YALE UNIVERSITV LIBRARY 3 9002 05755 0833 YALE UNIVERSITY ART LIBRARY A HANDBOOK OF MODERN FRENCH PAINTING A HANDBOOK OF MODERN FRENCH PAINTING BY D. CADY EATON, B.A.,M.A. Professor of the History and Criticism of Art (Emeritus) Yale University WITH TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1909 Copyright, 1909, by Dodd, Mead and Company Published, April, 1909 THE UHIVERSITT PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. In gratitude for the great happiness French art has given me, I dedicate this little book to the happiness of French artists. A HANDBOOK OF MODERN FRENCH PAINTING By D. CADY EATON, B.A., M.A. ~ Professor of tht Historji and Criticism of Art (Emeritus), Yale University , 1889; O. , 1900). 2 Edouard Toudouze (1848- : P. d. R., 1871 ; Med. 3rd cl., 1876 ; Med. 2nd cl., 1877; silver med., 1889; >i<, 1892). xviii INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS Aix (Bouches du Rhone). Aix, a city of thirty thousand inhabitants, less than twenty miles north of Marseilles, has a large collection of pictures in a building that formerly belonged to the Knights of Malta. Among those of the modern French School the following should be noted : Bhascasset: * Argus gardant Jo. Greuze: Triomphe de Galatee 31 Ingres: Jupiter et Thetis .85 Alencon (Orne). Alencon is about one hundred miles west and slightly south of Paris and can easily be visited in a day. Its Hotel de Ville contains a small collection of pictures. Among them the follow ing are worth seeing: Boucher: Leda .... 19 Raphael Collin: Daphnis et Chloe . . . 319 Court: Charlotte Corday 124 Nymphe et Faune. Gericottrt: Naufrage 99 Jean Paul Laurens . 300 L'Executixm du Due d'Enghien. Mme. Vigee Lebrun 45 Comtesse de Palignac. Amiens (Somme). Amiens, the ancient capital of Picardy, is about seventy-five miles north of Paris, half-way from Paris to Calais and a city of over ninety thousand inhabitants. Its art collections, in a large and handsome building called Musee de Picardie erected about forty years ago, are among the largest and finest outside of Paris. Travelers who stop over to see the cathedral should not omit a visit to the Musee de Picardie. The modern French School is well represented. Good catalogue of 1899. Among the important pictures are the following: Hippoltte Bellange: Retour d'Elbe 121 Boucher: Chasse au Leopard 19 1 Jacques Raymond Brascasset (1804-1867: Med. 3rd cl., 1827; Med. 1st cl., 1831 and 1855 E. U.; >£, 1837; I., 1846). Highly esteemed while living; nearly forgotten now. INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS Cabanel: Francesca da Rimini . 204 Glaize: l Les Ecueils de la Vie and other pictures. Hesse: 2 Mirabeau et les Etats Generaux. Gehome: Le Steele d'Auguste . . . 189 Granet: 3 Saint Louis delivrant les Prisonniers. J. Lefebvbe: Lady Godiva and several others 274 Lhermitte: La Mori de le Boucheron . 311 Maignan : Dante et Mathilde . 310 Puvis oe Chavannes . 235 Ludus pro Patria and many other of his best and most characteristic works. Schnetz: * Sac cTAquilere par Attila. Aquilera, a city on the Adriatic near its head, was destroyed by Attila in 452 a. d. Sylvestre: ° Neron et Locuste. Locusta showing Nero the power of his poisons. Tattegrain: Les Deuittants h Etaples . . 321 H. Vernet: Massacre des Mamelukes . 113 Vincent: Henri IV et Sully 51 1 Pierre Paul Leon Glaize (1843- : Meds., 1864, 1866, and 1868; >J*. 1877 ; Med. 1st cl., 1878 E. U. ; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; O. *. 1906). Glaize was born in Paris and studied under his father and also under Ger6me. He paints religious pieces; has made his reputation by such subjects as "Les Limbes," "L'Enfer du Dante." Is better known in the provinces than in Paris. 2 Alexandre Hesse (1806-1879) and his uncle Auguste (1795-1869) were well-known painters of their day. Their works are in many Paris churches. They are about forgotten. 3 Francois Marius Granet (1775-1849: I., 1825), born at Aix. A great colorist and master of light and shade. 4 Jean Victor Schnetz (1787-1878: Med. 1st cl., 1819; ?£, 1825; I., 1837; O. >J«, 1843; Med. 1st cl., 1855 E. U.; C. &, 1866). Schnetz was born in Paris. He studied under David, Regnault, Gros, and Gerard. He acquired a little of the styles of his masters without developing a style of his own. If not a great painter he was an excellent and attractive instructor. He was director of the school at Rome from 1840 to 1844 and again from 1852 to 1868. There are several of his large battle pieces at Versailles. A few of his pictures are in the Louvre; others are scat tered all over France. 6 Joseph Noel Sylvestre (1853- : Med. 2nd cl., 1875; Med. 1st cl., 1876). Sylvestre was born at Beziers (Herault) and studied under Cabanel. He is a careful draughtsman, but a poor' colorist. xx INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS Angers (Maine-et-Loire). Angers, the capital of the old province of Anjou, is about half-way between Tours and Nantes and can easily be visited from either city. As it is about one hundred and seventy-five miles from Paris it is too far away for a day's trip. Its museum and public library are in a mansion of the fifteenth century called Logis Barrault. Of the modern French School there is nothing of importance except sketches, studies, and a few early works by Lenepveu, who was a native of Angers. There are a few unimportant works by Watteau and his followers; also by Vien, Girodet-Trioson, and Gerard. Guerin's large unfinished work La derniere Nuit de Troie should be noticed also . 67 Gervex: ' Diane et Endymion. Arras (Pas-de-Calais). Arras has a museum containing about three hundred pictures. The modern French School is fairly represented, but there is nothing to attract particular attention or to delay the traveler. Avignon (Vaucluse). The Musee Calvet contains interesting works of early French art of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but very few modern French pictures. There are a few by Joseph Vernet of Avignon and of Carle Vernet, his son. H. Vernet's Mazeppa should be seen, also Gericault's Combed de Nazareth, Roll's Don Juan et Haydee, and David's Barras. Besancon (Doubs). Besancon, the old capital of Franche Comte, is in the East of France, near the Jura and the Swiss border. It is an interesting city of about sixty thousand inhabitants charmingly situated on a neck of land nearly surrounded by the river Doubs. In the Halle, or Market Hall, is an interesting collection of 1 Henri Gervex (1852- : Med. 2nd cl., 1874 and 1876; , 1882; O. , 1889). 2 Claude Ziegler (1804-1856), born in London. Principally known for his paintings in the cupola of the Madeleine of Paris). xxii INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS Chantilly (Oise). Chantilly is twenty-five miles north, of Paris. Its chateau and contents were given to the French Institute by the Due d'Aumale in 1886 ; the Duke reserving a life interest which terminated on his death in 1892. Its collections of works of art of all kinds and of many periods are unequaled in France outside of Paris. Among the pictures of the modern French School the following are remarkable: Baudry: Enlevement de Psyche . . 257 Bonnat: Portrait du Due d'Aumale 269 Delacroix: Les deux Foscari . 103 Delaroche: Assassinat du Due de Guise . . . 131 Detaille: Les Grenadiers h Cheval a Eylau: Haul la Tete! . ... 293 Decamps: Enfants Turcs aupres (Tune Fontaine 130 Rebecca h la Fontaine. Fromentin: Arabes Chassant au Faucon 223 Gerome: Suite d'un Bal masque . .... 189 Greuze: Le tendre Desir 31 Ingres: Son Portrait a 24 Ans 85 Stratonice. Venus Anadyomene. Meissonier: Les Amateurs de Tableau 198 Les Cuirassiers de 1805. Prud'hon: Psyche aspirant au Ciel 64 De Troy: Le Dejeuner cVHuitres . 44 F. A. Gruyer's illustrated, historical, critical, and descriptive catalogue should be consulted. Dijon (Cote-d'Or). Dijon, the old capital of the dukes of Burgundy, is about two hundred miles southeast of Paris on the main line to Switzerland and the Mediterranean. It deserves a visit and should not be passed by. Its museum, in the old palace of the dukes, is one of the largest, richest, and most interesting in France outside of Paris. All periods, branches, and schools of art are well repre sented. Among the best pictures of the modern French School are the following: Bouguereau: Retour de Tobie . , 244, L. Boulanger: Scene a" Orgieb, la Cour des Miracles 139 INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS xxiii Paul Flandrin: ' Souvenir de Provence. Glaize: Aesop et Xanthus. Henner: Byblis changee en Fontaine . . 262 Melingue: Levie du Siege de Melz .... 307 Nattier: Maria Leczinska . . 40 De Neuville: Bivouac avant Le Bourget . . 291 Douai (Nord). Douai, a small but interesting town of decidedly Flemish aspect, is about twenty miles south of Lille from which city it is easily visited. Its collection of pictures is large, particularly in Dutch and Flemish works. The modern French School is fairly represented and contains specimens by Brascasset, Corot, Coubert, Fromentin, and members of the Breton family. The early painter Jean Bellegambe was a native of Douai. Dunkerque (Pas-de-Calais). Dunkerque has a surprising collection of pictures, especially of the Dutch and Flemish schools. There are a few modern French pictures in the collection. Among them : Mme. Demont-Breton : '' Jean Bart a Dunkerque. Tattegrain : Louis XIV apres la Bataille des Dunes . 321 Grenoble (Isere). Grenoble, in the Southeast of France, old capital of Dauphiny, is a beautiful city, beautifully situated. Its library and art museum are in a new building on the Place de la Constitution in the modern part of the city. The museum contains about four hundred pictures and the modern French School is well represented. Among the more important works are the following : Bellet du Poisant : 3 Bohemiens. David: Portrait du Peintre Vincent . 54 Detaille: Bataille de Champigny, a fragment .... 293 1 P. Flandrin (1811-1902: Med. 3rd cl., 1839; Med. 2nd cl., 1847; Med. 1st cl., 1848; tjf, 1852; bronze med., 1889 E. U.). Brother of H. Flandrin. 2 Virginie Demont-Breton, daughter of Jules Breton (1859- : Med. 3rd cl, 1881 ; Med. 2nd cl., 1883 ; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; »f«, 1894 ; gold med., 1900 E. U.). 3 Bellet du Poisant (1823-1883). xxiv INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS De Neuville: Bataille de Rezonville, also a fragment 291 Delacroix: St. Georges 103 Lecomte de Nouy: Homere (triptyque) 309 Ulmann: ' Sylla chez Marius. Vien: L' Enlevement de Proserpine . 49 Lille (Nord). Le Palais des Beaux Arts of Lille is one of the largest, hand somest, and best arranged buildings of the kind in France. It was erected in 1892. Space is reserved and plans are completed for doubling its size. Though it is as yet principally known for its collections of Dutch and Flemish pictures, it has a number of excellent examples of the modern French School of painting and the number is being continually increased. A' few of the more important are as follows : Amatjry-Duval : z Naissance de Venus. Baudry: Punition cVune Vestal 257 Brascasset: Lutte de Taureaux. Cabanel : Nymphe enlevee par un Faune . . 204 Carolus Duran: L'Assassine 277 Cazin: Tobie . ... . 330 COmmerre: 3 Samson et Delilah. Courbet: Apres Diner a Ornans 220 David: Belisarius . 54 Delacroix: Mede . . 103 Greuze: Psyche et Amour 31 Lami: Bataille d'Hondschoote . . 125 Bastien Lepage: Priam et AchiUe . 317 Merson: 4 Le Loup d'Agubbio. J. F. Millet: La Becquee .... . 165 1 Benjamin Ulmann (1829-1884: P. d. R., 1859; Med. 3rd cl., 1859; Med., 1866; Med. 2nd cl., 1872; ifr, 1872). 2 Amaury-Duval (1808-1885: ) is best known by his dec orations in the church of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. He also decorated a chapel in Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and one in Saint-Mery. His Jeune Fille a la Poupee is, or was, in the Luxembourg. 3 Leon Commerre (1850- : P. d. R., 1875; Med. 3rd cl., 1875; Med. 2nd cl., 1881; >J«, 1885; bronze med., 1889 E. U. and 1900 E. U.; O. »K 1903), born at Trelon, near the Belgian frontier. A pupil of Cabanel whose style he imitates). 4 Luc Olivier Merson (1846- : P. d. R., 1869; Med 1st cl 1873- *, 1881; gold med., 1889 E. U.; I., 1892; O. >%>, 1900). One'of the most gifted and versatile of living painters. INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS xxv Puvis de Chavannes: Le Sommeil (one of his few easel pictures) .... 235 Rochegrosse: Nebuchadnezzar . . . 323 Roqueplan : ' Mart de VEspion Morris. Tattegrain: Cessions a Merci . , 321 Le Havre (Seine-Inferieure). Le Havre is well known to all travelers. Its library and museum are in a building, on the harbor, erected in 1845. There are about three hundred pictures of various schools in the collec tion. The modern French School is represented by unimportant works of Couture, Yvon, J. P. Laurens, Vien, and others. Le Mans (Garthe). Le Mans, about one hundred miles southwest of Paris, has a museum containing about four hundred pictures of various schools and dates. As yet there is nothing of importance belong ing to modern French art. Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Macon, Moulins, and Nevers, in the Center of France, have small collections, which are yearly increasing in importance. So has Nice in the Southeast of France. Lyons (Rhone). Lyons, where the rivers Rhone and Saone unite, was until lately the second largest city of France. Now Marseilles is ahead. Its museum and library are in a vast building of the eighteenth century once a Benedictine nunnery. It is situated in the upper part of the city on the Place des Terreaux, where was once an old canal connecting the two rivers. Of pictures there are over six hundred of different periods and schools. Of the modern French School the most interesting works are Chenavard's car toons for the Pantheon at Paris. The best, of them are exposed in two large rooms on the second story (au premier) and give in enormous drawings the history of the world from the Creation until the French Revolution. When Napoleon III came into power and the Pantheon once more became a church, Chena vard's work was stopped. Whether art gained or suffered by 1 Camille Roqueplan' (1802-1855: Med. 2nd cl., 1824; Med. 1st cl., 1828; >h, 1832; O. *, 1852). xxvi INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS the act was acrimoniously disputed at the time and has not ceased to be discussed. As Chenavard's large picture, La divina Tra- gadia, no longer hangs in the Luxembourg but has been re turned to Lyons, a visit to Lyons has become necessary to know the artist's style. That it is more German than French is evident. Apart from Chenavard's works the following should be examined : Charlet: La Retraite de Russie (one of his best) . . 121 Coukbet: Les Amaru's heureux ... ... 220 Court: Scene du Deluge .... . 124 Dagnan-Bouveret: Noce chez un Photographe 320 Delacroix: Demiers Moments de Marc Aurele . 103 Assassinat de VEveque de Liege 103 Odalisque couchee 103 Drolling: l Le ban Samariiain. Henner: La Creole . . . . .... 262 Humbert: Maternite (triptyque) . . . 308 Jules Lefebvre: Nymphe et Bacchus 274 Oisel : 2 Moise presente a Pharaon. Le Bien et le Mai. Riesener: Toilette de Venus . 137 Puns de Chavannes: Two of his finest mural paint ings, Vision antique and Vision chretienne 235 L'Auiomne, one of his few easel pictures. Marseille (Bouches du Rhone). Several of the collections of Marseilles are in an edifice called Le Palais de Longchamp, a superb and very original building erected in 1869 on an eminence at the end of the Boulevard Longchamp. The picture gallery contains about five hundred works of various schools, among which are a few modern French works of merit. On the staircase are two of Puvis de Chavannes' best mural paintings: one called Marseille, Colonic Grecque; the other, Marseille, Porte de I'Orient. To be remarked are the following : Comerre: Silene et les Bacchantes. Isabey: Village h Falaise . 128 1 Martin Drolling (1752-1827). Dutch style. Good painter of interiors. 2 Victor Oisel (1795-1850), Gabriel Tyr (1817-1868), and Alphonse Perin (1798-1875) were three Lyonnaise artists who worked together on religious and mystic subjects after the manner of the German Overbeck. INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS xxvii Henri Regnault: Judith tuant Holopherne ...... 280 De Troy: La Peste de Marseille (1720) ....... 44 Ziem: Entree du vieux Port de Marseille 250 When last visited by the editor (1902) the pictures- were badly arranged and there was no catalogue. Montauban (Tarn-et-Garonne). Montauban is about thirty miles north of Toulouse from which city it is best visited. Its picture gallery is in the Hotel de Ville and apart from the few pictures and many drawings and sketches by Ingres contains little of interest. Ingres' sketches, however, should be studied by everybody desirous of thoroughly understanding the great artist. In the sacristy of the cathedral is the Vaeu de Louis XIII, considered by many as Ingres' greatest work.Montpellier (Herault). Montpellier has a collection of over eight hundred pictures in which the modern French School is well represented. Though there may be no pictures of importance, many are worth seeing. Brascasset: Taureaux. Cabanel : Nymphe surprise par un Satyre 204 Phedre. MireiRe sortant de I'Eglise. Cot: Promothee devore par un Vautour . . ... 300 Courbet: Several specimens 220 Delacroix: Michel Ange dans son Atelier, and several others .... . . 103 Fromentin: Tentes arabes 223 Greuze: Many fin§ specimens .... . . .31 Henner: Le ban Samaritain .... 262 Ingres: Stratonice . . 85 There are many portraits of Fr. Xav. Fabre who founded the museum and of Bruyas who largely contributed to the collection. Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle). Nancy, the old capital of the Duchy of Lorraine, is an at tractive city of growing importance and well worthy a visit. Its picture gallery is in the Hotel de Ville, a building of the seven- xxviii INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS teenth century, and contains a few interesting pictures of the modern French School. Boucher: Aurore et Cephale . . . . 19 De Beaumont: * Le Part du Capitaine. Delacroix: Ment de Charles le Temerairc ¦ . 103 Isabey: Dieppe . . 128 Morot: Bataille d' Aquae Sextiae . 299 Laurent: 2 Relevailles. Ziegler: 3 Saint George ierassant le Dragon. Nantes (Loire-Inferieure). Nantes, a city of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand in habitants, has one of the best provincial museums in France containing over one thousand pictures. Nantes was the birth place of the .painter Delaunay. His works are not only in the museum, but in several of the religious edifices of the town. Among noticeable pictures by other artists in the museum are : Baudry: Magdalene . . . 257 Gros: Combat de Nazareth 77 Ingres: Mme. de Lenonnes . 85 Lancret: Portrait de Camargo . 17 Dame en Voiture. Merson: St. Francois d' Assise prechant les Poissons . . 316 Sigalon: Alhalie faisant egorger les Enfants royaux 109 Tattegrain: Les Bouches inutiles au Siege du Chateau GaiUard 321 Watteau: Soldats en Marche (his early style) 10 Harlequin. Etc. Nimes (Gard). Nimes has a picture gallery of about four hundred specimens. Among the modern French pictures the following should be noticed : Boucher: Education d'un Chien 19 Brascasset: La Campagne de Rome. 1 Edouard de Beaumont (1815-1888). 2 Ernest Joseph Laurent (1860- : Med. 3rd cl., 1885; P. d. R., 1889; bronze med., 1889 E. U.; Med. 2nd cl., 1895; gold med., 1900 E. U. ; >}«, 1903), born in Paris. Pupil of Herbert and Merson; devoted to portraits. 3 Jules Claude Ziegler (1804-1856; ?{«, 1840). Distinguished in various ways. INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS xxix Delaroche: Cromwell ouvrant le Cercueil de Charles I 131 Natoire: Repas de Cleopatre . . .45 Sigalon: Locuste essayand des Poisons . . 109 Orleans (Loiret). Orleans has a large collection of works of art in the old Hotel de Ville of the fifteenth century. There is little in it of value to the student of modern French painting, except the room devoted to the works of L. Cogniet. Pau (Basses Pyrenees). Pau, the old capital of Beam, has a small collection of pic tures, among them a few important ones of the modern French School : Degas: Magasin de Cotons a la Nouvelle Orleans . 351 Deveria: La Naissance de Henri IV ... 140 Le Marechal Bosquet. Duex: * St. Francois &», 1889), born in Paris. 2 Alfred Dehodencq (1822-1882: Med. 3rd cl., 1846 and 1853; Med. 1865 ; , 1870), born in Paris. 3 Guillaume Regamey (1837-1875: Med., 1868). 4 Claudius Jacquand (1805-1878: Med. 2nd cl., 1824; Med. 1st cl, 1836 ; ^», 1839), born at Lyons. xxx INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS Mouchot: ' Bazar de Caire. Abel de Poujol : 2 Naomi et Ruth. Rouen (Seine-Inferieure). Rouen, the former capital of Normandy, has so many attrac tions that a stay of a few days is necessary to enjoy them. Its Musee des Beaux Arts is in a magnificent modern building called the Musee-Bibliotheque which accommodates the public library also. There are over a thousand pictures of various schools and periods, among them many excellent specimens of modern French art. To be specially noticed are the following : Bellange: Marengo .... 121 Louis Boulanger: Mazeppa. Cormon: Retour de Salamis . . 313 Court: Mori de Cesar . 124 Boissy a" Anglos saluant la Tete du Depute Ferand. L. David: Mme. Lebrun and other portraits . . 54 Delacroix: Justice de Trajan . . 103 Flameng: V ainqueurs de la Bastille . . . 322 Gericault: Portrait de Delacroix and many studies and sketches ... 99 Ingres: La belle Zelie . 85 Puvis de Chavannes: Inter artes et naiuram . . 235 Jean Baptiste Isabey: Le premier Consul visitant la Manufacture de M. Sevene. De Troy: La chaste Suzanne ... . . 44 Ribot: La Supplice des Coins . . . . 234 Leon Riesener: LSda . . . . . 137 Rochegrosse: Andromache . 323 Ziem: Constantinople ... . . . 250 Saint-Quentin (Aisne). Saint-Quentin is ninety-five miles northeast of Paris and on the direct route to Antwerp. In a building called Musee Lauyer is a large collection of the works of Quentin Delatour, who was a native of Saint-Quentin. To understand the artist satisfac torily this collection should be visited. 1 Louis Mouchot (1830-1881: Med., 1865-1867 and 1868; *%*, 1872), born in Paris. 2 Abel de Poujol (1785-1861: P. d. R., 1811; Med 1st cl 1814- •}•, 1822; I., 1835; O. %>, 1853), born at Valenciennes. INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS xxxi Toulon, Tours, and Troyes have art museums which should not be neglected by travelers though they may not be attractive except to special students, or tb students of local art manifestations. Toulouse (Haute Garonne). Toulouse, the ancient capital of Languedoc, is an enterpris ing and growing city of about one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. Its university is one of the best known and best equipped in France. Its Musee des Beaux Arts is partially in an old Augustine convent dating from the twelfth century and partially in a new and adjoining building of the Second Empire. The collection of pictures is large and contains good specimens of the modern French School. Among them may be mentioned : Boucher: Pastorale 19 Baigneuses. Couture: Soif de VOr 141 Gerome: Anacreon, Bacchus et Cupidon 189 Gros: Hercule et Diomede (his last work of which the criticisms led to his suicide) 77 Son Portrait a vingt ans et sa Femme. Isabey: Boulogne 128 J. P. Laurens: St. Jean Chrysostom et I'Emperatrice Eudoxie 300 Mme. Lebrun: Baronne de Crussol 45 Oudry: La Chasse (one of his best, containing his por trait) 47 Pils: Sosur de Charite . . 207 In addition to the pictures in the Musee there are some ex cellent mural paintings in the so-called "Capitole." Benjamin Constant: Entrie d'Urbain II a Toulouse . 312 Henri Martin: Les Faucheurs .... ... 357 Glorification de Clemence Isaure . . 357 Jean Paul Laurence: Le Lauraguais . . . 300 Construction des Ramparts. xxxii INDEX OF PROVINCIAL MUSEUMS Valenciennes. Valenciennes is easily visited from Lille from which city it is distant about twenty-five miles. Its collection of pictures in the Hotel de Ville contains about four hundred works, principally Flemish and Dutch. There are a few works by Antoine Watteau, his nephews Louis and Francois Watteau, and by Pater; all of whom were natives of Valenciennes. MODERN FRENCH PAINTING CHAPTER I FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION THIS Handbook is for those English-reading travelers who desire more information about modern French painting than is given in ordi nary guidebooks and who have not at hand the volumes of art history and criticism necessary to fully satisfy their desires. The term " modern " may be taken in many mean ings. Here it designates the period subsequent to the death of Louis XIV, when painting, liberated from royal control, was started on a new and independent career. The only reason for beginning with Watteau is that his style is in marked contrast to the conven tional style of Le Brun and his school, and because he introduced into painting new ideas and methods which are still admired and studied. If he did not found a school of painting, he added permanent principles to the art. From Watteau on, artists will be considered in chro nological order, except when it may be more advanta geous to group those of any one particular movement or those of one family. Short accounts of the lives and accomplishments of painters will be followed by enumer- 1 2 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ations of their chief works. Some of these will be de scribed, and the criticisms they have evoked quoted. Of the works to be described, a large majority are in the public galleries of Paris. Some are in the local museums of France ; a few, in England, Germany, and the United States. Pictures in private collections will be rarely mentioned, because access is either denied or is limited and difficult. As a book of this kind must in a measure be governed by personal taste and limited by personal experience, it can only be hoped that the num ber of those who fail to find their favorite artists sufficiently described and their pet pictures sufficiently praised may be few. During the middle ages and until the seventeenth century French painters were ranked with artisans, and very rarely, and only in extreme cases, won social recog nition. There was in France an independent guild, or corporation, of painters, sculptors, engravers, illumi nators, etc., dating back to 1361. To it belonged not only all artists, but also all artisans of paint, stone, brass, etc. As the artisans far outnumbered the artists, they controlled the Corporation and, through jealousy perhaps, subjected artists to disagreeable and tyranni cal regulations. In 1648, during the minority of Louis XIV and on the petition and remonstrances of artists, his Majesty was pleased to establish an Academy of Painting and Sculpture which was to be independent of the Corporation and to which only artists, could belong. It was not, however, until 1664 and under Colbert that the opposition of the Corporation was en tirely overcome and the Academy established in the exercise of its privileges. The Academy lasted until FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 3 the Revolution, when all restriction upon every kind of activity was dissolved. In 1671 Colbert, in addition, established an Academy of Architecture, which also lasted until the Revolution. In 1795, but two years after the suppression of the Academies, an " Institut National " was established ; and some of the old academies, but under new names and regulations, formed parts of it. The name of the Insti tut has been several times changed. At one time it was the " Institut de France," then the " Institut Imperial," then again " Institut des Sciences et des Arts." Its official title to-day is " Institut de France," but it is always known as the " Institut." As formed to-day, it consists of five academies, of which the Academy of the Fine Arts was formed by the revival and union of the two academies founded by Colbert. Membership is lim ited to fifty-one, of whom fourteen are painters, eight sculptors, eight architects, four engravers, six musical composers or comedians, one secretary, and ten " Mem bres libres " as they are called, — that is, persons who have distinguished themselves as critics, or as patrons of art. The Due d'Aumale was a " Membre libre " ; so was one of the Rothschild family. To be elected a mem ber of the Institut is the greatest honor an artist can receive. Mistakes are inevitable, and some artists have refused the honor, presuming that, membership would limit hberty of action.1 The next highest reward de- 1 For information about the Institut consult Henri Laborde, L'Acade- mie des Beaux Arts depuis la Fondation de I'Institut de France; M. le comte de Franqueville, Le premier Siecle de I'Institut de France; Albert Soubies, Les Membres de I' Academic des Beaux Arts depuis la Fondation de I'Institut; Paul Dupre et Gustave Ollendorf, Traite de V Administra tion des Beaux Arts. 4 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING sired by artists is membership in the " Legion d'hon- neur." The " Legion d'honneur " was founded in 1802, when Napoleon was First Consul. It was designed to replace the various military and civil orders established by Valois and Bourbon kings, and which the Revolution had destroyed. It has undergone many, but not im portant changes ; most of them regulating the number admitted to membership. Membership is of five kinds: first and lowest, " Chevalier," then " Officier," " Com- mandeur," " Grand Officier," and " Grande Croix." Ac cording to the rules established by Napoleon III, there could be but twenty Grandes Croix, fifty Grands Offi- ciers, two hundred and fifty Commandeurs, two thou sand Officiers, and twelve thousand Chevaliers. These rules may have been changed since the Prussian War. It was also ruled that Frenchmen must begin with the lowest grade, and that the sovereign was the Grand Master. " L'Academie de France a Rome " was established by Louis XIV in 1666, and with modifications and with interruptions in its activities has existed ever since. All young art students who obtain the " Prix de Rome " are pensioned by the government, — painters, sculp tors, and architects, for four years ; engravers and medailleurs, for three years. The " Prix de Rome " is awarded every year in painting, sculpture, and archi tecture, every other year in engraving, and once every three years in graveur en medailles et en pierres -fines. The prize is not limited to the pupils of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. All French students between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five may compete. All pensioners must pass two of their years at Rome. They may obtain FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 5 permission to pass the rest of their time where they please. These regulations are part of the changes made in 1863, when the control of the Ecole des Beaux Arts was taken away from the Academie des Beaux Arts. Sub sequent changes have been unimportant. Annual or biennial exhibitions of works of art in Paris commenced in 1667, and have continued ever since with but few interruptions. For many years they were held in the Salon Carre of the Louvre, and from that fact came to be called " Salons." At the Salons first, second, and third class medals were distributed under varying regulations. Subsequently were added a " Prix d'hon- neur," a "Prix du Salon,"1 a "Bourse de voyage," and other honors and aids. The Salons were more or less under the control of the Academie des BeauX Arts until 1881, when, to satisfy complaints, the manage ment of the Salon was confided to a body of artists called the " Societe des Artistes Francais." Instead of stopping fault-finding this arangement increased it. Finally, in 1889 a large body of artists, led by Meis- sonier and Puvis de Chavannes, left the " Societe des Artistes Francais " and established a new society which they named the " Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts.*' Since 1890 there have been yearly two rival Salons. The new society does not confer medals, but exhibitors may be elected as " Associes " or as full " Membres." The existence of two opposing artistic bodies, two sys tems of rewards, and two recognized standards is in- 1 The "Prix de Salon" confers for three years the same rights as the "Prix de Rome" confers for four. The "Bourses de voyage" are gen erally conferred upon meritorious but unsuccessful competitors for the "Prix de Rome.'' 6 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING jurious to French art, has lowered the value of French recognition, and is deplored by art lovers throughout the civilized world. Well-ordered competition and an authoritative standard are as valuable in the study of art as in other human activities. The rewards obtained by artists will be indicated so far as they have been obtained by the writer from printed documents. Modern French art criticism begins with Denis Diderot (1713-1784). His work, called Les Salons, consists of descriptions and criticisms of the works exposed in the Salons of 1765-1767. It was written for Frederic Melchior Grimm (1723-1807), the re nowned critic, correspondent, and diplomatist of the eighteenth century, baron of the German Empire, friend and diplomatic representative of Catherine II of Russia. Though art criticism was but one of Diderot's multi farious activities, he established principles and methods of art criticism which prevail to-day. From the time of Diderot to the present day, art criticism is a com ponent part of French literature. Though before the middle of the last century the number of those who devoted themselves exclusively to art criticism was small, few philosophical or historical writers omitted art from their themes. It would be difficult even to enumerate all the writers who have devoted a portion of their activities to art. Among those of the last century whose works have been consulted in the preparation of this volume and are recommended to students, may be mentioned Louis Vitet (1802-1873), Jean Baptiste Gustave Planche (1807-1857), Le Comte Henri Dela- borde (1811-1899), Theophile Gautier (1811-1872), FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 7 August Alexandre Philippe Charles Le Blanc (1813- 1882), Arsene Houssaye (1815-1896), Charles Clement (1821-1887), Eugene Fromentin (1820-1876), Paul Mantz (1821-1895), Les de Goncourts, Edmond Louis Antoine (1822-1870), and Jules Alfred Huot (1830- 1896), Jules Breton (1827-1906), Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893), Armand Baschet (1829-1886), Charles Yriarte (1836-1889), Henri Auguste Jouin (1841- ), Joseph Henry Lemonnier (1842- ), Eugene Miintz (1845-1902), Louis Gonse (1846- ). Among the very large number of French art writers of the day, a few may be mentioned to whom the writer is deeply indebted: George Lafenestre, who, with &. Eugene Richtenberger, is engaged in bringing out a series of most excellent catalogues of the collec tions of paintings contained in the museums of the various capitals of Europe ; Olivier Merson and Henry Marcel, whose histories of French painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries suggested this work ; Roger Marx, whose contributions to the Gazette des Beaux Arts and whose Etudes sur I'Ecole Fran- caise mark him as a prince of criticism ; Andre Michel, another valuable contributor to the Gazette; Arsene Arnaud, known as Jules Claretie, born in 1840, since 1885 Administrateur de la Comedie Francaise, a charm ing writer on many subjects. His Peintres et Sculp- teurs contemporains contains delightful details of artist ¦life and character and excellent judgment of works of art. The art writings of Teodor de Wyzewa should be read, as well as those of Robert de la Sizeranne and of Charles Baudelaire, contributors to the Revue des Deux Mondes. Arsene Alexandre's Histoire populaire de la 8 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Peintre is an excellent work; so is Jacques Baschet's L'Histoire de la Peinture. This enumeration might be prolonged at length without exhausting the list and without satisfying individual taste and judgment. In Henry Marcel's History are, under each period, lists of authors. It may have been the writer's duty to con sult all of them before commencing this work; but life is short, and one must at times reach conclusions with out too much labor. For the new and ephemeral school of " Impressionism " — ephemeral in its distinctive assumptions — Camille Mauclair is the best-known prophet. Lately has been started in Paris a series of monographs of famous artists by well-known writers. These works, which may be read through in an hour or two, are sufficiently illustrated, and may be accepted for facts and for conscientious criticism. Among con tributors are Gabriel Seailles (Watteau), Camille Mau clair (Fragonard), Henry Lemonnier (Gros), Henry Marcel (J. F. Millet). Abbreviations " Prix de Rome " is indicated by " P. d. R." " A." indicates that the artist belonged to the old Academy established under Louis XIV. " I.," that the artist belonged, or belongs, to the " Institut " established in 1802. Medals decreed at the old Salons will be indi cated by " Med. d'hon., Med. 1st cl., Med. 2nd cl., Med. 3rd cl.," or " Med." during the years there was but one medal. " Chevalier " of the " Legion d'honneur " will be indicated by the cross iji. " Officier," " Commandeur," " Grand Officier," and " Grande Croix," by the same FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 9 cross preceded by the letters " O., C, G. O.," or " G. C." As the " Grande Croix " ranks with the " Garter " of England and the " Black Eagle " of Germany, it is rarely conferred. When dimensions are given, they will be given in feet and inches. First Period From the Death of Louis XIV, in 1715, until the Out break of the Revolution, in 1789 {Servient du Jeu de Pomme, June 20, 1789). From 1664 until 1690 Le Brun enjoyed the position of " Premier peintre du roi." 1 During that period he had supreme control of the art activities of the kingdom, and employed his talents and his energies in carrying out the art ideas of the king. According to Watelet,2 Le Brun was " despotic and haughty with artists, and ' continually impeded their genius. He enclosed them within the circle of his own ideas, and did not allow them to execute anything except from his own drawings or on his own advice. Many artists preferred inaction to such dependence. The upholsterer, the decorator, the sculptor, the jeweler, all received from him their models. The cabinet-maker, the carpenter, and the locksmith worked out his notions. Bronzes, vases, mo saics, intaglios, candelabras, chandeliers, clocks, etc., all came from him, all reflected his thought, all received his stamp." No wonder that the style of painting im- 1 Le Brun was born February 24, 1619. In 1664 he was made "Premier peintre du roi avec pension de douze milles livres." He was forty-five, Louis XIV was twenty-six. He died February 12, 1690, aged seventy-one. 2 Claude Henri Watelet (1718-1786), a prolific writer of the eighteenth century. 10" MODERN FRENCH PAINTING posed by a man of such tremendous force should long survive his death. It was not until the death of his master, twenty-five years after his own death, that artists dared to begin to paint after their own ideas. He was greatest as a decorator. His decorations, to be admired to-day at Versailles, made French art cele brated all over Europe. The death of Louis XIV brought relief to all classes of French society. People at last could live, talk, and act in a measure as they pleased. The new king was a child. The regent was liberal in his views and in his conduct. The nobles had been ruined by the wars of the late king. The only rich people were those of the bour geois class who had profited as purveyors and contrac tors for the army. They must have their palaces now, and have them embellished to suit their tastes. While the pupils of Le Brun were striving to remain ¦ faithful to their master and at the same time to adapt his style to new requirements, suddenly a new art master appeared, with ideas so new and original, a style so fresh, glorious, and inspiring, that his contemporaries well might wonder if a new art had not been born into the world. This genius was Watteau. ANTOINE WATTEAU (1684-1721: A., 1717). Watteau was born at Valenciennes, a city in the northeast of France, close to the Belgian frontier, and died of consumption, at the age of thirty-seven, at Nogent sur Marne, a village a few miles east of Paris. As Valenciennes was ceded to France in 1678 by the Treaty of Nimeguen, Watteau was born a Frenchman. Watteau's father was a maitre couvreur, or master FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 11 roofer, and is represented as being in comfortable cir cumstances. The boy early manifested a taste for painting. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a local painter named Guerin. A few pictures by Guerin in the public Museum of Valenciennes show him to have been a fair draughtsman but a poor colorist. When Watteau was eighteen, Guerin died, and Watteau determined to seek his fortunes in Paris. His biog raphers state that he left without his father's knowl edge or consent, and that thereafter he received no assistance from home. He seems to have supported himself in a variety of ways until he attracted the attention of a theater decorator named Gillot. Gillot did everything his position demanded. He painted scenery, designed dresses, made models for tapestries, and ornamented panels with graceful designs. From Gillot, Watteau learned many things that served him in establishing his style. His genius was awakened. His fantasy was delighted with the sights and activities of opera and ballet. After leaving Gillot he attached himself to an artist named Claude Audran, who in some capacity had charge of the palace of the Luxembourg, which belonged to the regent and where he subsequently lodged his notorious daughter La Duchesse du Barry. The gardens of the Luxembourg were, at the time, the rendezvous and the favorite promenade of the fair dames and the gallants of the regent's court. Their walks and their groupings impressed Watteau's artistic temperament. Moving or reclining amid the rich foliage of the garden, they made indelible pictures on Watteau's mind, and excited his imagination to the formation of a new style of painting which he himself 12 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING subsequently named Peinture de Fetes galantes. In the Luxembourg, moreover, he had opportunity to study at his leisure the superb pictures painted by Rubens for Marie de Medicis, now in the Salle de Rubens of the Louvre. That from their study he derived his mastery of color is the belief of his biographers. About this time he tried for the " Prix de Rome," but failed. He did, however, succeed in selling two pictures to the father-in-law of the celebrated Gersaint. Gersaint was the principal picture-dealer of the day. His estab lishment on the Pont Notre Dame was the rendezvous of art amateurs and was as prominent as was Goupil's during the Second Empire. After leaving Audran, Watteau went back to Valenciennes, perhaps with the idea of abandoning the struggle for fame. But he could not keep away from Paris, where his two pictures, sold to Sirois, Gersaint's father-in-law, were beginning to attract attention. The exact dates of these movements are not known ; they are differently given by his various biographers, according to Caylus.1 Watteau in 1712 was not only back in Paris, but had sent to the Academy the two pictures painted for Sirois. On the strength of the pictures he was made " Agree " to the Academy, that is, a candidate for membership. He was not, however, elected to membership until 1714. He presented as his reception picture his celebrated L'Embarquement pour Cythere, now in the Louvre, and had himself inscribed on the register of the Academy as " Peintre de fetes galantes," painter of gallant fes- 1 Anne Claude Philippe de Tribieres de Grimoard de Pestels de Levi, comte de Caylus (1692-1732), La Vic d'Antoine Watteau, read before the Royal Academy of Painting, etc., February 3, 1748. FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 13 tivities. From his return to Paris until his death, and in despite of declining health, his industry was unre mitting, and his pictures became famous from one end of Europe to the other, — from Scotland to Russia. During the autumn of 1720, hoping to be benefited by change of climate, he accepted the invitation of a cele brated and very rich London physician named Mead to visit him. Mead was also a lover of pictures, and liad a choice gallery wherein were some of Watteau's works. London did not agree with him, and he grew worse. Early in February, 1721, he was back in Paris. He stayed awhile with Gersaint, who had become his most devoted friend, and for a month or two worked with renewed energy. Then, the noisy life of Paris becoming unsupportable, he was removed to the house of a friend at Nogent sur Marne, where on the 18th of July he died in the arms of Gersaint. His works are to be found in many private collections in England and France. In the Wallace Collection in London there are nine of his pictures ; in the Louvre in Paris eleven, besides a large collection of his drawings. A number of his best pictures are in the private apart ments of the royal palaces of Berlin and Potsdam. There are two excellent examples in the Dresden Gal lery, and a few at St. Petersburg. Others, of greater or less authenticity, are scattered about. Both Edin burgh and Dublin have specimens. His best-known picture (Fig. 1) is L'Embarquement pour Cythere in the Louvre, — as already stated, his Academy piece de reception. It deserves close study, as it shows his excellent qualities. On the right, on top of a knoll shaded by a grove of trees, is a Hermes of Venus, from 14 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING which hang garlands of flowers, a bow, and a quiver. Near it is seated a young girl in a brilliant costume of white and rose satin. (Let us hope and pray that one of these days photography will conquer colors.) She holds a fan and bows her head. Whispering in her ear is a pilgrim in red, with a blue cape over his shoulders. The staff and gourd, marking his calling, are at his feet. In front of the lady a little love is seated on his quiver. With a black cape covering his wings, he pullifs the bottom of her dress. To the left of this group a cavalier assists his inamorata from the ground, while another cavalier leads his lady love away with his arm about her waist. Behind these, beyond the knoll and in the middle distance, are a number of pilgrims in bril liant costumes, clasping their sweethearts and leading them down to a gilded vessel. The vessel has a chimera at its prow, is maneuvered by half-nude oarsmen, while flying cupids are setting a red sail. Other cupids flit about in the air and seem to welcome the joyous band. The background is a lake surrounded by blue and delec table mountains. The composition is most irregular '' and charming. The surrounding atmosphere is filled with lightness and brightness. There is not the slight est attention paid to the laws of perspective, propor- • tion, or grouping. Watteau's genius was far above the. technical observances of his art. His figures are solid enough, but they are ethereal and move in a plane where physical laws and physical ills are unknown. One would suppose that neither Watteau nor those who loved and purchased his pictures knew what it was to be sad, or ever suffered in mind or in body. His pic tures undoubtedly set forth the highest and purest ¦ Fig. 1. — Watteau. Embarking for Cythera. (Louvre) Fig. 2.— Watteau. Gilles. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 15 ideals of life and happiness held by the courtiers of the regent. The great critic, De Goncourt, speaks of the triumphal charms of the distant mountains and of the seduction of the whole composition. He calls it the gayety of the most adorable of the colors of earth surprised by a ray of sunlight. Theophile Gautier is equally enthusiastic. " What words," he writes, " can express the colors of the picture, tender, vapory, ideal; so well chosen for a dream of youth and happi ness ! In the distance the figures seem lost in azure depths and luminous haze. In the foreground they are rekindled by gleaming transparencies. They are as true as nature, as brilliant as an apotheosis at the opera house." Gautier wrote poetic prose on every subject, good and bad. His subtle French cannot be translated into clumsy English. Most of Watteau's pictures are small boudoir pieces. This picture is an exception. It is four feet high and six feet long. The figures are about a foot high. There is a semi-replica of it in Berlin, which may show advanced technical skill, but the fine, gentle spirit is less evident. It differs from the Paris picture in having more figures and in presenting different groupings. Impartial critics place it below the Paris picture in those qualities in which Watteau particularly excelled. In the right-hand lower corner of the Berlin picture there is a group which does not appear in the Paris example. Instead of a Hermes of Venus there is a statue of the goddess with cupids about her. There are more figures about the boat, and the boat has a high mast and a floating sail. The lake and the delectable mountains are wanting, and the near-by foliage is more spreading. 10 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Another celebrated picture by Watteau, called Gilles (Fig. 2), is also in the Louvre, and represents certain members of the Italian Comedy. In the Italian troupes of the day there was always a country clown called Gilles. He is the chief personage of the picture, up right, to the front, and dressed entirely in white. The clown, the doctor, Colombine, and Mezzetin, or Valentin, were the principal personages of the comedy. The doctor is on the left, astraddle an ass. On the right are Valentin, Colombine, and another and un known character. This picture is painted in the same wonderful manner, which is all the more wonderful be cause the manner seems so careless, so irregular, in such willful opposition to rule and precedent. The colors are most delightfully selected. The brilliant and luminous atmosphere which bathes the picture is one of the most delicious effects in all painting. Frederick the Great was an admirer of Watteau and secured many of his best pictures. Watteau passed two years in London, so that both London and Berlin must be visited to thor oughly enjoy his art. One of the last pictures Watteau painted was for Ger saint, and is called L'Enseigne de Gersaint, " Gersaint's Sign." Whether it was ever intended to be a sign, or was ever used as such, is doubtful. It was purchased by Frederick the Great of Prussia, and is now in the palace of Sans Souci at Potsdam. It has been cut down a foot and sawed in two. One part shows purchasing, the other part packing. Originally the picture was nine and one-half feet long by five feet high. In one part are purchasers about a counter examining pictures (Fig. 3). In the center is a lady reclining at ease. Fig. 3. — Watteau. Gersaint's sign P. 1. (Berlin) Fig. 4. — Watteau. Gersaint's sign. P. 11. (Berlin) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 17 With her left elbow on the counter and her head turned to the left, she examines a small picture held in place by a saleswoman. Back of her is seated a gentleman who may be her escort, while, standing by his side, may be Gersaint himself. They too are also looking at the picture. Back of the lady to her right is an amateur on bended knee, with his back to the front, examining through glasses a large oval picture held up by one of Gersaint's assistants. By the side of the gentleman stands a tall lady in black, also examining the picture through glasses. On the walls back of the figures are hung from surbase to ceiling quantities of pictures in close rows. The composition is easy, natural, lively, attractive. Just such scenes and groupings must have been seen daily in Gersaint's establishment. The other part of the picture (Fig. 4) is no less attractive, though the practical part of the business is emphasized. A por trait is being put into a large box by a workman ; an other workman is approaching with another picture. To the left of the box stands a rather shabby-looking person, who may be taking his last look at pictures he has been obliged to sell. To the right of the box, with her back to the front, is a lady who seems to be super intending the boxing. She may be the purchaser. She does not seem to notice the gentleman who with extended hand approaches her from the back of the picture. He may be the husband who has come to remonstrate with his wife at her extravagance, he may be anything else; let imagination decide. Watteau had two followers and close imitators, Nico las Lancret (1690-1743: A., 1717) and Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater (1696-1736: A., 1728). Pater was born 2 18 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING at Valenciennes, the birthplace of Watteau, and was his assistant and pupil during the last year of his life. Lancret had met Watteau at Gillot's and had been at tracted by his style. Both he and Pater imitated Wat teau so closely that the best of their pictures were mis taken for those of the master, though neither of them possessed his grace, or his wonderful charm of aerial perspective; and both show vulgarity of grouping, from which Watteau was ever free. Their figures are more real, their scenes more actual; their foliage is more exact, less aerial ; their pictures are more prosaic, less poetic. When carefully compared, the superiority of Watteau is easily recognized. There are five pictures by Pater in the Louvre ; twelve by Lancret. There are eleven Lancrets and fourteen Paters in the Wallace Col lection of London, and quite as many in the royal pal aces of Berlin and Potsdam. Both Lancret and Pater were very diligent ; they painted industriously and were prosperous and fashionable all their lives long. They were both lacking in those qualities necessary to prevent their subjects from being insipid, if not vulgar. In photography they are not easily to be distinguished from Watteau or from one another. Their pictures which are at present in public galleries are small. Few of them are over two by one and one-half feet, and most of them are smaller. If examined carefully, it will ap pear that the details are badly drawn. Moreover, there is almost sure to be on the part of some of the figures' action which is ungraceful if not vulgar. Pater's Reunion de Comediens dans un Pare (Fig. 5) in the Louvre is a good specimen. The picture is only about one foot long by eight inches high. On the left is a Fig. 4a. — Watteau. The Danse. (Potsdam) One of Emperor William's most charming specimens, which has been 3 o J s £ s E Fig. 6. — Lancret. Italian Actors. (Louvre) Fig. 7. — Lancret. Children at play. (London, Nat. Gal.) