity".^[18] Konody was, however, impressed with the Futurist wartime painting, The First Searchlights at Charing Cross by C. R. W. Nevinson.^[19]

Towards the beginning of 1914, Konody examined the recently rediscovered Isleworth Mona Lisa, and concluded that, unlike Bode's bust of Flora, it was in fact by Leonardo da Vinci.^[20][21] The painting had been proposed by its owner, art collector Hugh Blaker, to have been painted by Leonardo, perhaps prior to the painting of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Konody wrote that the reception of the painting had been marred by "some press agent who sent out the news broadcast, with wrong statements, misquotations, and other blunders galore", but nonetheless found that "though not altogether from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci himself, it emanates most certainly from his studio and was very largely worked up by the master himself". Konody further stated of the painting that "[t]he hands, with their careful and somewhat hard drawing and terra cotta coloring, suggest at once the name of Leonardo's pupil, Marco d' Oggionno; whereas the inimitably soft and lovely painting of the head and bust, the exquisite subtlety of the expression, the golden glow of the general coloring, can be due only to Leonardo".^[21] Konody found the painting to have features "far more pleasing and beautiful than in the Louvre version".^[21][22] Blaker's father in law, John R. Eyre, wrote in a monograph defending the authenticity of the Isleworth Mona Lisa, "when this opinion was endorsed by an art critic of Mr. P. G. Konody's standing, I felt convinced there was at least good ground for investigation".^[23]

World War I and interest in the art of wartime

In 1915, Konody "was commissioned to make a critical inventory of all the works of art in the national repositories of Constantinople", but this project was cancelled due to the escalation of World War I.^[24] In 1917, Konody was appointed honorary secretary and art director of a committee to commemorate Canadian participation in that war. For this purpose, he participated in selecting artists to be commissioned to travel to the war zone and to prepare works recording the battles, ranging from etchings and portraits to colossal paintings, with the works later being displayed in venues such as the Anderson Galleries in New York City.^[25][26] Years after his death, Konody was praised for being "able to get the committee to accept so many radical paintings, for instance those of Paul Nash, Wyndham Lewis and the then unknown David Milne",^[27] though it was also asserted that Konody initially "ignored Canadian artists in favor of Europeans to memorialize the Canadian effort".^[28] During and after the war, Konody developed a general interest in artwork depicting wartime, publishing a noted article, On War Memorials in 1919.^[29]

In 1919, the New York Herald described Konody, then visiting the United States while directing the Canadian War Memorial Exhibition, as "[o]ne of the men best qualified to speak" on the authenticity of several contested paintings then being disputed which were claimed to have been produced during the Renaissance.^[10] For several years later in his life, Konody was honorary secretary of a committee that oversaw the British pavilion at the annual International Art Exhibition in Venice (now the Venice Biennale).^[4][30]