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 19 round stone table about which are grouped the mem bers of the Italian Comedy Company. In the center a young man puts his arms about a young woman who puts her left leg over his right knee in a manner neither graceful nor modest. Back of them are Pierrot and three others, while on the right Cassandre, the old man of the company, does not seem to approve of their conduct. Also in the Louvre and by Lancret the same come dians are presented, but in different pose (Fig. 6). They are out of doors and standing. Gilles is in the center and full to the front ; on his left, Colombine, masked and turning in dance. Near her is the doctor dressed in black. On the other side are Silvia, Harle quin, and Scapin. The picture is only about nine by eight inches, but is one of Lancret's best.1 Another painter of this period, who formed a style as independent as that of Watteau and even more in keeping with the light, gay, and irresponsible spirit of the court of Louis XV, was Boucher. FRANCOIS BOUCHER (1703-1770: Gd. p.,2 1723; A., 1734; Premier peintre du roi, 1765). Boucher was born and died in Paris. His father was a painter of no repute, who had, however, the good sense to perceive his boy's talents. When he was seventeen, he entered the studio of Le Moyne, whose style he adopted in his earliest works. As he was obliged to 1 There are four small, attractive pictures by Lancret in the National Gallery of London, representing the four ages of life. The one repre senting Youth (Fig. 7) is a good specimen of his best style. Groups of gayly dressed children are at play under a rich Doric arcade with land scape in the distance. The picture is about one and one-half by one foot. 2 The "Prix de Rome" was at first called the "Grand Prix." 20 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING support himself, he could not stay long with Le Moyne, and attached himself to a celebrated engraver named Cars. For Cars he made designs for every sort of thing required by the taste of the day, and became a proficient, versatile, and rapid decorator. Cars gave him board and lodging and sixty francs a month. As s.ixty francs in those days would go as far as sixty dollars to-day, he was fairly well treated. In 1723 he successfully competed for the first prize for painting offered by the Academy, but for some reason he was not sent to Italy. Two years afterward, however, he was taken to Italy by an amateur. On his return to Paris he was not long in establishing his reputation. In 1773 he was " Agree " at the Academy, and in 1734 he was elected a full member. In 1765, on the death of Carle Van Loo, he was named " Premier peintre du roi," and enjoyed royal favor for the rest of his life. Madame de Pompadour admired his work, sought his friendship, and gave him a position at court which was not affected by her death in 1764. Though a man of pleasure, Boucher was a man of indefatigable industry. The number of pictures, en gravings, sketches, and designs left by him mounts into the hundreds. There are by him, on exhibition in the Louvre, over twenty pictures and innumerable sketches. In the Wallace Collection there are twenty-two pictures, including the two celebrated works called Le Lever du Soleil and Le Coucher du Soleil, exhibited in 1753 and purchased by Madame de Pompadour. The Swedish National Gallery at Stockholm has a number of his works; so have the museums of Angers, Nancy, and Tours, in France. There are said to be fine specimens FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 21 in the possession of various members of the Rothschild family. Considering the time when Boucher worked and the master whose tastes he tried to satisfy, it would be surprising if some of his pictures were not offensive to modern taste, but the majority of them are so ethereal, so delicate and graceful, so unreal, so purely decorative, that you can no more object to their nudity than to that of a china doll, or that of the cupids which orna ment the frame of your mirror. Diderot, in his Salon de 1767, writes as follows of Boucher : " No one understands as does Boucher the art of light and shade. He is made for turning the heads of two sorts of people, the world of fashion and the world of artists. His elegance, his delicacy, his romantic gallantry, his coquetry, his taste, his facility, hi^ va riety, his brilliancy, his varnished carnations, even his debauchery, should captivate all the dandies, the co quettes, the young, the .fashionable, — the crowd who are strangers to true taste, to truth, to just ideas, to the severity of art. How can they resist the force, the dress, the nudities, the licentiousness, the epigram, of Boucher? Artists who see to what point Boucher has surmounted the difficulties of painting and to whom this ability, known only to them, is everything, bow the knee before him. He is their god. Men of large taste, of severe and antique taste, ignore him." In his Salon of 1765 Diderot is very severe: "I affirm that Boucher has no idea of what is grace ; that he has never known truth; that he has become a stranger to delicacy, honesty, innocence, simplicity. I dare to say that never for an instant has he seen nature, — that is, that nature which is made to interest 22 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING my soul, your soul, the soul of a well-born child, the soul of a woman who feels," etc. At the same time Blondel and Mariettc, two of the foremost art critics of the day, proclaim him first and foremost in all departments of painting. Their opinion was accepted by court and crowd. His versatility was without limit. He attacked all subjects with equal success and with the same dis play of power. With equal zeal he would paint Noah in his ark, the death of Adonis, Diana and Callisto, the sleeping Saviour, saints, sinners, nuns and nymphs, seraphic angels and plump cupids. The act of paint ing gave him such keen delight that subjects were secondary. He decorated doors and ceilings, pianos, screens and carriages, for the king's mistresses, for princes, lords, and financiers. He painted a few land scapes, animal pieces, and portraits, many theater deco rations, chimneys, fans, and cartoons for tapestries, all with equal skill, rapidity, and- interest. Now and- then he paints a picture of such wonderful beauty, grace, delicacy, and power that you regret the -frivolity with which he wasted his genius. He invented a style of pic-. ture he called Pastorals, in which some court beauty is represented as a semi-nude shepherdess, often asleep, with or without accompanying shepherd and sheep. (Fig. 8) of 1734 is a good specimen. A sleeping shep herdess is so clothed that her breast and legs are ex posed to the admiring gaze of a shepherd on whose left knee she rests her right elbow. Staves and other shep herd indications are scattered on the ground. That the two are real shepherds is still further assured by the presence of four demure and modest sheep. Overshad owing trees let the sunlight through here and there to 3o a] 3O M E FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 23 enliven the lovely group. Boucher used little color, but used it well. He depended upon his grouping and his drawing for his effects. While modern taste may object to some of his works, the majority of his subjects are so delicate, so graceful, so lightly treated, so evanescent, so refined in pose and outline, that they cannot give offense. One of his characteristic pictures is called Diana leav ing or entering the Bath (Fig. 9). On the right Diana, quite nude, is seated on her garments, thrown over a projecting bit of earth or perhaps the projecting roots of a tree. She seems looking at her left foot, which she has thrown over her right knee. Her companion, crouched beside her, also examines the foot, that may have been bruised while bathing, or perhaps the attend ant has just removed the sandal preparatory to the dip. Diana's right foot touches the stream which flows by. The lower right-hand corner is filled with birds and other trophies of the chase. On the other side are two dogs lapping. ' The face of Diana is that of a charm ing young girl. The composition is simple; the lines are pure and graceful ; the coloring is light and fairy like, suggesting delicate porcelain. The picture is a pretty vision of ethereal loveliness, a charming decora tion and nothing more. Could any puritanical prude object to it? It is as pretty a picture as ever was painted. It was painted in 1742, when Boucher was thirty-eight. Boucher was fond of bringing Venus and Vulcan together in one scene in order to enhance the delicate beauty of the one by contrast with the robust strength of the other. The theme is Venus asking arms of Vulcan for her son .-Eneas. There are many of these 24 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING pictures, with many diversities. The one given is from the Louvre (Fig. 10). On the right is Vulcan, seated on a tiger's skin. He rests his left elbow on an anvil. In his right he holds out towards Venus a large sword. Between his feet is a quiver, and about him various arms and instruments. Venus, supported on a cloud in the center of the picture, turns her head to the right towards Vulcan. She leans on a nymph who is stretched out on her left. Two other nymphs are float ing above Vulcan. Near them are two little loves hold ing a helmet with blue plumes. Other loves are flying about, or resting near Venus. In the foreground on the left is the chariot of Venus with doves and a love with a garland of flowers. The picture is about ten feet square; was painted in 1775, and was purchased by Louis XV as a model for tapestry. There are scores of pictures by Boucher where the display of the nude seems to have been, and undoubtedly was, the only ob ject. But the nude is a youthful, gentle, and graces ful nude ; not a real, but an idealized' nude, entirely free from grossness and sensuality. Such pictures are neither refining nor elevating. During the Revo lution they were condemned and were sold for songs. Now they are better appreciated and, when offered for sale, command enormous prices. They must not be taken seriously, but enjoyed as bits of charming decoration. Boucher's greatest pupil, Fragonard, who, though following in his footsteps, developed a charming origi nality, should be considered with him, though thirty- odd years his junior. Fig. 10. — Boucher. Venus and Vulcan. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 25 JEAN HONORE FRAGONARD (1723-1806: Gd. p. d. R., 1752; A., 1765). Fragonard was born in Grasse in Provence, and died in Paris. Grasse is now known for its manufactories of perfumes.1 Fragonard early displayed talent. When he was eighteen, he was taken to Paris and studied for a few months under Chardin, until Boucher received him. When twenty, he captured the " Prix de Rome." He was thirteen years in Italy, studying the old masters. On his return he exhibited his picture of Coresus et Callirrhoe, now in the Louvre. This picture obtained his entrance into the Academy as " Agree." He never cared to go higher, but soon began to devote himself to the style of painting made popular by Boucher. He followed in Boucher's footsteps and painted decora tions for court and courtiers, for rich bankers, for actresses and ballet dancers. His figures are more real than Boucher's ; some of his* subj ects, therefore, are even more to be criticised by would-be critics. His man agement of light and shade is extraordinary, his color ing recalls Rubens, his versatility is wonderful. His handling has the dash, the brilliancy, and the accuracy of Franz Hals. From a technical point of view, France has never had a more skillful painter. When he was forty, he married a girl from his native town. After that, his best efforts were in depicting domestic hfe and happiness. In 1796 he returned to Grasse, taking with him five panels executed for Madame du Barry which 1 It is now in the department of Basses Alpes, a part of old Provence. Provence was united to France under Louis XI, but down to modern times preserved a species of independence. It escaped the horrors of the French Revolution. 26 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING the lady had declined to accept. These he erected in the salon of M. Maubert, who sheltered him. To the five he subsequently added a sixth panel. He also added a number of smaller pictures, and connected them all with exquisite borders to complete the decoration of the room. The Fragonards de Grasse remained celebrated, and attracted travelers until 1899, when their last owner, M. Malvilan, a maternal grandson of M. Mau bert, sold the collection for 1,200,000 francs. Mr. Pier- pont Morgan of New York is supposed to be the present possessor. The original panels were called the Esca lade; the Rendezvous; the Poursuite; the Souvenirs, and the Amante couronnee. The added panel was called L' 'Abandon, and represents a young girl overcome at the feet of a statue of love showing her a dial marking the hour of passed happiness. These panels are large, over ten feet in height and nearly seven feet in width. It is said that Madame du Barry accepted the subjects, but desired a more realistic treatment. As all critics regard these works as Fragonard's very best, the pub lic will have to await their exposure before judging of Fragonard's supreme excellence. The date of Fragonard's return to Paris is not given by his biographers. After his return he lived in com parative poverty and neglect until 1806. He died on the 22nd of August of that year in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He lived to see his own style completely superseded by that of David. David was his" friend, befriended him in his old age, and took charge of the artistic education of his son, Alexandre Evariste (Grasse, 1780-Paris, 1850), a painter of moderate ability, who followed David as he was able. FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 27 Fragonard's works are scattered. Many of them are in private collections and therefore not offered to pub lic inspection and interest. Apart from Mr. Morgan's collections, there are several collections in Paris and else where. Of public museums, the Louvre has fourteen pictures, including Coresus et Callirrhoe, the picture on which he was " Agree," and a number of sketches ; the Wallace Collection in London has nine pictures, all of small dimensions, but including the celebrated Swing, Les Hazards heureux de VEscarpolette, painted in 1768, and which is said to have estabhshed the artist's Parisian reputation. The storjr of Coresus et Callirrhoe (Fig. 11) is that Bacchus visited the city of Calydon in JStolia, Greece, with a plague of madness, and that the Dodonaean oracle declared that the god must be pro pitiated by a human sacrifice. The oracle further de clared that the victim selected was Callirrhoe, or some one who was willing to die for her, because she had repulsed the advances of Coresus, the priest of Bacchus, and that Coresus must perform the sacrifice. When the moment arrived, he was so overcome by his love that he killed himself instead of the designated victim. Fra gonard selected for his subject the moment of suicide. The picture is very large, about twelve by nine feet ; the figures are all life-size. The scene takes place in the portico of a temple. The principal personages are between two columns. The priest is just plunging the sacrificial knife into his own breast. Callirrhoe falls fainting at his feet. Attendants show their terror by attitude and gesture. Smoke rises from the altar and mingles with the clouds, of heaven. In the sky flies an evil genius with torch and dagger. In the left corner 28 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING of the picture are two affrighted women and a child clinging to them. The picture was ordered by Louis XV for 24,000 francs, and was intended to be repro duced in tapestry. That may be the reason why the colors are so light and sketchy. So tremendous a trag edy demanded more heroic treatment. The fact that Fragonard was kept waiting three years for his pay may be the reason why he did not persevere in the grand style of painting. The picture is so radically different from all subsequent works of the artist that it seems the work of another hand. It was first exhibited in 1765, when Fragonard was thirty-three. In the La Caze Collection of the Louvre there are a few unfinished heads by Fragonard, painted with such wonderful dash and boldness as to anticipate the tours- de-force of modern impressionism and to place Frago nard by the side of Franz Hals. One of them, called La Lecture (Fig. 12), is more delicately lovely than any thing of Franz Hals, and painted with an equally mar velous assurance of tone and form. Another one, called L'Inspiration (Fig. 13), only shows in the photograph Fragonard's rough method. The " Swing " in the Wallace Collection represents a lady swinging in a grove. As she swings, she loses her slipper. In her efforts to retain it she discloses her feet and ankles to a delighted swain who is hidden in the shrubbery beneath her. A silly subject, executed in 1768 to satisfy the whim of a rich nobleman, the Baron de St. Julien. There are several repetitions, or variations, of it. The Wallace example is about 2.8 X 2 feet, too trifling a work to excite comment, to merit praise or blame. Of about the same size Fig. 12.7-Fragonard. Reading. (Louvre) Fig. 13. — Fragonard. Inspiration. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 29 and in the same collection is La Fontaine d'Amour, for which Sir Richard Wallace paid 31,500 francs at the San Donato sale in 1870. On one side in a deep grove is a large overflowing fountain about which cupids are disporting. They hold out basins of the water to a girl and a youth who are approaching on a run with their heads close together. The picture is bathed with delicious hght and with gentle sentiment. It seems a pity that examples of all his styles could not be brought together. He was a small man, barely five feet high; the best of husbands, friends, and com panions ; always gay, never depressed even in old age and penury. He is just beginning to be properly ap preciated. ( See his Life by Les Goncourts and his latest biography by Camille Mauclair.) While Watteau, Boucher, and their pupils and fol lowers were painting for the court, other artists were painting pictures which show that, in spite of the example of the court, there was still alive in France an abundance of that family and domestic life which has always been the charm and the latent strength of the French nation. At the head of the Domestic School was Chardin. JEAN BAPTISTE SIMON CHARDIN (1699-1779: A., 1728). Chardin was born and died in Paris. When he died, he was treasurer of the Academy and was enjoying the respect and confidence of his fellow artists. He began by painting still life, as it is called, — that is, inani mate objects, fruit, flowers, fish, domestic animals, the interiors of kitchens, dining-rooms, shops, etc., — 30 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING small pictures without human figures. As he advanced in hfe and felt more assured of his powers, he intro duced human figures, and soon made them the principal objects of his choice and skill. Fifty years ago his pictures were hawked about Paris and could be had for any price one chose to offer ; now they are appreciated properly and are ranked in value with works of Watteau and Boucher. One of his well-known pictures in the Louvre is called Le Benedicite, "The Benediction" (Fig. 14). In a plainly furnished room, standing at the right of a round table and with her back to the fireplace, a mother is about serving soup. She has on a brown waist, a blue apron, and a white cap. She pauses, and turns her head to the left towards a little girl, who, dressed in white with a pink cap on her head, is seated on a low chair and, joining her little hands together, is about to say grace. Seated opposite the standing mother is an other little girl, with a white cap and blue ribbons, bow ing her head in prayer. On the back of the chair of the first little girl hangs a drum, which is balanced by a brazier standing in the lower right-hand corner of the picture. The composition is simple, domestic, and attractive. The mother is rather large, arid the chil dren are very small. The woman's head is certainly too small for her body. In spite of these defects the picture is charming, and shows that there must have been an abundance of simple and attractive family life even during the worst days of Louis XV. Another equally well-known picture, also in the Louvre, is called La Mere laborieuse, " The Industrious Mother " (Fig. 15). On the left in a plainly furnished Fig. 14. — Chardin. The Blessing. (Louvre) Fig. 15. — Chardin. The industrious mother. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 31 room is seated a woman with her profile turned to the right. Her dress is white with yellow stripes, her apron and her fichu are also white. She holds on her knees a piece of tapestry which a girl standing by her side is receiving. The girl is clad in white and has a white cap. In the foreground on the left are a small chest and a pug dog ; on the right, some skeins of. wool on a wooden stand. In the background is a green screen. Nothing could be more simple, real, and unaffected than Chardin's pictures. That he and Boucher were painting at the same time shows how far away from the court must have been the heart of the people. Another great and original painter of this period was Greuze. JEAN BAPTISTE GREUZE (1726-1805: A., 1769, but only as " Peintre de genre "). Greuze was born in Tournus in Burgundy, and died in Paris. He was twenty-six years younger than Char din. He was born during the reign of Louis XV, lived through the reign of Louis XVI and the Revolution, and died the year after Napoleon created himself em peror. His activities were during the last half of the reign of Louis XV and the reign of Louis XVI. Greuze's contemporaries had different opinions of him. The verdict to-day is not unanimous. He early showed a disposition for painting. His first master was a painter of Lyons named Grandon. When he left Lyons for Paris, the circumstances under which he left, and made his way in Paris, are unknown. At thirty he is well established, is " Agree " at the Academy, and has found rich and influential patrons. From 1755 until 32 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING 1757 he is in Italy. On his return to Paris and until the Revolution he is one of the most successful of French painters. The Revolution destroyed his popularity and cut off his income. He died in want and unhappi- ness ; he made an unfortunate marriage. He was ener getically absorbed in his work. When in favor, his pic tures commanded large sums. He also was successful in selling engravings of his works. Greuze has been and continues to be variously estimated. Diderot praised him to the skies ; Les de Goncourts and Gautier are more guarded; to-day's criticism is divided. He made his Paris debut as a painter of moral ideas by a picture called Pere de Famille expliquant la Bible a ses Enfants. This was followed by other domestic and moral subjects which had great success. At the same time he is most successful in representing very young girls with accessories to suggest that their innocence may be accidental and short-lived. His most moral- pictures are not free from the presence of this singular innocency. On the other hand, there are those to-day| who repel these charges and attribute them to evil pre- ¦¦ dispositions. As a portrait painter, his ability is un questioned, and lasted until the advent of the feebleness of old age. When he was seventy-nine and Ingres twenty-four, they received commissions to paint Napo- , leon. Greuze's portrait is at Versailles and is pitiable.;. The Louvre has about twenty of Greuze's works, includ- i ing several of the most celebrated ones. Many are in Irish and English collections and inaccessible. The| provincial museums of France are well supplied, espe cially Angers. There are over a dozen of his character istic and suggestive heads in the Wallace Collection. Fig. 16.— Greuze. The village Bridegroom. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 33 An examination of a few of his works in the Louvre will suffice to inform opinion. Greuze achieved his greatest triumph by a picture exhibited in 1761, when he was thirty-six, called L'Ac- cordee.de Village, " The Village Bride," or, more exactly, "The Betrothed Village Bride " (Fig. 16). In the center of the picture are the betrothed pair. The lady wears a white dress and cap and a yellow skirt. She has a rose in her open corsage. She appears grace fully, timidly, if not so very innocently, confused. She entwines her arm about her fiance's arm who turns towards the old father from whom he has just received a bag containing the lady's dot. Behind the father's chair stands a younger sister of the fiancSe staring at the groom with singular intensity. Another sister is in tears behind the fiancee on whose shoulder she leans her troubled head. In front of this pair is seated the mother sadly holding her daughter's hand. Back of her are three children, while at her side a fourth is feed ing chickens. Opposite her is a notary with his papers. In the background to the left is a staircase. On the right a clothes-press, a shelf with loaves of bread, and suspended beneath it a gun and a lantern. The picture produced the greatest excitement. It was regarded as heralding a return to the virtues of domestic and family hfe. By some the picture is regarded as one of the causes that led to the Revolution. The great success of this picture led to the produc tion of two others of about the same size and character and in which about the same number and style of per sonages are introduced. The first one is called Le Fils maudit (Fig. 17). In' a room on the left, seated by a 8 34 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING table and with his profile to the right, is the father of the family. He lifts his arms to curse his son who has just enlisted in the army. A young girl on her knees before him tries to calm his fury. On the right the son, embraced by the mother, turns towards the father and raises his arm as if to stop the malediction. On each side of him a child clings to his garments. A servant joins her hands, and a little boy stands up as if fright ened. On the right and against the open door is the recruiting officer, sneering. The picture was painted in 1765 and was received coldly. French arms had not been successful recently, and references to military hfe were not popular. Moreover, the scene was overdone. There seems no justification for the cursing. A young man had a right to give his hfe to his country's service. The father had a right to grieve, but he had no right to curse. The companion piece, called Le fils pwni, " The Pun ished Son" (Fig. 18), represents the son returning while the father is dying. On the left children in tears surround the bed of the dying father. In the fore ground one of the daughters hfts her eyes to heaven,- while a small child holds fast to her dress. Near her a boy is on his knees with his head in his hands. Behind the bed another daughter throws herself on her father, while another child stands in terror. On the right the mother points the dying father to the son who, bowing his head in tears, seeks to get away. This picture has the same fault as the other. The lesson is overdone and therefore falls flat. Besides, Greuze was not at heart a moralist. He betrays himself in his pictures of very young girls. He paints them with faces of delicious Fig. 18. — Greuze. The prodigal's return. (Louvre) Fig. 19. — Greuze. The broken jug. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 35 innocency and simplicity, and then introduces acces sories to suggest that the innocency had been unpro tected and may be short-lived. The celebrated picture of La Cruche casst%ii The Broken Jug" (Fig. 19), is a good specimen. A young girl dressed in white faces the spectator. Her dress is disarranged, her bust is exposed, about her neck is loosely tied a bit of gauze. In her chestnut hair are a violet ribbon and a flower. She holds faded flowers in the folds of her dress. Hang ing from her right arm is a broken jug. To the right is part of a pedestal ornamented with ram's heads and a lion spouting water. The luster in the girl's eyes, the moisture on her lips, her loosened dress, the attitude of her hands, and the accessories on the right, all suggest that' the broken jug is not the only loss she has expe rienced. Gautier thinks that the innocency of the eyes will easily be turned into voluptuousness. Greuze de lighted -to paint heads of young girls in all attitudes and with varied expressions, some most suggestive and sensual. The one in the view shows the character of the artist and the degrading tendencies of his art (Fig. 20). A more sensual picture was never painted. Greuze lived to lose his position and his reputation ; he died in pov erty and disgrace. About fifty years ago there was a great revival of desire for his pictures; they com manded enormous sums. At the sale of the Demidorf Collection in 1868, single heads not over a foot and a half square brought from ten to twenty thousand dollars apiece, and these prices have ever since been sustained. There were a number of artists, contemporaries of 36 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Watteau and Boucher, whose works, thougli continuing to show the influence of the school of Le Brun, exhibit liberal tendencies. Among these may be mentioned Le Moyne (Francois Le Moine or Le Moyne, 1688-1757: A., 1711 ; Premier peintre du roi, 1734) ; Van Loo (Charles Andre, called Carle, 1705-1765: A., 1735; director in 1749); Nattier (Jean Marc, 1685-1766: A., 1718) ; La Tour (Maurice Quentin de, 1704- 1788); Tocque (Louis, 1691-1772: A., 1734); Jean Francois de Troy (1679-1752), and Natoire (Charles Joseph, 1700-1777; Gd. p., 1721; A., 1734). Le Moyne's chef-d'ozuvre is the ceiling of the Salon d'Her- cule at Versailles, a monstrous work, sixty-six by fifty- five feet, containing, according to Baedeker, one hun dred and forty -two hfe-size figures. The subject is the Apotheosis of Hercules. Le Moyne's intention, as he himself stated, was to show that virtue lifts a man above himself, enables him to perform the most difficult labors, to overcome the greatest obstacles, and finally leads him to immortality. Le Moyne devoted six years to the work. The young king, Louis XV, was twenty-six in 1736, and was so pleased when he saw it that he forthwith created Le Moyne " Premier peintre du roi." Nobody looks at the work nowadays. Paintings on ceilings are wasted ; people will not crane their necks to look at them. Many of Le Moyne's large works have disappeared. He is best remembered to-day by his Hercule et Omphale of the La Caze Collection in the Louvre. It is not a pleasing picture, but contains good modeling and brilliant coloring. It is interesting as showing the influences of Boucher's early teaching. It was painted in Italy in 1725 ; the figures are life-size. Fig. 20. — Greuze. Girl's head. (Louvre) Fig. 21. — Van Loo, Marie Leczinska. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 37 Carle Van Loo was descended from a family of Dutch painters. The first Van Loo to leave his country was named Jacob. He was born at Flushing in 1614. He came to Paris, was naturalized, was elected to the Acad emy in 1663, and died in 1670. His son, born in Am sterdam about 1640, is said by some authors to have preceded his father to Paris. His name was Louis Michel. He finally married and settled at Aix in Savoy, where he died about 1773. He had two sons who became French painters, Jean Baptiste and Charles Andre, called Carle. Jean Baptiste was born at Aix in 1684 and died there in 1745. He painted in Paris and in London, and was seven years in Italy. He was elected to the Academy in 1731. He was the greatest painter of portraits of his time. During his residence in Lon don (1737-1742) he is said to have made 300,000 livres painting the celebrities of the court and of the reign of George II. There are two pictures by him in the Louvre, — Diana et Endymion, his morceau de recep tion for the Academy, and a large picture of the insti tution of the Order of the Holy Ghost by Henry III. in the convent of the Grands-Augustins in Paris on the 31st of December, 1578. Neither picture will interest the ordinary modern traveler. His younger brother, Carle, was the greatest painter of the family and, in the opinion of some critics, the greatest painter of his generation. He was born at Nice in 1705, and died in Paris in 1765. He was elected to the Academy in 1735, and became its director. In 1751 he was made a member of the Ordre de St. Michel. In 1752 he was made director of L'Ecole royale des Eleves proteges (Royal School of Protected Pupils). 38 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING This school was founded in 1747 for the purpose of preparing pupils for the competition of the " Prix de Rome." Pupils were admitted on merit or by royal sanction. They could remain three years and received the equivalent of about $15 a month. When Carle Van Loo died, he had received every possible honor. Though in a measure faithful to the school of Le Brun, Carle accepted the new movement so far as it addressed itself to his taste. His art is far higher and nobler than that of Boucher, of whom he was a contemporary. In the Louvre are two capital examples of his style, — a por trait of Marie Leczinska, queen of Louis XV (Fig. 21 ) , and a large composition called Une Halte de Chasse, which may be translated " A Hunt Picnic." The por trait is an excellent specimen of court portraiture. The head is said to have been taken from the pastel by La Tour to spare the queen the fatigue of sitting. It seems, however, to show more clearly the character of the amiable, simple-hearted, and sorely tried queen than the pastel. She is represented standing, three quarters turned to the right. She is clothed in a white robe embroidered with golden foliage bound with silver knots. A blue mantle sprinkled with lilies and lined with ermine is thrown over her shoulders. In her left hand she carries a fan ; her right hand, which holds a branch of jasmine, is extended to the left of the picture towards a table on which are posed a bust of Louis XV, a cushion ornamented with fleurs-de-lis, a royal crown, and a vase of flowers. To the right of the queen is a crimson throne, at her feet is a little dog. Back of the bust of Louis XV is a column about which is hung red drapery. To the left of the queen, in an opening of a FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 39 colonnade, landscape appears. The picture is nearly nine feet high and six feet wide. It was first exhibited in 1747, when the queen was forty-four. She was mar ried when she was twenty-two; the king was but fif teen. For ten years he was devoted to her; then commenced her sorrows and humiliations, which con tinued until her death, in 1768. The year after her death the king introduced to his court the notorious Madame du Barry. The Une Halte de Chasse is an other large picture, about six and one-half by seven and one-half feet (Fig. 22). In an opening in the woods a cloth has been spread on the ground for the repast. On the right a richly caparisoned sumpter mule is being unloaded by an attendant. Near him sits on. the ground a bareheaded hunter, holding a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. To the left and on the other side of the spread cloth, sits a lady in a brilliant white and yellow costume with silver ornaments ; a blue velvet tie is about her throat. She wears no hat, and her hair is powdered. She turns her head towards the head of a young gentleman in a pearl-gray coat with gold ornaments, who on one knee offers her a plate. To his right a lackey empties a basket. Back of him a negro advances with another basket. Back of the first couple three huntsmen are devoting themselves to a huntress. Their devotions attract the attention of a third lady seated at the further end of the cloth, whose two com panions seem more devoted to the repast than to her. Back of this group horses are tethered, while in the distance horsemen are advancing with dogs. Beyond them, receding landscape. On the left, trees and foliage to remind you of Watteau. The picture was painted 40 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING and exhibited in 1737, was purchased by the king and hung at Fontainebleau. For some reason it was not sold by the revolutionists. It remained hidden in the garrets of Fontainebleau until 1846, when it was re duced in size and recanvassed. Since 1848 it has been part of the Louvre collection. An attractive work that must have been painted under the influence of Watteau. Charles Blanc 1 calls it " a composition of charming movement ; a scene of most skillful arrange ment and of most spiritual creation. The landscape may be a little blue, and the background may recall the decorations Van Loo painted for the Opera, but the costumes are of the most coquettish elegance. All the attitudes are most natural. The coloring is luminous and gay." Nattier was born and died in Paris. He was a year older than Watteau. Both mother and father were artists. When he was but fifteen, he won the first prize at the Academy for drawing. At twenty-eight he was " Agree " at the Academy, and became a member in 1718, when thirty-three. He devoted himself to por traiture, and is best known to-day by his pictures of the daughters of Louis XV and of the fine ladies of his court. A number of these are at Versailles, where his 1 Auguste Alexandre Philippe Charles Blanc (1813-1882), a very in dustrious, profuse, and superficial writer on art. His chief work is a "History of the Painters of all the Schools," in fourteen volumes, finished in 1876. His best-known work is a "Grammar of the Arts of Design," which is still read with pleasure and profit ; to be recommended to those wishing to talk art. His philosophical reasons for art activities and pecu liarities are no longer accepted, though his criticisms are still admired. In 1869 he was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1876 he was elected to the French Academy. He was the founder of the Gazette des Beaux Arts. Fig. 22.— Van Loo. A Hunt Picnic. (Louvre) Fig. 23. — Nattier. Madame Louise. (Versailles) Fig. 24. — Nattier. Henriette de Bourbon-Conty. (Versailles) Fig. 25. — Tocque. Marie Leczinska. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 41 style can best be studied. Nattier was not a good draughtsman and paid little attention to anatomical details. He posed his subjects gracefully, painted their costumes- superbly, gave them all the prettiness of painted dolls, and flattered them by representing them as mythological divinities and personifications. Figs. 23 and 24 are specimens of his work. His popularity was not of long duration. The end of his life was piti able. Two of his daughters married artists, — one of them Tocque, who was a far greater artist than his father-in-law. His portrait of Marie Leczinska is re garded by many critics as superior to Van Loo's. The other daughter, who devoted herself to her father dur ing his declining years, married Charles Michel Ange Challe (1718—1788), better known as an architect, at one time a pupil of Boucher. A third daughter married a diplomatist. LOUIS TOCQUE (1696-1772: A., 1734). Tocque was born and died in Paris. As Nattier's son-in-law, he became known to the court. He soon distinguished himself as a portrait painter. In 1739 he was commissioned to paint the Dauphin. It was the year afterwards that he painted the queen, Marie Leczinska. In 1757 he was invited to Russia by the Empress Elizabeth. From Russia he visited Sweden and Norway, painting members of the reigning families. In 1759 he returned to Paris, charge de richesses, de presents, et d'honneur. After his return to Paris he painted but little, living comfortably, wisely, and hap pily on the proceeds of his acquired fortune. His por trait of Marie Leczinska (Fig. 25) is one of the best 42 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING of the period. The queen stands facing the front, in a hall of classic architecture. She wears a low-necked dress of white silk covered with an embroidery of vines and flowers. On her corsage is a large diamond orna ment from which hang three very large pearls. From her shoulders falls a cloak of royal blue velvet covered with fleurs-de-lis and lined with ermine. She holds folds of it with her left hand. Her right hand points to a crown which rests on a table standing by her side. Her face (Fig. 26) is particularly attractive, and shows the amiable maj esty, the charming character, and the gentle beauty of the lovely queen. Maurice Quentin de la Tour was born in the city of Saint-Quentin on the 5th of September, 1704, and died in the same city on the 17th of February, 1788. His father was a civil engineer and at the same time a choir master, — ¦ a singular combination. The facts of his life are poorly established. When about eighteen, he went to Paris and adopted painting in pastel. Accord ing to some he was influenced by the successes of Rosa Alba Carriera ; 1 according to others he could not bear the odor of oil colors. When he was nineteen, he was back in Saint-Quentin, but soon returned to Paris, where he established a great reputation. It is known that he was for some time in England. He was " Agree " at the Academy in 1737, when he exhibited two por traits, — one of Madame Boucher, the other of himself. He was not made a full academician, however, until 1 Rosa Alba Carriera, a celebrated Italian painter in pastels, born at Venice in 1671, died in the same city in 1757. She was in Paris during 1720-1721, was made a member of the Academy, and was feted as much for her personal charms as for her artistic skill. She became blind in 1746 and died in misery. Fig. 26. — Tocque. Marie Leczinska. (Louvre) Fig. 27.— Latour. Mme. de Pompadour. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 43 1746. In 1750 he received the title of " Peintre du roi." In 1751 the Academy promoted him to the rank of " Conseiller." He continued to paint portraits until he was eighty. He then returned to his native town and de voted his remaining years and his large fortune to acts of beneficence. He never married.1 La Tour's pastels are scattered all over France. There are over one hun dred and twenty in the Museum of Saint^-Quentin. The Louvre has eleven, including his portrait of Madame de Pompadour, regarded as his chef-d'oeuvre, his por traits of Louis XV and his queen, and his portrait of Chardin. The picture of Madame de Pompadour is nearly six feet high and over four feet wide (Fig. 27). The lady is represented life-size. Seated by a table on which are many books, she looks to the left, while she holds and turns sheets of music. She wears a magnifi cent dress shot with gold, with bow-knots of pale rose in the waist, which is cut low. Near the books are a globe, some engraved stones, and a sketch on which is 'written " Pompadour sculpsit." At the foot of the table is a portfolio of designs and sketches. In the background is a sofa on which is a guitar. The com position is graceful, dignified, and gentle. The color ing is exquisite, recalling Botticelli. La Tour is said to have disliked Pompadour's order and to have been rude when executing it. There is nothing in the pic ture to justify the accusation, as the artist evidently poured all his artistic soul into the work. The picture was painted in 1755, and La Tour received 24,000 1 See his Life by Maurice Tourneux, in Les Grandes Artistes; notices in the catalogues of the Louvre; L'Art du XVIIIme Siecle par Edmond et Jules de GoncouH, vol. i, pp. 317 et seq., and articles in the Gazette des Beaux Arts. 44 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING francs for it. After Madame de Pompadour's death it disappeared. When it was acquired by the Louvre is not known. It first reappears in the catalogue of 1838. The portraits of Louis XV and of Marie Leczinska are good specimens of his ordinary style (Figs. 28, 29). They are each small, about two by one-half feet, and give head and bust only. The king wears a cuirass and is bareheaded. He carries the orders of the Holy Ghost and of the Golden Fleece. A mantle of ermine is thrown over his right shoulder. The queen is dressed in blue and yellow. She rests her hand on a fan. Her head is covered with a black lace fichu which is tied under her chin. This is the likeness of the queen which Van Loo is said to have copied into his picture. Both king and queen have unnaturally large and brilliant eyes, and in each the corners of the mouth turn up in a stereotyped smile. Almost all of La Tour's faces smile with the same more or less exaggerated smile, and attract attention by abnormally large and brilliant eyes. Jean Francois de Troy was born in Paris and died in Rome. His father was a portrait painter of position, and he was thoroughly drilled in the technique of paint ing. He early developed talent, and became one of the most celebrated painters of the day, though he was but little affected by the movement introduced by Watteau. He was elected to the Academy in 1708, and was director of the French School at Rome from 1738 to the time of his death. His principal picture in the Louvre is " The First Chapter of the Order of the Holy Ghost held by Henry IV in 1595 " (Fig. 29a). De Troy Fig. 28. — Latour. Louis XV. (Louvre) Fig. 29.— Latour. Marie Leczinska. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 45 paints in a style that does not appeal to modern taste. At Chantilly a large picture called " The Oyster Breakfast " is more interesting. His largest and most celebrated work is at Marseilles, and repre sents the plague of 1720, which carried off half the inhabitants. Charles Joseph Natoire was born at Nimes, and died at Castel Gandolfo in Italy. He is about forgotten. He was made a member of the Academy in 1734 and director of the French School at Rome in 1751. At the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris is his Envoi, the first of the series. His chef-d'wuvre is the cupola of the church of Saint Louis des Francais in Rome. There are frescoes by him in the Salle de la Reine at Versailles, also a portrait of the Grand Dauphin. An artist of a little later period, but who continued to work under the influences of the old school, was Madame Vigee Lebrun (1755-1842). Madame Lebrun was born and died in Paris. Her maiden name was Marie Louise Elizabeth Vigee. Her father was a painter who early recognized the extraor dinary talents of his daughter and devoted himself to their cultivation. He died when she was but thirteen, but she had already made assured progress. After her father's death she studied for a short time under Doyen. She is also said to have had lessons from Joseph Vernet and from Greuze. When she was fifteen, she painted a picture of her mother which attracted the attention of artists and amateurs and established her reputation. When still very young, she was married against her will to M. Jean Baptiste Lebrun, who was very much older than herself. At the time Lebrun was a well- 46 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING known and successful picture dealer, and her relatives thought the match an advantageous one. After his marriage Lebrun neglected his business and wasted in vicious habits the proceeds of his wife's industry. In her Souvenirs Madame Lebrun states that up to the out break of the Revolution her husband had dissipated over a million francs of her earnings. Her reputation reach ing the court of Louis XVI, she, in 1779, was invited to paint the queen, Marie Antoinette. Until the out break of the Revolution her time was chiefly occupied in painting portraits of members of the royal family and of the distinguished ladies of the court. When the Revolution broke out, she fled from Paris and did not return until 1809. After traveling about Italy, she passed three years in Vienna, six in St. Petersburg, and three in London. Everywhere she was abundantly hon ored, and received more orders for portraits than she cared to fill. She was also elected to the art societies of the various countries she visited. According to her own statements, she painted forty-seven portraits in St. Petersburg, and six hundred and sixty-two during her portrait activity. From the time she returned to Paris until extreme old age dimmed her eyes and stif fened her fingers, her industry was unflagging. Her works are scattered all over Europe. They have a peculiar womanly charm which is not to be found in the works of her confreres. Wyzewa has been already quoted as stating that there have existed but three women painters whose works could not be attributed to men. The three he mentions are Rosalba, Lebrun, and Berthe Morisot. Lebrun was a master of drawing and colors. Her portraits of young women and children Fig. 29°.— De Troy. Institution of order of Holy Ghost. (Louvre) Fig. 29b. — Vigee Lebrun, Herself and daughter, (Louvre) Fig. 29c. — Vigee Lebrun. Mme. Mole-Raymond. (Louvre) FROM WATTEAU TO THE REVOLUTION 47 breathe a happy grace which is irresistible. Her por traits of Marie Antoinette and of the ladies of her court are filled with a quiet dignity and an unequalled refinement of beauty. The time demanded flattery. Her flattery is moderate and kept well in hand. Her portraits of men are stronger and less flattered. She often painted herself and daughter. The example in the Louvre is fascinating (Fig. 29b) ; so is her portrait of Madame Mole Raymond, known as La Dame au Matuchon (Fig. 29°). Madame Vigee Lebrun ranks with the great painters of her country. Pier technique was that of the school of her namesake of the time of Louis XIV, but it was entirely controlled by her artistic apprehensions.• Numbers of other painters flourished during the eighteenth century whose works still exist but have ceased to give pleasure or to attract attention. A few may be mentioned. FRANQOIS DESPORTES (1661-1743: A., 1699). Desportes became court painter for hunting scenes. He was particularly successful with dogs, dead game, fruit and flowers. There are over twenty of his pic tures in the Louvre. JEAN BAPTISTE OUDRY (1689-1755; A., 1709). Oudry was another court painter of dogs and hunt ing scenes. A number of his pieces are in the Louvre. In 1734 he was appointed director of the royal manu factory of tapestry at Beauvais and held the position until his death. 48 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING HUBERT ROBERT (1733-1806: A., 1766). Robert was the foremost landscape painter of his day. He painted strictly in the Italian style, and most of his subjects are Italian. He is fully represented in the Louvre. The Italian style and all other conventional styles of landscape painted were effectually killed by the Barbison School. CHAPTER II FROM THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION THE works of Chardin and Greuze, though appre ciated, had little effect on the style of Boucher, which prevailed down to the beginning of the Revolution. The first artist to start the classical re action against the style of Boucher was Vien, who was David's master and who is quite forgotten nowadays in the prominence and celebrity of his pupil. JOSEPH MARIE VIEN (1716-1809 ; P. d. R., 1743 ; A., 1754 ; Director of the French Academy in Rome in 1775 ; Premier peintre du roi, 1789 ; C. I*, 1802; Comte, 1808). Vien was born at Montpellier, where, and in the neigh boring cities of Nimes and Toulouse, are some of his best pictures. He lived a long, happy, and useful life. He painted and instructed after he wajs ninety, and died in Paris at ninety-three. His pictures are principally interesting because they show opposition to the style of Boucher and mark the beginning of the classic style which triumphed in David. Two of his pictures are in the Louvre. One represents Saint Germain, Eveque d'Auxerre et Saint Vincent, Diacre de I'Eglise de Sara- gosse. On the right Saint Germain, on his knees, lifts his head to heaven; opposite him, also kneeling, is Saint Vincent, his head bowed, holding a palm in one 4 50 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING hand and a book in the other. Back of Saint Germain is an angel with the episcopal cross; in front of him on the ground are a writer and a book, on which ap pears " Vien 1755." Above the saints floats an angel bringing their destined celestial crowns. This picture was originally a banner for the church of Saint^Germain l'Auxerrois. It is about seven by five feet; the figures are life-size. The other picture is called L'Ermite endormi, — a singular composition. A seated hermit is overcome by sleep and falls, letting drop from his left hand a violin, while his right hand still holds the bow. On the right is an upset basket containing vege tables. On the left, at the mouth of a grotto, are books and papers, on one of which is written " Vien in et pin. Rome, 1850." There were formerly other pictures by Vien in the Louvre, which have been removed by the pres ent administration to make room for pictures regarded as more worthy of the space. So many changes are being made that old catalogues are becoming less and less reliable as guides. In the church of Saint Roch of Paris is a large picture by Vien, representing Saint Denis preaching. It is badly hung, has faded, and can hardly be seen except when the sun is shining brightly. It was highly praised by Vien's contemporaries, is of classic conception and composition, and may have been suggested by Raphael's Cartoon of the " Preaching of Saint Paul." Vien was a gentleman of kind and sym pathetic disposition. He had many pupils who were devoted to him. Among those less celebrated than David should be mentioned Vincent and Regnault. THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 51 FRANQOIS ANDRE VINCENT (1746-1816: Gd. p., 1768; A., 1782; Prof, a l'Academie, 1892 *, at the time it was started; after the Restora tion he took part in the reorganization of the Academy of Fine Arts). Vincent was born and died in Paris. His father, Francois Elle Vincent, was a celebrated miniaturist, a native of Geneva, Switzerland, though long settled in Paris, and a Protestant. He entered Vien's studio when he was quite young. He carried off the 2nd Gd. prix when he was but nineteen, and the Gd. prix de Rome before he was twenty-two. On his return from Italy he was " Agree " on a picture of Saint Jerome which is now in the Museum of Montpellier. In 1777 he painted Belisaire reduit a la mendicite, which added to his reputation. This work is also at Montpellier. One of his pictures is at the Louvre, Zeuxis choisissant pour Modeles les plus belles Filles de la Ville de Crotone (Fig. 30), a large picture, about ten by thirteen feet, with life- size figures, painted for Louis XVI just before the out break of the Revolution. On one side Zeuxis is seated in front of his easel, one hand resting on a table on which are vases. Behind him are three old men. The painter seems to be admiring a young girl who has been brought in by her mother and stands on a platform, while another young girl stoops to gather her clothing. Towards the corner of the picture a third young girl hides herself in confusion in the arms of a companion. Others seem awaiting their turn. The conception of the picture is better than the execution. Another picture by Vincent of a very different character has lately been 52 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING removed from the Louvre. It represents Sully after the battle of Ivry, where he had been wounded, carried home on an extemporized litter of branches of trees, preceded by his ecuyer and pages and followed by his troops and their prisoners. As he was not seriously wounded, his march had the air of a little triumph. The king, who happened to be hunting in the neighborhood, approaches the htter and gives the sufferer every testi mony of sympathy one friend can give to another. This picture is also large, about eight by six feet. It was exhibited in 1787, and formerly belonged to the Comte d'Orsay. It ought to be restored to its place in the Louvre, as it was the better picture of the two. JEAN BAPTISTE REGNAULT (1754-1829: Gd. p. d. R., 1776; A., 1785; H, 19th Fumaire au XII; Ordre de Saint Michel, 1818; created a Baron in 1819). Olivier Merson counts Regnault with Vien's pupils. Other authors give him Bardin as master.1 When Regnault was but five, his father emigrated to America ; when he was ten, he ran away to sea. When his father died, his mother returned to Paris and did not recover her son until he was fifteen. Then he began his artistic career. His success was rapid. The picture he painted when he was received as member of the Academy at twenty-nine is in the Louvre and is a fine specimen of his ability. It is called L'Education d'Achille (Fig. 31), and represents the centaur Chiron giving the 1 Jean Bardin, born at Montbard in 1732 ; died at Orleans in 1809. G. p. d. R. in 1764 ; A. and Director of the Art School at Orleans. Both Regnault and David are reported to have studied under him. His draw ings are better than his paintings. ¦2 O bo C .2> 60 Fig. 31.— J. B. Regnault. The education of Achilles. (Louvre) Fig. 32. — J. B. Regnault. The three Graces. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 53 young hero instruction in the use of the bow. Achilles, upright, bow in hand, is about discharging an arrow. He turns his head to listen to Chiron, who, behind him, seems to be showing him, with two arrows, how to use the instrument. At one side of Achilles a lion is dying ; on the other side is a lyre resting on drapery. In the distance are rocks ; on one of them a serpent. A fine and spirited composition, successfully carried out. Un fortunately the colors are growing dark and heavy. There is another large picture by Regnault in the La Caze Collection of the Louvre, Les trois Graces (Fig. 32), in which the three graces are of life-size and are not relieved by background or by foreground, — very large, substantial, able-bodied graces, not delicate, ethereal, or winning. Regnault has three historic pic tures at Versailles : " The Marriage of Jerome Bona parte to Frederique-Catharine of Wiirtemberg " with admirable portraits (Fig. 33), which took place in the chapel of Versailles on the 23rd of August, 1807 ; " The Death of Desaix at Marengo," June 14, 1800; and a very excellent picture representing the reception by the Senate of colors captured from the Austrians during the campaign of 1805. The colors had been forwarded by Napoleon and were formally presented to the Senate on the 1st of January, 1806. The picture is a model of arrangement and presents a happy side of Regnault's varied abilities. Regnault established a school in op position to David's school. He had many scholars, among whom the most celebrated was Guerin, who in turn was the master of Gericault, the starter of the Romantic School. David was so great a man, and the revolution he 54 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING accomplished was so complete, that his life as well as his pictures must be studied. JACQUES LOUIS DAVID (1748-1825: Gd. p. d. R., 1775; A., 1781; 1803, K, and Premier peintre de l'empereur). David was born in Paris and died an exile in Brussels. His father was an iron merchant in comfortable circum stances. On his mother's side there were architects and engravers. His art dispositions developed early. A family council was held and it was decided that he should be an architect. He held a council of his own and de cided that he would be a painter. In 1766, when he was eighteen, he was entered as a pupil in the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, now the Ecole des Beaux Arts. There he worked hard for eight years. At the end of that time he took the prize which corre sponds to the Prix de Rome of to-day, a prize which defrays the expenses of a residence in Rome four years. Duringhis soj ournjnJRome he became_a convert to_the classical movement which had been started by the Ger man Winckelmann. In 1784 he exposed his picture Le Serment des Horaces (Fig. 34), which was accepted as the greatest picture of the day and the triumph of- classic art. The Horatii were the three brothers se lected to represent Rome against the city of Alba, rep resented by the three Curiatii. The picture repre sents the three Romans receiving their arms from their aged father. Back of the father are the two sisters, one of whom was engaged to one of the Curiatii, and the aged mother hugging her sons' children to her breast. In the background is a classic arcade of three Fig. 34. — David. The oath of the Horacii. (Louvre) Fig. 35. — David. Paris and Helen. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 55 arches. The picture marked the complete victory of a new, simple, and easily understood art over the arti ficialities of a period of art and manners which were used up, extinguished, finished. The picture was filled with the glories of the new order of things which the advance of the Revolution had already inaugurated. RomajL^patriotism, parental self-sacrifice, and filial virtue jvere here held out to France for example and imitation. The triple stride and extending of hands is a grand mihtary evolution, and makes a heroic contrast and pathetic balance to the weeping women on the other side of the picture. The last picture he painted under royalist patronage was for the Due d'Artois, after wards Ch-w-les X, and is called the " Love of Paris and Helen" (pig. 35). It was not successful. The sub ject required a grace and ease of grouping which David did not possess. In comparison with the well-draped Helen, Paris appears ridiculously and unnecessarily nude. This was the last picture he painted before the outbreak of the Revolution. He went into the Revolu- tion with all his heart and soul. He was an intimate friend of Marat and of Robespierre. He was at first an extremist, and would have had his head lopped half a dozen times if it had not been too precious for lopping". Hispicture of the death of Marat shows that hisjiowers of realism were as great ItsTiis powers of idealism. He received from the National Assembly an order to paint the scene of the patriotic oath taken in the hall of the Jeu de Paume on the 22nd of June, 1789. The picture was hardly commenced when hurrying events put a stop to the work. The vast canvas exists and is hung in one of the rooms of the Louvre. The scene is par- 56 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING tially sketched on the canvas and some of the figures are blocked out. From the canvas as it exists, and from the preparatory sketch which also exists, the whole scene can be traced. Pictures have been made from them. The one in the view hangs in the Salle de la Jeu de Paume at Versailles (Fig. 36), a spot which should be visited by every lover of French art and of French history. There is only one other place in the world that is so filled with the spirit of liberty ; that is Inde pendence Hall in Philadelphia. It would take too long to describe the picture or the event it commemorates. - French history must be studied in ' connection with French art. Bailly, the president of the Assembly, stands on a table while administering the oath. In the foreground is a group commemorating the union of the three orders of citizens : the nobles, the clergy, and all the rest, — le tiers etat, as it was called, — here repre sented by a lawyer. After the death of Robespierre David was imprisoned for five months in the Luxem bourg. During his imprisonment he planned and sketched his great picture called " The Sabines," which was painted and exhibited the year after his release. He intended it should be the greatest picture he had ever painted, and in the opinion of many of his admirers it is the greatest of his works. Romulus and his fol lowers, being without wives, helped themselves to the pretty girls of their neighbors the Sabines. The Sabine fathers and brothers, not approving the pro cedure, declared war against the Romans, raised and equipped armies, and advanced until the two adver saries were face to face beneath the unfinished walls of Rome. When the fight was in the very act of being Fig. 36. — David. The oath of the Tennis Court. (Versailles) Fig. 3T. — David. The Sabines. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 57 about to commence, in spots had commenced, in rushed the wives of one party who were the daughters and sisters of the other, and, rolling their babies between the warriors, challenged them to proceed. The baby appeal was, of course, irresistible. Enemies became friends,, and the building of Rome continued. The picture is taken when Romulus, on the right, is about hurling his spear at Tatius, the King of the Sabines, who is. crouching to' receive' it (Fig. 37). Had the women delayed their rush one second, the spear would have been hurled and wives and families would have been forgotten. Romulus poses like a Greek athlete. His fine and nervous legs are as beautiful as those of the Apollo Belvedere. The two women between the two fighters are as lovely as Greek goddesses enflamed by modern passions. The aristocratic and social beauties of the day vied in posing for these figures. The names of those who were accepted are still preserved. Could anything be prettier than the group of babies which the young mothers have brought to the field of battle to soften and disarm the anger of the warriors? In the background the battle seems already joined. On the left are the lofty walls of Rome. To compensate David for his imprisonment he was given a room in the Louvre for the exhibition of his picture and was author ized to charge for admission. He made nearly $15,000 by the show. When republicanism began to wane and Napoleon began to show his power, David turned to him, as did many another, as the only savior against internal disorder and external foes.1 David was held in 1 The Empire was proclaimed May 18, 1804. The coronation took place December 2, 1804. 58 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING high esteem by Napoleon. When he became emperor, he made David his chief court painter. David received from Napoleon, as emperor, commissions for four enormous pictures : Le Sacre, " The Coronation " ; L'Intronisation, " The Enthronement " ; " The Arrival at the Hotel de Ville," and Les Aigles, " The Distribu tion of Standards." Of the four pictures but two, " The Coronation " and " The Distribution of Standards," were finished. Of " The Enthronement " there is noth ing left. Of " The Arrival at the Hotel de Ville " there is a sketch preserved at the Louvre. " The Corona tion " was the first work commenced. David worked on it without interruption from 1805 until 1808. Every part of the picture was studied with the utmost care. Every sketch, every change, had to be submitted to the emperor. As is well known, when the Pope had- anointed Napoleon and was about crowning him, Na poleon snatched the crown from the hands of the aston ished pontiff and crowned himself; not only that, but he also crowned the empress. In the original sketch David represented the first act of the emperor, the self- crowning, while the Pope is overcome by surprise and indignation. The scene was already finished In the picture when Napoleon concluded the representation was impolitic, and David was ordered to erase it and to substitute the second act, the act of crowning the empress, and to modify the Pope's expression of aston ishment. As a matter of fact, the Pope's expression is so modified that he does not seem to be taking any part in the ceremonies. The picture is about thirty feet long and is over eighteen feet high; the figures are life- size. After the Restoration Lpuis XVIII did not dare Fig. 38. — David. The Coronation. (Louvre) Fig. 39.— David. The Standards. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 59 to destroy it and gave it back to David's family, but prohibited its exhibition. It was not rescued from obscurity until 1837. It is now one of the chief treas ures of the Louvre, and stands absolutely supreme in the realm of ceremonial art. Undoubtedly Napoleon selected the personages to be depicted and superintended the general arrangement of the scene (Fig. 38). On the right, in comparative obscurity, sits the poor Pope, Pius VII, who was beguiled to Paris to anoint with sacred oil the person of the emperor, and who un doubtedly thought he was also to crown the imperial pair. But Napoleon thought otherwise. No one but himself was worthy to crown himself, and then, from the crowned height of his ambition, no one but him self was worthy to crown the empress. How superb the figure of the emperor ! How prominent the fig ure of the kneeling empress ! The two dominate the scene and make all the other figures subordinate and contributive. Behind the empress are the queens of Holland and Naples, the Queen of Holland holding her young son by the hand. With them are other princesses, and be hind them, their husbands. To the left of the picture .and well in front are the emperor's brothers in their new and unaccustomed imperial trappings. At the time Napoleon's ambitions were dynastic. A pity they had not so continued! When they became personal and the childless empress was spurned, he lost the affection of his sentimental and democratic subjects who loved Josephine as they adored her husband. Above in a balcony is his mother, made conspicuous by the filial affection which still animated his heart. 60 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING She fortunately died before his thoughts became self- centered and personal. In the foreground to the right, with their backs to the spectator, and also in the groups standing back of the kneeling empress, are the newly created officers of the imperial household, — the chamberlain, the master of the horse, the chancellor, the treasurer, etc., all re joicing in their new liveries and in their plumed hats a la Henry IV. That inexorable fate at Waterloo should have swept alHhis magnificence into the waste-paper basket of time, as so much dross and tinsel, is one of the strange facts of history. The center of the picture is the part to remember, and is as fine a piece of grouping as the art of any school, any period, has ever produced. The emperor, the empress, and the imperial mother are the three inspiring figures. The manner in which they are kept distinctively apart and yet unite in the general impression is a magnificent triumph of artistic skill. As soon as David had finished Le Sacre he set about painting Les Aigles, as it is called (Fig. 39). On the left and on one end of a magnificent pavilion erected in the Champs de Mars stands Napoleon in imperial robes, extending his right hand towards his troops, who, having received their standards,, are hurrying in bands up the steps of the pavilion to swear fidelity to their chief. Back and around Napoleon are his marshals, his ministers, and members of his family. The upward rushing of the troops is fine, though exaggerated. The most conspicuous soldier is in the attitude of the well- known statue of Victory by John of Bologna. In the original sketch the Empress Josephine stood behind the emperor (Fig. 40). As she was divorced before the David. The Standards— first design. (Versailles) Fig. 42.— David. Mme. Recamier. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 61 picture was completed, her figure had to be painted out. Moreover, David had introduced a large winged Vic tory floating over the soldiers' heads. This also had to be painted out, because Napoleon thought it distracted attention from himself. It may have been on account of these various changes that the picture was not so successful as Le Sucre. It is of about the same size. It hangs now in one of the small rooms of Versailles where the light is not the best and where the work cannot be profitably studied. The picture was finished in 1812. The words of Napoleon have been preserved. " Sol- C diers," he said, " there are your standards. Let the eagles serve as rallying points. They will always be where your emperor thinks they ought to be for the defense of his throne and his people. You swear to defend them with your life and to always carry them on the path of victory. You swear it ! " And the whole army replied, " We swear it." The impressive scene took place on the 5th of December, 1804, three days after he was crowned. When in 1814 Louis XVIII en tered Paris, David hid away Le Sacre, Les Aigles, and his portraits of Napoleon, and was apprehensive that his devotion to Napoleon would bring him trouble. Louis XVIII took no notice of him, even permitted him to exhibit those of his pictures, Les Sabines for instance, which did not relate to Napoleon. This second exhibi tion was even more profitable than the first as Paris was full of strangers. When Napoleon returned from Elba, David was one of the first to sign the act exclud ing the Bourbons from the throne. After Waterloo and the second return of Louis XVIII, all the signers were banished. David took refuge in Brussels and 62 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING there he died in 1825. He was sixty-seven when exiled, seventy-seven when he died. During his exile he received every possible consideration and honor. He continued to paint, and in some of his portraits showed that in his old age he had lost none of his skill, none of his cunning. Of the many portraits of this period the one known as " The Ugly Beauties " is of great excellence, one of the very best portrait groups in existence. It rep resents a Madame Morel de Tangry and her daughters. It was one of David's last works. It was purchased by the French government about ten years ago for $2500. The old lady is not so bad looking, and the honest, amiable, unmitigated, and unconscious ugli ness of the daughters is captivating. They have not made the slightest effort to look pretty ; they prob ably knew that any effort would be fruitless. A puz zling question is, Was the mother ashamed of their appearance ? David was a great artist, one of the greatest of history. He was equally great as a teacher. His studio swarmed with pupils in spite of the severity of his in struction. He inaugurated that thoroughness in draw ing, anatomy, and perspective which has been the foun dation of the glories of French painting, and which, alas ! the present generation is neglecting. Les Sabines and Le Sacre are two of the greatest pictures of modern art. To those who do not appre ciate classicism and to those who do not admire Napo leon, David's portraits will justify his reputation; they are unsurpassed. His portrait of Madame Recamier (Fig. 42) has always been regarded with great admira- Fig. 43. — David. M. Seriziat. (Louvre) Fig. 44.— David. Napoleon crossing the Alps. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 63 tion, though the portrait was never finished and had received only a first and very thin coat of paint. The pose, the outline, the drawing, are all exquisite. While at work, David heard that the fair lady was at the same time posing to another artist. This irritated him so that he refused to go on. Perhaps he could not have gone on without spoiling the wonderful effect he had already produced. If this picture be a good likeness of the celebrated lady, then she was not the brilliant personage her biographers represent ; for this face, from an intellectual point of view, is "negative, if not actually stupid. This picture was painted in 1800, when Madame Recamier was twenty-three. Another most admirable portrait is that of M. Seri- ziat, David's brother-in-law (Fig. 43). A more excel lent portrait in every way was never painted. The face is serious, but full of youthful animation. The pose of the head and that of the body are easy, graceful, de lightful. All the accessions are most true and lovely. His portrait of " Napoleon Crossing the Alps " (Fig. 44) is a ridiculous rendering of an impossibility. But Napoleon insisted upon the attitude, the horse, and the surroundings. David had to obey orders and must not be held responsible. The best parts of the picture are the leg and the boot. Napoleon always objected to sit ting to artists ; after he began to grow fat he positively refused. During the period of David's supremacy two artists who did not belong to David's school and who were not extreme classicists greatly distinguished themselves. They were younger than David, but flourished at the same time. They can hardly be called his rivals, though 64 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING their followers at times tried to make them out to be. These artists were Prud'hon and Guerin. PIERRE PRUD'HON (1758-1823: H, 1808; A., 1816). Prud'hon was born at Cluny in the eastern part of France, celebrated for its abbey, and died in Paris. He was the thirteenth child of a poor stonecutter and was brought up on the charity of the monks. He showed such a disposition for painting that at the age of eighteen he was sent by the monks to Dijon, the nearest city where art instruction was to be had. After a short sojourn in Paris he returned to Dijon and captured a prize which enabled him to pass five years in Rome. During these years he developed the peculiar style which distinguishes him from other artists. His figures are not sharply outlined, but fade away in mists. They seem surrounded by haze through which they appear dim and soft and far away. If rays of light stream into his pictures, as they often do, they come in through fog a,nd vapor. His coloring is dark, gray, and pearly. He created a new grace, and found a vein of unknown beauty. His manner of comprehending the antique differs completely from those of his contemporaries. Gautier says of him : " The statues which David's pupils draw with sculptural hardness, he seems to see by the moon, silvered with soft lights, bathed in waving shad ows and reflections, with vapory outlines ; enveloped in vague mists. To the mythology of Napoleon's empire he applied the soft delicacy of Correggio. He has Cor- reggio's mystery and revery. But do not think of him as effeminate. When necessary, he can be virile, seri- THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 65 ous, grand. What could be more tragic than his picture of ' Justice and Divine Vengeance pursuing Crime' (Fig. 45)! A large and full moon throws a vivid hght over a savage site, rough with stones and brambles. The moon seems hung like a lamp in the sky to reveal the truth. Silvered by her pale rays, the body of the victim lies on the ground in the abandon ment of death, like another Abel slain by another Cain. His pure and elegant form, his handsome head thrown back amid his flowing hair, make a striking contrast to the low, ignoble, almost bestial type of the murderer, who rushes away, his hand clasping the bloody dagger. The crime has just been committed, but already in the sky, furrowing the air in their rapid flight, the aveng ing deities with open wings and flowing draperies fol low the trembling assassin and are ready to fall upon him. The one, Vengeance, holds a torch which throws a reddish reflection upon the cold moonlight. The other, Justice, holds in her left hand the balances of the law, and in her right the sword which punishes the guilty. The head of Vengeance, partially illumined by the torch, is a masterpiece of color and modeling. The head of Justice expresses a calm severity and a serene indignation of a character all divine." To the ordinary observer these words will sound extreme. Gautier's style is beautiful. He loved to exhibit it. The sub ject that called forth his powers was secondary. Prud'- hon was eminent as a portraitist, as were many of his contemporaries. Their excursions into classicism were in obedience to fashion; their portraits seem to have called out their very best abilities. Prud'hon's por trait of the Empress Josephine, ordered by Napoleon, 5 66 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING is an excellent production (Fig. 46). She is repre sented seated in the garden of Malmaison. Her atti tude and expression are most graceful. She seems in a revery, as if anticipating the sad fate that was so soon to involve her life. These and many other pic tures by Prud'hon are in the Louvre. Another very characteristic one is called L'Enlevement de Psyche (Fig. 47). With yellow drapery and a violet veil float ing about her, and turned three quarters to the left, Psyche asleep, her head resting on her left shoulder, is borne aloft by Zephyr and three cupids. Zephyr is small for the task and seems forced to ungraceful efforts. The figure of Psyche and the lights and shadows in which it floats are wonderful exhibitions of skill. Prud'hon had an unhappy life. He and his wife were so uncongenial that in 1803 they separated. He then became the object of the devotions of one of his pupils, a Mademoiselle Mayer, who made his life happy for eighteen years and was then driven to suicide by shafts of censure and scandal. Prud'hon could not recover from the shock. The last picture he painted, while lingering in misery, is a " Christ on the Cross " (Fig. 48). It was intended for the cathedral of Metz, but was kept in Paris after the death of the artist. It is a large picture, about eight by five feet ; the figures are life-size. On the right is the cross to which Christ is nailed. At its foot kneels Mary Magdalene, with one arm about the feet of the Crucified. To the left and in the middle distance, the Virgin faints in the arms of a woman. Prud'hon was giving expression to the sadness which filled his soul. Fig. 46. — Prud'hon. The Empress Josephine. (Louvre) Fig. 47. — Prud'hon. The abduction of Psyche. (Louvre) Fig. 48. — Prud'hon. Christ on the Cross. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 67 PIERRE NARCISSE GUERIN (1774-1833: P. d. R., 1796 ; *, 1803 ; Ordre de Saint Michel, 1819 ; I., 1815; Baron, 1829; O. *, 1832). Guerin was born in Paris and died in Rome. He was a more pronounced classicist than Prud'hon, and, though a pupil of Regnault, was influenced by David. His first work to attract attention was executed in 1799, and was called Le Retour de Marcus Sextus (Fig. 48") » It produced a storm of enthusiasm, such as is impos sible to understand or appreciate to-day. Marcus, with haggard eyes, is seated on the side of a bed on which is extended the dead body of his wife, whose hand he holds. On the right his daughter, falling to the ground in her grief, clasps her father's left leg. At the time it was painted, Frenchmen who had been exiled were being permitted to return home, and were, many of them, finding their homes as illustrated by Guerin's picture. The title of the picture is fanciful, as there was no historic character of the name of Marcus Sextus exiled by Sylla. The picture was exposed at the Salon of 1800, and was surrounded by admiring crowds dur ing the whole course of the exhibition. Daily new crowns of flowers were deposited about it and new verses of praise were fastened to its frame. Wherever the artist went he was received with plaudits. The theaters threw open their doors to receive him ; no ministerial dinner was complete without him. Never in history had an artist been more honored. The pic ture is now in the Louvre. It is a large picture, nearly eight by eight feet ; the figures are life-size. It was bought by Charles X in 1830 for 3005 francs. Two 68 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING years afterwards Guerin exposed another picture with great, if not equal, success, also in the Louvre. It is called Phedre et Hippolyte. The figures are life- size, and the picture is nearly eleven feet long by eight feet high. On the right and seated with Theseus is Phedre, pale, with fixed eyes, holding on her knee the sword she has snatched from Hippolyte. She is listen ing to CEnone, who seems to be advising her to persist in her accusations. Theseus regards his son with anger. He stands upright, his eyes cast down; with his out stretched left arm he repels the accusations of his step mother. In his right hand he holds a bow. Two dogs are at his feet. Guerin was accused of giving too exactly in this picture the scene as represented at the Theatre Francais with Mademoiselle Duchenois as Phedre ; also of copying too closely the style and tech nique of David. Gautier, on the contrary, finds original elegance and nobleness in the picture. " Never was Racine so poetically illustrated," he writes ; and adds, " Hippolyte, for a pitiable prince, is altogether charm ing." * Two other large pictures in the Louvre by Guerin should be mentioned. They are dated 1817. One is called Clytemnestre. In the background on the right Agamemnon, conqueror of Troy, is asleep, surrounded by the spoils of his enemies. He is par tially hidden by a red curtain through which shines a lamp. On the other side, and in front, is Clytemnestre, approaching with a dagger and hesitating to strike. Her lover and accomplice, iEgistheus, urges and pushes her on, pointing towards the sleeping king. Gautier writes of this picture : " It presents a fine tragic scene. 1 Guide de V Amateur au Musee du Louvre, p. 16. Fig. 48". — Gu6rin. The return of Marcus Sextus. (Louvre) Fig. 49. — Guerin. .^Eneas and Dido. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 69 The red curtain through which trembles the light of a lamp throws on the murderers a terrible and sinister shadow of blood. ^Egistheus pushes the hesitating Clytemnestre from behind as the thought pushes the hand. Agamemnon, king of men and leader of peoples, sleeps nobly on his bed of repose." Balzac, in his Physi- ologie du Mariage, wishes to every husband as majestic a sleep. This, however, did not prevent Agamemnon from being killed by his wife. Guerin's EnSe racontant a Didon les Malheurs de la Ville de Troie (Fig. 49), also in the Louvre, is a charming composition, and is well known from engrav ings. Dido, extended on a couch to the right, is listen ing attentively to ^Eneas, who is seated opposite to her on the left. Dido has her left arm about the " Puer Ascanius," who is playfully removing her wedding ring. Back of Dido, and leaning on the back of the couch, is an attendant, also attentively listening. Back of iEneas is a small porch borne on Egyptian columns, within which, on a high pedestal, is a small statue of Neptune. In the background is the rocky coast of Carthage, and on the right the quiet, far-reaching sea. Dido's face, though extremely sentimental, is lovely, and the boy's face by her side is charming. JSneas looks better fitted for love-making than for warfare. This is another large picture, about nine by twelve feet, with life-size figures. Guerin's efforts were not all equally successful. His L'Aurore et CSphale (Fig. 50), painted in 1810 and in imitation of Prud'hon, was coldly ^received. His Bona parte pardonnant aux RSvoltes de Caire, now at Ver sailles, was adjudged a failure. Guerin was an excellent 70 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING teacher and had many pupils. Of them, Gericault, Ary Scheffer, and Leon Cogniet became the most celebrated. David's Pupils Delecluze, in his Louis David, son Ecole et son Temps, gives two hundred and ninety-six as the number of David's pupils.1 Of this number only a small minority could have been anything more than nominally or ir regularly his pupils. Among those whose subsequent careers show that they were worthy pupils of the master and that the master's teaching was broad, sympathetic, and encouraging to personal talent, are to be men tioned Bailly, Bouchot, Couder, Drolling, Drouais, Gerard, Girodet Trioson, Granet, Gros, Guillemot, Ingres, Isabey pere, Langlois, Robert, Rouget, and Schnetz. Of these Girodet Trioson, Gerard, Gros, and Ingres immediately succeeded to David's activities and were the most important in developing and expand ing his teaching. ANNE LOUIS GIRODET DE ROUCY, called Girodet Trioson from a M. Trioson who aided and be friended him and whose name he added to his own. 1767-1842: Gd. p., 1789; A., 1815). Girodet was born at Montargis and died in Paris. When quite young, he was admitted to David's studio and stayed until he went to Italy. The picture on which he won the Premier grand prix, or Prix de Rome, is 1 FJienne Jean Delecluze (1781-1863) was one of David's pupils, and distinguished himself in 1808 by capturing the Grande medaille of the Salon. In 1816 he abandoned art for literature and became a prolific writer on art and literary subjects. Fig. 50. — Guerin. Aurora and Cephalus. (Louvre) Fig. 51. — Girodet. The Deluge. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 71 at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and represents Joseph recognized by his brethren. It is a close imitation of the style of David. While in Rome he departed from the style of David and painted after the fashion of Prud'hon. Of this period is the picture in the Louvre called Le Sommeil d'Endymion. Also in the Louvre are Atala au Tombeau of 1808 and Scene du Deluge of 1810. Of these three, Gautier writes as follows : " They worthily set forth Girodet. He had a fine spirit. He was ingenious, literary, and poetic. He held both pen and brush. He was a scholar; he made verses. Al though his most marked gift was painting, Girodet produced but a small number of pictures ; but he read the Greek poets, translated them, imitated them, and, what -is far better, enriched them with drawings which are full of grace, elegance, and a pure antique senti ment. He illustrated with a mass of compositions Virgil, Anacreon, Sappho, Bion, Moschus, Racine, and Ossian, — that Scotch pseudo-Homer, then so fashion able. Although he was really a painter of serious talent and of consummate skill in his compositions, the man of letters is seen in the research of thought and in the ingeniousness of his arrangements. For instance, in his celebrated Scene du Deluge (Fig. 51), dramatic interest is managed, calculated, graduated, with the care with which the most clever scenic artist would prepare the very last scene of a tragedy. The waters have invaded the earth. Only one rock emerges, crowned with a tree, of which a man carrying his father on his shoulders grasps a branch with one hand with the energy of despair. With the other hand he holds by the right arm his wife, who presses to her breast a child 72 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING wrapped in a garment. Another and an older child hangs to her streaming hair and pulls back her head by its weight. Like a bunch of human grapes, the family oscillates miserably over the abyss. One more effort and the top of the rock may be gained. That would not bring safety, for God is implacable. It would, however, be a moment of rest, one quiet breath amid the horrors. But, oh, misery! the branch bends, breaks, and the human group so laboriously constructed will fall into the gulf, where is already floating, beneath the green transparence of a wave, the bluish body of a young girl, perhaps the eldest daughter of the man who feels his last and frail support give way within his desperately clutching fingers." The Sommeil d'Endymion (Fig. 52) is lovely. The idea of beauty among modern artists is directed to the female form. It is rare that a modern painter seeks for beauty in the rendering of the most perfect virile type. Among the Greeks the ideal had no sex ; man could represent it as well as woman. Apollo was no less beautiful than Venus, Paris could rival Helen. Girodet, in his " Endymion," has made a truly Greek picture. He shows the beautiful sleeper in his grotto on Mount Latmus, lying on his garment and on the skin of a tiger. His beautiful body has all the graces of a Greek ' gymnast. In the partial shadow it shows the white ness and perfection of the purest Greek marble. It is easy to conceive that the chaste Phoebe should have been fascinated by this charming youth and should have de scended from the skies to visit him. Cupid, disguised as Zephyr, but recognized by his butterfly wings, pushes aside the fohage so that the passionate rays of the In"" HyEnfflH^r'':1 x&S^H E^BcHB^ " ^M - '*f 3?^^ HP'' Si ^ -- In ' if ard. Battle of Austerlitz. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 77 dome of the Pantheon of Paris, representing Death, France, Justice, and Glory. Gerard was one of the greatest and most versatile of French artists. He is represented as a man of charm ing manners, kind, sympathetic, a prince of hospitality. His studio was the rendezvous of the beau monde. On Wednesdays, when he received, it would be crowded with the nobility and with the rich and cultivated of all classes. Visitors of distinction were taken to see him as to one of the chief attractions of Paris. ANTOINE JEAN GROS (1771-1835: A., 1811; Prof, a, l'Ecole des Beaux Arts, 1816; created a Baron by Charles X; O. H, 1828). Gr^os was the son of a well-to-do miniature painter. He entered the studio of David when he was but fifteen. In 1793 he lost his father and was left without support. He was so terrified by the Revolution that he deter mined to expatriate himself. After staying awhile in Milan and Florence, he finally settled in Genoa, where he supported himself painting portraits. In 1796 Josephine, on her way to Milan to join her husband, stopped at Genoa and made Gros's acquaintance at the house of the French representative. Struck by the ability displayed in his portraits, she took him with her to Milan and recommended him to Bonaparte. This was the beginning of his successful career. It was at this time that he painted two portraits of Napoleon, which are among his very best works. They represent him leading the way over the bridge at Arcole. One is in the Louvre; the other at Versailles. The Louvre picture (Fig. 61) gives the head and bust only, so that 78 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING the action is not apparent. The Versailles picture gives nearly the entire figure and shows the action. The heads are identical, and are painted with a delightful ease and grace, and show a mastery of individuality and of char acter. In these heads and in most of Gros's works is shown the painter in distinction from the mere draughts man. The drawing seems to accompany the painting, to form part of it, not to precede and control it. Gros's mastery and harmony of colors are also apparent. His colors are not strong or startling, but are gentle, well balanced, and harmoniously contrasted and supple mented. Napoleon was so charmed with his portrait that Gros was put on the commission which had been appointed to select works of art from the museums of conquered cities to fill those of Paris. In 1801 Bona parte ordered a competition for a picture to com memorate the bravery of General Junot at Nazareth, where with six hundred dragoons he withstood ten thousand Turks for a day and finally put them to flight. Gros easily captured the prize. The completed sketch for the picture is in the Museum of Nantes. Hardly had Gros commenced the picture when Bonaparte changed his mind, and to Gros was assigned another subject in which Bonaparte himself, and not one of his generals, should be the principal figure. The picture produced is known as Les Pestiferes de Jappa (Fig. 62). Jappa, or Jaffa, was captured by Bonaparte in May, 1799, and was held for three months. During the French occupation a plague broke out and carried off thousands of French soldiers and sailors. The scene takes place in the galleries surrounding the court of a mosque which has been converted into a hospital. In Fig. 60.— Gerard. Henry IV. enters Paris. (Versailles) Fig. Gl— Gros. Napoleon at Arcoli. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 79 the center Napoleon, followed by his staff, touches the sores of a stricken sailor, who, half naked, stands up, to receive the touch which he presumes will heal him. In the foreground a naked soldier is being attended by a Turkish surgeon. Near by a young French physician, nearly dead himself, holds on his knees a dying victim. On the left Turks are distributing bread to victims who are grouped in attitudes of despair. The dead and the dying are scattered about in horrid repulsiveness. In the background is the court of the mosque, and over its walls appear the fortifications of the city. That such a picture should have been painted at a time when it was thought that painting was sacred to classical sub jects was sufficiently extraordinary. That a revolting subject should have been treated with exaggerated real ism was incomprehensible. It seemed like a deification of ugliness. Yet the subject is treated with such grand and simple force that it fascinates to-day. The group surrounding Napoleon is not made too prominent. There is no undue flattery of the hero's courage. The details of the picture are strong, interesting in them selves and in their separate and independent effect. When the picture was exhibited in 1804, it produced an indescribable enthusiasm. Crowds surrounded it for weeks. Crowns and palms were hung over its frame and covered the floor in front of it in daily increasing masses. It was a great work of art, produced at a time when the minds of men were inflamed, and ex hibited to a people who are quick to appreciate and are carried beyond our comprehension by the exhibition of works of genius which gave artistic expression to their sentiments. The picture is very large, about 80 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING twenty-one by sixteen feet, and the figures are over life- size. Nevertheless Gros is said to have used only half the canvas intended for the battle of Nazareth. Three years after the production of this picture another com petition was opened. The subject this time was the battle of Eylau, fought on the 9th of February, 1807, where the Russians lost thirty thousand men and where the victorious French met such losses that the victory was barren. Although Napoleon was not altogether satisfied with the result of the battle, he wished it com memorated. Twenty-five artists participated in the competition. Gros's sketch was unanimously accepted (Fig. 63). He selected as his subject Napoleon visit ing the field of the battle after the victory was achieved and after the Russians had retreated. Napoleon enters into the scene from the left, surrounded by his generals. Murat is to be distinguished by his rearing horse and his white plume. Napoleon rides a dun-colored horse, wears a gray overcoat lined with fur, and lifts his eyes and his hand to heaven, as if protesting against the horrors of war. A wounded Russian clasps his knee, while other soldiers extend to him imploring hands. In the foreground in the snow are dead and dying soldiers. Remarkable is a wounded Russian on the right, who repels a French surgeon. In the background are march ing columns of soldiers. Beyond is the burning town of Eylau. The sky is dark and lowering, as if still filled with the smoke of battle. In this picture Gros once more shows his mastery of balance. Napoleon is the principal figure, but does not dominate the scene. The accessories and details, while contributing to the gen eral effect, have each separate and individual interest. Fig. 62.— Gros. The pest at Jaffa. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 8i This is a still larger picture, Over twenty-four by six teen feet. These two pictures were purchased by the state for 16,000 francs each, and are now in the Louvre. Another picture by Gros, at' present in the Louvre, is thought by some of his admirers to be his best, — best in composition, coloring, and in skillful and careful technique (Fig. 64). It represents Francis I and the Emperor Charles V of Germany visiting the tombs of the church of Saint-Denis. Francis, hearing that his arch-enemy wished to go to the Netherlands from Spain, in an outburst of romantic chivalry invited him to traverse France. Charles reached Paris on the 1st of January, 1540. On the 13th of January the king escorted the emperor to Saint-Denis. The visit is the subj ect of the picture, which is taken within the church. Francis, having on his left his second son, Charles d'Orleans, turns to Charles, on whose other side is the Dauphin Henry. Francis is pointing the way to the entrance to the tombs where stands a monk with a torch. Back of the sovereigns are the constable Montmorency carrying the sword, Henri d'Albret on his right, the Due de Guise on his left, and Antoine de Bourbon on D'Albret's right. To the right of the picture and in front is the Cardinal de Bourbon, with a priest on either side of him. In the rear and in the gallery are Cath erine de Medicis and ladies and gentlemen of the court. The picture is about eight by five feet ; the figures are a little larger than life. The picture was exhibited in 1812, and was purchased by the state in 1816, for 10,000 francs, to hang in the sacristy of the cathedra] of Saint-Denis. Subsequently a copy was given to the 82 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING church and the original was retained in the Louvre. (See full description in Tauzia's " Catalogue of the Pictures in the Louvre.") Gros was an admirable painter of portraits. One of the very best, and also in the Louvre, is a portrait of General Fournier Sarloveze (1775—1827), one of Na poleon's great generals, who particularly distinguished himself in Spain. He is represented when, at Lugo in Spain and summoned to surrender by a far superior force, he indignantly rejects the proposal and sends back the enemy's envoy. Notice that in his anger he has thrust the point of his sword some inches into the ground. Many of Gros's best portraits are at Versailles and deserve study. At Versailles also are some of the pictures of his best period, that is, when he was working under the enthusiasm of Napoleon's influence. The Bataille d'Aboukir is an enormous picture, nearly thirty by seventeen feet. Aboukir is a small town on the Med iterranean, about fifteen miles northeast of Alexandria. Here Bonaparte signally defeated the Turks on the 25th day of July, 1799. The victory was decided by a magnificent charge led by Murat, who, on a superb white horse, occupies the center of the picture. Mustapha Pacha is trying in vain to rally his forces. In the dis tance is seen the Turkish fortress, and in the far distance the sea and the English squadron. The picture was ex hibited in the Salon of 1806. It was ordered by Murat and was taken by him when he was made King of Naples. After the downfall of Napoleon it was exhibited to strangers, rolled out on the floor of a room, in charge of the porter of the royal palace. In 1824 it was bought by Gros for 15,000 francs and taken back to THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 83 Paris. In 1833 Gros sold it to the state for 28,000 francs. Justice cannot be done to Gros in a handbook. Gau tier writes of him : " Although he had the religion of the antique, he was at heart a modern painter. He per ceived contemporary existence and did not need the re coil of centuries to feel the beauty of a subject and to manifest it. That is a rare quality, especially when he who possesses it has the still more rare gift of idealiz ing the true and of making the real grand. Moreover, what was difficult amid his surroundings and with the respect he always showed for his master David, Gros had sentiment for life and for movement pushed even to impetuosity. He was an ardent, tumultuous, un bridled genius, who was always regarding his gifts as faults." The cupola of the Pantheon, commenced in 1814 and not finished until 1824, has been too variously criticised to be adjudged. It is too vast and too high up in the air to be seen with comfort. It is over two hundred feet away and covers over a thousand square, yards. More over, the subject was not suited to Gros's talents, and change of dynasties caused hurtful changes in the orig inal design. After the Restoration and under the Bour bons, Gros's works lose dramatic force and order. Two pictures are in evidence. One is at Versailles, the other in the Museum of Bordeaux. The picture at Versailles represents Louis XVIII leaving the Louvre on the night of the 20th of March, 1815, when he heard that Napo leon had escaped from Elba, was advancing on Paris, and had already reached Fontainebleau. Gros can hardly be blamed for making a poor picture of such a 84 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ridiculous and unkingly event. The squat king is about turning to go down the stairs to the right, preceded by two officers bearing torches which throw distorted shad ows on the wall but give Gros an opportunity of showing his command of light and shade. The attitude and ex pression of the king are absurd. The whole scene is a fine display of bathos. The other picture, painted about the same time, represents the escape of the king's niece, La Duchesse d'Angouleme, from Pauillac, near Bor deaux, also from advancing Bonapartists. The duchess stands like a tragedy queen, and the hurried action conveys the idea that in another minute the enemy will be upon her. She did not leave Bordeaux until the 1st of April, and displayed so much energy in trying to hold the city for the royal family that Na poleon said of her that she was the only man in her family. The picture is in the Bordeaux Museum. Though Gros departed from David's style he remained David's favorite pupil. When David was exiled, he left his studio and his pupils to Gros's care. Their friend ship lasted until David's death. The last years of Gros's life were unhappy. He had an uncongenial wife who deprived him of domestic happiness while his pro fessorship at the Ecole des Beaux Arts was made uncom fortable by the continued opposition and bitter attacks of Ingres who also was a professor. The rivalry be tween their studios was not professional, but per sonal, and on the part of Ingres, who had the stronger nature, persistently cruel and insulting. The miseries of Gros's life became greater than he could bear; he terminated them by suicide. Modern criticism is divided. Henry Lemonnier, his last biographer (Les THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 85 grands Artistes), does not seem to be in love with his subject. Of all David's pupils Ingres is the most important from the point of view of the history and development of painting ; the one who, though not a classicist in the accepted sense of the term, was the most faithful to the methods of teaching established by the great classic teacher, and the best fitted by his strong, aggressive, combative, and uncompromising nature to transmit and impose those methods. JEAN AUGUSTE DOMINIQUE INGRES (1780- 1867: P. d. R., 1801; *), 1824, and A., O. ft, 1826; C. ft, 1845; G. 0. ft, 1855; Gd. med. d'hon., 1855 E. U. ; Senateur in 1862). Ingres was born in Montauban, in the department of Tame and Garonne, in the South of France, about a hundred miles from the Spanish border and about thirty miles north of the city of Toulouse. His father in a small way was a painter and a musician. The boy was early trained in both arts, and in both so excelled that for a while his parents hesitated to which art to devote him. Finally the decision was in favor of painting, and he was sent to Toulouse, where there had been estab lished a Royal Academy of the Fine Arts. At Tou louse he met an artist of the name of Roques, of whom the only thing that seems to be known is that he was in Rome at the time David was there, that he made careful copies of a number of Raphael's pictures, and that he brought these copies back to Toulouse. These copies so fascinated the youthful Ingres that when quite old he stated that' they started his love for 86 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Raphael, and that love for Raphael had ever been the leading impulse of his artistic career, — religion de Raphael, he called it. When Ingres was sixteen, he was taken to Paris and placed in David's studio. At that time David was at the height of his reputation, and his studio was so thronged that it was good fortune for any one to be accepted. For six years Ingres was faithful in the discharge of his duties. By close attention to David's instruction and criticism he acquired those won derful powers of drawing which enabled him to express his idea with lines and shadows, and with color merely as an accessory. When he took the Prix de Rome in 1801, the French government was not in a position to send its pensionnaires to Italy. Instead they were al lowed 1000 francs a year and were assigned studios in the public buildings. From 1801 until 1806 Ingres lived in Paris, doing every kind of work that came to him, supporting himself as best he could. The excellence to which he had attained as a draughtsman is well illus trated by a drawing in the Louvre of a family of the name of Forestier with whom Ingres was intimate. In the center of the picture stands the young lady whom at one time Ingres expected to marry. With her left hand she touches the keys of a piano. Back of her is seated her mother, and on the right her father, each evi dently proud of the daughter. Back of the mother is seated a gentleman who may be the young lady's uncle or her grandfather. Off in the left is a servant. An admirable drawing. There is not a superfluous line, not a line that does not do its full duty. The ordinary social position of the family is evident. The commonplace, homely, and rather stupid charac- Fig. 64. — Gros. Francis I. and Charles V. at St. Denis. (Louvre) Fig. 65. — Ingres. CEdipus and the Sphinx. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 87 ter of the young lady is wonderfully, almost cruelly, exposed. In 1806 political excitements had sufficiently subsided to permit the reopening of Villa Medici, and pension naires were once more sent to Rome. From 1806 until 1812 Ingres hved at Rome in comparative comfort. Though his pension had ceased, he had commands from the French government, from Joachim Murat, the King of Naples, and made portraits for private parties. To this period of his life are due several works which were not highly appreciated at the time, but which are now ranked among his best productions. Of these the most impdTtant is " CEdipus and the Sphinx " of 1808, which is now in the Louvre, where it is called Oedipe expliquant VEnigme (Fig. 65), and of which Jules Mommeja writes as follows : " A haughty revelation of a new azsthetique which, based on realism, evokes antiquity ; a gleaming defiance thrown into the arena to the sugar-coated dis ciples of Louis David and to the weak and pale routines of his school. The subject is classic. Classic is also the apparent calm that reigns over the scene, relegating to a tragic shadow drama, passion, horror. And these are not concessions to the taste of the day. They are the exact restitution of the ancient legend as an Athenian painter might have represented it, as Sophocles himself might have fancied it. There are no concessions in this defiant work. There are no cothurni, no greaves, no helmet with triple plumes, no sculptured shield. All the archaeological bric-a-brac is reduced to two javelins with bronze points which the hero holds and to a light traveling hat which falls on his shoulders. Moreover, there is complete rupture with the pallid colorings bor- 88 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING rowed by David from Poussin and the Carracci. Ingres evidently has asked advice of the Italian masters of the Renaissance and also of Albrecht Diirer, who revealed to him distant perspectives and the tragic grandeur of denuded rocks, of which Ingres was the first French painter to make serious study uninfluenced by reminis cence of Poussin or of the Italianized landscape painters of the Netherlands. Finally, the body of CEdipus, though without the details of realism, has nothing in common with a classic statue. It is very individual and conscientiously studied after a model then in high repute in Roman studios. The head, of which the strong jaw must have drawn howls from the admirers of David's dandy Romulus and of Girodet's effeminate Endymions, seems an idealized portrait, of which the pouting lips, the hair growing low on the narrow fore head, the prominent cheek bones, the deep and gleam ing eye beneath a thick eyebrow, recall irresistibly Ingres's own features. So that this initial master piece seemed like an involuntary symbol, created by the artist, of the vengeful part he was to play and of the life of trials he was destined to live." The pic ture was exhibited in Paris at the Salon of 1809, and did not attract particular attention, because it was not understood. The bones in the lower left-hand corner may be tolerated; the upturned foot of a new victim is a blemish. In 1811 appeared Jupiter et Thetis (Fig. 66), a large picture now at Aix. This ought to have pleased the classicists as it is a literal transcription from Homer. Jupiter's masses of hair and beard, surround ing a comparatively small face, give him anything but Fig. GO. — Ingres. Jupiter and Thetis. (Aix) Fig. 67. — Ingres. Odalisque. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 89 a dignified and sovereign appearance. Juno's part in the scene is ridiculous. One of the last pictures Ingres painted during the First Empire is in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, opposite Delaroche's " Hemicycle," and represents Romulus car rying off the spoils of Acron, King of the Sabines, whom he had slain. A large and unattractive work. After the fall of Napoleon Ingres had a hard struggle for existence. He remained in Rome until 1820, support ing himself as best he could. During this period he produced a number of works, however, which are now properly appreciated. Among others, a large picture in the Louvre called L'Odalisque (Fig. 67), painted in 1814, but not exhibited until 1819. When exhibited, it was the object of loud and unjust criticism. The oda lisque is nude and is reposing on- blue cushions. She is seen from the back, with her head turned to the right so that the face is in profile. Her left foot is drawn up over her right leg. In her stretched out right hand she holds a fan of peacock's feathers. On the extreme right perfumes are burning. On the left are her jewels and her discarded yellow garments. On her head is a rich turban. To the right is a blue curtain, the ends of which she holds in her right hand with the fan. The picture is nearly six feet long, and the odalisque is life- size. The work is criticised for the stolid expression of the odalisque, for her enormous thigh, and for her negative coloring. The blues chosen are also not pleas ing. It is evident, from sketches, that Ingres at this time devoted himself to the study of the nude. He occasionally received an order for a religious picture. A specimen is Jesus Christ donne a Saint 90 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Pierre les Clefs du Paradis, now. in the Louvre (Fig. 68). It was painted in Rome in 1820 for the church of Trinita del Monte, where it remained until 1837, when it was purchased by the French government. It is not attractive. The same blue appears as in the " Oda lisque." The composition is bad. A line seems to ex tend from the Saviour's right hand to Saint Peter's iag-ht knee. Saint Peter has an unattractive head and face. His outer garment is fringed and has a singular cape. The picture was exhibited for the first time at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. In 1819, just be fore he left Rome, he painted one of his most interesting and charming pictures, Roger delivrant Angelique (Fig. 69), in which is shown how he had already mastered the beauty of the female form. The subject is taken from the " Orlando Furioso " of Ariosto. Roger, mounted on a hippogriff, is destroying the sea monster who was about devouring Angelique fettered to a rock by the pirates who had captured her. The Angelique of the picture is one of the most beautiful studies of the youthful female form in art. She is so youthful as to appear doll-like. It is evident that for this picture and for his " Jupiter and Thetis " he had the same ex quisite model. Roland on his hippogriff reminds one of the earliest pictures of Raphael. This picture was exhibited the year it was painted, and was ignored by the critics of the day, who called it " Gothic." At the time no term could have been more insulting. It is to day one of the treasures of the Louvre Collection. In 1820, finding it impossible to support himself in Rome, he went to Florence, where a friend of his youth, the great sculptor Bartolini, resided and had invited Fig. 68. — Ingres. Christ and Peter. (Louvre) Fig. 69. — Ingres. Roger delivering Angelica. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 91 him to accept his assistance and protection. At Flor ence, but not until 1824, he received from the French government an order for a picture which, when finished and exhibited in Paris, conquered criticism and enabled Ingres to return in triumph to the city from which poverty and hostile opposition had so long excluded him. The picture, which now hangs in the sacristy of the cathedral of Montauban, is called Le Vwu de Louis XIII. The vow Louis made, that he would give himself, his crown, and his kingdom to the Virgin should he be blessed with an heir has been treated by artists in various manners. The group "by Coustou in Notre Dame at Paris is the most conspicuous example. In Ingres's picture the king is on his knees before an altar above which appears the Virgin holding the child; the group is evidently inspired by Raphael's Madonna di Foligno. She appears behind curtains held back by angels. This motive may have been suggested by Raphael's Madonna di San Sisto. Near the king stand two angels holding an inscription, also a Raphael motive. The king kneels away from the spectator, but with his person so turned to the right as to show his profile. He is in his royal robes, bareheaded, and holds up to the Virgin his crown and scepter. In 1824 artistic Paris was strongly divided into two classes, the classic and the romantic. A classic artist, according to Delecluze, was one who, controlhng his imagination, confined himself to the mechanical imitation of ancient statues, or to the works of masters of the fourteenth century ; who ignored the present and re garded themes drawn from ancient poetry and history as the only themes worthy of the consideration of a great 92 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING artist. The term was particularly used to stigmatize the awkward imitators of David. A romantic artist, on the contrary, was one who regarded one subj ect as good as another, provided it was treated with strong color and with startling effect. Color and effect were of the first importance, and therefore the study of perspective, drawing, anatomy, and modeling was not to be recom mended, because it led to mathematical results and in terfered with the march and swing of genius. These definitions are extreme, and must only be accepted as indicating the violent oppositions which existed at the time. When Ingres's* picture reached Paris, each class claimed it as representing its principles. The classicists called attention to its accurate drawing, to its exact perspective, to the careful treatment of details, and to the subordination of color to form ; the romanticists, to the entire absence of classicism, the comparatively mod ern subject, and the decidedly modern treatment of de tails. When Ingres reached Paris, he was not slow in allying himself with the classic party. Though not a classicist from the extreme Davidian point of view, he was a pronounced enemy of romanticism in all its funda mental principles. Some of his extreme sayings are recorded by Andre Michel in his Notes sur I'Art Mo- derne: " Drawing is everything; it is the whole of art. The material methods of painting are easy enough and can be learned in a week." " A good designer can always find the color that exactly corresponds to the character of his work." " Do light and air change ? " he asked. " Has the soul of man changed since the time of Homer ? " He had no admiration for Rubens and Van Dyck. " They may please the eye," he wrote, THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 93 " but they deceive it. They belong to the bad school of colorists, the school of lies." In 1827, and as a pro fession of faith, he painted his celebrated apotheosis of Homer, Homere deifie (Fig. 71), as it is named in the French catalogues. It was painted for the ceiling of one of the halls of the Louvre. It was taken down for the Exposition Universelle of 1855 and was replaced by a copy. From 1855 until the death of the artist he was constantly changing the portraits in the foreground with his changing estimate of the merit of those rep resented. Who they are as the picture exists to-day it would be difficult to decide ; nor would the effort be interesting. The perspective of the picture is bad. Homer is supposed to be seated on a pedestal standing on the steps of a Greek temple. He is of such a size in proportion to the temple that he must be at a greater distance from the temple than the steps of a Greek temple were ever placed. Homer is of heroic build. So is the winged and floating Victory who crowns" him. At his feet and on a lower step are two figures rep resenting the Iliad and the Odyssey. They are ugly and ungraceful. The Iliad is draped in red. By her side is the sword of Achilles. The Odyssey is in sea green and gazes stupidly at the broken end of Ulysses' oar. At each side and on various levels are no end of figures, some in classic and some in modern costume. Those in modern dress, and on so low a step that only the upper part of their persons appears in the picture, are modern personages. These are the figures of which Ingres was continually changing the faces. These fig ures are on so much lower a level than the rest of the composition as to make an inharmonious contrast. You 94 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING can distinguish Racine and Moliere. Voltaire may be on the right, Dante and Raphael on the left. Ingres re fused absolutely to admit Shakespeare to his Pantheon. The coloring is not pleasing. There are parts of the picture that critics praise. There are single figures they pretend to admire. As a whole, the work is dis appointing and does not contribute to the artist's repu tation. At the foot are quotations from Greek and Latin authors. Seven years afterwards, in 1834, he painted another large picture as an answer to those of his critics who asserted that he had no command of action. This picture is now in the cathedral of Autun, a city of Burgundy, and represents Saint Symphorien being conducted from the city to his martyrdom (Fig. 72). The saint stands in the midst of his enemies, his arms outstretched and his gaze turned upward and to the right to his mother, who, according to the legend, exhorted her son from the walls of the city not to fear a death that would certainly bring him to heaven. Sym phorien suffered martyrdom at Autun in 179 a. di for refusing to worship Cybele. Though the figure and attitude of the saint are fine, there is the same crowding as in the apotheosis of Homer, and the mother looks too much as if she were stretching herself from an opera box. The colors of the picture have faded, or they were originally too tame and dull for so tragic a scene. Moreover, the multiplicity and the careful finish of details in the background distract attention from the principal action. This picture was painted in 1834, and was supposed to be in answer to those of Ingres's critics who assented that he could not represent figures in action. Fig. 71. — Ingres. Homer crowned. (Louvre) Fig. 72.— Ingres. St. Symphorien. (Autun) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 95 At the end of 1834 Ingres was appointed director of the French School at Rome. For six years he lived a happy life, devoting most of his time to instruction. During this period he painted but two pictures of im portance ; but one, according to some of his biographers who refer the "Odalisque" to the year 1809.1 The one picture about which there is no doubt is the " Stra- tonice " (Fig. 73), now at Chantilly. Seleucus, King. of Syria, when he was about sixty, married a little lady of seventeen with. whom his son fell so violently in love that he took to his bed and would have died. A wise physician was called in, discovered the cause of the son's malady, and revealed it to the father. He, to save the son's hfe, gave him the young wife and the two lived happily together ever after. The picture represents the moment when the wise physician discovers the cause and nature of the malady. That the wife returned the son's passion must be taken for granted. Beneath the semblance of a Greek temple the young man is writhing on his classic couch. By the side of the couch the father kneels in despair. Back of the couch stands the doctor. One hand is on the youth's heart. The other is raised to his chin, as he gazes at Stratonice in astonishment as the truth is revealed. Off to one side stands Stra tonice, a vision of loveliness and of innocent guilt. A huge curtain hangs from the top of the temple and over the head of the couch. The figure of Stratonice is bal- 1 The only way to reconcile differing biographers is on the supposition that Ingres painted several "Odalisques" and at far apart periods of his artistic career. The original conception dates back to his first residence in Rome. They all may have been commenced at this time, to be finished at later and different periods. I have not as yet found satisfactory au thority on the subject. — Ed. 96 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING anced on the other side by a classic chair bearing the youth's outer garments. The picture is as classic as possible. The accessions and background are ar chaeological transcripts. The picture is small, about three by one and one-half feet. The dimensions were prescribed by the Duke of Orleans, who ordered it and who wished it as a pendant to another picture. Ingres complained of the limitations and considered the theme worthy of greater space. The figure of Stratonice is exquisite. From the time Ingres returned to Paris, in 1841, until the time of his death his services were in constant demand. Many of his works started for members of the Orleans family were left unfinished by the Revolu tion of 1848 and have disappeared. Among the works to be seen, and worth seeing, are the Venus Anadyo- mene, of 1845, at Chantilly; and at the Louvre, the Apotheose de NapoUon I, of 1853, Jeanne Dare, of 1854, and, above all, La Source, of 1856. The Chantilly Venus (Fig. 74) was commenced in 1808 and was not finished until forty years afterwards. The drawing and modeling of the youthful goddess are exquisite. The figure is very real, perhaps too real for a goddess. The little loves who are about her are charming. One kisses her foot ; one embraces her knee ; a third holds up to her a mirror. The fourth one has just fired an arrow at a naiad riding a sea horse in the distance. The coloring is very delicate, appropriate, and sub ordinate. The Apotheose de Napoleon I is unfortu nately on a ceiling where few see it. It is thoroughly classic in treatment and as clean cut as an antique cameo. Ingres's Jeanne Dare is not satisfactory. Fig. 73. — Ingres. Stratonice. (Chantilly) ^^^^M^Bfc. * . . -r v'j i - K* -. ;'i fl i . t1 ^1 ¦' |, 0 m 1 B Jt flpr- JB8 H HQflEL i ¦ / 1 ! ¦ 1 3r " 1 ¦AM ^ 3 ^ 1 1 ¦ II ?4ta v" ;r.. 1 -- "-** A *xfe Fig. 74. — Ingres. Venus. (Chantilly) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 97 Jeanne is represented as a huge woman, clad in armor, standing in front of an altar in the cathedral of Rheims during the crowning of Charles VII. Her equerry, her chaplain, and her pages are behind her, kneehng or standing. Mommeja calls the picture a masterpiece .of archaeological science. La Source (Fig. 75), painted when Ingres was seventy-five, is one of the most refined and beautiful studies of the nude ever painted. The tender outlines and the delicate modeling of girlhood were never so exquisitely and innocently presented. All his hfe through, from the time he was a student, Ingres kept producing portraits which are marvels of intense individuality, and which show triumphantly what supreme effects can be produced by correct and con scientious drawing. Two in the Louvre are excellent specimens, and must terminate this very imperfect sketch. The one is of a Madame Riviere, and the other of a Monsieur Bertin. Bertin founded in 1788 the Journal des Debats, an evening paper which exists to-day, and which in a measure corresponds to the " New York Evening Post." Bertin was a journalist, a politician, a philanthropist, and a disinterested patriot in the very best sense of the word. His wise and altruistic benig nity, his kind and gentle sympathies, are admirably ex pressed in this wonderful picture (Fig. 76). He is beginning to feel the sad burdens of age and he is ap prehensive of the outcome of his country's politics. How noble his forehead, how strong and searching his glance ! It would be useless to attempt to deceive a man with such eyes and with such a strong, yet delicate mouth: Notice how his, fingers are spread out as if to better support his large and enfeebled body. He left 98 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING sons and grandsons and great-grandsons to carry on his work and to perpetuate his memory. The portrait of Madame Riviere shows the artist's skill in quite an other direction. Madame Riviere is a fine specimen of a Frenchwoman of rank, distinction, culture, refinement, and wit. In this portrait every detail is given with con summate skill and with exact rendering, yet details do not obtrude upon the general effect. The coloring too is consistent, bright, delicate, airy. Madame Riviere must have been delighted with her portrait, and Ingres must have been delighted to paint it. Near the portrait of Madame Riviere hangs a picture by Ingres called La Baigneuse and assigned to 1814. A nude woman seen from the back sits on a couch. She has rolled about her head a white kerchief striped with red, and about her left arm is wrapped a towel. On the left is a green curtain, and in the distance is something that looks like a bathtub with a faucet. From many draw ings it is evident that Ingres planned a large Eastern bathing scene, of which this was to be one of the figures. A more wonderful specimen of flesh painting and color modeling does not exist. The color is rich and warm. It is evident from this study that the only reason why Ingres was not a colorist was because he considered the effects produced by line alone as more worthy of his artistic aim. The last years of Ingres's life were the happiest. He had acquired wealth and distinction. He was sur rounded by devoted and enthusiastic pupils, and he died during the most brilliant period of the Second Empire before his country had suffered the degradation of the Prussian War. The principles established by David, Fig. 75. — Ingres. The Spring. (Louvre) Fig. 76.— Ingres. M. Bertin. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 99 broadened and solidified by Ingres, are the true prin ciples of painting. The fallacies of impressionism for a while obscured the eyes of painters and deceived the understandings of critics. But the clouds are passing away, and convictions are returning that long, con scientious, and unremitting technical labor must pre cede flights of fancy; that drawing, modeling, plastic anatomy, and perspective are as essential in painting as bones and muscles are essential to the human frame, and that violations of fundamental laws in art are as deadly as they would be in Nature herself. Until these views are accepted, there will be no painting worthy of the name in this or in any other country. The painters of the day, with but few honorable exceptions, have no notion of the necessities or the capacities of the art they profess to exercise. Their case is hopeless. The only hope for the art is in the proper education of youthful aspirants. Before passing "to Ingres's pupils, the so-called Ro mantic School he so bravely fought must be considered. Though Gros had shown in a measure that painting was independent of classicism, the great prophet of the independent movement was Gericault. JEAN LOUIS ANDRE THEODORE GERICAULT (1791-1824). Gericault was born in Rouen and died in Paris. He was the son of a prosperous lawyer who gave him the benefit of a Paris education in the classics. He early developed a taste for drawing and was especially fond of drawing horses. He soon gave up every notion of being anything but a painter and devoted himself with 100 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING energy to a study of the old masters in the Louvre. He studied for a while under Guerin and Regnault, but never was influenced by David. In 1812, when twenty- one, he exhibited a portrait of a cavalry officer which made a sensation (Fig. 77). Mounted on an impetu ously rearing charger and turned nearly around in his saddle, his saber grasped in his right hand and extended over the left flank of the horse, the officer is calhng upon his troops to follow him into the battle of which a bit is seen on the right. The picture is painted with tre mendous dash and fervor. The paint is applied with impetuous strokes. Such utter disregard of classicism and of the prescribed technique of David's school took Paris by surprise. The younger painters raged with enthusiasm over the new principles imparted to paint ing. David's partisans were filled, or pretended to be, with horror at the gross violation of the principles they had been taught. Two years later Gericault exhibited a similar picture, called " The Wounded Cuirassier " (Fig. 78). A wounded officer is leading his horse away from battle and down an incline. Holding his horse by the bridle and leaning on his sword, he turns his head towards the fight, on a bridge in the distance. The horse is superb, and the evening landscape is tragic. But the main figure is weak, too hastily painted. Geri cault himself said of it that it had a calf's'head and the eye of an owl. This picture reopened the fight, which this time was decidedly in favor of the classicists. In 1819 appeared Gericault's memorable picture, Le Ra- deau de la Medu.se (Fig. 79). A horrible scene is un rolled. The raft is beaten by an unchained sea. The sky is filled with threatening darkness. The dead and Fig. 77. — Gericault. Mounted officer. (Louvre) Fig. 78. — Gericault. Dismounted officer. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 101 dying are lying in confusion across the timbers which are swept by the waves. On the right a group, still ob stinately clinging to hfe, piles itself up on the edge of the raft, frantically hailing a far distant sail. Every thing contributes to produce that element of agony and suspense which is most appropriate t6 the drama and to its complex unity. The dark and dusky sky is here and there zigzagged with livid flashes. The corpses in the foreground are connected with the zone of feverish activity by the feeble movements of the agonizing. The angular position of the raft calls attention to the direc tion of the expected rescue. The technical qualities of the picture are of the highest order. The powerful modeling of the naked bodies shows both the stiffening and the yielding of the last convulsions. Those who still drag themselves along contort and quiver with master strokes of genius. Equal power is shown in the admir able torso of the negro who holds aloft and shakes a piece of sail. The only bit of classicism in the picture is the old man in the foreground holding the body of his son, recalling Guerin's Brutus. This great picture did not meet with success. Classicism was still too strong. The public was not yet ready for so complete a depart ure from the past. Gericault could not sell his picture. He had it taken to London, and there exhibited it with such profit that for three years he remained in Eng land painting pictures for English taste (Fig. 80). He returned from England an invalid, and died when but thirty-three. French critics are fond of speculat ing as to what might have happened had he lived longer and had he lived in vigorous health. Of the " Raft of the Medusa " Gautier writes as fol- 102 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING lows: "The 'Raft of the Medusa,' which Gericault painted upon his return from Italy, was an event ; more than that, a revolution. It is difficult nowadays to understand how greatly such a subject was calculated to shock the public and, above all, the artists of the times. Only mythology and classical antiquity were considered worthy to furnish subjects for historical painting. The idea of piling up a crowd of miserable, starving creatures upon a raft, hammered by the waves — the stronger ones just able to lift themselves above the mass of the dead and the dying — must have seemed, and did seem, monstrous. If even it had been a Homeric or a Virgilian shipwreck! But these poor devils are modern, contemporary, real. Their disaster was no earlier than 1816, and the picture which represented them in all the horrors of truth was exhibited three years after. By one of those fits of blindness which posterity cannot understand, though they always occur at each succeeding apparition of genius, this master work was generally found detestable.. The poetry, so poignant in its reality, was not felt. There was no response to the dramatic effect of the livid sky and of the yellow sea, smashing its sinister waves against the corpses rolling amid the raft's timbers ; the sea insult ing with its salt flood the thirst of the dying and shak ing with its enormous shoulder the frail stage of agony and despair. The anatomical science displayed, the force of color, the largeness of touch, the grand energy, reflecting M. Angelo, only excited disdain and repro bation. After the death of Gericault, in 1824, his heirs at one time thought of cutting the picture into four parts, as its size made it difficult to be disposed of. It Fig. 79. — Gericault. The raft of the Meduse. (Louvre) so I a, ! THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 103 was saved by the devotion of two friends. Now, safely housed in the Louvre, it shines forth to universal admiration." Though Gros and Gericault had here and there broken through the monotonous uniformity which the style of David had frozen over the French School of painting, classicism was still solid, though there were beneath the surface many heavings, many crackings. At last there arose an artist sufficiently gifted and ener getic to break the ice to pieces and to give freedom to every artistic pulsation. The hopes Hugo realized in poetry and Berlioz in music, Delacroix realized in painting. FERDINAND VICTOR EUGENE DELACROIX (1798-1863: Med. 2nd cl., 1824; Med. 1st cl., 1848; *, 1831; O. *, 1846; I., 1857). Delacroix was born in Charenton, close to Paris, and died in Paris. He was the son of a distinguished diplomatist who served the Republic in many capacities and who under the Empire was imperial representative, first at Marseilles, and afterwards at Bordeaux. He was rich, and gave his son every educational advantage. Delacroix early manifested talent. He studied awhile with Guerin, who did not appreciate him. Then he became the companion of Gros and Gericault, who ap preciated his talents and gave him encouragement and assistance. In 1822, in his twenty-third year, he exhib ited the first of his pictures that attracted attention. It represents Dante and Virgil in the Infernal Regions (Fig. 81). The two are in a boat. Virgil, draped in red and with a crown of laurels on his head, stands in 104 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING about the middle of the boat. By his side is Dante, his arms outstretched in horror as he regards the damned in their convulsions amid the waves. Some fasten their teeth to the boat as if they would destroy or upset it. In the distance are seen the fires of hell. The dark, somber colors of sea and sky are in keeping with the subject. The modeling of the bodies of the damned is in large surfaces without sharp outlines. Water shines on them as the sweat of agony. They are convulsed pictures of despair and rage. " No picture more surely shows the future of a great painter," wrote M. Thiers, and added : " The artist throws in his figures ; groups them, twists them at will with the boldness of M. Angelo and the ease of Rubens." The picture was bought by the state for 1200 francs, and now hangs in the Louvre. The original sketch in oil of the picture is in the United States. It belonged to the John Taylor Johnston Col lection and was sold at auction for $800. In this pic ture, as in all Delacroix's pictures, the individual is not made prominent. Delacroix was not a successful painter of por traits. He depicts the action and the collision of moral forces ; the extremes of human movements, pas sions, and conditions. In 1824 appeared his picture of " The Massacre of Scio " (Fig. 82), an incident in the war of Greek Independence. Its object was to set forth the extreme horrors of war as it was being waged be tween the Greeks and the Turks. The subject was treated with an originality of irregular conception and a startling brilliancy of color that took Paris by storm and placed Delacroix at the head of the so-called school of Romanticism. In the foreground is a group of Fig. 81. — Delacroix. Virgil and Dante. (Louvre) Fig. 8-2.— Delacroix. Massacre of Scio. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 105 wounded who seem waiting for death. In the center are two lovers embracing as if for the last time. Near them is a dying man sustaining a young girl. On the left stands a Greek officer in a resigned attitude. At his feet is a woman embracing her child. On the extreme right are an old Greek with haggard eyes, and a child clinging to the breast of its dead mother. In the middle distance is a mounted Turkish soldier drawing his scimiter to strike a Greek who hangs to his saddle. To the tail of his rearing horse is bound a girl who tries to hide her face. In the distance are fighting and the sea. The girl tied to the horse's tail is, in the opinion of a famous French critic (Paul de Saint Victor), as beautiful as a Niobe, as touching as a Christian martyr. In the midst of horrors she has the divinity of an alle gory. She personifies Greece plundered and violated, still struggling against oppression. It would be im possible in this work to give in detail the events of Dela croix's life, or to describe in detail all his pictures. He was punctilious, polite, affable. His manners were pol ished and refined. He was very particular about his personal appearance, and always appeared in correct and fashionable dress. From his pictures you might have expected a wild-eyed, long-haired, and tumultuous creature, in exaggerated costume. You found a gentle man so dainty and admirably gotten up as to be almost a dandy. The high level in his particular style, to which he early attained, he kept up to the end of his life. He painted so consistently and uniformly that it is impossible to state that at one period of his life he was a better painter than "at any other. In 1831 he painted a picture to give his impressions 106 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING of the Revolution of 1830 (Fig. 83). Upon a partially demolished barricade strewed with corpses, Liberty, in the figure of a half-naked young woman, wearing a Phrygian cap, holding in one hand a gun and in the other a flag, turns her face back to the left and leads on the fighting. On her right a boy brandishes pistols. On the left a citizen in his holiday dress holds his gun with frenzied grasp. Behind is a mob armed with sabers. In the distance on the right are the towers of Notre Dame and an advancing squadron of cavalry. This is the only one of Delacroix's pictures in which the figures are clothed in the French dress of the day. A female leader with exposed breast was no uncommon sight dur ing the Revolution. Delacroix was so pleased with this picture that he selected it as his claim for admission to the Academy. In it is seen to advantage his peculiar style of composition. He does not make any individual figure conspicuous by subordinating others. The woman, the boy, and the dressed up man are equally conspicuous and equally well drawn and painted. They all present the theme with equal force and with equal directness. They are equally alive and vibrant, and show that the deaths in the foreground have not been in vain. In 1838, on the order of Louis Philippe, he painted the " Capture of Constantinople by the Cru saders on the 12th of April, 1204 (Fig. 84). The pic ture, which was not finished and exhibited until 1841, is in style so like " The Massacre of Scio " as to presup pose similarity of time and influences of composition. The city has already been captured and plundered. One of the leaders of the Crusaders advances on horseback followed by his suite bearing banners. Surviving inhab- wig .¦¦'..' M& Wf„ i s nfj& \ ^M L l^i 1 / l X; ' ''¦- )Vj :^M^ k**" ^¦n-.^.t'; ¦r L mv> 7 "'V; -JI^mWhI ^feg,.' ^JI^bV L ',3*! ^^Sw^aH! KjL:-J :raH E./4iH IBtLj#V 1 ' HflH HBnJ ItaM g& -K 'y-yMMf- \ ^¦Hvim ulsH jj^v ' ' j-* j -<«^^^Eej 110 kV-""*"""*-^ v '?A' jBfijy™ ll!l^ if "a:.a-'.-: '.: fffrfa A.jfll ^p^ H^^ ¦ "J3 1 i^^2i»l ¦ ^Bjt»!5^^^j)ljflf /*^BbB" Wot K*--- ^H I»v»'-,'*'3Bl^" l^s? «K^^3| IuHhE^*'x - JS h!^ t* i ' " < Hr» •'' * ¦ j&ml "'fev^H' P?;l HR^lffflKgj PS^*:--,;;'' ctI . 1 . A " ;_- - " " -- - _S *> ^ »<¦ ¦ Jt*^N P^^Jl^j Fig. 84.— Delacroix. The crusaders take Constantinople, April 13, 1304. (Louvre) "3i-a o 6C THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 107 itants meet them and fall to their knees imploring pro tection. On the right a half-naked young woman with disheveled and streaming hair bends over the dead body of her mother. On the left an old man surrounded by his family implores protection. On the extreme left is the portico of a mansion from which the proprietor is being ejected by a soldier. In the distance are seen the city in flames and the blue waters of the Bosphorus. Still far ther in the distance appear the coasts of Asia. Henry Marcel writes of this picture : " You are not so much in the presence of a veritable drama as you are witnessing the play of decorative ordinances, seeking the theme of a colored sympathy amid the various elements of the spec tacle. In this order of composition, affected by Paul Veronese, artistic interest distributed itself indifferently over the pearly back of the woman, the rosy gray of the horse's coat, the flying banners, the resplendent armor, the classic splendor of the colonnade, or the turquoise sea dissolving into the mists of the far distance." In plain English, the picture is a superb example of Dela croix's skill as a colorist, and has been the study, the delight, and the puzzle of French colorists ever since it was painted. The modern school of impressionism, for tunately fast going to the dogs, claims Delacroix as their patron saint and founder. Delacroix would have despised the school, its adherents and its methods. Another picture of wonderful intensity and brilliancy of color is his " Interior of a Turkish Harem." In a room of which the walls are ornamented with porcelain are carelessly reclining three odalisques in most brilliant costumes. One, on the left, reclining against a cushion, seems to be in a revery. The right-hand one is prepar- 108 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ing to smoke a narghileh, while the third one looks on. On the extreme right a negress, about leaving the apart ment, turns to her mistresses and raises her right hand. She seems to be hurrying, as if in answer to a request or an order. The picture is not only a wonderful piece of color, but it shows vividly the heavy atmosphere, the painted and unattractive inmates, the cheap furnishing, and the oppressive dullness of an Eastern harem. Delacroix lived until 1863, when he was sixty-four. He died with his head full of plans for future works, as his diary reveals. He gave to painting full liberty of subject, method, and technique. Ever since he began to exercise an influence there has been no prescribed method. There always will be artists who prefer line to color, or, vice versa, color to line, and they may carry their preferences to hurtful extremes. The followers of David may call themselves Academists and the followers of Delacroix may call themselves Romanticists. The true artist will accept the method that gives him the best assistance in expressing his ideas, but he will be the slave of none. If he has no ideas or sentiments, no method can supply the want. Many artists flourished during the first half of the nineteenth century who cannot be strictly classified with either the Classicists or with the Romanticists but who studied the manners of each while forming styles which were original and independent. Some of the artists were sufficiently long-lived to continue their activities into the Third Republic. Among those whose works are still interesting may be mentioned the following : THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 109 XAVIER SIGALON (1788-1837: K, 1826?). Sigalon was born at Uzes, a small town in the depart ment of Gard in the Southeast of France near the mouth of the river Rhone. He died in Rome. He first studied at Nimes, the chef lieu of Gard, and then in Paris under P. Guerin. He has two pictures in the Louvre, a " Vision of Saint Jerome " and a " Young Courtesan." The first picture (Fig. 85) represents Saint Jerome stretched out on a rock to whom three angels appear. One seems soaring to heaven ; the others sound trumpets. On the right is a hon, on the left a mantle and a red hat. The picture is about thirteen by seven and one-half feet ; the figures are over life-size. The picture was exhibited in 1831 and was bought by Charles X for 2000 francs. It has been much injured. The upper part and the lower corners are obscure. The composition is heroic, but not attractive, suggested prob ably by a study of Michael Angelo. The Jeune Cour- tejsane (Fig. 86) was painted nine years earlier and before Sigalon yielded himself to asceticism. A greater contrast than between the two pictures cannot be im agined. She stands between two adorers, evidently in different to each. From the middle-aged one on her right she . accepts a casket of j ewels, while receiving a note from the young and impulsive lover on her left and par tially behind her. On the note is written, " Al' idole del mio cuore." Back of the lady is her maid, a negress, who puts her finger to her lips as if recommending cau tion to the young man. The woman is superbly beau tiful. The composition is hvely and interesting. The picture is very Italian and might be assigned to Guer- 110 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING cino. Gautier says the first picture is terrible; the second charming. There are pictures by Sigalon at Nimes and at Nantes. His chief work is a copy of Michael Angelo's " Last Judgment," now in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and one of its chief treasures. This copy excited so much interest and admiration that Sigalon was persuaded to return to Rome to copy Michael Angelo's prophets and sibyls. He had hardly commenced the second work when he was carried off by the cholera in his forty-ninth year. FRANCIS JOSEPH HEIM (1787-1865 : Gd. p. d. R., 1807; I., 1829; ^,1825; O. l*,1855; Gd. med. d'hon., 1855 E. U.). Heim was born at Belfort near the Swiss border. He first studied in Strasburg, where at the age of eleven he took the first prize for drawing, at the Ecole Centrale. In 1803 he went to Paris and studied under Vincent. On his return to Paris from Italy he was awarded a gold medal of the first class at the Salon of 1812. After that his successes continued up to the time of his death. His principal works are in and about Paris. They show great and variable ability. Two of his easel pictures are in the Louvre. The ceilings of two of the halls of the Louvre are covered with his decorative paintings. He also decorated the Salle des Conferences of the Cham ber of Deputies. Before the Revolutions of 1830 and of 1848 his pictures were to be seen at many of the churches of Paris. Some are still at Versailles. One of the pictures at the Louvre is called " Subject from the History of the Jews by Josephus " (Fig. 87). When Jerusalem was captured by the Romans, a number of Fig. 85. — Sigalon. St. Gerome. (Louvre) Fig. 86. — Sigalon. The Courtesan. (Louvre) 3 o a 'S x ho £ Fig. 88. — Heim. Reading. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 111 men, women, and children, relying on the words of false prophets, took refuge in one of the courts of the temple, where they were massacred. In the foreground a hus band is trying to save his wife and child from being trampled to death by the horse of a soldier who is about crushing his skull with an axe. In the background are various scenes of massacre. Smoke and flames hide the architecture of the temple. The picture shows the artist to be a finished draughtsman, and a master of the heroic style. The quick action of the husband, the extended arm of the suppliant and prone wife, and the baby are superb specimens of academic drawing. The picture is large, about twelve by fourteen feet. It was painted in 1821 when Heim was thirty-four. The other picture, painted six years later, shows an entirely different style. The scene is laid in the Salon Carre of the Louvre, and shows Charles X distributing recompenses to artists at the end of the Exposition of 1824. On the walls of the Salon are hung the most celebrated pictures of the Ex position. In the center of the scene, in front of a table and surrounded by his court, the king is conferring on Cartelier the order of Saint Michel. Charles Vernet, standing near, has just been decorated. In the group on the right are seen in front Baron Gros and Baron Regnault in the costume of Academicians. Near the king are the Vicomte de la Rochefoucauld with the list of those to be honored and the Comte de Forbin, director of the Museums. The picture is about five feet high and about seven and a half feet long. There arc one hundred and one figures in the scene. The grouping is easy and natural. Each face shows by its individu ality that it must be a portrait. The picture was ex- 112 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING hibited in 1827. Twenty years later Heim painted another picture in which large numbers of people are grouped with skill and where portraits are accurate. This picture, now at Versailles, represents Audrieux reading a manuscript in the foyer of the Comedie Fran- caise (Fig. 88) before the great artists, writers, and actors of the day. Among those who can be recognized are Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Scribe, Le Brun, Casimir Delavigne, Chateaubriand, Jules Lefevre, Made moiselle Mars, etc. The picture is only a little smaller than the preceding one. There are several portraits by Heim at Versailles and several battle-pieces. Among the latter the " Battle of Rocroy " is the most noticeable (Fig. 89). The victory of Rocroy was gained in 1643 by the Due d'Enghien, afterwards known as Le Grand Conde, when he was twenty-two, over the combined Ger man and Spanish forces. It was one of the great vic tories of French history. Heim has chosen for his pic ture an episode that occurred at the end of the battle. A large body of Spaniards having made signs of sur render, the French advanced to receive their submission, when they were met by a discharge of musketry. This so incensed them that they commenced an indiscriminate slaughter of their foes, which was only stopped by Enghien rushing between them, showing that he was as merciful as brave. The picture is admirably com posed and managed. Enghien, on his white horse and in his brilliant uniform, occupies the center of the pic ture and is the one bright and conspicuous object. On one side are the onrushing French; on the other, the suppliant Spaniards. Enghien is followed by his staff, who preserve proper calm and imperturbability. The ....¦.'.-...-¦A'- ""^SSl 1 ^RxH ¦F ')Jf«V ' ^^*rWi _iS A J .-..¦¦ & 1 [^f"';'< ^^^ ¦ * l^fc j* -—- ij 1 Fig. 89.— Heim. The battle of Rocroy. (Versailles) Fig. 90. — Ary Seheffer. Rimini. (Wallace Gal., London) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 113 beauty and parade-day splendor of the chief admirably mitigate the horrors of battle. The landscape must not be overlooked ; the far extending reach on the left, the de serted camp of the Spaniards, and the towers of the town of Rocroy are all admirably given. Heim was a great artist and must be better recognized by modern taste. ARY SCHEFFER (1795-1858: C. *, 1848). Seheffer was born in Dordrecht in Holland. He early manifested talent for painting. He is said to have won at Amsterdam a prize for drawing when he was eleven. When he was seventeen, his mother, who had been left a widow, took him to Paris and placed him in Guerin's studio, where he met Gericault and other young disciples of Romanticism. He soon developed an independent style, which was more German 'than French and to which he adhered all his life long, though he continued to reside in Paris. He died at Argenteuil, not far from Paris. No painter has been more variously esteemed. He has met more favor from the public than from his fellow artists, who are inclined to think his subjects and their treatment outside the domain of the arts of design. Fifty years ago no artist was more popular. Engrav ings of his works were found wherever engravings were exposed. About 1860 appeared Vitet's rather long but very comphmentary account of Seheffer, which should be read by those wishing to form an unbiased opinion of the artist.1 Seheffer exhibited different styles of painting, but was most successful in the sentimental and romantic. Towards the end of his long, prosperous, and happy hfe, he devoted himself to religious subjects, in 1 L. Vitet, Elude sur VHistoire de V Art, vol. iii. pp. 310 et seq. 8 114 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING which he renewed the success of earlier years. The first of his pictures to attract attention was painted in 1819, was at Versailles, and is called Les Bourgeois de Calais. This was followed in 1822 by perhaps his very best work, from an artist's point of view, Francoise de Rimini, now in the Wallace Gallery of London (Fig. 90) . In 1824 "was painted his Mort de Gaston de Foix, a large work, variously criticised, often retouched by the artist before it was exhibited. The head of the dying hero is regarded as particularly fine. Near him is Bayard. Among the Spanish prisoners is the Cardinal de' Medici, afterwards Leo X. In 1827 appeared Les Femmes Souliotes (Fig. 92), a large and poor picture, inspired by the Greek struggle for independence, to be compared with Delacroix's Scenes des Massacres de Scio. The poor success of this picture induced Seheffer to change his style. He next appears before the public as an illustrator of Goethe's Faust. His pictures of Mar guerite a, la Fontaine, Marguerite au Prie-Dieu, La Promenade au Jardin, and other Marguerites, with or without Faust, excited the highest enthusiasm and re main to-day his most popular works. Of Scheffer's final and religious style, Saint Augustin et Sainte Monique, of the Louvre, is a good specimen (Fig. 93). Mother and son, seated hand in hand on the border of the sea, look up to heaven with expressions of ecstasy. The ex pression of the mother is exaggerated and painful, but is a wonder of execution. At Versailles there are sev eral large historic paintings by Seheffer and a few ex cellent portraits. He was a good draughtsman and a fair composer. His coloring is thin, but well adapted to his intentions and to his designs. Fig. 93.— Ary Seheffer. The women of Souli. (Louvre) Fig. 93. — Ary Seheffer. St. Augustin and St. Monica. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 115 The Vernets' It seems best to consider together the various artists of the Vernet family, though HORACE (1789-1863) is the only one within the limits of this work. The first Vernet to appear in art is ANTOINE, who was born in Avignon in 1689 and died there in 1753. He is known as a decorator. He ornamented carriages and chaises a, porteurs. Specimens of his work are still to be seen at Avignon. He married Marie Therese Gravier and was the father of twenty-two children, of whom thirteen survived him and several became artists. The most successful was his second son, CLAUDE JOSEPH (1714-1789), who when he was still very young aided his father in his work. His youthful talents were so marked that, assisted by friends, his father sent him to Aix where there was a school of painting. When he was but seventeen, he was employed by a Marquis Simiane to decorate a palace he was build ing at Aix. He acquitted himself so well of this charge that the marquis and his friends raised a fund to enable the young painter to go to Rome and complete his studies. He reached Rome in 1834, when he was twenty. His taste led him to landscape painting and particularly to landscapes with marine effects. In this style he soon became celebrated. By the time he was twenty-five he was married happily and was selling his pictures as fast as he could paint them. Among the purchasers was the Due de Saint Aignan, French ambassador to Rome, who carried Vernet's reputation back with him to Paris. In 1750 he received an order to paint two pictures for Madame de Pompadour. In 1753 he went to Paris 110 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING where the same year he was made an Academician and received from the king an order to paint twenty harbors of France for which he was to receive 6000 francs apiece. He received very explicit orders, not only in reference to the harbors to be painted, but in reference to the point of view of each picture. Vernet at once set about the work and as early as October, 1753, was at Marseilles with which harbor he was ordered to com mence. He devoted nine years to the commission and had finished fifteen pictures when he returned to Paris and refused to continue the contract. He had not been paid as stipulated. He was tired of the monotony of the occupation and on more than one occasion he had been bombarded by English vessels. In 1765 he added one more picture to the series by painting the harbor of Dieppe. He continued to paint, exhibited pictures after he was seventy, and lived peacefully and prosper ously until he was seventy-five. Besides the views of French harbors the Louvre has over twenty of his works, some of them well worthy of modern esteem and admira tion. Composite landscape painting is certain again to have its day. Claude Joseph left four children. One, Antoine Charles Horace (1758-1836), called Carle, adopted his father's profession. A daughter was guillotined. Carle Vernet was an extraordinary character. He was very talented, was a dandy and a great sportsman. At seventy he would tire out two horses a day and dance until daylight. His caricatures are among the best. When inclined, he painted superb battle-scenes. He seemed to be able to do anything he pleased but was not disposed to take life or his profession seriously. a « 6h Fig. 95.— H. Vernet. Fontenoy. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 117 There is a large picture by him in the Louvre repre senting a hunt during the reign of Charles X. Some of his battle pieces are at Versailles. He is best known as his father's son and as his son's father. His son was JEAN EMILE HORACE VERNET (1789-1863: A., 1826; *, 1814; Gd. med., 1855 E. U.; G. C. K, 1862). This Vernet was born and died in Paris. He was one of the greatest of French painters. He was brought up by his very irregular father in a very irregular manner. He wished to be a soldier. His father prevented it by marrying him, before he was twenty. In 1810 he tried for the Prix de Rome, but failed. At the Salon of 1812 he carried off a medal for a military picture painted for Jerome, King of West phalia. In 1814 he was a lieutenant in the National Guard and received the Cross of the Legion of Honor for bravery in defending the Barriere de Clichy. Dur ing the Restoration he remained an ardent Bonapartist and painted pictures which were intended by indirection and implication to keep alive the Napoleonic spirit. These works were engraved by thousands and scattered over France. The subjects were such as " Napoleon on the Evening of Waterloo," " The Rock of Saint Helena," " The Horse of the Trumpeter," " The Last Cartridge," etc. In 1822 the pictures he sent to the Salon were re fused on account of their Napoleonic character. He opened his studio to the public, who for weeks crowded to see the rejected works. Among them was La Defense de la Barriere de Clichy, which some artists regard as the best picture he ever painted (Fig. 94). The allies attempted to enter Paris by the Barriere de Clichy, but it was so stoutly defended that they were held in check 118 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING until news was brought that the city had capitulated. In the center on horseback is Marshal Moncey, who seems to be giving orders to Odiot who had command of the barrier. To their left are grenadiers, cavaliers, and members of the National Guard; some wounded, others apparently awaiting orders. On the right are two young soldiers wounded and a peasant-woman driven inside with the few household goods she has been able to save. At the barrier are artillery men maneuvering a gun. The picturesque disorder of the action, the acci dental mingling of diverse troops, and the sudden and unexpected attack seem vividly real. The impression made on the mind of the young lieutenant must have been strong and true. From 1822 until 1827 he painted superb battle pieces, which have never been surpassed; the battles of Je- mappes, November 6, 1792; Montmirail, February 11, 1814 ; Hanau, October 30, 1813 ; Valmy, September 20, 1792, painted for the Due d'Orleans for the gallery of the Palais Royal, and in which there are no Napoleonic allusions. It was on the merit of these pictures that he was made an Academician in 1826. Where these pictures are now is unknown. Copies of them are at Versailles. Charles X, soon afterwards, jealous it is said of the protection accorded the artist by the Due d'Orleans, ordered several pictures of him including the battles of Bouvines and of Fontenay (Fig. 95), two of his most charming compositions and to-day two of the chief ornaments of the Gallerie des Batailles at Ver sailles. In 1828 Vernet was appointed director of the French School at Rome. He stayed in Rome until 1835. On his return, and under the patronage of Louis Phi- Fig. 96. — H. Vernet. La Smalah. 1. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 119 lippe, he resumed the painting of Napoleon's victories, — the battles of Jena, Friedland, and Wagram, which are now at Versailles. In 1836 he was commissioned by the king to decorate the new Salle de Constantine at Versailles with paintings illustrating the exploits of French troops in Algiers and commemorating the heroism of the king's sons. To study the country he made four separate trips to Algiers, and familiarized himself not only with the sites of the battles, but with the characteristics of the natives. To describe properly the pictures, he produced would fill a volume. They are worthy of the closest study. Of them all, La Smalah d'Abd-el-Kader (Fig. 96) is the largest, finest, most characteristic, and grandest monument to the artist's tal ent. It is panoramic, about seventy feet long and over eighteen feet high. The "smalah," or encampment, of Abd-el-Kader was taken by surprise by the Due d'Au male in 1843, at the head of two regiments of cavalry (Figs. 96 and 97). 1 As the encampment included Abd- el-Kader's residence, court, harem, treasury, and many chiefs with wives and families, every kind of surprise is depicted, even to the humorous. The tragedy of the scene is relieved in the details by touches of French humor and of comic exaggeration. From start to finish Vernet painted with the joyous impulse of enduring artistic youth. A greater monument to French art does not exist. Although Vernet 's heart was in his military pictures, he painted pictures of a different character, which some of his critics consider he regarded merely as exercises of composition and color. Two painted in Rome, now 1 The views give only pieces of the work. 120 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING in the Louvre, are good specimens. Judith et Holo- pherne (Fig. 98) was painted in 1830, and Raphael au Vatican a year or two later. In the first Holopherne's tranquil slumbers are about to be rudely terminated. Judith is of heroic size and force, and is preparing a blow that would decapitate a bull. Her tremendous size and fury are not without a touch of the comic. Raphael au Vatican (Fig. 99) is a charming compo sition. Raphael, in one of the courts of the Vatican and surrounded by his pupils, is sketching a mother and child who apparently have fallen asleep.- On steps above and to the right is Michael Angelo, viewing the group below with interest. Still higher up and on the left is the Pope, Julius II, giving directions to his builders. In the background are the corridors of the Vatican rising one above the other. Those in the least interested in Horace Vernet must read Sainte-Beuve's articles. The Revolution of 1848 seemed to affect Vernet deeply. It upset his habits and disturbed his thoughts. He had been through too many changes already. He was too old to accustom himself to a new state of things. The pictures he painted after 1848 lacked spirit ; were monotonous, dreary, mechanical. At the Exposition Universelle of 1855, where many of his works were exhibited, he received La Grande Medaille d'Honneur with Decamps, Delacroix, Heim, Dupont, Ingres, and Meissonier. A month before he died Napoleon III conferred upon him the Croix de Grand Officier de la Legion d'Honneur. Fig. 98. — II. Vernet. Judith and Holophernes. (Louvre) Fig. 99. — H. Vernet. Raphael at the Vatican. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 121 LOUIS CHARLES AUGUSTE COUDER (1790- 1873: Of, 1832; A., 1839; O. *, 1841; Med. 1st cl., 1848), a pupil of David and of Regnault. Couder was an artist of proper preparation and of talent who is not so well known to-day as he deserves to be. His Serment de Jeu de Paume (Fig. 100) at Ver sailles is a grand picture. His Siege d'Yorck-Town, also at Versailles (Fig. 101), puts Washington a bit in the background, but is an admirable composition. Couder, as did all artists of his time, mastered technique before presuming to expose his works. How different nowadays ! A large picture in the Louvre by Couder, called Le Levite d'Ephraim (Fig. 102), painted in 1807, when he was twenty-seven, is not attractive in subject or composition, but displays mastery of technique. Dur ing the last ten years of his life he published a number of articles on the fine arts which show him to be a critic of keen observation and of informed judgment. NICOLAS TOUSSAINT CHARLET (1792-1845) ; JOSEPH LOUIS HIPPOLITE BELLANGE (1800- 1866: Med. 2nd cl., 1824; ft, 1834), and DENIS AUGUSTE MARIE RAFFET (1804-1860: H, 1849) are three artists better known by their drawings, sketches, lithographs, and engravings than by their pictures. They were strong Bonapartists and kept alive remembrances of the Empire. Raffet's Revue de Minuit, the ghost of Napoleon reviewing his ghostly squadrons, is a capital example of his style and of his power. Bellange was a more careful painter, as his Un Jour de Revue sous VEmpire at Versailles shows 122 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING (Fig. 103). There are dozens of his battle pieces at Versailles, all very much alike in' treatment, all repre senting intense fighting, all giving faithfully details of accouterment, uniform, arms, etc. A good example (Fig. 104) represents one of the many fights which took place in Belgium during the campaign of 1792, and which preceded the capture of Brussels by the French on the 15th of November, 1792. Charlet's " Retreat from Russia " in the Museum of Lyons shows the suffering of the French with tragic power. Of the three, Raffet was the most popular, and he continues to hold a place in the affections of the public. A statue to his memory by Fremiet has been erected in the Garden of the Louvre. He was born in Paris and died in Genoa. When he was ten, his father was assassinated and he and his mother were thrown on their own resources. He supported himself at first by decorating china. His first instructor in drawing was Charlet. When he was twenty-five, he was a pupil of Gros and tried in vain for the Prix de Rome. About the same time he began publishing lithographs and soon had more orders than he could fill. The rest of his life was filled with success. There are over a thousand of his lithographs in exist ence, almost all relating to Napoleon. Another artist of this period whose works are not appreciated as they were formerly is LEON COGNIET (1794-1880: P. d. R., 1817; *, 1828; O. *, 1846; I., 1849; Med. 1st cl., 1855 E. U.). He painted two pictures which still attract attention. One is at Versailles, the other at Bordeaux. The one at Fig. 100.— Couder. The oath of the Tennis-Court. (Versailles) Fig. 101. — Couder. Yorktown. (Versailles) Fig. 103. — Couder. The Levite of Kphraim. (Louvre) Fig. 103. — Bellangd. A review under the Empire. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 123 Versailles represents the departure from Paris for the war of the volunteers of 1792 (Fig. 105). The As sembly having declared that the country was in danger, the entire National Guard of Paris, numbering over thirty-five thousand men, volunteered to go to the front. The view is taken on the lie de la Cite and along the quay on the north side of the island. In the immediate foreground are the advancing volunteers. To their right are their wives, sweethearts, and daughters, bid ding them farewell. Then, separated by a space and to the left, are the mounted officers of the Guard. Still farther back is the pedestal of the statue of Henry IV, from which the tricolor is flying and about which throngs are gathered. In the far distance on the right and across the Seine is seen the Louvre. The picture lacks unity ; the interest is scattered. The troops are separated from their leaders. Besides, in the immedi ate foreground, there are confusion and crowding ; the attention is distracted and the impression lessened by the number of the pathetic good-by incidents. The picture at Bordeaux is a very different composition. It is called " Tintoretto painting his Dead Daughter." The effort of the father to find consolation in his art appeals to morbid sensibilities, but is not a pleasant theme. The picture is painted with force and dra matic power and still finds admirers. At Versailles there are battle pieces and portraits by Cogniet which ^met' applause at the time they were painted. He also decorated the ceiling of one of the halls of the Louvre and of one of the chapels of the church of the Madeleine. Cogniet lived to be eighty-six and was particularly known as an excellent teacher. His por- 124 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING trait in the Luxembourg by Bonnat shows the kind and sympathetic character of the old gentleman. Court, Lami, Robert Fleury, and Champmartin are four other painters of this period whose lives at least show that painting encourages longevity. Court lived to be sixty-eight ; Lami, ninety ; Robert Fleury, ninety- three and Champmartin, eighty-six. JOSEPH DESIRE COURT (1797-1865: P. d. R.s 1821 ; Med. 1st cl., 1831 ; *, 1838). Court was born in Rouen, studied under Gros, and died in Paris. At Versailles are a number of portraits and battle pieces by him of unequal merit. His two best-known works, those that gave him his reputation, are in the Rouen Museum. They are La Mort de Char of 1827 and Boissy d'Englas saluant la Tete du Depute Ferand. Of the former picture (Fig. 107) Henry Marcel writes : " It unites the virtues of the conscien tious methods of the school with an entirely new large ness of effect. Antony, standing erect on the rostrum of the forum, uncovers the body of the hero and, bran dishing his toga, pierced with holes, calls down upon his murderers the vengeance of the Roman people. An tony's outline, seen against the sky and a background of temples and various monuments, dominates the whole composition. In front and at the sides are senators, warriors, citizens of all kinds, crowded together, each by look and gesture expressing individual sentiment, but all yielding to the increasing general emotion. The more excited are already clamoring for retaliation, while in the foreground on the left the conspirators are endeavoring to get away unobserved. A fine French hbj -us1 ; ;' : v: m! B" -* Ip J- - ] * ;- ^^ ^;'- tt&? Jf r i" '¦''¦ Biim^tr:? ^«%»5— tf^JJ-ifir^J^h^mv IfPH^f1 A 1 %£k ^^BBSS • 'ilS h ' ?*!&¦ ''A wKtmf- , vtrterflNi8a8Kt££^«w*^l - Eki - 1 ^ ¦SitsSUMI A '£&£?¦ .JwHt' t^6jaril»: *-&^H IffiN.^f A ¦1 •• •• ! 2SK Hi | ¥ \ ill] E Fig. 107. — Court. The death of Caesar. (Rouen) Fig. 108. — Court. Boissy d'Anglas. (Rouen) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 125 logic presides over all the details of this grand spec tacle and keeps in order its confused masses. The heavy coloring is the only defect of this superb master piece." Marcel's criticism of the other picture is no less enthusiastic (Fig. 108). LOUIS EUGENE LAMI (1800-1890: ft, 1837; Med. 2nd cl., 1855 E. U. ; O. ft, 1862). Lami was born and died in Paris. When Louis Phi lippe started to turn the palace of Versailles into a National Museum, Lami was one of the many artists selected to paint historic pictures to hang on its walls. As it was Louis Philippe's policy to pose as an admirer of Napoleon and as a friend of the principles of the Revolution, most of the subjects assigned to artists were drawn from the period of the Revolution and the First Empire. The fact that the majority of these pictures are weak and insipid shows how little heart artists had in their work. Lami's are no better or worse than the majority. Other pictures not painted under official supervision show nerve, freshness, and singular charm and brilliancy of color. His Souper offert a la Reme d'Angleterre, Luxembourg Museum, will always be attractive. Lami was engaged as a teacher to the princes and princesses of the Orleans family. He was also a great traveler, and left interesting series of sketches of the countries he visited. CHARLES EMILE CHAMPMARTIN (1797-1883: Med. 1st cl., 1831). Champmartin is an artist about whom very little appears in accessible books of reference. He was born at Bourges, found his way to Paris, and for many years 126 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING was a celebrated portraitist. He seems to have studied English contemporary painters. His portrait of Madame de Mirbel at Versailles, in a poke bonnet, a dress spangled with roses, with bishop's sleeves, and cross-tied slippers, walking in the woods, is as fresh and charming as springtime in Kent. Madame Mir bel, Lizinska Aimee Zoe Rue, was a celebrated minia turist. She was born at Cherbourg in 1796. She obtained second-class medals in 1819 and 1822 and a first-class medal in 1827. She married M. Charles Francois Brisseau de Mirbel in 1824. He was twenty years her senior and a widower. He was a celebrated scientist and also a statesman and diplomatist, a mem ber of the Institute, etc. After her marriage she re ceived the title of Miniaturist to the King. She died in 1849. Her disconsolate, husband lived until 1854. JOSEPH NICOLAS ROBERT-FLEURY (1797- 1890: Med. 2nd cl., 1824; Med. 1st cl., 1834; ft, 1836; O. ft, 1849; I., 1850; Med. 1st cl., 1855 and 1867 E. U. ; C. ft, 1867). Robert-Fleury was born at Cologne, then belonging to France, and very early manifested talent. He was sent to Paris and studied awhile under Guerin (?). He then traveled in Italy. Returning to Paris in 1827, he commenced exhibiting his works. In a few years he had established his reputation. In addition to the i honors above enumerated he was professor at the Ecole 1 % des Beaux Arts in 1855, its director in 1863, and from I ! 1864 until 1866 at the head of the French School at Rome. He was an industrious, conscientious, and ac curate artist. He confined himself to historical sub- Fig. 110.— R. Fleury. The Poissy Conference. (Louvre) Fig. 111.— H. Vernet. Isabey. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 127 jects and gave details of costumes and accessories with faithful accuracy. His coloring is heavy and dark. His pictures are not pleasing to the taste of to-day. They are more interesting to students of history than to students of art. Le Colloque de Poissy, in the Louvre, is a good and sufficient specimen (Fig. 110). The colloque, or conference, took place in 1561, when Cath arine de' Medici, the regent, was forty-two and the young King Charles IX was but eleven. It lasted from the 6th of September until about October 1st. The conference was called by L'Hospital, the Chancellor, in the hope that a common statement of faith and dogma might be formulated which Catholics and Protestants could accept. Both parties were invited to be present with their leaders and orators. Nothing was accom plished by the conference unless to further embitter the opposing parties. In Robert-Fleury's picture Cath arine de? Medici is seated -in the center. Back and around her are the many representatives of the, Roman ist party, while the few Protestants are crowded into the left-hand corner of the picture. To the right of Catharine is Charles IX ; to her left, the Queen of Na varre. To the right of Charles are the cardinals of Fournon and of Lorraine, the leaders of the Romanists. Attention is directed to Theodore de Beze, the leader of the Protestants, who is exposing their views in a calm and deliberate manner. A monk on the other side is protesting vigorously. The composition is well com posed, the heads, attitudes, and costumes carefully and accurately drawn. The more the picture is studied, the more it impresses the beholder with Robert-Fleury's dignity and elevation of style, the more he realizes that 128 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Robcrt-Fleury was a great artist. (See J. Breton's Nos Peintres du Siecle.) The following artists are of a little later date and are perhaps a little more modern in their conceptions and in their workmanship : LOUIS GABRIEL EUGENE ISABEY (1804-1886: Med. 1st cl., 1824 and 1827; ft, 1832; O. ft, 1852; Med. 1st cl., 1855 E. U.). Isabey was born in Paris and was the son of Jean Baptiste Isabey (1767-1855), who was celebrated as a miniaturist, made drawings for Napoleon which pleased the First Consul and also painted a portrait of him walking in the gardens of Malmaison which was esteemed for its accuracy. A portrait of the elder Isabey, painted by H. Vernet, is of a charming, brilliant, benev olent, and aristocratic elderly gentleman (Fig. 111). The elder Isabey became a- favorite of Charles X, and the son grew up amid court influences and favors. He early conceived a love for marine effects. His pictures are as fresh and charming to-day as they ever were. Some of his smaller seaside pieces are as brilliant and attractive as the best products of modern impressionism. In fact, in his division of colors and in his sunlight effects, he anticipated many of the methods of the mod ern fad, though adhering to accuracy of drawing and perspective. His first important work was exhibited in 1827, and was called Ouragan devant Dieppe. Then followed in 1831 the Port de Dunkerque, and in 1839 the Combat du Texel at Versailles, in which dashing waves, rushing winds, flying sails and flags, rolling ships, and sweeping clouds are combined in lively Fig. 112.— Isabey. Texel. (Versailles) Fig. 113. — Tassaert. The unhappy family. (Luxembourg) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 129 and luminous energy (Fig. 112). Texel is off the Dutch coast. The combat took place on the 29th of June, 1694, and lasted but half an hour. Jean Bart with six frigafes gave fight to Admiral de Frise with eight Dutch vessels. He captured three, put the rest to flight and saved the grain fleet sent to France by the Queen of Poland. This is one of the fine marines of the Versailles collection. It is a large picture, nearly twelve feet long and nearly nine feet high. All of Isabey's marines are charming and inspiriting. It was the fashion some years ago to decry Isabey but at present he is fully appreciated. When his pictures are offered for sale they bring enormous prices. Pictures in the public museums of France are being so changed about nowadays that it is impossible to give their whereabouts. NICOLAS FRANQOIS OCTAVE TASSAERT (1800-1874; Med. 2nd cl., 1838; Med. 1st cl., 1849; Med. 3rd cl., 1855 E. U.). Tassaert was born and died in Paris. He was a pupil of Lethiere.1 Tassaert was an artist of great and varied ability. His first pictures, until he was about forty, were his toric. Then, until he died, he devoted himself to the nude, the religious, and the pathetic. He is best known by his picture in the Luxembourg Museum called La 1 Guillaume Guillon Lethiere, born in the island of Guadeloupe in 1760. He came to Paris in 1784 and lived there until he died in 1832. Prix de Rome in 1786 ; Member of the Institute in 1825 ; professor at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in 1819. He was an extreme classicist and painted enormous pictures of Roman history. Two of them, each about twenty- four by fourteen feet, are skied in the Louvre. One represents Brutus condemning his sons to death ; the other, the death of Virginia. He was a good teacher and had many pupils. 9 130 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Famille malheureuse (Fig. 113). In a garret a mother and daughter, who can no longer continue the struggle for existence, have resolved to die. A brazier of burn ing charcoal is on the .floor ; the daughter has already succumbed to the fumes, and the mother seems address ing a last prayer to the Virgin, of whom a small print hangs on the naked wall. That the same artist could have painted such a picture and La Baigneuse (Fig. 114), and at about the same time, seems incredible. Tassaert's nudes have all the charm of modern art and are beginning to be thoroughly appreciated. They were not appreciated while he was living. The end of his life was most unhappy, and he finally committed suicide after the manner of his Famille malheureuse. ALEXANDRE GABRIEL DECAMPS was born in Paris and died at Fontainebleau. He studied awhile with Bouchot. But he was impatient of instruction, had his own ideas of technique, and regarded nature as his only teacher. Technical deficiencies and limitations are evident in all his works. Nevertheless he produced effects of color and of light and shade equal to those of the foremost and best equipped of modern artists. He is principally known by his pictures of Eastern life. His school scenes are attractive. A capital example is at Chantilly (Fig. 115). Horses and dogs attracted him. He also painted large historic scenes. His DSfaite des Cimbres in the Louvre is a heroic composition in which the landscape with its long lines of contrasted light and shade is in wonderful harmony with the contending masses (Fig. 116). Never before had a battle-scene been composed in such magnificent masses, and without particularizing individuals. The Cimbri were defeated Fig. 114. — Tassaert. Nymph. (Montpellier) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 131 and annihilated by Caius Marius in 101 b. c. near Vi- celli in North Italy, midway between Turin and Milan. The city is seen in the distance. Decamps' works are not understood or appreciated. Criticism is silent or negative; he deserves to rank with the great artists of his country. His use of pigments is puzzling. It would seem to the neophyte as if he might have produced his effects with legs labor and less paint. The more Decamps is studied, the more highly is he esteemed. In the Exposition Universelle of 1855 he exhibited over forty subjects. HIPPOLYTE (called PAUL) DELAROCHE (1797- 1856: I., 1832; Med., 1824; ft, 1828; O. ft, 1834). Delaroche was born and died in Paris. He studied under Baron ^Jros. His father was an art critic and professional art appraiser. He began exhibiting in 1819. His first great success was achieved in 1827 with his picture of the death of Queen Elizabeth of England in 1603, now in the Louvre (Fig. 117). On the left and at the foot of the steps, of the throne, as if she had fallen from it, the queen in court costume is extended on cushions. She turns her livid face towards the Secretary of State, Lord Cecil, who kneels. Behind the queen two kneeling women support her. A third, standing and weeping, hides her face in her hands. In the background are three state officers, and back of them a figure sup posed to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. The picture is over twelve feet high and over ten feet wide; the figures are more than life-size. The picture has been criticised for historic inaccuracy, for theatrical ar- 132 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING rangement, for over-attention to details, and for the indifference shown by the four standing gentlemen. The subject is unpleasant, but is treated with tragic force. The figure of the queen is a marvel of drawing and of realistic rendering. The picture will always be appre ciated by those who admire strength in conception and accuracy in execution. In 1831 appeared Les Enfants d'Edouard, " The Princes in the Tower," equally tragic but where the tragedy is anticipated, not actually real ized (Fig. 118). Still, in composition and full realiza tion of intent, skill is as apparent as in the former pic ture. The two princes, shut up in a room of the Tower of London, are close together on the right. The elder,- an invalid, is seated on the edge of a four-post bedstead and rests his arms on the shoulder of his brother who seems to be seated on, or standing against, a high stool. He has been reading to his elder brother, and the reading is interrupted by the barking of a small dog on the left which announces the approach of the murderers. The younger brother turns his face in alarm towards the door. The elder brother is still unconscious of the approach of danger. The murder of the princes took place in 1483, when the elder was thirteen and the younger but eight. Delaroche has been accused of representing the princes as older. It may have been an artistic necessity to represent them as sufficiently old to anticipate their fate. Some of his best pictures are in England. " Strafford going to the Scaffold " is at Strafford House, London. " Charles I insulted by the Parliamentary Soldiers " is at Bridgewater House, and the " Execution of Lady Jane Grey " is in the National Gallery of British Art. Several small specimens are in Fig. 116. — Decamps. Defeat of the Cimbri. (Louvre) Fig. 117. — Delaroche. The death of Queen Elizabeth. (Louvre) Fig. 118. — Delaroche. The Princes in the Tower. (Louvre) Fig. 119. — Delaroche. Execution of Lady Jane Grey. (London) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 133 the Wallace Collection. The " Execution of Lady Jane Grey " is the best known and the most pathetic of all of Delaroche's works (Fig. 119). On her knees and blindfolded her hand is being guided towards the block in front of her. Her two ladies-in-waiting are overcome by the sight, while the executioner with his axe stands one side in apparent unconcern. The figure of the vic tim is one of the most beautiful and graceful in French art. Lady Jane Grey was executed- in 1554, when she was but sixteen, by the orders of Queen Mary, on a charge of high treason and of having usurped the crown of England. The picture was painted in 1834. Delaroche's severest critics recognize the skillful ar rangement of his picture in La Mort du Due de Guise, painted in 1835 and now at Chantilly. Of this pic ture Lenorman writes as follows : " The intention of the artist -jreveals itself in the figure of the king who pulls aside the curtain of the door of his room and looks out of the corner of his eye to see if his enemy be really dead. The artistic intent is equally evident in the cautious manner in which the assassins separate, that the king may see the accomplishment of his orders. In the noble corpse which lies outstretched on the other side of the picture, Delaroche displays the utmost reach of artistic dignity. Delaroche has produced nothing more solid or better executed than this figure." Incon- testably Delaroche's greatest work is the Hemicycle of the Amphitheater of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. To this work he devoted four years of his life, from 1837 until 1841. The semicircular space he had to cover is over seventy-five feet long and about fifteen feet high. In the background, covering about three quarters of the space, 134 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING is a Greek Ionic colonnade. In the center it opens and discloses in a recess an elevated throne approached by four high steps. On each side of the throne and on a lower level are stone seats curving to the front and ter minating at short distances from the sides of the picture. On the throne are seated three men with the Greek hima- tion thrown over their shoulders and gathered about their loins. The center figure, who is in the flower of his manhood, is Apelles, the last of the great Greek painters. The old men on either side of him are Ictinus, the archi tect of the Parthenon, and Phidias, the greatest of all Greek sculptors. Beneath these figures, and seated on the balustrade of the steps and facing each other, are two female figures representing Greek and Roman art. Still lower down and standing against the balustrade, and also facing each other, are two other female figures representing Gothic and Renaissance art. These four figures are lovely in their separate representations. In the front and very center of the picture is a superb nude figure on one knee with drapery over the other knee. By her side are garlands. One she has in her hands and is about twirling it to a successful com petitor. The central group of eight figures is a model of idealized composition. On each side of it, seated on the benches, or standing in front or at the sides of the benches, are the great artists of the Renaissance period and of more modern times. They converse; they dis cuss. Some sit or stand alone. There are about seventy of them, — painters, sculptors, architects; the archi tects are on one side, the sculptors on the other, the painters at either end. A few are easily distinguished; more require pointing out ; some are doubtful. (Read Fig. 120.— Bouchot. Funeral of Marceau. (Chartres) Fig. 121. — Bouchot. The capture of Zurich. (Versailles) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 135 Vitet's Etudes sur VHistoire de VArt, vol. iii. p. 282.) Delaroche married a daughter of Horace Vernet and had trouble with his father-in-law. The death of his wife depressed him. For years his works were depre ciated; now he is beginning to be understood and appreciated. FRANgOIS BOUCHOT (1800-1842: P. d. R., 1825). Bouchot was born and died in Paris. He studied under Regnault and Lethiere. After his return from Italy he was commissioned by the state to paint Les FuneraiUes de Marceau (Fig. 120), a large picture which is now in the Museum of Chartres. The picture was exhibited in 1835, and has ever since been regarded as one of the very great works of art of the day. Mar ceau was one of the brilliant and promising officers of the Revolution. He was born at Chartres in 1769, and was shot near Allenkirchen where he died shortly after wards. The retreating French were forced to leave his body to the advancing Austrians. This gave the artist the excuse of introducing Austrians into his picture. The dead hero is carried along on a litter by French soldiers who must be regarded as prisoners. On one side are Austrian officers baring their heads as the litter passes. In the foreground are French drummer boys holding theirs proudly erect. The composition is dra matically fine, yet natural and true. The light falls full on the dead general and on the white uniforms of the Austrian officers and is intensified by the dwindling gloom at the sides of the picture. One of the best battle- pieces at Versailles is Bouchot's Bataille de Zurich (Fig. 121), in which the calm figure of General Massena is 136 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING admirably done. The battle of Zurich was won on the 25th of September, 1799, by Massena over the Russian General Korsakof. In the distance are the city and the lake of Zurich. This picture was painted in 1837. Still more popular is Bouchot's ic?^ Brumaire (Fig. 122), which has lately been removed from Versailles to the Louvre. The scene represents the Council of Five Hun dred united in the Orangery of the palace of Saint- Cloud at the moment when the president, Lucien Bona parte, announces the dissolution of the Assembly which his brother with his grenadiers is about dispersing. The calm self-possession of Bonaparte in the midst of the tumultuous and threatening deputies is superbly given. The 18th Brumaire, An. VII corresponds to November 10th, 1799. There are pictures by Bouchot in the church of the Madeleine which are not attractive. He had no taste for religious subjects. At the time of his death he was painting " Bonaparte crossing the St. Bernard." The half-finished picture was exhibited after his death. He died suddenly of hemorrhage of the lungs when forty-two. CHARLES GLEYRE (1806-1874: Med. 2nd cl., 1843; Med. 1st cl., 1845). Gleyre was born at Chevilly, Canton de Vaud, Switzer land. When quite young, he went to Lyons in France to live with a rich uncle. The uncle sent him to Paris to study painting under Hersent.1 Gleyre did not stay ' Louis Hersent (1777-1860) was well known during the early period of his life, but is about forgotten. Louis XVI secourant les Malheureux pendant I'Hiver de 1788, at Versailles, is about the only one of his works that still attracts attention. Fig. 122. — Bouchot. 18 Brumaire. (Versailles) Fig. 123. — Gleyre. Lost illusions. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 137 long in Paris, but soon went to Italy, where he de voted over ten years to serious study. In 1840 he re turned to Paris and began exhibiting pictures which attracted attention for originality of conception and for careful and excellent technique. In 1843, when he was threatened with loss of sight, he painted Les Illusions perdues, in the Louvre, the picture by which he is best known (Fig. 123). On one side sits, disconsolate and deserted, an aged Greek poet. Slowly sailing away from him is a bark filled with the personifications of his lost hopes, ideals, and joys, who make music together and do not even give him a glance. A careless Cupid is at the helm. He turns his head away from the poet and scatters flowers on the surface of the water. All the details of the picture are admirably painted. Pose, drapery, and flesh are treated with the excellency of modern skill. Some of his best pictures are at Lausanne in Switzerland. Gleyre was a great traveler, and visited Egypt, Abyssinia, Greece, and Turkey. He was an ex cellent instructor. When Gros could no longer receive pupils, he advised them to go to Gleyre. As his name does not appear in lists of French painters, he may have remained a Swiss subject. Riesener, Gigoux, and Debon are artists who should be mentioned ihough their pictures are not accepted by modern taste. LOUIS ANTOINE LEON RIESENER (1808-1878: Med. 3rd cl., 1836 and 1855; Med., 1864). He was born and died in Paris. He has been ad mired for his nudes, of which Nymphe couchee, painted in 1864, has lately been acquired by the Louvre. His 138 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Leda,- painted in 1841 and admired at the time it was painted is in the Museum of Rouen. JEAN FRANgOIS GIGOUX (1806-1894 : Med. 2nd cl., 1833; Med. 1st cl., 1835; ft, 1842; Med. 1st cl, 1848; O. ft, 1880; Gr. p., 1889 E. U.). Gigoux was born at Besancon, where are his best pictures, Mort de Leonard de Vinci, painted in 1835, and La Veillee d' Austerlitz, painted in 1847. He painted many excellent portraits ; that of General Doernicki, at the Luxembourg, is a good example. Gigoux lived a long life, full of activity and honor. His best picture, the "Death of Leonardo da Vinci," is well known by photographs and engravings (Fig. 124). Francis I and an attendant are holding up the dying artist, to whom a priest with the eucharist is approach ing between acolytes bearing candles. Back of the king are two women, kneeling, and two men, one of them weeping. Back of the priest a number of people are gathered about a table. Leonardo has nothing on but a shirt and evidently has just been taken from his bed. An unpleasant subject, treated with force and firmness and with good command of color. Its historical in accuracy must be accepted. Francis was not with Leonardo in 1519, when he died, nor did he die in the chateau d'Amboise. HIPPOLYTE DEBON (1807-1872: Med. 3rd cl., 1842; Med. 2nd cl., 1846 and 1848). Debon was born and died in Paris. He was a pupil of Gros. He is quite forgotten, though he painted worth remembering. His Bataille d'Hastings, painted in 1845 and now in the Museum of Caen, Normandy, is Fig. 124.— Gigoux. Death of Leonardo da Vinci. (Besancon) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 139 full of animated action, though confused on account of the multiplicity of figures. The Normans are about breaking through the Enghsh stockade. Duke William on horseback occupies the center of the scene. There are no detailed descriptions of the picture to help make out the other combatants with certainty. Other pictures by Debon worth studying are Defaite d' Attila, Entree de Guillaume le Conquerant & Londres, Henri VIII proclame Chef de I'Eglise anglicane. LOUIS BOULANGER (1806-1867: Med. 2nd cl., 1827; Med. 1st cl., 1836; ft, 1840). Boulanger was born in Vercelli in Piedmont and died in Dijon. He studied under Lethiere and Deveria. He had a fertile imagination and was extravagantly praised by Victor Hugo. His Mazeppa, now in the Musee de Rouen, exhibited in 1827, made him famous. In 1835 his Chasse infemale, followed by a Scene d'Orgie de la Cour des Miracles, made him still more famous. In 1836 his Triomphe de Petrarque brought him a first- class medal. His portraits attracted attention, espe cially those of Victor Hugo, Balzac, and the elder Dumas. His later and religious works are not attractive. He was appointed director of the Museum of Dijon and died there. It has often happened in the history of the Fine Arts that an artist has executed some one work so far superior to his other works that he is known by it and it alone. Two striking examples are Deveria and Couture. De veria is known as the author of La Vaissance de Henri IV, and Couture as the author of Les Romains de la Decadence. 140 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING EUGENE FRANCOIS MARIE DEVERIA (1805- 1865: ft, 1838). Deveria was born in Paris and died in Pau. He studied under Girodet. His picture, " The Birth of Henry IV," was exhibited in 1827 and was enthusiasti cally admired (Fig. 125). Henry IV was born at Pau on the 14th of December, 1553. His mother, Jeanne d'Albert, inherited the throne of Navarre; his father, Antoine de Bourbon, direct descendant of Saint Louis, was, next to the Valois family, nearest to the throne of France. In the picture Jeanne is represented extended on a couch on an elevation approached by steps. At her head stands her physician. About her are her women-in-waiting. She is in full court costume. At her feet and on top of the steps stands Antoine, hold ing the new-born baby aloft and showing him to the courtiers who crowd about. To his left, and a little back, stands an attendant with a vial of Jurancon wine with which to wet the infant's lips. In the foreground, and at the foot of the steps, is the court dwarf with dog and falcon. The picture is about fourteen by eleven feet. A grand work of art, admirably composed, full of spirit and force. That Deveria's other pictures should be so tame seems incomprehensible. As Paux de St. Victor states, "It is a preface without book, a pre lude without concert." 1 1 Paux Bins, Comte de Saint Victor (1827-1871), a celebrated critic, known by his writings for Le Temps. Fig. 125- -Deveria. The birth of Henri IV. (Louvre) Fig. 126. — Couture. Romans of the decadence. (Louvre) THE REVOLUTION TO THE RESTORATION 141 THOMAS COUTURE (1815-1879: Med. 3rd cl., 1844; Med. 1st cl., 1847; ft, 1848; Med. 1st cl., 1855). Couture was born at Gentes, Oise, and died at Villiers le Bel. He studied under Gros and Delaroche. His picture, Les Romains de la Decadence, painted and ex hibited in 1847, attracted attention and has ever since been variously criticised . (Fig. 126). He is equally known by his writings and by his teachings. He claimed to impart necessary instruction in painting in hitherto unknown shortness of time and without the labor re garded by other masters as essential. His theories have ceased to be accepted. His chef-d'oeuvre, however, still atracts attention. It consists of a number of inde pendent groups and figures which contribute in various ways to the general idea which pervades the composi tion. A species of couch is extended in the midst of a hall of Corinthian columns. Between the columns are statues of Roman heroes. On the couch are partially clothed men and women, drinking, and dulled with wine. In front of the couch a man holds up a wine- cup ; another falls headlong, overcome with wine. On the left slaves carry out a senseless guest, while a naked, standing young woman stretches her arms in fatigue or disgust. Other figures, and on the right, are equally unattractive. On the extreme right a youth has climbed a pedestal and holds up a wine-cup to a statue of Brutus. In front of the pedestal two men properly clothed seem to regard the scene with mild indignation. On the extreme left a lackadaisical poet is seated on a 142 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING pedestal. The picture is very large, about twenty-three by thirteen feet; the figures are life-size. The work still has its admirers, though modern criticism regards it with indifference. Couture's technique is rapid and thin ; his coloring, dull and weak. CHAPTER III LANDSCAPISTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY WEBSTER defines a landscape painting as " a picture exhibiting some real or fancied scene in nature." This definition may do as well as any other if to it be added that if figures or buildings appear they must be secondary and subordinate. The history, development, and evolution of landscape painting remain to be written, and cannot be written fully and satisfactorily until the investigations into early landscape painting, but just begun in France, have been further advanced. Landscapes as backgrounds are as early as painting itself. At first, during the thir teenth and fourteenth centuries, they are entirely formal and fanciful, as with Giotto and the artists of the Campo Santo. Little by little they grow more and more true until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when, if not true as wholes, they are made up of parts which are true. Landscapes, independent of figures and of histor ical subjects, are modern productions. They appear earlier in Holland and in England than in France. Eng lishmen claim, and with show of reason, that the French learned landscape painting from Constable. 144 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING JOHN CONSTABLE (1776-1837 : he obtained a gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1824) and BON- NINGTON (Richard Parkes Bonnington, 1801- 1828: he studied under Gros). According to Diderot, Constable's pictures, exhibited in Paris in 1824, produced great excitement and made a lively impression on young painters, opening their eyes to the possibilities of landscape painting and show ing them the defects of which they had been guilty. Constable was a great artist. There are several of his pictures in the Louvre, which show that he avoided de tails and excelled in producing general effects. What ever influence he may have had, it is certain that it was only after 1824 that French landscape painters began to appear and to succeed. They had a long and hard fight before achieving Academic recognition. In its divisions of styles the Academy did not recognize land scape painting until 1816, and then only as Paysage historique, — that is, landscape in which the landscape itself is subordinate to a classic, historic, or mythology ical theme. Natural appearances were not permitted. Trees, hills, sky, and water must be artistically combined in accordance with academic rules and in subordination to the theme. The authority for this style of painting was VALENCIENNES (Pierre Henri Valenciennes, 1750-1819: A., 1787). His Traite de Perspective was the guide. In it is this fundamental rule, " To add to the perfection of nature, you must remove its de fects." The first medal for Paysage historique was cap tured by MICHALLON, Corot's first master (Achille Etna Michallon, 1796-1822, pupil of David, then of Valenciennes). THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 145 Even under the Second Empire landscape painting was regarded as an inferior branch of the art, to be recommended only to those who had failed in the higher branches of histoire and genre. The great and pure French landscape painters of the last century are Corot, Flers, Huet, Diaz, Dupre, Cabat, Rousseau, and Dau- bigny. They will be considered in this order. Before these, mention must be made of a man who under favor ing circumstances would undoubtedly have become a great landscape painter. His name was Georges Michel. He was born in Paris in 1763 and died there in 1843. Very little is known about him except that he painted pictures of the suburbs of Paris. Two of his pictures are in the Louvre. One called Aux Environs de Mont- martre shows that he was entirely independent of pre scriptions, and that nature in her pure principles im pressed herself upon his artistic understanding. It is evident that he had had but little instruction in the art of painting. He uses but few Colors, mixes them badly, and paints with a heavy touch. Nevertheless his gen eral effects are fine and true. His love of nature is apparent in spite of his rough and limited handling. JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT (1796-1875: Med. 2nd cl., 1833, ft, 1846; Med. 1st cl., 1848 and 1855 ; Med. 2nd cl., 1867 E. U. ; O. ft, 1867). Corot was born in Paris. His father was a well-to-do merchant who wished his son to succeed him. The son's antipathy to business and his desire to be a painter had no effect upon the father's determination. Finally, when the son was twenty-six and the father had recognized the impossibihty of his acquiring business habits, he 10 146 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING told him he could do as he pleased, but that all he would give him was 1800 francs a year.1 Corot accepted the small sum with enthusiasm, left his father's house, and began his artistic career. At the time the only land scape painting recognized was the Paysage historique, already mentioned. Corot at first entered the studio of Michallon, a friend of his boyhood who had already dis tinguished himself, and was regarded as a promising artist. There are three of his pictures in the Louvre which may be regarded as specimens of the landscape style of the day. Michallon died the year Corot entered his studio. Corot then studied under Jean Victor Ber- tin (1875-1842), another faithful pupil of Valen ciennes. Corot stayed with Bertin about three years, during which time he was so severely drilled in the style in vogue that he never thereafter was entirely free from its influences. The prescribed regulations were strictly enforced in Bertin's studio. Some of them are as fol lows : " In front must be masses of foliage on one side and an eminence on the other, crowned with the ruins of a temple or with a building presenting noble outlines. In the center must be a lake or a river with gentle plains extending into the background. On the plains must be shepherds, or nymphs bathing, or a mythological story. For the mythological action may be substituted a mod ern royal procession, or even the funeral of some great man," etc. (Read Valenciennes' treatise.) In 1825 Corot was enabled to go to Italy ; he stayed there three years. During this period he painted many of the best pictures of his career, — small sketches of inimitable grace and charm. Some of these are in the Thomy- 1 Claretie says it was 2000 francs. m m Fig. 127.— Corot. The Coliseum. (Louvre) Fig. 128. — Corot. Landscape. (Louvre) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 147 Thierry Collection, others in the Moreau-Delaton Collection, — both in the Louvre. More exquisite har monies of color, more delightful rendering of atmos phere, were never put on canvas. Whenever, however, he painted a large picture for exhibition, he felt con strained to comply with at least some of the prescribed regulations. There are in the Louvre two pictures, left by the artist to the state, which are of this first Roman period, which were not painted for exhibition, which he would not sell, and which he never surpassed. They are called, the one, Vue du Forum Romain, the other Vue du Colisee (Fig. 127). They are only about one and a half feet by nine inches, but contain wonderfully sweet and gentle harmonies of color. From 1827, when Corot began exhibiting, until 1875, there was hardly a salon that did not contain his pictures. He died in February, 1875. As an exceptional tribute to his memory, three of his pictures were admitted to the salon of 1875, two months after his death. At the retrospective exposi tion of isfiijt over forty of his pictures were shown. " Corot wa's again, in Italy, in 1834 and again in 1843. After that, his reputation being fully established, he remained in Paris, producing quantities of pictures, all very much alike, in all of which are the same aerial effects, the same tufty trees, the same skies of early morning or of twilight, the same silver haze,' and all accomplished with the lightest and most delicate touch, with but few colors and with apparent ease (Fig. 128). Many of these pictures are executed so rapidly and carelessly that they do the artist harm. The style, too, is so easily imitated that there are many false Corots in the galleries of even experienced collectors. Henry 148 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Marcel writes of Corot : " What gives his compositions their unequalled grace is the freshness of landscape vir ginity; as if the scenes had been just created and as if the sun were shining upon them for the first time. The eye bathes itself deliriously in such pictures. You seem to be breathing an air purified by the rustling of tree tops and by the balsamic breezes of the woods. This priceless delicacy is obtained by the simplest methods, by mere touches to the canvas of the lightest of tints. No mixing of colors. His palette was free from heavy and bituminous pigments. He preferred the cool and moist grace of early morning, or the mys tery of the evenings veiled in vapor. The brutality of high noon, which unfeelingly exposes the hard outlines of things robbed of the modesty of shade, rarely tempted his brush. The soul of a child or of a happy and instinc tive sylph frolics in the woodsides, skims over the ponds of silver and mauve which are filled with silence and poetry." Many other critics are equally rapturous; while detractors assert that Corot only hit upon an unnatural style that captured the careless eye of the public, and that he worked it out fully to the satisfac tion of his pocket. (Read A. Michel, Notes sur VArt moderne, L'CEuvre de Corot et le Paysage moderne; also J. Claretie, Peintres et Sculpteurs contemporains, vol. i. pp. 97 et seq.) CAMILLE FLERS (1802-1868: Med. 3rd cl., 1840; Med. 2nd cl., 1847; ft, 1849). Flers was born at Anet, Seine et Marne, a little to the southeast of Paris, and died in Paris. His father was a manufacturer of porcelain. Perceiving talent for de- I THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 149 sign and color in his son, he placed him with a celebrated decorator tb be taught the decorating of porcelain. The boy, who seems to have been able to turn his hand to anything and who hated everything that smacked of trade, ran away and engaged as cook on a vessel bound for South America. When the vessel reached Rio Ja neiro, he was discharged. Having no other resource, he engaged as a dancer at a local theater. As soon as he was able, he took passage in a. vessel bound for Spain. Landed at Cadiz, he was about shipping as a pirate, when a letter reached him from his father containing forgiveness and a draft. The prodigal returned home, and for the rest of his life was quiet and devoted to business. His vacations were given to landscape paint ing, in which he became famous. Where and how he learned to paint is not known, but learn he did. Of no eminent artist have the works so completely disappeared. There is one work by him in the Louvre, Paysage, En virons de Paris, in which it is seen that he was a strong and robust painter and decidedly opposed in style to Corot. He was a naturalist and led the way to Rous seau, Dupre, and Daubigny. His biographers state that he was the strongest opponent of the Academy and the most active champion of modern landscape painting. In the Exposition Universelle of 1855 there were five of his pictures, but no particulars were given by con temporary art historians and critics.1 PAUL HUET (1804-1868: Med. 2nd cl., 1833; Med. 1st cl., 1848 and 1855 ; ft, 1841). Huet was born and died in Paris. He studied under Gros and Guerin, and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts from 1 So far my efforts for fuller information have been in vain. — Ed. 150 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING 1820 to 1824. He began to exhibit his pictures in 1824. He was in Italy in 1839 and in 1844. He was a great traveler in his native country. He was a grand and bold painter. Like Constable, he painted large effects, not occupying his attention with details. The date of his early pictures shows that his style was original and not derived from Constable. He was very industrious and was equally successful in water-colors and as an en graver. His works are all over France and are all on a level of high excellence. One of his best works is in the Louvre, called L'Inondation de Saint-Cloud and represents the overflow of the Seine at Saint-Cloud (Fig. 129). In the foreground are a cart and a boat with persons who are saving things from the shallow but rushing water. Beyond is magnificent foliage, grand trees outlined against the stormy sky. Between the trees are distant hills and rushing water. The scene would be tragic were it not for the quiet action of the personages in front. Huet did more to break up the academic notion of landscape and to make the triumphs of true naturalism possible than any other man of his generation. He painted with so much boldness and strength that he carried public opinion with him. His strength conquered criticism. LOUIS CABAT (1812-1893: Med. 2nd cl., 1834; ft, 1843; 0. ft, 1855; Med. 3rd cl., 1867 E. U.; L, 1867). Of the brave artists who during the thirties fought for the vindication of landscape painting, Cabat was one of the foremost. He was born in Paris and was a pupil of Flers. He early attracted attention by a gentle Fig. 129. — Huet. Inundation. (Louvre) Fig. 130. — Cabat. Autumn evening. (Louvre) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 151 style founded on Dutch painting. He copied nature exactly and with attention to detail. Though his merit was appreciated, he was severely criticised for lack of style and imagination. To correct these failings he went to Italy about 1835, and there acquired a style that was more pleasing to the Academy, but not so pleasing to those who loved his early work. He lived a long and prosperous hfe, enjoying every honor of his profession. At one time he was the director of the French School at Rome. As for nearly fifty years he contributed to almost every salon, the wonder is what has become of his pictures. None are exhibited at the Louvre, there have been only a few at the Luxembourg. To have any idea what he was in his prime, contempo rary criticism must be consulted, critics of to-day ignore him. A picture called Vn Soir d'Automme (Fig. 130) was in the Louvre, but has been removed. It is a fair specimen of his early style. Another painter who is ranked with the landscapists of this period is Francais. FRANCOIS LOUIS FRANgAIS (1814-1897: Med. 3rd cl., 1841 ; Med. 1st cl., 1848; ft, 1853; Med. 1st cl., 1855 E. U. ; Med. 1st cl., 1867 E. U. ; O. ft, 1867; Med. d'hon., 1890; I., 1890). Francais was born at Plombieres in the Vosges Moun tains and studied under Corot. He is another of the artists who outlived the freshness and power of youth and whose works are disregarded by the present gen eration. Some of his pictures in which figures are in troduced still attract attention : Orphee pleurant Eury- dice and Daphnis et Cloe, at the Luxembourg. His 152 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING pictures seem to have disappeared quite as effectually as Cabat's. There are probably lots of them in the attic of the Louvre. Diaz, Dupre, Rousseau, and Daubigny are the crea tors of modern landscape painting. Modern landscape painting differs from all previous landscape painting in that it starts with the conviction that nature is full of beauty and that it is the office of the painter to bring it out and to make it evident. The modern landscape painter does not compose except in details. He accepts his outlines from nature, because he believes nature can draw them better than he can. He chooses his point of view and then humbly tries to make apparent to others the beauties he feels in his own soul. The subject is secondary because nature hides away her beauty everywhere. NARCISSE VIRGILIO DIAZ DE LA PENA (1808- 1876: Med. 3rd cl., 1844; Med. 2nd cl., 1846; Med. lstcl., 1848; ft, 1851). Diaz was born, in Bordeaux. His father, a Spaniard, had been driven out of Spain for joining a conspiracy against King Joseph. Finding he was not safe at Bor deaux, he fled to Norway and from there to England, where he died. His widow then went to Paris. There she supported herself and her son by giving lessons in Spanish and Italian. When Diaz was ten, his mother died, and he was cared for by a Protestant clergyman living at Bellevue, just outside of Paris. When he was fifteen, he met with a serious accident which necessi tated the amputation of his .left leg. His first work was in painting porcelain. He studied under an artist Fig. 131. — Diaz. Forest clearing. (Louvre) Fig. 132. — Diaz. Bathers. (Louvre) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 153 iMjmed Louchon. He very soon began to make himself Known by original and startling landscapes which he .sold in suflicient numbers to support himself. He de lighted in thick foliage with sunlight streaming through, in pathways through woods brilliant with the setting sun. He introduced mythological figures as light- bearers to make his compositions more splendid. At one time he made nymphs, dryads, etc., the principal objects in his pictures. Not being a draughtsman of form, these efforts were not successful and were soon abandoned. He had not Corot's genial disposition, but lived rather apart from his fellow artists and did not care to see strangers. There are several of his pictures in the Louvre which show the three variations in his style. In the one called La Clairiere (Fig. 131), or " The Forest Clearing," there is but one figure, and that only as a hght-bearer, to introduce bright spots where Diaz wished to put them and where they could not be put without the presence of a figure. This is in Diaz's best style and an excellent specimen. It is quite small, only about one and a half feet by one foot. Another one, called Les Baigneuses (Fig. 132), is in his worst style. Poorly drawn and badly grouped figures are made prominent, while the landscape is unfinished and careless. Nymphes sous Bois is better, but would be better still with the figures left out of it. His later works, those painted and exhibited about 1855, are his best. Gautier writes of Diaz's pictures : " They are like prisms, like peacocks' tails, like rainbows which dazzle by their brilliancy ; a gleaming twinkling ; a whirlwind pf baubles and of golden atoms, a kaleidoscopic swarm- 154 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ing, a confusion of spangles, of flossy silk, and of fringed plush. At times one would say that a palette charged with brilliant colors had accidentally fallen on a canvas and had left an impression that seemed like the outline of a figure, or of a waving tree-trunk, or of an agate stone with odd ramifications : all the heaped up happiness seems such a chance." After Diaz's death Jules Dupre wrote of him: " Diaz belonged to the phalanx of 1830 which had such hard fighting to do, and which so vahantly held and defended its standard. He was fantastic and capricious at the start and remained so all through his artistic career. He painted flowers, landscapes, genre subjects, even battles. He received his first encouragement from Sigalon, who perceived in the first efforts of the young man the native tendencies of a veritable painter. He was not mistaken, for Diaz's career was brilliant and full of luminous effects. Nobody has better understood the laws of light ; the magic, almost the folly, of the sun in foliage and in bushes. If in his figure pieces there is wanting what may be learned, there is present what cannot be learned; for there is no school where you can be taught to make a picture luminous, magic, and to make it charm. Method often puts sentiment in bon dage and destroys the unexpected, which is the leading quality of men of genius and which Diaz possessed to so high a degree. I have often thought of him as a flint upon which a spark may be struck; a rare stone in our midst, where there is so much rubble from which no spark can be drawn. Let us remember Diaz's bril liant qualities and let us tell one another that the sun has lost one of its most beautiful rays." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 155 JULES DUPRE (1811-1889: Med. 2nd cl., 1833; ft, 1849 ; Med. 2nd cl., 1867 E. U. ; O. ft, 1870). Dupre was born at Nantes and, like Corot, was the son of a manufacturer of porcelain who wished his son to succeed him, but who, unlike Corot's father, was quick to perceive the uselessness of trying to make of his son a man of business and readily consented to his becoming a painter. Under whose direction Dupre studied is not given ; but before he was twenty, his pictures began to attract attention, and before he was twenty-two they had brought him a medal. Dupre lived a long and happy life. He died at L'lle Adam, a lovely village on the Oise about twenty miles northwest of Paris," where he had long lived and whose charming en virons he so often painted. Dupre was a strong and commanding painter. His critics apply the word " magistral " to his works. He was not only a faithful representer of nature, but he in a measure used nature to express his sentiments. He used nature as a vehicle of expression. If for this reason some of his critics place him lower than Rousseau and Daubigny as a pure landscapist, others see in his works the admirable union of the .best qualities of both academic and modern land scape. At all events, his pictures continue to be admired and their prices go on increasing. Many are in the United States. Five are in the Vanderbilt Loan Collec tion in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. In these his bold, grand, inspiring style is seen to advan tage. His picture Le Grand Chene (Fig. 133), in the Louvre, is a capital specimen of his " magistral " style. A superb oak in the center of the composition dominates 156 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING the scene like a fortress. Henry Marcel says of him: " Above everything else he seeks relief. To obtain it he piles on his pigments until they approach cracking. Enamored of the majesty of grand trees, he places them in front of horizontal pastures where they do not belong, or blends them for reflecting over marshes which could not exist. Ample outlines and mighty masses of foliage abound in his pictures. But he repeats himself with such monotony, he affects such tawny tones and introduces such masses of matter, that his pictures lack lightness and freshness." Marcel also apphes to his work the word " chic," which is hard to translate. " Chic " is a result reached by happy carelessness or by clever trick, and not by honest intent and well-directed study. PIERRE ETIENNE THEODORE ROUSSEAU (1812-1867: Med. 3rd cl., 1834; Med. 1st cl., 1849; ft, 1852; Med. 1st cl., 1855 E. U.; Gd. med. d'hon., 1867 E. U.). Rousseau was born in Paris and died at Barbizon, a village on the western edge of the Forest of Fontaine bleau. His father was a tailor in good circumstances who recognized the talents of his son and gave him good masters. The boy was impatient of control and de veloped after his own ideas. In 1834, when he was but twenty-two, he obtained a third-class medal at the Salon. But from then until the Revolution of 1848 — that is, during the whole of the reign of Louis Philippe — his pictures were persistently rejected by the Salon. In 1849 they were received and he was honored with a first-class medal. From then until his death he enjoyed every honor of his profession. In 1848 he moved to J -a cSO P.3 Q I CO fe ' Fig. 134. — Rousseau. Spring. (Louvre) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 157 Barbizon, and there, with Diaz, Millet, Troyon, and others, established what has ever since been known as the Barbizon School. His life was shortened by anxiety for his wife, who finally became insane. He himself died when he was fifty-five. Accounts of his style given by various French critics will be of more value than de scriptions of his pictures. Landscape painting is so much a matter of sentiment that it is about as difficult to properly criticise a landscape as it is to paint one. Gautier writes of him : " He rendered what he saw, with its attitude, its design, its color, its relations of tone, naively, sincerely, lovingly ; convinced at the same time that he might be adjudged guilty of an audacity that was almost idiotic, and might be regarded as a barbarian, as quixotic, as a fool. He delighted to sur prise nature in the morning before she was dressed, when she thought no one saw her. He spied her at noon at her siestas, and particularly at evening when she was about falling to sleep. He did not even quit her at night, but sought her during the mysterious hours, through semi-transparent darkness. From his drawings of scrupulous conscientiousness and of pro found observation he made pictures full of daring, of passion, and of originality; adding, as do all great artists, his soul to nature. There is no act or anecdote in landscape as Rousseau conceived it. Personages are admitted only as agreeable spots of color. They have no more importance than they have really in the vast bosom of nature, wherein man so easily disappears. .. . . Rousseau is versatile. He searches truth by every method. At one time he puts on his colors thick and strong, then again he works with a light 158 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING and rapid brush. Sometimes he presents but the bare outlines of masses, then again he finishes minutely. One day he will present a site under an aspect almost fantastic, for nature often so presented herself to him ; the next day he may present the same scene, but quiet, almost humdrum, with a communal road running through it marked by a few thin poplars. Or, plunging into his beloved forest, he will select a single oak and paint its portrait as an artist would paint the portrait of a god, of a hero, of an emperor. By one of those secret analogies which you can feel, but about which you cannot reason, it may be said that Rousseau is the Dela croix of landscape." Eugene Fromentin, in his extraordinary book Les Maitres d'autrefois, writes as follows of Rousseau in connection with the landscape painters of Holland: " According to his date and his rank in the history of our school, Rousseau occupies an intermediary and transitional position between the painters of Holland and those of the future. He is derived from the Hol land painters, but he separates himself from them. He admires them and he forgets them. So far as the past avails him, he gives them a hand. With the other hand he provokes them by calling to himself a whole new stream of energies and sympathies. He discovers in nature a thousand things hitherto unnoticed. The stock of his impressions is immense. All the seasons ; all the hours of day, of evening and dawn ; all the inclemencies, from frost to the heat of the dog days ; all altitudes, from strands to hill-tops, from moors to Mont Blanc; villages, meadows, brushwood, forest trees, the naked earth and all the vegetation that covers it, — there is THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 159 nothing that has not tempted him, stopped him, con vinced him of its interest, persuaded him to paint it. One would say that the Holland painters had only twined themselves about themselves in comparison with the energetic distances covered by this seeker of new impressions. Take them altogether, they could have made their career with but a small selection of Rous seau's drawings. From this point of view he is abso lutely original and he is also well in accord with his own time. Once plunged in the study of the relative, the accidental, and the true, there is no stopping until the end is reached. He was not the only, but certainly the greatest, contributor to the creation of a school which may well be called the school of sensations. . . . The things that Jean Jacques Rousseau, Bernardin de Saint- Pierre, Senancour, our first landscape masters in litera ture, observed in a general way, expressed in summary formulas, became nothing more than incomplete abridg ments, very limited views, the day that literature became really descriptive. In the same way painting, when it traveled about and became analytical and imitative, found in foreign style and method nothing but confine ment and restraint. The eye became more curious, more precise. Sensibility, without becoming more lively, be came more nervous, drawing was more searching, ob servations multiplied. Nature, studied more closely, swarmed with details, with incidents, with effects, with shadings. A thousand secrets were asked of her which she had been keeping to herself, because no one had known how, or perhaps because no one had cared to question her seriously on all these points. A new lan guage was needed to express this multitude of new 160 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING sensations, and it was Rousseau who almost by himself invented the vocabulary in use to-day.1 In his sketches, in his rough outlines, as well as in his finished pictures, you perceive efforts, attempts, inventions that succeed or miss, excellent terms to be accepted, or words that are risked, with which this profound seeker of formulas would enrich the ancient language and the ancient gram mar of painting. If you take one of Rousseau's pic tures, the best one, and place it by the side of a picture by Ruysdael, by Hobbema, or by Wynants, of the same order and the same degree, you will be struck with the difference in about the same way as if, after reading pages of modern description, you turn to pages of Les Confessions or of Obermann. You see the same effort, the same breadth of study, and an equally complete re sult. But in Rousseau the object seems more human, the observation more rare. The palette is infinitely more rich, the color more expressive, the construction more scrupulous. Everything seems better felt, better reflected, more scientifically reasoned and calculated. The Dutch artists would stand wide-mouthed before such scrupulousness. Such faculty of analysis would stupify him. And yet which works are the better, which the most inspired, which the most living ? " The whole chapter should be read ; in fact, the whole work should be studied. It is a masterpiece of art criticism; no better has been written. Henry Marcel is a different sort of critic. What he writes about Rousseau is no less interesting : " Rous seau's work is, above all, the work of a designer. Con- 1 Fromentin wrote over thirty years ago, long before the inventions of impressionism. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 161 struction is his constant care, his evident effort. To establish his distances ; to adj ust his masses of trees ; to lead his plains to the horizontal line by imperceptible transitions ; to make sensible, by the direction and the different pressures of his brush, the compact density of the soil, the softness and pliancy of the lower vegeta tion, and the fixed resistance of trees ; to fill his foliage with air and hght ; to give his distances relief against the sky without interrupting the harmony or disturbing the equilibrium of the necessary subordinations of the picture, — this is his dominant preoccupation. The mobility of colors under the play of atmospheric re fraction ; the mysterious interchanges which by the in termediary of refraction marry neighboring objects; the subtle, rapid, infinitely pliable and varying tones of colors, of their complementaries, their analogies, and their contrasts — he suggests all these things ; he tries them, but without exerting himself, even as a man whose chief investigations are addressed elsewhere. Moreover, no one by the patient energy of the brush has presented, as he has, the solid foundations of soils ; the tenacious vitality of vegetation, the logic of its structure, the beauty of its carriage, and that particular individuality which opposes the sinuous slenderness of the birch to the proud and rigid growth of the beech, or to the rugged, knotty, and twisted outline of the oak. His pictures seem to offer the tonic salubrity of forests, the robust health of grand trees. Gentle trickery and affected sensitiveness .are equally unknown to him. Sta bility and endurance, mingled with resignation and hero ism, are the characteristics of his work, which is as virile as the soul which conceived it." n 162 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING No amount of writing can describe his pictures ; they must be seen to be understood. The critic may point out some of their peculiarities ; he can convey no idea of their power, their charm. Rousseau did not look about for a site he thought worthy of his brush ; every bit of nature was lovely to him, and he wished others to share his love. Most of Rousseau's pictures are in private collec tions. Many are in the United States: five are in the Vanderbilt Collection, of the New York Metropol itan Art Museum; three are in the Wolf Collection which belongs to the Museum. There are five in the regular galleries of the Louvre, • — at least there were according to the last catalogue, — and ten in the Thomy-Thierry Collection. Changes are so frequent in the modern pictures in the Louvre that there is no use in describing pictures which may be there no longer. Besides, minute descriptions will not help you to appre ciate and enjoy Rousseau's genius, and photographs will only help you to remember what you have seen. One may be shown as an example (Fig. 134), and because in it is preserved a little of Rousseau's wonderful power in depicting distance and the gradations which lead out to the horizon. The picture, called Le Printemps, is from the Thomy-Thierry Collection. CHARLES FRANgOIS DAUBIGNY (1817-1878: Med. 2nd cl., 1848; Med. 1st cl., 1-853; Med. 3rd cl., 1855 E. U. ; Med. 1st cl., 1857-1859; ft, 1859; Med. 1st cl., 1867 E. U. ; O. ft, 1874). Daubigny was born and died in Paris. His father was a miniaturist and gave him his first instruction. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 163 For a while he was in the studio of Delaroche. As soon as he was able, he went to Italy and stayed there a year without apparently being at all affected by the works of Italian art. On his return he supported himself by illustrating books. He began exhibiting pictures in 1838. For ten years his pictures failed to attract at tention. As with Rousseau, the Academy during the reign of Louis Philippe would not recognize him. After the Revolution of 1848 his merit was appreciated and his reputation established. About 1850 he settled at Auvers on the Oise, not far from L'lle Adam, about twenty miles from Paris. Most of his subsequent works are views taken on, or about, the river Oise; many ap parently from boats, — not only because the perspective shows it, but because the pictures are filled with the gentle laziness of floating with the stream. Daubigny in some of his pictures is quite as charming and attrac tive as Rousseau, but he is limited. There are only certain aspects of nature that attract him ; he does not care for her when she is bold and strong, but only when she is gentle and mild. He is a master of the brush. His painting reveals all the beauties he sees. There are exquisite delicacy and most graceful harmony in his colors. Lovely peace is his theme. Henry Marcel writes of him : " Daubigny is, above everything else, a practitioner. His composition has little variety ; but his palette is the freshest, the most smiling, the most savory. Moist plains, tender vegeta tion, the sturdy and lively growth of grain, are the things that he does ravishingly, without effort, with a free and rapid touch, if at times too weak. His can vases are odorous of the earth and of sap. The im- 164 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING pression of nature is so strong that the too literal pro- saicism is forgotten, and that absence of interpretation and of style which prevents him from ranking with those creators of art, Corot and Rousseau." Daubigny's pictures are everywhere. There must be nearly as many of them in this country as in France. There are four in the Metropolitan Museum. There are fifteen at the Louvre, — two in the regular galleries and thirteen in the Thomy-Thierry Collection. It is useless to show photographs of Daubigny's pictures, as their coloring is everything. Bordeaux, Rouen, and other French museums have specimens. These three artists had many pupils and followers, none of whom have been very successful, because perhaps not sufficiently independent. Rousseau had one good pupil in Le Roux. MARIE GUILLAUME CHARLES LE ROUX (1814- 1895: Med. 3rd cl., 1843; Med. 2nd cl., 1846 and 1848; Rap., 1859; ft, 1859; O. ft, 1868). There were, and. may be still, two pictures by him in the Luxembourg, which show strong drawing and bold effects of light. Very little seems to be known about him. He was born at Nantes, where are some of his pictures. Two artists not strictly landscape painters are often grouped with those who are, because landscape plays such a large part in their works. These two are Millet and Troyon, who are about as well known and repre sented in this country as in their own. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 165 JEAN FRANQOIS MILLET (1814-1875: Med. 2nd cl., 1853 ; Med., 1864 ; Med. 1st cl., 1867 E. U. ; ft, 1868). Millet was born at Greville, not far from Cherbourg, and died at Barbizon, on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau. His father was a farmer in comfortable circumstances, and he was brought up among the peas antry he ever delighted, to paint. He first studied at Cherbourg with an artist of the name of Langlois, who had been a pupil of Gros. Langlois, recognizing his talent, persuaded the authorities of Cherbourg to vote Millet a pension of 1000 francs, with which he set out for Paris in 1837. He first entered the atelier of Dela roche ; finding the discipline irksome, he soon left. Mil let was not attractive in person or in manners. He had a warm heart, but none of the elements of popularity. His life was a constant struggle; often his family suf fered from absolute want. At first he tried every kind of painting. It was not until after 1840 that he settled down to the one style which made him famous. Some of his latest critics state that* in his choice he was in fluenced by Daumier, the caricaturist, and that in Dau- mier must be recognized many of the qualities of a great artist. In 1848 he moved from Paris to Barbizon, where for the rest of his life he lived as simply and econom ically as possible. He and Rousseau lived near each other and were the warmest friends. Many a time did Rousseau aid Millet when starvation was knocking at his cabin door. In 1860 Millet succeeded in making a contract with a Belgian picture-dealer by which he was to receive 12,000 francs a year for three years for all 166 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING his works. This contract made him relatively comfort able, and moreover established his reputation. In 1867 he lost his best friend, Rousseau, and in 1868 his wife died. During the Franco-Prussian War he was at Cherbourg. After the war his health declined. He finally died at Barbizon, on the 20th of January, 1875, and was buried by the side of Rousseau. No artist ever lived about whom there were and still are held such widely differing opinions. Henry Marcel introduces his history of him as follows : " Follow the study of landscape painting as far back as you please, among the Dutch who created it, among the English and ourselves, it will always appear that artists, however different may have been their point of view, — whether, as in Holland, they devoted themselves to the simple representation of familiar sites, or, as in France, they arranged nature as a decoration to frame heroic epi sodes, — never established a bond of dependence or in timate parental union between the places represented and the figures they placed in them. It was the par ticular innovation of Millet to express under multiphed aspects this association of man and the earth as the realities of every day present it. ' When you paint a picture,' he said, ' be it a house, a wood, a plain, the ocean, or the sky, always think of the presence of man and of his affinities of j oy or of suffering with the scene. Then an inner voice will speak to you of his family, his occupations, his troubles, and his predilections. The idea will attract into its orbit the whole of humanity. In pamting a landscape you will think of man ; in creat ing a man you will think of the accompanying land scape.' The difficulty was great in successfully com- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 167 bining the two elements so as not to sacrifice the one to the other without reducing nature to the part of a mere background, or man to the part of a comparse [dummy]. It does not seem as if he gave the matter a thought, so easy and complete seems the fusion in his works, so exactly do surroundings and action occupy their respective places and show their respective im portance. It was because he was born and grew up amid peculiar conditions, because he had never regarded the inhabited nature which he devoted himself to paint ing as something apart from himself or as exterior to himself, but had bathed in it from his first hour and had made of it an integral part of himself in his double quality of child of the fields and laborer of the soil. From this point of view his biography sheds a most clear hght over his works ; and the story of his younger years explains, better than any commentary, the charac ter and earthy flavor of his art." As an example of the severe criticism to which Millet was exposed, Baudelaire may be quoted. In criticising the Salon of 1859 he wrote: " Millet seeks, in particular, style. He makes no secret of it. He shows it and glories in it. He does not escape a part of the ridi cule which belongs to Ingres' pupils. Style hurts him. His peasants are pedants who have too high an opinion of themselves. They boast a somber and fatal brutish- ness which excites hate. Whether they reap or sow, take care of cows or shear sheep, they all have the air of saying : ' Though we are the disinherited of the world, we are those who fertilize it. We fill a mission, we exer cise a spiritual function.' Instead of being satisfied with simply extracting the natural poetry of his subject, 168 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Millet will at all cost add something. In their monoto nous ugliness all his little pariahs have a philosophical pretension. This fault in Millet's painting spoils all the fine qualities which at first attract attention." Fromentin is more liberal, and writes thus of Millet: " He is a very original painter ; has a sufficiently lofty spirit, a sad disposition, a good heart, a truly rural nature. He has said things about the soil and about its tillers, about the hardships, the sadness, and the nobility of labor, which no Dutch painter would have thought of finding out. He has said them in a language that is a little barbarous, and within limits where the thought has more force and clearness than the hand. His efforts have been received with the utmost sym pathy. . . . After all, has he produced beautiful pic tures ? His form, his language, — I mean that exterior envelope without which works of the imagination can neither exist nor live, — has in it the qualities necessary to consecrate him a good painter and to assure him that he will live. He is a profound thinker by the side of Paul Potter and Cuyp. He is an attractive dreamer in comparison with Terburg and Metzer. He has some thing that is incontestably noble when you think of the trivialities of Steen, Ostade, and Brauwer. As a man, he should make them all blush; but as a painter, is he worth any of them? " Fromentin's answer to his own question is easily in ferred. Arsene Alexandre, in his Histoire populaire de la Peinture, from which the above extract is taken, answers the question as follows : " As a painter, Millet cannot be compared with the charming pearl jewelers of the Dutch School. He cannot be compared in the THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 169 French School with Chardin, or Watteau, who are the most refined of workers ; nor with Delacroix, who is splendid; nor with Rousseau, who is the personifica tion of modern painting; nor with Corot, who is the rarest of harmonists. . . . His painting is dull and opaque, and, moreover, is not well in accord. It is an imperfect and rude instrument which Millet uses for producing admirable effects. He is therefore a great artist, because he has produced his own language for expressing his own sentiments. The question of mere painting seems to become secondary, because the beauty of the work resides in the conception of the painter and in the presentation of the outlines which enable him to present his conception forcibly." Henry Marcel calls attention to the variety of Mil let's inspirations: " The object of his efforts frequently changes. At one time it is the representation of manual labor. Then the artist devotes himself to making evi dent the pose and balance of .the human carpentry. At another time a peasant becomes the picturesque motive, the culminating point of a landscape of which the im mensity seems to concentrate itself in the peasant's out line and in his gestures. Then again he represents the intervals of labor, — the rest, the meal slowly taken, the gathering about the table beneath the scant light of a candle. Now and then he represents the simple and entirely physical nature of young peasant girls, gath ered about a fire of roots, following with their eyes a flight of migratory birds, or plunging their youthful bodies into the waters of a cool stream. There is no place in his pictures for anything idyllic or romantic; no embracing couples, no melting glances, no unsteady 170 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING drinkers, no rustic games even. Life is a chain of labor and duty. Its only reward is the repose of conscience and the equilibrium of health. The beauty of these works consists in the represented obedience to salutary instincts, the accomplishment of inherited tasks, the tribute of responsibility paid to the social body. This lofty and proud but sad and puritanic conception found in Millet its ideal interpreter. There is no con ventionality, no artifice, in his work. He seeks character only in reality, relying on the deciding features, discard ing all useless details. By these wise simplifications his models, without losing their bony ughness, their awk ward build, their heavy and balanced gait; gain a cer tain dignity and nobility. You feel that they are the servants of an eternal and irresistible law ; workmen in a sublime labor which consists in nourishing humanity, in holding and continuing terrestrial life in its essential conditions. Nature, on her side, accepts the responsi bility of surrounding their work with a frame of mag nificence and serenity. The glory of sunshine, the joys of vegetation, the fresh breath of the sky, envelope these short and simple destinies and pour over them quiet and peace. But this philosopher is a painter, and the ques tion of technique is his as it is of any other. His style of work is large and moderate; for he always painted from memory, retaining in his brain and his eye only the governing lines, the fundamental tone, only the charac- ..-teristic accidents, which give to the whole the aspect of realityx He used but few tones, judging that mixtures break the unity of figures and interfere with clearness of sight. The tones he prefers are between red and brown, which unequally mixed give to his canvases at THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 171 one time the appearance of fresh earth; at another, of ripened grain. To these are added glazings of blue and emerald to enliven the otherwise dull harmony. His touch is unfortunate, often monotonous and soft, and lacks the fine effect of his drawings and etchings. It suffices, however, to mark projections, volumes, and re sistances, and to express properly the placid masses of high lights. As to the intensity of the expression of forms, to their relation to neighboring objects, to their dissolving into atmosphere, he depends upon his syn thetic drawing, and with marvelous success. Millet re calls the grave and meditative figure of Poussin, than whom no one but Millet has so closely associated man and nature ; has better marked their reciprocal depend ence, the bonds of custom, of sympathy, and of analogy which unite them. The soil in its destiny has given some thing of its endurance and instinctive majesty to those who inhabit it, work it, and fertilize it." These are but specimens of the many and varied criti cisms Millet and his works have evoked. It could not be otherwise with an artist who is so entirely subjective. To enjoy his works you must first infer from them what were his intentions and must then sympathize with those intentions. To the seeker for abstract beauty, Millet's works offer very little that is attractive and very much that is objectionable, if not repulsive. His faces are without expression, often without human features. His bodies present anatomies which it would be, difficult to follow. He is quite indifferent to materials. Legs, tree trunks, peasant aprons, and sides of houses are all painted alike. The grasses of his fields and the foliage of his tree tops are equally unreal and impossible. No 172 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING one of his children smiles ; no one of his young girls is a bit attractive. No country on the face of the earth at any period of its history has produced men and women of such uniform souUessness. There will always be sentimentalists in art to admire his works ; there will always be realists in art to condemn them. A juste milieu will not be found until many generations separate critics and the artist. He deserves a large place in art histories of the present day, if for no other reason than because his pictures have brought such enormous prices Among his more celebrated works are Le Vanneur, of 1848 ; Le Semeur, of 1860 ; Les Glaneuses, of 1857 L'Angelus, of 1858; Tondeuse de Mouton, of 1860 Le Boucher on et la Mort, refused by the jury of 1859 first exhibited in 1867 E. U. ; La Bergere, of 1864 L'Homme a, la Houe, of 1863 ; Lecon de Tricot, of 1869 Les Glaneuses and Le Vanneur are the principal ones of those in the Louvre. Le Semeur and a few others are in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. The others are in the private collections of Europe and of the United States. The most important of his works — at least judged by the prices it has realized — is the Angelus (Fig. 135). Its history is thus given by Henry Marcel: " The Angelus followed [that is, it followed the Gla neuses]. The exact time when it was painted does not seem to be known. It was sold in 1859 to Feydeau the architect for 1800 francs; then to M. van Praet. After that it appeared in several collections. M. Sec- retan paid 160,000 francs for it at the sale of John Wilson (date and place not given). At the sale of Secretan's gallery it was purchased for the enormous Fig. 135.— Millet. The angelus. (M. Chauchard) Fig. 136.— Millet. The Gleaners. (Louvre) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 173 sum of 553,000 francs by M. Antonin Proust who sup posed he was acting for the French government. The government refused to ratify the purchase. After hav ing been promenaded about the United States by Bar- num it has finally found refuge in the collection of M. Chauchard, who paid for it 800,000 francs." The An gelus is a prayer offered three times a day by devout Roman Catholics, — in the morning, at noon, and in the evening, at the sound of the church bell. It is in honor of the Incarnation, and is called after its first word, "Angelus (Domini).". The picture is extremely simple. In the foreground are two young peasants with bowed heads repeating the Angelus. Back of them is a monotonous plain and in the far distance are seen the village and its church from whose steeple has come the call to prayer. The man holds his hat in his hands. The woman, who is in profile, joins her hands in prayer. There is between them a basket in which are potatoes which the man has been digging with the fork which is upright in the ground on his right. Back of the woman is a barrow in which are two bags of potatoes ready to be wheeled to the village. Nothing could be more simple or more impressive. According to Marcel, " Millet has sought to express a shade of particular emotion, the kind of instinctive tenderness which will seize the coars est natures of the fields at the far-away sound of the bells which announced their entrance into the Christian Association, celebrated their marriage, deplored the death of their relatives and will announce their own funerals. This sudden remembrance of the impor tant dates of existence, consecrated one after the other by ancient religious rites which reveal confusedly in the 174 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING nature the idea of human solidarity and the inner notion of eternal destinies, Millet has presented in his silent heroes by a slight inclination and by a moment of interior absorption. At the same time he enforces the eloquence of this sober mimicry by the solemn beauty of the landscape. The illimitable stretches of the plain are bathed in a golden mist. The absence of any break in the scene prolongs it into the infinite, while the out lines of the peasants profiled against the shghtly undu lated immensity of the background seem to fill the whole sky with their unconscious -majesty." Les Glaneuses (Fig. 136), at least equally esteemed by moderate criticism, has not been the object of such fulsome praise, nor has it been sold at such immoderate prices. The artist received but 2000 francs for it. After a while it came into the hands of Bischoffsheim, the art-dealer. He sold it to Madame Pommery, of champagne renown, and she by will left it to the Louvre. It was at one time reported that Madame Pommery had paid 150,000 francs for it. The composition and the execution of the picture are in Millet's very best style. In a large field that has been reaped are three women gleaning. They are in profile and turned to the left. The one on the right and nearest the spectator is but slightly bent and seems reflecting. The two others are bent over to the ground and are in the act of gleaning. In the distance are men and women engaged in all the acts of harvesting. On the right is an overseer on horse back, and back of him farmhouses. Exhibited in the Salon of 1857, this picture excited a diversity of criticism. Paul de Saint-Victor, who, in collaboration with T. Gautier and A. Houssaye, wrote THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 175 Les Dieux et les Demi-dicux de la Peinture, was very bitter. " Those poor creatures do not interest me," he wrote. " They are too proud. They betray too visibly the pretension of being descended from Michael Angelo and of carrying their rags more haughtily than Pous- sin's reapers carry their draperies. Under the pretext that they are symbols, they dispense with color and mod eling. That is not the way I understand the representa tion of misery. A sacred thing, says the Latin poet. Sacred and honest art should paint it without ostenta tion, but with emotion and simplicity. It displeases me to see Ruth and Naomi striding the field of Boaz as the boards of a theater." Marcel also cites Castagnary x as follows : " This canvas, which recalls frightful miseries, is not, hke some of Courbet's pictures, a pohtical harangue, or a social thesis, but a very beautiful and simple work of art, free from declamation. The motive is poignant, it is true; but treated as it is in the highest style, with largeness, sobriety, and frankness, it hfts itself above the passions of parties, and reproduces, far from misrep resentation and exaggeration, one of those grand and true pages of nature, such as are found in Virgil and Homer." L' Homme a la Houe (Fig. 137) was exhibited in 1863, and was more severely criticised than any other of his productions. It is difficult to conceive of a more unattractive work. A peasant from whose face hard and unchanging labor has driven all hope, all thought, all semblance of humanity, and whose clothes are in 1 Jules Antoine Castagnary, 1830-1880, art critic and journalist, appointed Directeur des Beaux Arts a short time before his death ; well known for his defense of Courbet. 176 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING keeping with his condition, pauses a moment to rest from his labors. With open mouth he leans on his hoe, a picture of degenerate misery. About him stretch rough fields which are as unattractive as himself and are therefore in harmony with the theme. Away off in the right is a woman burning rubbish, as if the process might well be applied to both the man and the hoe ! Millet himself wrote this about his critics : " What they say about my Homme a la Houe seems to me very strange. In what club have my critics met me that they should call me a socialist? Is it prohibited to accept the ideas which may come to you at the sight of a man doomed to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow? Some tell me that I deny the charms of the country. I find more than charms. I find infinite splen dors. I see, as they do, the little flowers of which Christ said, ' Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as one of these.' I very well see the aureola of the dande lions and the sun, which far away, far away beyond all lands, shows its glories in the clouds. None the less do I see the plain, its rising vapors, its laboring horses, and, in addition, in a rocky spot, a man utterly ex hausted, the strokes of whose hoe have been heard since morning and who is trying to straighten himself up so as to catch his breath. The drama is enveloped in splen dors. It is not of my invention. Long ago was the expression found, ' the cry of the earth.' " Sufficient space has been given to Millet to introduce him to the reader. What has been written about him would fill volumes. For ten or fifteen years after his death his pictures brought the highest prices of any pictures offered for sale. What they would bring now Fig. 137. — Millet. The man with the hoe. (Louvre) Fig. 138. Tryon. Oxen going to work. (Louvre) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 177 is a question. There will undoubtedly always be those who can see in his pictures unutterable things ; there will always be those who cannot see anything but ugliness. • Troyon is easier to understand. He did not combine landscape with human beings, but with cattle; and it is easy to see that in all his combinations his quest was beauty, the simple beauty that nature offers to those who love her. CONSTANT TROYON (1810-1865: Med. 3rd cl., 1838; Med. 2nd cl., 1840; Med. 1st cl., 1846 and 1848; ft, 1849; Med. 1st cl., 1855 E. U.). Troyon was born at Sevres, near Paris, and died in Paris. He was first apprenticed to the porcelain factory at Sevres and became an adept in the decoration of china. Having completed his apprenticeship, he wan dered on foot all about the North of France, supporting himself by the skill he had acquired as a decorator, but devoting his chief attention to drawing and painting landscapes. His first pictures, exhibited in 1833, were scenes in and about Sevres and were not promising. He kept on exhibiting ; each year marking improvement in his execution. In 1848 he visited Holland and was par ticularly attracted by the pictures of Paul Potter. From this time he introduced animals into his pictures. After his return to Paris his success was continuous and distinguished. The hardships of his earlier years had made inroads upon his health and spirits. He was rarely well or happy, and he died at the comparatively early age, for an artist, of fifty-two. Charles Blanc writes of him as follows : " Troyon has 12 178 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING no biography, nor have his pictures any names. They are not called, as those of Poussin and Claude, ' The Obsequies of Phocion ' or ' The Embarkation of Cleo patra.' They are only known as ' The Great Oak,' ' The Interior of the Forest,' ' Oxen at Labor,' ' The Pasturing Cow,' etc. His pictures represent the first, things seen, — such trees as there are everywhere, such prairies, streams, and paths through woods as are all about Paris. But what a charm he puts into every thing! He introduces neither columns nor monuments, no striking ruins, no gods of mythology, not even Daph- nis. His heroes are the rustics who lead cows, drive carts, and whose feet sink into the mud of the highways. His nymphs are farmers' daughters carrying products to town, seated on jackasses, with simple petticoats and flat shoes ; or turkey girls who drive their flocks before them ignorant of their rustic beauty and of their youthful freshness. They walk with so much truth that in a moment you will see them disappear at the turning of the road. The hght of Troyon's pictures is ordinarily a northern vapory gray. It is rarely bril liant, except when he would express the dramas of the setting sun. His skies of hazy blue are traversed by moving clouds. He sacrifices them to the outlines of a herd, or he makes use of them as a background to the coat of the dun cow with its black stripes, to the red robe of a bull spotted with white, to the bunchy thick ness of fleece, or to the plumage of ducks waddling to the fields. When Troyon began to paint animals, he took a place by himself in the school of painting. Though an excellent landscapist, he subordinated land scape to the objects he wished to make prominent, THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 179 — to oxen, to sheep, to workhorses, and to hunting dogs. His manner of painting them is not caressing like that of Van der Velde, not precise and overworked (brode) like that of Paul Potter, nor suggestive and seasoned with a bit of spirit like that of Berghem. It is rather remarkable for a sense of largeness, energy, and abundance, which at times recalls the animals of Albert Cuyp in their fat pastures. The grand oxen bending their necks to drink, or with their eyes half closed chewing the cud on the prairies, are grandly seen and sohdly constructed. They are strong, slow, heavy, and patient. His sheep are so true that they bleat. His incomparable talent consists in expressing the pres ence of air and of plunging his figures in a bath of light. His fat touch, intentionally irregular, devours profiles and bathes them in light, so that with him you see the picture but never its pieces. This is his great triumph. Everything he represents partakes of the universal life, is part of universal nature. What he draws from the depth of woods is the impression of woods. From nature he extracts her strong and penetrating aroma, her essence. In landscape he is a master." 1 After 1849, when Troyon was decorated at the in stance of Charles Blanc, his pictures sold for high prices. He accumulated a fortune and died rich. After his death the contents of his studio were sold for over 500,000 francs. He had a rough exterior and neither in manner nor conversation gave any idea of the power he possessed of perceiving and representing beauty. His pictures are large and fine, easily understood and easily enjoyed. He imparts a noble and aristocratic 1 Ch. Blanc, Les Artistes de mom Temps, pp. 321-322. 180 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING spirit to nature, with an easy skill, which is all the more remarkable because evidently unconscious, as there was nothing aristocratic in his origin or in the cir cumstances of his life. Whether he loved cows or only used them as light-bearers to make his landscapes bril liant, is an unanswered question. After his decoration in 1849 his pictures sold for ten times their previous prices; after his death they increased tenfold more in value. Troyon is well represented in the Louvre. There are eleven of his pictures in the Thomy-Thierry Collection and two (1907) in the regular galleries. The two in the regular galleries, Bceufs se rendant au Labour and the Retour a la Ferme, are equally fine with La Barriere and the Hauteurs de Suresnes of the Thomy-Thierry Collection. The Bceufs se rendant au Labour is a large picture (Fig. 138), about eight by twelve feet, and was first exhibited in 1855. In a large field, still enveloped with morning mists, three yoke of oxen seem marching out of the canvas. The sun, just rising di rectly behind them, sends their shadows far in advance. To the left is their driver with his goad. Away back on the left are flocks of sheep and a shepherd. Gautier writes of this picture : " The square muzzled heads, the steaming nostrils, the pendent dewlaps, the crooked knees, the thick necks and shoulders of the brave beasts who are about to open the furrows where man's bread will germinate, — all is rendered with a sovereign largeness and fullness." The Retour a la Ferme (Fig. 139) is a still more attractive composition. It is of about the same size, and was presented to the state by Troyon's mother after his Fig. 139. — Tryon. Returning home. (Louvre) Fig. 140. — Tryon. The barrier. (Louvre) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 181 death. On a road, preceded by a barking and jumping dog, emerge from a wood and into the sunlight some sheep, two cows, and an ass. On the left is a pond where two other cows are drinking. Four more cows are approaching as if to join those in the road. Back of the pond are other woods and lovely landscape. A more delightful picture of peaceful and opulent farm ing could not be presented. La Barriere, painted in 1853, of the Thomy-Thierry Collection, is a similar composition (Fig. 140). A troop of cows leaving the pasture are advancing around a fence to a stream to drink. On the left the fence extends across the stream as a barrier, whence the name of the picture. Back of the barrier is the guardian of the herd on horseback. In the distance is a line of hills stretching on the left to the far distance. At the foot of the hills are clumps of trees hiding farmhouses. On the intervening plain are pasturing cattle. The same happy and peaceful prosperity fills this picture with its spirit. When sad dened by Millet's pictures, turn to Troyon's for restored cheerfulness. There are a number of his works in the New York Metropolitan Museum, and many of them have been purchased by rich United States amateurs. Certainly Chintreul, perhaps also Marilhat, should be mentioned as landscape painters of merit. ANTOINE CHINTREUL (1816-1873). Chintreul was born at Pont-de-Vaux, Ain, and died near Paris. Although his pictures in the Louvre show him to be an artist of decided talent, he was not success ful. He came to Paris when he was eighteen, and though it does not appear that he was a regular pupil 182 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING of Corot, he undoubtedly enjoyed the benefit of his advice and was led by it to devote himself to land scape. His pictures were received by the Salon of 1847 and by many subsequent Salons. He had one picture in the Exposition Universelle of 1855, and two in that of 1867 which secured him a medal. Very few of his paintings were sold before, nor for many years after, his death. It is only very lately that any demand for his pictures has existed; now they are beginning to be appreciated. The three in the Louvre are called L'Espace, Le Bosquet auyyChe- vreuils, and Pluie et Soleil. Le Bosquet auxChevreuils was painted the year before he died; L'Espace, in 1869. The two attracted sufficient attention to be purchased by the state and to be hung in the Luxembourg, whence they have found their way to the Louvre. L'Espace is well named. In a vast plain inundated with sunlight, and at various distances admirably managed, appear villages in the midst of poplar trees. In the foreground, between hills, is a hollow way through which a flock of sheep is passing. Pluie et Soleil is a remarkable com position. On the right and left rain is falling. In the center of the picture the sun is breaking through the clouds, where in a flowery pasture are cattle near a stream.Of Chintreul, Henry Marcel writes as follows : " It is only lately that his pictures have begun to be appre ciated. They are of a fresh and tender tonality. In them are rendered with an unconscious sincerity morn ings with pearly dew, rapid showers caressing a ray of the sun, milky mists ascending from pastures, large luminous holes in the atmosphere which extend beyond THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 183 the reach of sight, the chessboard regularity of cultiva tion, and the irregular plantation of trees; all the aspects resulting from atmospheric variations, all the poetry of grand spaces wherein the eye swims without obstacles. The technique of Chintreul does not pro claim itself, but rather hides itself. There is no noise in his brush or on his palette. Perhaps this is the reason why he chilled the ardor of amateurs. The discreet assurance of his construction, the deep airiness of his perspectives, the balance and well-measured fineness of his management of light, more than counterbalance a certain timidity of touch, a lack of concentration in his effects and of attraction in his tones." PROSPER MARILHAT (1811-1847) was born at Vertaizon, in the department of Puy-de-D6me, and died in Paris. His family was rich and gave him every edu cational advantage. His inclination for painting could not be overcome. When about eighteen, he went to Paris and studied with Roqueplan. When he was about twenty, he was engaged to accompany an expedition to the East planned by a rich Austrian. He returned to Paris in 1833, a broken down and sick man. Until his death, in 1847, he did but little work ; most of the time he was traveling about, hoping to find a place where his health would revive. Henry Marcel writes of him : " Ele gant and distinguished in manner, he carried his charac teristics into his art. Under his brush the East is less clumsy and less burnt than with Decamps. There is an abundance of atmosphere, caressing his warm and trem bling forms and uniting the most intense tonalities by silent and insensible transitions." 184 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING One of his pictures is in the Louvre and represents the ruins of the Gamia el Hakim in the northeast corner of Cairo, built in 990 a. d. and long in ruins. In this picture, though the ruins occupy most of the space, is seen Marilhat's extraordinary mastery of light and space. If he had lived and had enjoyed good health, he would certainly have become one of the greatest of French landscape painters. Of the hundreds of French landscape painters who have striven, or may be still striving, to follow in the footsteps of Corot, Rousseau, Diaz, Dupre, and Troyon, it is doubtful if the kind criticism of contemporaries will be confirmed by the future. One painter, Har- pignies, has achieved the highest honors. HENRI JOSEPH HARPIGNIES (1819- : Med., 1866, 1868, 1869; x ft, 1875; Med. 2nd cl., 1878 E. U.; O. ft, 1883; Med. d'hon., 1897; Gd. p., 1900 E. U.; C. ft, 1901). Harpignies was born in Valenciennes, and according to last accounts was still flourishing though in his nine tieth year. The Med. d'hon. of 1897 was awarded him on pictures which had previously been rejected by the National Academy of London. How far the act of the Englishmen actuated the French jury is an open ques tion. Harpignies is a strong and an assured painter. Nothing in his work is left to chance or accident. He accomplishes his purposes fully and satisfactorily. He is bold and strong; he lacks grace and beauty. His skies are clear and brilliant, and his banks and hills are as true and as solid as nature makes them ; but there is. > From 1863 until 1870 there was no classification of medals.. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 185 no soft blending of distances and but little aerial per spective. His many rewards justify the admiration in which he is held, though in the admiration there may be a leaven of patriotism. There are pictures by him in the Luxembourg which illustrate his style. Among the landscape painters honorably mentioned by contemporary criticism whose works are difficult to find are the following: MAURICE LE LIEPVRE (1848-1897: Med. 3rd cl., 1886 ; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; Med. 2nd cl., 1890 E. U.). Liepvre was one of Harpignies' pupils, well known for his views of the Loire. FLEURY-CHENU (1833-1875: Med., 1868), who devoted himself to effects of snow. EMMANUEL LANSYER (1835-1893: Med., 1865 and 1869; Med. 3rd cl., 1873 ; ft, 1881), who was born in Brittany and devoted himself to views of Brittany. ALEXANDRE RAPLN (1840-1889: Med. 3rd cl., 1875; Med. 2nd cl., 1877; ft, 1884), who painted the other end of France, along the Doubs, where he was born. EMILE LAMBINET (1816-1877: Med. 3rd cl., 1843; Med. 2nd cl., 1853 and 1857; ft, 1867), who was born at Versailles and painted lovely views of the banks and the islands of the Seine. ALEXANDRE DEFAUX (1826-1900; Med. 3rd cl., 1874; Med. 2nd cl, 1875; ft, 1881), who loved farms and poultry. 186 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ALEXANDER SEGE (1817-1875: Med., 1869; Med. 2nd cl, 1873; ft, 1874; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U.), born in Paris. A pupil of Flers and Cogniet. He too loved the Seine, vast perspectives, and thick foliage. CHARLES BUSSON (1822-1908; Med. 3rd cl, 1855 E. U.; Rap., 1857, 1859, and 1863; ft, 1866; Med. 3rd cl, 167 E. U. ; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U. ; O. ft, 1887). Busson's pictures are principally of la Touraine, le Vendomois, and le Berry. Many of them are scattered about among the various provin cial museums of France. He was a member of the Societe 'des Artistes Francais and contributed regularly until 1907. LEON GERMAIN PELOUSE (1840-1891: Med. 2nd cl, 1873; Med. 1st cl, 1876; Med. 2nd cl, 1878 E. U.; ft, 1878; Med. d'hon., 1889 E. U.), born at Pierrelay, Seine-et-Oise, near Paris ; died in Paris ; devoted to the Seine, which he painted charmingly. EMILE ADELARD BRETON (1831-1902: Med., 1866, 1867, 1868; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U. ; ft, 1878; gold med., 1889 E. U.). He was born at Courrieres, Pas-de-Calais, where his brother Jules was also born. He was a rather gloomy painter, fond of winter scenes, rainy days, and heavy forests. With him must be ranked Hanoteau, Guillon, Naxon, Imer, all born in the twenties ; all painters of merit whose works were in the Salons of the sixties, seventies, and eighties. Many of them were purchased by the state and are distributed among provincial museums. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY LANDSCAPISTS 187 The work of Eugene Boudin must be specially mentioned. EUGENE BOUDIN (1824-1893 : Med. 3rdcl, 1881 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1883; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; ft,«1892) was born at Honfleur, Calvados, and died in Paris. He loved the infinite varieties of the sea and its shore, tall masts, humble cabins, the dazzle of seaside fashion, and threatening storms. He painted with a sure hand guided by strength and grace. His pictures will cer tainly have a place in the new galleries of the Louvre to be devoted to landscapes. So should those of Louis Lepine, Jules Noel, and Adolphe Hervier. There are many good French landscape painters who, satisfied with local reputation, never sent their works to the Paris Salons. Lyons, Marseilles, and Bordeaux had such painters. To see their works you must visit their cities. The artists above mentioned were hard-working, conscientious men. It may be that some of them adopted landscape painting because they had failed as figure painters. The human figure is undoubtedly the most difficult, as it is the most attractive, object of art endeavor. Landscape painting is nevertheless a noble occupation, requiring pecuhar and rare powers. Among the thousands of landscapes exhibited at the Salons of the last decade many show excellent workmanship, many are pleasing, some are charming. But what names may be added to the glorious list headed by Corot, Dupre, and Rousseau? CHAPTER IV PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 10UIS NAPOLEON, so long as he enjoyed good j health and was in command of his faculties, was one of the best, wisest, and most successful of French sovereigns. From the time he was proclaimed emperor in 1852, at the age of forty-four, until the outbreak of the Prussian War in 1870, France was never more prosperous within her borders, nor more respected outside of them. Louis Napoleon knew how to encour age commerce and agriculture. He was kind and warm-hearted. He apparently knew just how much civil liberty was suited to his subjects. He encouraged the development of their activities in every way in which their aims were wholesome, honest, and good. He was the wisest and most liberal patron of the fine arts and of the industrial arts. During his reign French fabrics, as well as French works of pure art, were more highly esteemed by the nations of Europe than their own fabrics or their own works of pure art. Never were the French so supreme in matters of taste. During the whole of Napoleon's reign there was a separate Ministry of the Fine Arts, which was regarded as of equal importance with that of Commerce or that of Agriculture. French artists were never so happy. Their works were in demand all over the civilized world ; prices were PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 189 good, living was cheap. They were encouraged, praised, and petted; official and social honors were showered upon them. The richest and the most aristo cratic were honored to be elected members of their Cercle de L'Union Artistique in a corner of the Place Vendome. They were tremendous workers and exacted tremendous work of their pupils. The very modern idea that a man can become an artist without years and years of pre liminary labor had no place in their curriculum. Years of academic training with the pencil must precede the use of the brush. If not pupils of Ingres, they accepted his methods thoroughly. Gerome proclaimed that in his studio pupils must draw at least three years before they used colors ; the three years might be prolonged to five. While Gerome, Cabanel, and Pils were pro fessors, the standard at the Ecole des Beaux Arts was the highest, best, and most productive in its history. That the principles of these great men are once more beginning to prevail is the most happy augury for the future of French painting. Of the very many very great painters of this period, Gerome stands first for ability, influence, and character. JEAN LEON GEROME (1824-1903: Med. 3rd cl, 1847; Med. 2nd cl, 1848 and 1855 E. U. ; ft, 1855; I., 1865; Med. d'hon. 1867 E. U. ; 0. ft, 1867; Med. d'hon., 1874; C. ft, 1878; Med. d'hon., 1878 E. U. ; also med. in sculpture). Gerome was born at Vesoul, in the East of France, now a fortress not far from the German frontier. His father was a rich jeweler and gave his son every educa tional advantage. When seventeen, he came to Paris 190 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING and entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He also studied under Delaroche. When twenty, he accompanied Dela roche to Italy. His first pictures were exhibited at the Salon of 1847. In 1853 he made his first voyage to the East ; in 1856 he was again in Egypt and Turkey. After this he remained in Paris, where he died very sud denly. After his return from Italy with Delaroche, and after having unsuccessfully competed for the Prix de Rome, he painted and in 1847 exhibited a picture which created such a furor of admiration that he established himself as an independent artist, and from that time on until his death had more orders and on his own terms than he could fill. No painter had a more absolute con trol of the elements of his art. He could produce on canvas the exact representation of any given thing, without hesitation, without mistake, immediately and satisfactorily. His drawing was perfect. He knew the exact amount of every pigment necessary for the pro duction of any required color, tone, shadow. When his work was finished, his palette was clean.1 He was a man of .strong prejudices. Intolerant of impressionism, he could never be brought to acknowl edge that its methods were of advantage to the art; that an impressionist could be sincere in his convictions, or anything but a scoundrel or an idiot; that there 1 It was my great privilege to frequently sit by his side while he was at work. It was my still greater privilege to accompany him to the Ecole des Beaux Arts and to profit by the corrections and instructions he gave1 his pupils. I must also confess that I suffered from his indignation at the tax placed by the United States on imported works of art, from which, according to Gerome, French artists suffered a yearly loss of three mil lion francs. He held all Americans he knew responsible and would listen to no individual excuses. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 191 was anything new in the pretensions of the school, or that its methods had not been thoroughly tried out and condemned generations before. The picture that made Gerome famous is in the Luxembourg Gallery, and is called Le Combat de Coqs (Fig. 142). In front of a landscape bathed by the sea, at the foot of a pedestal and reclining against a cage, a slightly draped young girl is being amused by a cock fight directed by an entirely nude young man. The subject seems to have been chosen to. bring together the tender form of the girl and the slightly more virile and bronzed form of the youth, and to give them a surrounding of precise and decorative archaism. The extreme care of the com position and the extreme finish of the execution are the remarkable qualities of the work. It seemed impossible that such a picture could have been produced except after years of experience. Gerome's masters told him frankly that they had nothing more to teach him ; that he had nothing more to learn from teachers and that it would be a waste of time for him to remain in the school any longer. No one of Gerome's subsequent works shows a more assured hand or greater mastery of the elements of painting. Gerome was not a man of senti ment, emotion, or deep convictions ; nor were but a very few of his art contemporaries. They worked, and worked joyously, from a pure love of creating. Sub jects were immaterial; they were selected at random, accepted without thought, suggested by history, by past or contemporaneous incidents, by poets, philoso phers, mythology, or fashion. There never was a happier, jollier, or more devil-may-care set of men than the artists of the Second Empire. Gerome was 192 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING their leader, their head. He settled their disputes if they had any ; he took care of their cash if they would let him ; he made known their merits and was ever ready to assist them with advice and with loans. Artistic jealousy and envy had no place in the hearts of these happy children of art. Gerome at first devoted himself to classical subjects. All his life long Greece and Rome charmed him. In 1854 he traveled in Turkey and in the North of Africa, bringing back with him sketches of Turkish and Arab life which he subsequently worked up into inimitable pictures. During the early sixties he painted pictures from French history, of which " The Reception of the Grand Conde," of the Vanderbilt' Collection in the New York Metropolitan Museum, is an admirable example. Later on he painted L'Eminence Grise. His Sortie d'un Bal masque was painted in 1857 ; his " Death of Caesar " in 1859; his "Return from Golgotha" in 1868. Dur ing the later sixties he painted scenes from the Roman circus. During the last part of his life his attention was directed to sculpture. He produced statues which of themselves would have made him famous had he never touched brush to canvas. Gerome was very aristocratic in appearance and manners. He was not haughty, but reserved until you had won his friendship. He looked as much like the typical English lord as like the typical French painter. What is most rare among artists, he was an excellent man of business ; he acquired a large fortune and lived en prince. He was brother-in-law of Goupil, the great art publisher ; and the two helped one another to make art pay them well, each after his own fashion, — Gerome o sy. ?J -a«3 O bL Fig. 143. — Gerome. The duel after the masquerade. (Chantilly) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 193 in discovering the merits of young artists, and Goupil in engaging their services at so much a year and for a certain number of years. Many a rising young artist was happy to sell out to Goupil for from five to twelve hundred dollars a year, and Goupil's profits on the sale of their works were sometimes enormous.1 Gerome was very domestic; devoted to his family, which he regulated in English fashion. He had his studio in his own house, but kept his domestic and pro fessional hfe as far apart as possible. As the majority of his works are in private collec tions, it is difficult to see them. It is also difficult to obtain photographs of them, as Goupil was opposed to having them photographed, expecting larger profits from the sale of engravings. There is nothing by Gerome as yet in the Louvre. His earliest picture, Le Combat de Coqs, is the only one in the Luxembourg. At Versailles is his painting of the reception of the Siamese ambassadors, painted in 1865. At Amiens is his huge picture of 1855, called Le Siecle d' Auguste. Some of his earlier works are at Bordeaux and Toulouse. At Chantilly is the Sortie d'un Bal masque of 1857. Three small pictures are in the Wallace Collection of London.2 At the Exposition Universelle of 1867, re garded as the culminating point of the art of the Second Empire, Gerome had thirteen pictures on exhi bition; Cabanel, six; Meissonier, fourteen, and Rous- 1 I knew of one struggling chap, a pupil of Gerome, who was over joyed when Goupil offered him 6000 francs a year for three years. I further know that Goupil during the first year of the bargain cleared over 50,000 francs from the sale of the young artist's pictures. 2 With these exceptions and the New York picture, I know of none of his paintings that are in public galleries. 13 194 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING seau, eight. These were the four French artists who received the Medailles d'honneur. Of Gerome's pictures all but one were the property of individuals.1 Of the pictures of the 1867 Exposition which may be seen, the Duel au Sortie d'un Bal masque is one of Gerome's most successful dramatic efforts. The picture at Chantilly is accepted as the original, though the replica in the Walters Gallery at Baltimore is equally famous (Fig. 143). Pierrot and Harlequin, who have quarreled at the ball, have had a duel in the Bois de Boulogne at dawn. On the left Pierrot, who has been pierced to the heart, falls in the arms of his friends and the surgeon. On the right Harlequin and his friend leave the field of honor in indifference and march off towards their carriage which is seen through the trees on the extreme right. In the center, through the darkness and mist, is seen the carriage which brought the unfortunate Pierrot to the field. Snow is falling and covers the ground. The con trast between the fancy ball costumes and the enacted tragedy is strong and awful. The chill and gloomy background is a suitable frame to the action in the fore ground. In invention and execution this picture was never surpassed. It was exhibited in 1857 and has 1 About one an entertaining story is told. It belonged to Mr. Stewart of Philadelphia, and represents the exposure of decapitated heads of rebels before a mosque in Cairo. The heads are in large baskets and are guarded by fierce soldiery. Mr. Stewart, knowing Gerome's habit of making and selling copies of his paintings, expressly stipulated that no copy should be made of his picture. Finding shortly afterwards that Gerome had violated the stipulation and on remonstrating, Gerome called his attention to the fact that the baskets in the two pictures did not contain the same number of heads, and that therefore the two pic tures could not possibly be mistaken for each other. With this explana tion Stewart had to be satisfied. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 195 always been a favorite with the public. Another pic ture, equally interesting and showing an entirely differ ent phase of Gerome's multifarious genius, is called, and perhaps improperly, Pollice Verso. If its whereabouts is unknown, photographs are to be had (Fig. 144). The scene is in the arena at Rome and gives the end of a gladiatorial fight. A " Secutor " has downed a " Re- tiarius," has his foot on his foe's breast, and is about to give the coup-de-grace. The conquered extends his hand to the multitude in pity for the sign that shall spare his life. They hold out their arms and turn down their thumbs. It is evident from their expressions that they feel no pity. The question is whether the thumbs should not have been turned up. According to the best classical dictionaries, to turn down the thumb, pollicem premere, signified that the victim must be spared. To turn up the thumb, pollicem vertere, sig nified that the victim must be killed. That so accurate an archaeologist as Gerome could have made such a mis take seems incredible. There must be some explanation.1 The picture is a grand work of art from every point of view. The gladiatorial group is sculpturesque in its magnificent simplicity. The cruel indifference of the emperor dominates the scene. The active cruelty of the Vestal Virgins gives expression to the emperor's stolid ity. All the accessories of architecture and ornament are accurate and satisfactory. This picture, painted about 1860, was regarded by Gerome as one of his best. It seems idle to describe pictures which cannot be seen and of which even the whereabouts is in cases unknown. In 1859 appeared Mort de Cesar, Ave Cesar, and Le 1 See American Journal of Philology for 1892, vol. xiii. pp. 213-225. 196 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Roi Candule; in 1861, Phryne and Les deux Augures. In the Mort de Cesar (Fig. 145) the assassins are rush ing wildly from the hall, brandishing their swords over their heads and leaving the dead body of Caesar behind them. One of the conscript fathers is fast asleep in his chair. This touch of humor caused a flood of criticism ; the body of Caesar was compared to a lot of dirty clothes, and the picture was called " Washing-day." Gerome, however, was not a person to be offended at trifles. The picture at Versailles representing the re ception of the Siamese ambassadors at Fontainebleau was first exhibited in 1865. It represents Napoleon and Eugenie enthroned. To them are approaching the Siamese ambassadors, followed in a long hne by their suite. About the throne are grouped many of the most prominent Frenchmen of the time. There are eighty portraits in the picture. Of all those represented, but one is living; that one is the Empress Eugenie. The only interesting thing in the picture is the contrast of races. Gerome and Meissonier are standing side by side. The artist may have been proud of the commission; he evidently was not interested in the work. The picture of " Louis XIV and the Grand Conde," in the Vander- bilt Collection of the New York Metropolitan Art Museum, is fully described in the Catalogue. In it is seen Gerome's chief defect, his inabihty to harmonize colors. When he uses few colors and low tones, the coloring of his pictures is not displeasing, but when he uses many colors and high tones, he is inferior to both Cabanel and Meissonier. Like Ingres, Gerome depended for his effects upon his drawing and grouping. The obstacles presented to the students of Gerome's Fig. 144. — Gerome. Pollice verso H O 60 Fig. 146. — Gerome. (Luxembourg) Fig. 147. — Gerome. Dancer. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 197 pictures are no greater than those met by students of his statues. Most of them are in private collections; the whereabouts of many cannot be ascertained. One, and only one, of his statues is in the Luxembourg (Fig. 146). It is a personification of the city of Tanagra in Boeotia, the chief source of the lovely statuettes known by its name. Gerome represents Tanagra as a plump, fully, developed, naked woman. She is seated bolt up right on a broken column. In her left hand, stretched out at a right angle, she holds one of the statuettes for which the city is famed. Her feet are drawn up and rest on the toes. Further stiffness is given to the figure by the left hand, which rests on the column so as to show its back. Gerome has also tried to give to the face of the figure the vacant gaze of a Greek divinity. There is nothing else about the work that is antique or clas sic. The forms are round and very modern. The modeling is real and extends to details ; the back is particularly well modeled. The statue was exhibited in 1890 and attracted attention and criticism. Then came " Bellona," " Galatea," and, last of all, Joueuse de Boules, which was too gross for artistic enjoyment. Some of his minor pieces are very attractive. Nothing could be more charming than La Danseuse {Fig. 147). In his statues Gerome uses color, in imitation of the Greeks. Tanagra's hair is blond; her eyes are a deli cate blue, and a tender flesh tint covers her. Next to Gerome must be ranked Meissonier. Some critics place him first ; others place Cabanel before the other two. There can be no comparisons where excel lences are so equally divided and where differences are only of temperament. 198 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING JEAN LOUIS ERNEST MEISSONIER (1815-1891: Med. 3rd cl, 1840; Med. 2nd cl., 1841 ; Med. 1st cl, 1843; ft, -1846; Med. 1st cl, 1848 ; Gd. med. d'hon., 855 E. U. ; O. ft, 1856; L, 1861; Gd. med. d'hon., 1867 E. U. ; C. ft, 1867; G. O. ft, 1878; Gd. med. d'hon., 1878 E. U., 1883 and 1889 E. U. ; G. C. ft, 1889. He also received all the foreign orders and honorary memberships of for eign art societies he would accept ; no artist was ever so honored). Meissonier was born at Lyons. His father was a well-to-do merchant, who after the Revolution of 1830 moved to Paris. The son was destined for business and was at one time apprenticed to a grocer. His art ten dencies were so strong that at last the father had to yield, though he regarded the Fine Arts with mistrust and gave his son scant assistance. He studied for a while under Cogniet from whom he acquired his taste for horses and for military scenes. Obliged to support himself in a great measure, he sought employment with publishers as an illustrator of books. His first picture was exhibited in 1834 and was sold for 100 francs. His father was so pleased that he assisted him to make a short visit to Italy. On his return to Paris and in 1840 he exhibited a picture which decided and fixed his style. The style is known as genre, and in Meissonier'? case was founded upon the works of the Dutch genre painters, Terburg, Netscher, Metsu, and Douw. Genre pictures are small pictures containing one or more fig ures engaged in some domestic action, — card, or chess, playing, for instance, making music, banqueting, smok ing, story-telling, etc., — or out-of-door scenes are PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 199 shown in front of markets, drinking-places, or barracks. There is no limit to genre subjects. Meissonier differs from the Dutch artists in that his scenes are not con temporaneous. His figures are taken from preceding centuries. Modern customs and uniforms did not at tract him. Anything earlier than the time of the first Napoleon was not to his taste. His pictures have not, therefore, the liveliness of Dutch pictures, but are more picturesque, more artistic. In point of technique Meis sonier is quite the equal of his Dutch models. Nothing can be more admirable than the presentation of his sub ject, nothing more wonderful than the large and full view he gives on very restricted surfaces. He had the extraordinary power of producing the effect of large space on canvases of but few inches in measurement. In his setting and spacing of figures, — his mise en scene, as the French express it, — he is unrivaled. In 1859 he accompanied Napoleon on his Italian campaign against the Austrians. After this he was commissioned by the emperor to paint some of his victories and some of those of the first Napoleon. The remarkable feature of these pictures is that no actual fighting is introduced, or the fighting is so far away or obscure that the picture contains nothing offensive or unpleasant. Four of these pictures are re markable. The first one was exhibited in 1863 and represents Napoleon III at the battle of Solferino (Fig. 148). The battle was fought on the 24th of June, 1859, at the foot of Lake Garda, and was the deciding battle of the campaign. It is a small picture, about two by one and a half feet, but represents a large space. The action is behind the scenes, as it were. Napoleon 200 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING on horseback is on an eminence quietly surveying the battle which is going on in the distance. Back of him, occupying all of the left of the picture, is his suite. Among them, on the extreme left, may be recognized Meissonier. In the foreground to the right and below the eminence is passing a battery. One gun is in posi tion and has been fired. Its smoke and the bodies of two dead Austrians in the extreme left-hand corner of the picture are the only immediate evidences of fighting. In the far distance and on the extreme right are the heights and tower of Solferino and troops advancing to the assault. Napoleon and the members of his staff, though only an inch or two high, are painted as accu rately and with as much attention to detail as if they were life-size. " 1814 " (Fig. 149), exhibited in 1864, is a still more remarkable work. It is supposed to illustrate the re treat from Russia. Napoleon I, at the head of his generals, is riding along a muddy road in a snowstorm. Napoleon's attitude and expression are despondent and mournful His generals share his feelings, the horses move gloomily, the air is filled with gloom. Dejection is forcibly and harmoniously expressed all over the pic ture. Critics who had previously asserted that Meis sonier could not give expression to the sentiments were forced to confess their error. The picture is but a few centimeters higher and just as long as the other one (0.49 X 0.75 m.), and is painted with the same minute and marvelous attention to detail. To secure reality in the picture Meissonier is said to have prepared a muddy road in his grounds at Poissy, to have had carts run over it to make the ruts, and then to have sprinkled Fig. 148. — Meissonier. Solferino. (Louvre) Fig. 149. — Meissonier. 1814 Fig. 150. Meissonier. Review of the Curassiers. (Chantilly) Fig. 151. — Meissonier. The quarrel. (Windsor Castle, Eng.) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 201 flour to imitate snow. (Jules Breton, Nos Peintres du Siecle. ) Henry Marcel considers this Meissonier's great est work. Of a third picture, called La Revue des •Cui rassiers in 1805 (Fig. 150), he writes as follows: " On a large grassy plain, beneath a gray October sky and on a long slanting line, is exposed the weariness of a regiment longing for action and which will be alert in its saddle when the emperor comes, who is seen ap proaching in the far distance. On this ungrateful sub ject Meissonier has lavished all the resources of mimicry, not so much on the men as on their horses, which prance, paw the ground, snort, caracole, and in this way break the monotony of the endless line." This picture is one of Meissonier's largest. It meas ures about four by six feet. It is at Chantilly. It was painted in 1876, was exhibited at the Exposition Uni verselle of 1878, and was bought by the Due d'Aumale in 1889. F. R. Gruyer, in his La Peinture au Cha teau de Chantilly, describes it as follows : " A regiment of cuirassiers is in line awaiting the battle. In front of its center are a general and his escort. The colonel of the regiment approaches for orders. With him are his trumpeter and his adjutant. Behind the regiment the artillery is moving into position. In the far distance, near the line of the horizon, the columns of attack are seen marching under the eye of Napoleon, who with his suite is dimly seen on an eminence. War is depicted in the majesty of the hour which precedes action. You feel that something terrible is about to happen. The air seems to be filled with a solemn contemplation. Looking at these heroes, of whom no two are alike, you under stand that all of them, officers and soldiers, are animated 202 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING by the same consciousness of duty, the same virile reso lution to conquer or to die. From the point of view of thought, as well as from that of art, this is a picture of absolute superiority." The fourth of these grand pictures, called " 1807," is in the New York Metropolitan Museum, and is sufficiently described in the Museum catalogue. It rep resents cuirassiers galloping in front of, and salut ing, Napoleon before charging. In the opinion of some critics the minute attention to detail of these works destroys the general effect ; in the opinion of others, they show that accuracy of detail adds to the general effect. From every point of view they are wonderful works of art and justify every praise lavished on their author. While Meissonier was painting these pictures, .he did not neglect his specialty of genre pictures. His in dustry was indefatigable. O. Greard, Meissonier: Ses Souvenirs — Ses Entretiens, enumerates over three hun dred oil paintings and over one hundred and fifty water- colors. Most of his works, as in the case of Gerome, are in private collections. There are none in the Louvre, except the few of the Thomy-Thierry Collection. Napo leon III a Solferino is, or was, the only one at the Lux embourg. There are but a few small and unimportant portraits at Versailles (copies by pupils). There are not many in the provincial museums of France; and none in the public museums of Berlin or Dresden. There are none at the National Museum of London; the Wallace Collection contains sixteen specimens, and is the only public collection where his style can be studied. Most of the Wallace pictures are very small. Fig. 152. — Meissonier. The sergeant's portrait Fig. 153. — Meissonier. His own portrait. (Luxembourg) Fig. 154. — Meissonier. Dumas, flls. (Louvre) Fig. 155.— Cabanel. Glorification of St. Louis. (Enxembouig) t~ PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 203 The largest, Polichmelle, is but one foot nine and three- quarters inches by one foot two and a half inches. In the collection is " Dutch Burghers," supposed to be his very first picture. Of the twelve pictures exhibited by Meissonier at the Exposition Universelle of 1867, only one, Napoleon HI a Solferino, was public property. It seems useless to describe pictures which the pubhc can not see, some of which are known only by their photo graphs. Among those generally accepted as his best may be mentioned a few which may be seen: Le Jouer de Contrebasse and L'Hallibarbier, of 1840, the pictures that established his reputation ; Le Violoncelliste and La Partie d'Echecs, of 1841; Les Amateurs, of 1845; Les Fumeurs, of 1848 ; Le Liseur, of 1851 ; Le Bravi, of 1852 (Wallace Collection) ; LaRixe, of 1855 (Fig. 151), one of his very best, presented by Napoleon III to the King of England when he was Prince of Wales ; L'Ordonnance, of 1866 ; Les Jouers de Boules a Antibes and Les Ordonnances, of 1869 ; Le Portrait du Ser gent, of 1874, most excellent (Fig. 152) ; Moreau et Dessolles avant Hohenlmden, of 1876. Many of these subjects were repeated over and over again, with but slight vari ations. There is no use in extending a list entirely the result of personal opportunity, and to which other lists and of better opportunity might easily be opposed. As a painter of portraits Meissonier was irregular ; some were successful, others were far from it. He seems to have always been successful in portraits of himself (Fig. 153). This led his envious critics to assume that his w&nt of success in painting others was because he could not take his thoughts from himself. One of his successful portraits is of Dumas 204 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Fils, and is in the Thomy-Thierry Collection in the Louvre (Fig. 154). 1 The third of this illustrious trio, Cabanel, is an equally interesting artist. ALEXANDRE CABANEL (1823-1889: P. d. R., 1845; Med. 2nd cl, 1852; Med. 1st cl, 1855 E. U.; ft, 1855; I., 1863; O. ft, 1864; Med. d'hon., 1865, 1867 E. U., and 1878 E. U. ; C. ft, 1884). Cabanel was born in Montpellier, in the South of France, and inherited the warm blood of Southern Frenchmen. When he was but sixteen, he obtained a prize carrying with it a sum of money which enabled him to go to Paris. In 1839 he was a student of Picot.2 In 1840 he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In 1843 he sent his first picture to the Salon. In 1845 he competed for the Prix de Rome; he came out second, but as there was a vacancy at Rome he was elected to fill it. His earliest pictures are in the Museum of Montpellier and form part of the Collection Bruyas. Bruyas, Cabanel's earliest and most 1 When I met Meissonier in 1869, I was surprised to meet so short a man. He could not have been over five feet three or four. He had a large head, very large lustrous but not pleasant eyes, and an enormously long, thick, and waving beard, which he was continually stroking and of which he seemed very proud. He was not affable and evidently had a high opinion of himself. I did not succeed in becoming sufficiently well acquainted with him to form an opinion, but was told by his confreres that he was sensitive about his size, arrogant, egotistical, vain, and very susceptible to the most exaggerated and fulsome flattery. The worst fact against him is that one year before his death he led the break-away from the old art society and became the first president of the new and opposition society. 2 1786-1868, a pupil of Vincent, eminent during his day, quite for gotten nowadays. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 205 faithful patron, was a rich amateur. From the time Cabanel returned to Paris until his death his career was uninterruptedly successful. No artist of his generation so easily and regularly ascended all the degrees of public favor and obtained all the official consecrations which apparently . lead to glory. He tried, and suc cessfully, almost every style of painting in vogue, — religious, mythological, genre, and portraiture. His superiority as a portrait painter was so pronounced that his activities during the last twenty years of his life were about equally divided between painting portraits and teaching his classes in the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Specimens of his various styles are in public museums and can be seen and studied. Cabanel is, or was, well represented at the Luxembourg by five pictures, which show his various- styles. The most pretentious one, dis playing his moral and religious style, is named Glori fication de Saint Louis (Fig. 155). x It is a large picture, about thirteen and a half by thirteen feet, with life-size figures. It was exhibited in 1855. Louis is on a throne and within a balustrade. On either side of him are figures representing Force and Faith, — Force on his right, Faith on his left. They hold up over his head the crown of thorns he brought from the East. In her right hand Force holds aloft her sword; Faith, in her left, holds aloft the chalice. About the throne and at various levels are grouped the men who assisted to make Louis' reign glorious, — Joinville, Beaumanoir, Geof- froy de Beaulieu, Robert de Sorbon, etc. Who they all are is not a matter of artistic interest. In the fore ground, and outside the balustrade, are groups of the 1 I understand that this picture has lately been removed to Versailles. 206 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING poor, sick, and unfortunate who seem imploring Louis for help and comfort. The meaning of the picture is not clear. The arrangement was evidently suggested by Ingres' " Apotheosis of Homer." The suffering in the foreground makes an unpleasant contrast. The picture is painted in a low and dull tone. The draw ing, the modeling, all the details of the execution, are faultless. Cabanel's works in the Pantheon, illustrat ing the life of Saint Louis, are in this style. A greater contrast cannot be imagined than that between these works and his Naissance de Venus (Fig. 156), exhibited in 1863. Venus, born of the sea, has been tossed to the shore by the waves, and is just open ing her eyes to the consciousness of the mischievous life before her. Little cupids, rejoicing in her birth, flit about in wondering adoration and proclaim through conch-shells the blessing of the advent. An over-life- sized nude exposed without a bit of drapery was at the time new and startling to Paris, but Paris soon began to appreciate and enjoy the exquisite drawing, model ing, and coloring of the figure. Cabanel's Venus to this day remains an unapproachable model. Not only the figures, but the sea and sky are painted in exquisite tones, perfectly in accord with the conception. Another phase of Cabanel's genius is seen in the " Cleopatra " of the Antwerp Museum, a replica of which is in the New York Metropolitan Museum. The callous cruelty of the queen and the flippant indifference of her at tendant are reflected in the leopard which crouches in front of them. Notice in the gleam of its eye the wonderful power of painting. To the left and on the lower level of the arena the poison experiments are pro- Fig. 156. — Cabanel. Birth of Venus. (Luxembourg) Fig. 158.— Pils. Alma. (Versailles) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 207 ceeding. One victim is being carried out ; perhaps the poison administered to him was too slow in its action. So the agonies of another victim are being carefully watched. Every detail of the picture is most carefully given. In no picture is Cabanel's skill as an appropri ate colorist more evident. Textures are rendered with inimitable truth. Most of Cabanel's portraits are where the public can not see them. In the New York Metropolitan Museum is exposed one of the best of them, a portrait of Miss Wolfe, the donor of the Wolfe Collection. A more refined, graceful, elegant, aristocratic, and at the same time truthful representation of a lady was never con ceived or executed. Cabanel died before the split in the old Salon. A pity he had not hved long enough to aid Gerome in preventing it ! To these three should perhaps be j oined Pils ; for he, Gerome, and Cabanel were j oint professors of painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts during the Second Empire. Pils was appointed in 1863. ISADORE ALEXANDRE AUGUSTIN PILS (1813- 1875: P. d. R., 1838; Med. 2nd cl, 1846 and 1855; Med. 1st cl, 1857; ft, 1857; Gd. med. d'hon., 1861; Med. 1st cl, 1867 E. U.; O. ft, 1867; L, 1868). Pils was born in Paris. He at first devoted himself to sacred subjects, but soon found better employment for his talents in historic, and especially in military, subjects. In 1852 he accompanied the French army to the Crimea. His picture, La Bataille de I'Alma (Fig. 158), exhibited in 1861, obtained for him the 208 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Medaille d'honneur. It is now at Versailles, with many others illustrating a campaign in which little interest remains. Pils' most interesting picture hangs in the Louvre, and represents Rouget de Lisle singing the " Marseillaise." De Lisle was a young French officer, an amateur of music, who was stationed at Strasburg in 1792, when war was declared between France and Austria. According to the story, he had been dining with the mayor of Strasburg, M. de Dietrich. The conversation was patriotic and inspiring. Returning home, De Lisle attempted to put into music the senti ments he experienced. He worked all night long, and produced the song subsequently known as the " Mar seillaise," because troops from Marseilles were the first to sing it in Paris. The next morning he asked De Dietrich to gather his guests once more, and then he sang the new song before them. It was received with transports of admiration and was forthwith published as Chant de VArmee du Rhin. The picture represents the morning meeting at the house of M. de Dietrich, who is in the center of the scene in an armchair (Fig. 159). A Mademoiselle Dietrich is at the piano de ciphering the score. The guests express their enthu siasm in various ways. The picture is small, only about three feet long. The figures are less than half life-size; besides, they are crowded. De Lisle needs more room about him. The scene behind him is too theatrical. Dietrich's attitude and the turn of his chair are not easy. The young lady cannot read the score and admire the hero at the same time, etc. The picture was painted in 1849. In spite of criticism it achieved a grand success and has ever since been a favorite. De 3 o fe I bo fe PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 209 Lisle was a loyalist. The revolutionary verses of the present version were not written by him. In a handbook justice cannot be done to the hundreds of most excellent painters who helped to make the Second Empire illustrious. The names of many cannot even be mentioned. The list must be limited to those best known, to those whose works are where they can be seen and studied, and to those who are the most typical of their generation. It is singular how many of them were born in the twenties of the last century. Fromentin was born in 1820 ; Hamon, in 1821 ; Rosa Bonheur, in 1822 ; Ribot, in 1823 ; Puvis de Chavannes, in 1824; Chaplin and Bouguereau, in 1825; Moreau and Ziem, in 1826; Jules Breton, in 1827; Delaunay and Beaudry, in 1828 ; Lewis Brown and Henner, in 1829. Before these were born Hippolyte Flandrin, in 1809 ; Hebert and Bonvin, in 1817 ; and Courbet, in 1819. In the thirties were born Manet, in 1832; Gus- tave Dore, in 1833; Bonnat (still vigorous), in 1834; Lefebvre and Fantin-Latour, in 1836; Carolus Duran, in 1838; and Vibert and Giraud, in 1840. Most painters born after 1840 should be classified with the artists of the Third Republic. The above will be noticed in the order of their birth, together with a few others of less importance who seem related to them in schools or styles. JEAN HIPPOLYTE FLANDRIN (1809-1864: P. d. R., 1832; Med. 3rd cl, 1839; Med. 1st cl, 1847; ft, 1841; O. ft, 1853; I., 1853). Flandrin was born in Lyons and died in Rome. He early developed a taste for painting, which was encour- 14 210 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING aged by an elder brother, Auguste, who had similar tastes. A younger brother, Jean Paul, also became a painter. In 1829 Jean Hippolyte and Jean Paul went to Paris and entered Ingres' studio. After taking the Prix de Rome in 1832, he went to Rome in 1833, where he was soon joined by his two brothers. As Ingres had been appointed director of the school at Rome, the three brothers enjoyed his instruction. In 1838 they returned to France. Auguste remained in Lyons ; Hippolyte and Paul went on to Paris. Auguste became director of the Lyons School of the Fine Arts and died at the early age of thirty-eight. While in Rome, Hippo lyte had developed a decided taste for religious art, while his brother Paul had developed an equally decided taste for landscape painting. Hippolyte's first important order was the decoration of the chapel of Saint John in the church of Saint Severin in the Latin quarter. This was finished in 1840. In 1841 he was employed by the Due de Luynes to decorate his chateau at Dampierre. In 1842 he painted a large picture for the Chambre des Pairs, called Saint Louis dictant ses Etablissements. Some years later he decorated the church of Saint Paul at Nimes and the church of Ainay at Lyons. There are also pictures by him at Nantes and at Lisieux, but his two chief works, which show the full development of his majestic style, are in Paris, — one in the church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, the other in the church of Saint Vincent de Paul near the Gare-du-Nord. These churches should be visited about noon and on clear days. Even then it is difficult to appreciate Flandrin's pic tures ; they are so high and have to be viewed at such an angle. Their photographs should be studied PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 211 before the pictures themselves are seen. No more im pressive religious pictures have ever been produced, none in which the requirements of art are so abundantly satisfied. The pictures in Saint-Germain-des-Pres are perhaps the more interesting on account of their variety and the originality of the conceptions. They are painted on the walls of the nave high up over the sup porting arches, and represent parallel or corresponding scenes from the Old and the New Testaments. On the left, on entering, are " The Burning Bush of the Old Testament and the Annunciation of the New " ; then " The Promise to Eve of a Future Redeemer and the Na tivity " ; " The Prophecy of Balaam and the Adoration of the Magi " ; " The Passage of the Red Sea and the Bap tism of Christ " ; " Melchizedek's Offering of Bread and Wine to Abraham and the Institution of the Eucharist." On the other side and farthest from the entrance are, first, " The Sale of Joseph and the Betrayal of Christ " ; then " The Offering of Isaac and the Crucifixion," " Jonah issuing from the Whale's Belly and the Resur rection " ; " The Scattering of the Nations and the Dispersal of the Apostles." The last one, representing " The Ascension and Preparations for the Last Judg ment," was not finished at the time of Hippolyte's death and was subsequently finished by his brother Paul. It would be difficult to choose among them. Perhaps " The Nativity " (Fig. 159°) may be regarded as one of the best from an artistic point of view, — - the few figures ; how each one fills its part ; the three standing angels ; the solemn stillness of the scene. Even the " Gloria in excelsis Deo " is shown, not sung. All these things proclaim the modern Fra Angelico. The double frieze 212 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING in the church of Saint Vincent de Paul was also among his last works. It represents long processions of the nations of the earth advancing towards the gates of heaven. Over the entrance are Saint Peter and Saint Paul preaching. In the advancing groups may be rec ognized Saint Jerome with his lion, Saint Stephen, Saint George, Saint Christopher, and Saint Louis. Then Mary and Joseph, on the other side, Saint Anne, Saint Elizabeth, etc. They all move with a most sol emn and impressive dignity. Types, attitudes, and costumes are most varied, yet there is not a discordant line. The coloring is in low, harmonious, and yet dis tinct tones. If the pictures in the other church recall Fra Angelico, this frieze recalls the Byzantine mosaics of Ravenna as well as the frieze of the Parthenon. Flandrin, like his master Ingres, was a great portrait painter. His portrait of Napoleon III (Fig. 160) is recognized as the most striking portrait of that unfor tunate monarch. Flandrin was employed by Louis Philippe to copy portraits for Versailles. A few of his portraits are in the Louvre. There is also in the Louvre a study of a naked youth that is so much in the style of Ingres that it might easily be taken for his work. Flandrin ruined his health painting in cold and damp churches. He went to Rome, hoping to be bene fited by the change, but there he died. His brother Jean Paul lived to be very old. He took medals in 1839, 1847, 1848, 1889, and received the Legion d'hon neur in 1852. Two of his landscapes are, or were, at the Luxembourg. Fig. 160. — Flandrin. Napoleon III. (Versailles) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 213 ANTOINE AUGUST ERNEST HEBERT (1817- 1908 : P. d. R., 1839 ; Med. 1st cl, 1851 ; ft, 1853 ; Med. 1st cl, 1855 E. U. ; Med. 2d cl, 1867 E. U. ; O. ft, 1867 ; I., 1874 ; C. ft, 1874 ; Gr. p., 1889 E. U.; Med. d'hon., 1895; G. O. ft, 1900; Gr. p., 1900 E. U.; G. C. ft, 1903). Hebert was born at Grenoble in the Southeast of France, and died near Grenoble in his ninety-first year. No artist ever hved whose career has been so even ; who, having early in life conceived his type, has followed it so consistently, ever strengthening and refining it, ever approaching it nearer to his poetic ideal. No artist ever hved whose efforts can be more easily understood and appreciated, whose successes haye been more in accord with public opinion, and whose rewards have been more satisfactory to public apprehension. Hebert's father was a well-to-do no tary who wished his son to study law. After com pleting his studies at the " College " of Grenoble, he was sent to Paris and entered the Ecole des Droit. This happened in 1835, when he was eighteen. In 1836 he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts. In 1839 he was graduated from the law school and also captured the Prix de Rome at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. There after, with the consent of his father, he relinquished the bar and devoted himself to painting. In Rome he came under the influence of Ingres, then director of the French School. Whether directed by Ingres or follow ing his own tastes, he soon began the study of Roman peasantry, not neglecting the old masters, but seeing their subjects reflected in the peasantry of the day. 214 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING He seemed to see the divine motherhood and the incar nation in the mothers and babies of the Campagna. Their sad lot and unwholesome circumstances became associated in his mind with vicarious suffering. At all events, there was instilled into his mind a poetic and plaintive sadness which shows in all his works, in his methods, and in his choice of colors. His peasant girls are lovely, but they have deep sad eyes and dull com plexions, as if they were victims of malaria. His land scapes are always sad, as if the land were blighted and the sun could not shine brightly on such fields and woods. The peculiar sensibilities excited in the soul of the young artist at this time remained with him all his hfe and characterize and unify all his works. His pic tures contain a wonderful attraction of delicate and refined sadness, becoming all the while more delicate and more refined, less material and more spiritual. Their subtle fascination affects every observer. Hebert was very unlucky when in Italy. In 1842 he was thrown from a horse and dislocated his arm. In 1843 he slipped on the pavement in Florence and broke a leg, and in 1847, when returning to France by boat and entering the harbor of Marseilles, he again fell and broke a leg. In 1850 he exhibited the picture called "Malaria" (Fig. 161), which established his reputa tion and which is now in the Luxembourg. The picture is about six by four feet, and the figures are about three-fourths size. A large flat boat is floating down a stream between high and arid banks. The overhang ing sky is dull and heavy; the water of the stream is gray and lifeless. In the boat is a family supposed to be seeking a spot where they may regain health and PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 215 happiness. On the extreme left is seated the mother, who seems to be shivering in her large brown cloak. Next to her is the grandmother, holding in her lap a naked and languid baby. Crouched down by her side is a young shepherd ; already stricken, he seems ab sorbed in sad thought. Opposite to him, with her back this way, sits a young woman whose neck and shoulders seem still alive with youth and beauty, but whose attitude is weak and languid. Her left arm hangs over the side of the boat, and her fingers touch the unpleasant water. To the right, standing, is the guide of the boat. But even he seems without energy; he does not stand up right, and he leans heavily on his guiding pole. An air of deep and pathetic dejection fills the picture. The boat is floating, no one knows where, no one has energy enough to care. Yet there are remains of beauty and strength in every figure, as if under happier circum stances the whole Italian race might be restored to prosperous and noble hfe. That a picture of such a subject and treated so realistically should continue to charm seems strange at first. The secret is in its wonderful artistic harmony. Land, sky, and water, every pose and tone of every person, are all in per fect harmony and accord with the theme. When you enter the room where the picture hangs, and before you have hardly made out the subject, you are conscious of the same impression that comes from the accords of distant and gentle music. Hebert was a skillful musician, a friend of Gounod. His music could not help finding its way into his pictures. There is another picture by Hebert in the Luxem bourg, in which the charms of his style are presented in 216 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING a more engaging subject, but where his sad view of Italian peasant life is still felt. It is called Les Cerva- rolles, "The Water-Carriers of Cervara " (Fig. 162). Cervara is a little town about twenty-five miles east of Rome, where the women are1 reputed pretty and where the costumes are peculiar and rich. The scene represents stone steps leading up and through the walls of the town. Coming down the steps is a young girl accompanied by a child. Going up the steps and back of them is another girl whose back only is seen. She carries on her head a large brazen waterpot, which is evidently full, from the careful way in which she carries and steadies it. The descending girl carries her empty pot by her side. She is as lovely a picture of Italian girlhood as can be conceived. Yet there is sadness in her eyes, and very httle inherited strength of character left in her large-lipped mouth. The child, whose face is more sick than sad, has a small firkin swung under her right arm, showing that even she has already commenced to take her part in the labors of a monotonous life. The figures, which are life-size, are admirably drawn and are bathed in the magic of Hu bert's wonderful harmony of colors. As a painter of portraits, Hebert is preeminent. He imparts to them the same indefinable grace, har mony of color, and distinction that characterize all his other works. There were two heads by him in the Salon of 1907, painted in his ninetieth year. When the Franco-Prussian War broke out, Hebert, who had been promoted to the position of director of the French School at Rome, was visiting his family at Grenoble. His one thought seems to have been to get back to Rome PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 217 and to his students. He promised a picture to the Virgin, should he be favored. This vow was filled in 1873, when his directorship terminated. La Vierge de la Delivrance, as it is called, hangs in the church of La Franche, a small town near Grenoble. On his return to Paris his depression continued and found expression in his works. About this time the Marquis de Chenne- vieres, who was prominent in the arts in Paris and who occupied in turn many official positions, proposed to Hebert to prepare drawings for a large mosaic for the cupola of the choir of the Pantheon. He was moved to this proposition as much by his friendship for Hebert as by his desire to secure his services. He represented to Hebert that in such a work he could give artistic expression to the hopes of France in the future and thus help her to forget the disasters of the past. Hebert at first refused, alleging that he was too old to under take so important a work and that he could not recover his spirits. He was finally persuaded, and when per suaded began to show at once his accustomed energy and enthusiasm. For two years he traveled about Italy, studying anew and with more particular interest the mosaic of Rome, Ravenna, Venice, Palermo, and many other places, taking hundreds of sketches and devising hundreds of plans for his new work. By the time he returned to Paris, Chennevieres had imported a suffi ciency of Italian workers in mosaic to help him in the material part of the undertaking. For eight years, from 1876 until 1884, Hebert de voted the better part of his time and energies to the glorious monument which no visitor to the Pantheon can fail to see and which no one can see without being 218 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING impressed with its magnificence. In the midst stands the Saviour. On one side of him is the Virgin, on the other a figure representing France. The Virgin is interceding for France. France awaits the Saviour's blessing. On their knees, adding their prayers to those of the Virgin, are Jeanne Dare and Saint Genevieve. Nothing could be simpler, grander, more majestic. In 1886 Hebert was reappointed director of the French School at Rome. After 1891, when his term expired, he divided his time between France and Italy. In 1903 Hebert received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, — a distinction most rarely conferred on painters.1 Bonvin occupies a humble position in the history of the Fine Arts. FRANgOIS SAINT-BONVIN (1817-1887: Med. 3rd cl, 1849; Med. 2nd cl, 1851; ft, 1870). Bonvin was born in Paris and died at Saint-Germain- en-Laye, near Paris. Bonvin was poor. He was first employed in a printing-office and afterwards in the police department. All his leisure was devoted to the study of painting. It was not until 1847 that he presumed to send a picture to the Salon. In 1848 he sent others, and in 1849 he not only received a medal, but also a commission from the Ministre de l'Interieur. From this ' I can recall but one other, Meissonier. I met Hebert in Rome before the outbreak of the war with Prussia. He received me cordially, and immediately put me to work pacifying a baby he was trying to paint. He was one of the many Frenchmen who thought we ought to have come to their rescue when hard pressed, and who cannot forget our ingratitude as they will call it. Fig. 162. — Hubert. Water-carriers of Cervara. (Luxembourg) Fig. 163. — Bonvin. Ave Maria. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 219 time on he received all the orders he could accept. He was more and more attracted by religious subjects, especially scenes from convent life. These he painted with a simplicity and an accuracy of drawing and a moderation of color that appealed strongly to the reli gious world of Paris. As a representer of convent life he is without a rival His scenes are quiet and reposeful and in perfect keeping with the subject. His execution is broad, strong, and assured. He attempted nothing he could not master. His works present little variety in subject or in treatment. Critics accuse him of monotony and of dull and heavy coloring, but his coloring is appropriate to his themes. Had he tried other themes, he might not have been successful. He was wise to be content with a satisfactory, if limited success. One of his pictures at the Luxembourg, called L'Ave Maria, is a good specimen (Fig. 163). It represents the court of a convent. The call to evening prayers has sounded and the nuns are assembling. The architecture of the scene is carefully and accurately drawn. The difficult perspective is resolved with appar ent ease. In the foreground and within the corner of a heavy arched arcade are four nuns who seem to have just met. One has dropped some papers and stoops to pick them up. On the right several nuns are approach ing at different distances. On the left one nun is pass ing through a small arch, while two are descending stairs. Those who move, move quietly and slowly. The light comes in at the right with sufficient strength to throw strong shadows. No outside disturbances have broken the peace of the convent or have disturbed the demeanor of its occupants. 220 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Bonvin's pictures are highly prized. Few of them are in public galleries. They are rarely offered at public auctions. Bonvin has many of the attributes of the masters of the Dutch School. He has not their variety or their liveliness, but his sentiments are deeper and his impressions more profound. GUSTAVE COURBET (1819-1877: Med. 2nd cl., 1849; Rap., 1857 and 1861). Courbet was born at Ornans, Doubs, and died in Switzerland, near Vevay. His parents were rich and wished him to study law. He was sent to Paris and entered the Ecole de Droit. His passion for painting could not be controlled. He soon forsook his law studies and took lessons first of Steuben and then of Auguste Hess.1 Courbet was a painter of great, but of rough and undisciplined talent. He began sending pictures to the Salon about 1840. In 1844 a portrait of himself was accepted. At the same time a picture of a wounded man was rejected and was again rejected in 1847. It is a strong and excellent piece of painting and is now in the Louvre. A young man covered with a blue cloak which he holds together by his left hand is against a tree. His sword lies near him. His shirt, partially open, discloses a bloody wound. The picture was bought by the state for 11,000 francs at the sale of the artist's effects after his death. The landscape background is excellently done. There are several other pictures of his in the Louvre, all worthy of study. 1 Charles Guillaume Auguste Henri Francois Louis, baron de Steuben (1788-1856), was a German who early in life came to Paris and studied with Ary Seheffer. Auguste Hesse (1795-1869) was a pupil of Gros, and decorated churches. Fig. 164. — Courbet. The man with the leather girdle. (Luxembourg) Fig. 165. — Courbet. Interment at Ornans. (Louvre) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 221 In point of time L'Homme a la Cemture de Cuir, of 1849, comes next. The picture is a portrait of Courbet (Fig. 164). He is represented bareheaded, turned three-quarters to the right, clothed with a black jacket. His left hand is in a belt of yellow leather. His right elbow is on a portfolio, which rests on a table. On the portfolio is a drawing pencil. His right hand plays with his hair, which falls in massive curls on his shoul ders. He was proud of his hair and vain of his personal appearance. In 1851 he painted L'Enterrement d'Ornans (Fig. 165), also in the Louvre and the picture by which he is best known. It is a large picture, about ten and a half by thirteen feet, and contains a number of life- size figures. It represents a burial at Ornans, where the artist was born. In the center of the picture^ in front of the open grave, kneels the gravedigger in his shirt-sleeves. To the left stands the priest. About him are the choir boys and the cross-bearer. Back of them are other officiants, and singers in red jackets. The casket is being carried by four hired mourners. To the right of the gravedigger are three friends of the deceased, one in black with his hat in his hands. Among the weeping . women is the painter's mother, holding a little girl by the hand. The picture is not attractive. There is a total absence of grace or beauty. The group ing is not graceful, nor are any of the faces or poses in any way beautiful. But a stronger or more real presentation of a scene cannot be imagined. That Courbet has a sense of beauty is evident from his land scapes. A lovely example, called La Remise des Che- vreuils (Fig. 166), is in the Louvre. A gentle stream 222 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING flows through a thick forest. In and about it are four deer, — one stag, one quite young stag whose horns are beginning to push, and two fauns. The picture is filled with a delightful, joyous, and peaceful atmosphere. A simpler and happier picture was never painted. The sunhght seems to come in from every direction, and to make trees, deer, stones, and water radiant with warmth and brilliancy. The picture was presented to the Louvre by a society of amateurs who paid $15,200 for it. It is about six by five feet, and is one of the gems of the Louvre. All of Courbet's pictures are interesting, though his figures are not attractive. He is an extreme realist, and as a realist is claimed by the impressionists. His manner is like that of Manet, whom the impres sionists regard as their head and founder. The part Courbet took in the Commune and in the destruction of the monument of Napoleon in the Place Vendome is a matter of political, not art, history. The polemics excited at different times by the exhibition of his pic tures are well recorded in the article " Courbet " in the Grande Dictionnaire Universelle of P. Larousse. The article is too long for translation in a book of this character. Besides, to-day Courbet is properly appre ciated ; his faults and his excellences are correctly j udged. The Casseurs de Pier res (Fig. 167), regarded by late critics as Courbet's most accomplished work, is in the Dresden Museum. It represents two men breaking stones on the highway. The action is simple. The two men are painted very true to life, with an easy and robust hand. The colors are rich and harmonious. The work is admirable from the point of view of artistic 3 c fe 5£ I 60 fe Fig. 167. — Stone-breakers. (Dresden) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 223 technique. Some of the best quahties of Courbet are found in Legros. ALPHONSE LEGROS (1837- : Med., 1867 and 1868). Legros was born at Dijon, where are some of his best works. He passed thirty years at London ; was a professor at the University of London and a teacher of engraving in the School of South Kensington. His Une amende honorable, at the Luxembourg, is a good specimen of his style. THEODULE RIBOT (1823-1891: Med., 1864 and 1865 ; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E..U. ; ft, 1878; O. ft, 1887) is another artist who in some particulars may be com pared with Courbet. He was popular and sympathetic. His shadows are very dark, after the manner of Ribera and Caravaggio. . At the Luxembourg are two of his characteristic pictures, Saint Sebastien Martyr and Le Samdritain. Of the great artists born in the twenties the first is Fromentin. EUGENE FROMENTIN (1820-1876: Med. 2nd cl, 1849; Rap., 1857; Med. 1st cl, 1859; Med. 1st cl, 1867 E. U. ; O. ft, 1869). Fromentin was born and died at La Rochelle. When quite young, he came to Paris and studied painting under Cabat. When twenty-two, he made a long stay in Algiers. After his return to Paris he began exhibit ing views of 'Algiers which attracted attention by their peculiar and fascinating coloring. In 1857 he published a book called Un Ete dans le Sahara, which attracted 224 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING as much attention as his pictures. His pictures illus trated the book and the book described the pictures. In 1858 he published another book called Une Annee dans le Sahel, which confirmed his reputation as a writer. Later he traveled in Egypt, and still later he visited Venice. His pictures from these places show that he was not in the same sympathy with them as with Algiers. The year before he died he wrote Les Maitres d' Autrefois, than which no better work of art criticism was ever written. It is devoted to the museums, collec tions, and churches of Holland and Belgium. One chap ter is entitled " The Influence of Holland on French Landscape," and is of inestimable value to the student of French art. His analyses of Rubens and Rembrandt are wonders of keen and powerful intuition. Every student of art must read it ; it should be translated into every civilized language. Fromentin died suddenly of a malign attack. So soon as he recognized that he was dangerously sick, he returned to La Rochelle, that he might die at home. Fromentin was one of the most gifted of modern Frenchmen. As a colorist in a particular style of paint ing he had no superior; as a descriptive writer he ranked among the foremost. He painted as if his brush had been dipped in molten jewels, as if his pig ments were diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and pearls. Such delicate, scintillating harmonies of delicious grays, blues, and purples are seen on no other canvases. They are as indescribable and as palpable as the harmonies of Gounod or of Mascaret. That the hill's and horses, accouterments and garments, of Algiers so gleam and sparkle can hardly be. Fromentin uses them all as in- Fig. 168. — Fromentin. Falconers. (Louvre) Fig. 169. — Fromentin. Arab camp. (Louvre) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 225 struments in his wonderful orchestra. There are two of his best pictures in the Louvre, — one called Chasse au Faucon en Algerie, of 1863 ; the other, called Campe- ment Arabe, left unfinished at the time of his death. The latter picture is most valuable, as it shows how he worked and how he produced his effects. There is also a picture from his Egyptian series, showing that Egypt did not impress him so deeply or so beautifully. There are also two good specimens in the Thomy-Thierry Col lection of the Louvre. His pictures seem bathed in a vibrant atmospheric force which causes all objects to shimmer with harmonious beauty. The subject of his pictures is apt to be overlooked in the powerful impres sion of his delicate harmonies. It would seem as if some one tone had started out from the artist's soul and had gained new beauty as reflected from each ob ject in the painted scene. The Chasse au Faucon (Fig. 168) is about five by four feet, and the figures are half- size. On the right is an aged chief on horseback, hold ing a falcon on his fist. About him are his followers, also on horseback. One with his back this way, par tially turned to the left, is astride of as beautiful a gray steed as was ever painted. The rider is a tall and graceful youth and holds his falcon high up in the air. On the left, kneeling on the ground, are attendants with other falcons and a dead hare. In the distance, ap proaching up a rocky path, are other attendants lead ing horses. High up on the right hand side and far away on the left are delectable mountains. The incompleted picture called Campement Arabe (Fig. 169) shows the color effects well in hand and how they would have been emphasized in the completed pic- 15 226 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ture. In a rough country tents are standing. Three women are in front of them, and, still nearer to the front, two horses are quietly standing. All the objects seem parts of a color scheme of radiating centers which bathes the landscape and fills the sky. It is difficult to speak moderately of Fromentin's pictures. It were perhaps better not to attempt to describe them. To those who enjoy harmonies of color they are most deli cious ; there may be those who regard them with in difference. There are three good specimens in the New York Metropolitan Museum, — one in the Wolfe Collec tion, two in the Vanderbilt Loan Collection. With Fromentin should be mentioned GUSTAVE GUILLAUMET (1840-1887: Med., 1865 and 1867; Med. 2nd cl, 1872; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U. ; ft, 1878), who paints Algiers as it appears to the ordinary traveler with its torrid heat, intense sunlight, muddy streams, and indigo skies. He paints the natives in their natural unattractiveness and engaged in their daily occupations with remarkable energy and accuracy. ALFRED DEHODENCQ (1822-1882: Med. 3rd cl, 1846 and 1853; Med., 1865; ft, 1870), LEON BELLY (1827-1877: Med. 3rd cl, 1857; Med. 2nd cl, 1859; Med. 1st cl, 1861; ft, 1862; Med. 3rd cl, 1867 E. U.), NARCISSE BERCHERE (1822-1891), and LOUIS MOUCHOT (1830-1881; Med., 1865, 1867, and 1868; ft, 1872) also devoted their talents to Eastern scenes, the latter two especially to Egypt. Their works are creditable, if not of high order. The works of some of these are finding their merited way to the Louvre. Belly's Pelerins allant a la Mecque is a PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 227 large and impressive picture, about five by seven feet. A caravan is advancing in the midst of the desert. At its head is a half-naked saint on a dromedary. Behind him a long line of pilgrims on camels with their drivers on foot. In the far distance are bluish mountains. Mouchot has, or had, a picture in the Luxembourg rep resenting a shadtlf of the upper Nile. A shaduf is a mechanism for drawing water which has been in use for thousands of years. JEAN LOUIS HAMON (1821-1874: Med. 3rd cl, 1853 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1855 ; ft, 1855 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1867 E. U.). Hamon was born at Plouha, C6tes-du-Nord, and died at Saint-Raphael, Var. Hamon was born of poor par ents, who, finding their son lazy and not. disposed to work, sent him to a convent, hoping he might become a priest. At the convent he did nothing but sketch. Fi nally, tired of religious instruction and discipline, he ran away, back to his father. For a year or two he painted portraits. One of his portraits was brought to the attention of the authorities of Saint-Briuc, a neighbor ing town. They were so impressed with its excellence that they voted him a pension of 500 francs a year. With this most modest sum assured he started for Paris. How at first he supported himself in Paris is a mystery. It is said that he ate the bits of bread his companions threw away after correcting their charcoal drawings therewith. At one time he was employed painting por celain at Sevres. He was also a pupil of Delaroche and afterwards of Gleyre. He began sending pictures to the Salon in 1848. In 1852 he distinguished himself by a 228 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING picture called La Comedie humaine, which is now in the Louvre. From that time his success was assured and his pictures were in demand. The last years of his life he passed on the island of Capri. It was while returning from Italy that he died, near Toulon, not far from the Italian border. Hamon is ranked with a band of artists who were called the Neo-Pompeians, because it was as sumed that they drew their inspiration from newly dis covered frescoes from Pompeii. That these frescoes may have suggested his light, airy, and decorative style may be true, but his conceptions and treatment of subjects are as original as they are fascinating. His figures are beautifully drawn and draped ; his coloring is very light and airy. Especially fascinating are his little children, in whom to antique grace is added the charm of modern babyhood. -La Comedie humaine is a mystery (Fig. 170). It has always been a puzzle. Did Hamon, or did he not, intend to convey a moral lesson? Had he any intent at all, or did he not put in figure after figure as his imagination suggested them, without plan, with out fixed idea ? There is no sketch or writing by Hamon to solve the riddle. The picture is a large one, nearly ten by four feet, and the innumerable figures are but a little under life-size. In the center is a. Punch and Judy show, Guignol as the French call it.1 Here the regular parts are taken by Minerva,. Bacchus, and Love. Minerva wields Punch's stick and has just knocked Bac chus over the front board. Love has already been hung 1 This peculiar amusement was introduced into France from Italy toward the end of the eighteenth century. It first flourished at Lyons, where, according to some authorities, it received the name Guignol from an eccentric inhabitant of the city. Various other derivations are assigned. Fig. 170. — Hamon. Human comedy. (Louvre) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 229 up on a gallows. Immediately in front of Guignol on a stone bench are seated a man and a woman with six lovely children. One dear httle naked chap holds up to Bacchus the stem of a vine. From it dangle bunches of grapes amid vine leaves. On the extreme right stand Homer and perhaps jEschylus. The blind Homer stretches his hand toward a little girl who holds up to him a flower and tips up her short dress in the effort. In front of this group is a flower-girl who may have been taken from the Paris boulevards. In front of her stands Dante, writing, as if the Guignol had suggested a new thought for his " Divine Comedy." On the ex treme left is Diogenes, holding aloft his lantern directed toward the Guignol, as if at last he had found something honest. His right hand rests upon his barrel, as if he had just emerged from it. Back of the barrel stand three Greeks, two men and a woman. One man with a lyre may be Anacreon ; the other, with a mask, may be Moschus ; the woman may be Sappho. By the side of Guignol stands a woman with a plate. A superb youth, who may be Alexander, puts a coin into it. He stands at the head of a long hne of warriors, they may be, which extends indefinitely away out into the horizon at the extreme left of the picture. Spears, torches, and trumpets mark the line as far as it can be traced. There are other figures scattered about and filling up the background. What strange and lovely ideas must have floated through the brain of the artist! The chief charm of the picture is in the children in front of the Guignol. No one understood, as did Hamon, the charming awkwardness of toddhng and tumbling babies. 230 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING The picture called Ma Sasur n'y est pas (Fig. 171) is exquisite. A lovely girl pretends to be hiding herself behind two toddling children hardly able to stand. In front of them is the boy who is seeking the girl, and who must join in the play and believe she is hidden. A simpler subject and one more charmingly rendered can not be conceived. At the Exposition Universelle of 1855 Hamon exhibited eight of his pictures. These are de scribed and criticised by T. Gautier in his Les Beaux Arts en Europe, pp. 11, 42. Hamon occupies a unique position in the history of French art. He had no precursors, no successful fol lowers. Those who tried to imitate him failed. One, HECTOR LEROUX (1829-1900: Med. 3rd cl, 1863; Med., 1864; Med. 2nd cl, 1874; ft, 1877; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U.; silver med., 1889 E. U.), achieved success because he soon recognized the impos sibility of imitating Hamon and established an inde pendent style. He has, or had, two pictures at the Luxembourg, " A Burial in a Roman Columbarium " and " The Destruction of Herculaneum." Leroux is a strong, but not attractive painter. MARIE ROSA BONHEUR (1822-1899: Med. 3rd cl, 1845; Med. 1st cl, 1848; Med. 1st cl, 1855 E. U.; ft, 1865; Med. 2nd cl, 1867 E. U.; O. ft, 1894). Rosa Bonheur was born at Bordeaux and of an artistic family. Her father was a painter of local repu tation. A younger brother became a painter, another one became a sculptor, while a sister was also a painter. When Rosa was seven, the entire family moved to Paris, PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 231 the father hoping the change would be financially bene ficial. Four years after their arrival the mother died and the father became discouraged. Rosa was by far the most talented and energetic of the family. Her father, recognizing her abilities, devoted himself to her instruction. She was soon able to repay his instruction by assisting him in his work. In 1840, when she was eighteen, she sent to the Salon a picture of two rabbits. The picture was not only accepted but attracted atten tion. Five years of conscientious work was finally re warded by a third-class medal in 1845, when she ex hibited six pictures, of which one of a bull and cows attracted particular attention and confirmed her in the style of her choice. In 1848 she obtained a first-class medal and her reputation was established. In 1849 she had the misfortune to lose her father, who had been in addition an excellent instructor and a faithful adviser. The same year she lost her father appeared her large picture, now in the Luxembourg, called Labourage Ni- vernais (Fig. 172). In 1853 her celebrated " Horse Fair," now in the New York Metropolitan Museum, was produced. At the Exposition Universelle of 1855 ap peared La Fenaison, which won for her a first-class medal. From 1855 to 1865 she was most of the time in England, where her pictures were particularly ad mired. Some of her pictures of the semi-wild cattle of Scotland are among her very finest productions. Sev eral of her Scotch pictures were exhibited at the Exposi tion Universelle of 1867. One of them, of Isle of Skye ponies, belonging to the Marquis of Lansdowne, was particularly enjoyed. The roguish expression in the ponies' eyes is admirably rendered. In 1865 she was in 232 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Paris and received the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur from the hands of the French empress. She built for herself a special studio and dwelling on the outskirts of the forest of Fontainebleau, where she lived out her life surrounded by animals. As a painter of animals she has no superior in the history of painting, perhaps no equal. She was a strong woman, rather masculine ; she painted with a man's strength and assurance. Her landscapes are strong and bold, but serve only as back grounds to her animals. Her hfe was exemplary, full of deeds of kindness and charity. She founded in Paris a free school of design for women and girls which has been a successful and noble institution. She was self- possessed and independent; while pleased with honest praise, she hated flattery and despised fools. She was a noble woman. Most of Rosa Bonheur's pictures are in private col lections, especially the English ones. There are two at the Luxembourg. The Wallace Gallery has four small and unimportant specimens. The artist is better repre sented in the New York Metropolitan Museum than in any other public museum. The collection contains seven pictures and two drawings. Among the pictures is the celebrated "Horse Fair," purchased in 1887 by Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for $55,500, and presented to the Museum (see the excellent Catalogue). Rosa Bonheur is such a hearty artist. Her animals are so true, so lively, and so good that you love them as she loved them. She appeals straight to the heart. Her reputation in creases with years and will never fade. Theophile Gautier ranks with Rosa Bonheur, as an animal painter, an artist of the name of Coignard. Fig. 172.— Rosa Bonheur. Nivernais oxen. (Luxembourg) Fig. 173. — Puvis de Chavannes. Ste. Genevieve. (Pantheon, Paris) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 233 LOUIS COIGN ARD (1812-1883: Med. 3rd cl, 1846; Med. 1st cl, 1848). Coignard had a number of pictures at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Gautier praises him for harmoni ous coloring and for an effective blending of animals and landscape, so that neither predominates. He does not appear in the Exposition Universelle of 1867. None of his pictures are at the Louvre or in the Luxembourg. Many of them were painted in Holland and were highly prized by Germans and are now in German public and private collections.1 Other meritorious animal painters of this period are : JULES JACQUES VEYRASSET (1828-1893: Med. 2nd cl, 1872; ft, 1878; bronze medal, 1889 E. U.), a capital painter of French horses and a dis tinguished aquafortist. JULES DIDIER (1831, still living (1908) : P. d. R., 1857; Med., 1866 and 1869; bronze medal, 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1903), a strong painter, well known as an engraver and hthographer. JOSEPH MELIN (1815-1886: Med. 3rd cl, 1843; Med. 2nd cl, 1845; Med. 3rd cl, 1855 E. U.; Rap. 2nd cl, 1858), whose dogs and hunting scenes merit consideration. PHILIPPE ROUSSEAU (1816-1887: Med. 3rd cl, 1845; Med. 1st cl, 1848; ft, 1852; Med. 2nd cl, 1855 E. U.; O. ft, 1870; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U.) was a painter of animals and also of still hfe, and 1 I cannot recall ever having seen one of them. — Ed. 234 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING showed in both styles rare qualities of invention. A showy, brilliant, and decorative painter. There are three admirable paintings by him in the Luxembourg. In his particular style he is without a rival. With these should perhaps be ranked ANTOINE VOLLON (1833-1890: Med., 1865, 1868, and 1869; ft, 1870; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U. ; O. ft, 1878). He was born at Lyons and had a Southern love of color. He painted everything, from fish to human beings. Light reflected from glass, armor, and porcelain cap tured him. His coloring is most brilliant; every ma terial is given its proper sheen. He painted landscapes and portraits with equal facility and skill. There are pictures by him at the Luxembourg that show the uni versality of his genius and the magic of his touch. THEODULE AUGUSTIN RIBOT( 1823-1891 ; Med., 1864, 1865; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U.; ft, 1878; 0. ft, 1887). Ribot was a self-made painter. He did all sorts of things when he was young and while artistic talent was developing. It was not until he was forty that he pre sumed to exhibit his pictures. After his first medal in 1864, when he was forty-one, his success was assured. He painted all sorts of subjects with a bold, rough touch and with a very tender and sympathetic heart. He in dulged in dark shadows, after the manner of Caravaggio and Ribera. In his paintings, as in theirs, the shadows have deepened with age until they are thick and black. He was a naturalist and is claimed as one of the pre cursors of impressionism. There are, or were, two pic tures in his fine style at the Luxembourg, Saint Sebastien PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 235 and Le Samaritain. In both the figures are of life-size. Saint Sebastien was painted in 1865 ; Le Samaritavn in 1870. They show the painter at his best. He was equally successful, in tavern scenes and in depicting sailors and old peasantwomen. He was a fine-looking man, very attractive, and had many warm friends. He had a son and daughter who practiced painting, but without great success. The son survived his father only two years. The daughter has been lately exhibiting pictures of still life, painted in her father's style, which have attracted attention. PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES (1824-1898: Med. 2nd cl, 1861; Med., 1864; Med. 3rd cl, 1867 E. U.; ft, 1867; O. ft, 1877; Med. d'hon., 1882; C. ft, 1889). Puvis de Chavannes was born in Lyons of a rich and aristocratic family and was not intended for the arts. When he had completed his classic education, he went to Paris and studied painting for a while under Henri Seheffer. Then he traveled in Italy. On his return to Paris he entered the studio of Couture. His first pic ture, after the manner of Couture, was exhibited in 1859 and did not attract attention. Then he concluded he was not a colorist and that to succeed he must adopt a different style. In 1861 he exhibited in his new style two large allegorical pictures called " Peace and War." These were followed in 1863 by companion scenes called " Work and Rest." The four now decorate the Museum of Amiens. These works established his reputation as a decorative artist. Thereafter most of his time was employed in decorative work for large public buildings. 236 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING In 1865 he executed, also for the Museum of Amiens, a large composition called Ave Picardia Nutrix. In 1869 he exposed a series of pictures executed for the Museum of Marseilles ; in 1874, two large pictures for the Hotel de Ville of Poitiers, — one called " Charles Martel saving Christianity," by his victory over the Saracens; the other, " Saint Radegonde at the Convent of Saint- Croix." In 1876 the frescoes at the Pantheon were commenced. The first series relating to the youth of Sainte Genevieve was finished in 1878. The second series, relating to the latter part of her history, was not finished until the year of the artist's death. In 1884 the work at the Sorbonne was commenced. It is purely allegorical, representing Science observing phenomena, investigating causes and, on the ruins of the past, lay ing the foundations of the future. In 1890 works at the Hotel de Ville and also at Rouen were commenced. In 1896 were executed the frescoes for the Boston Li brary. All these works seem to belong together, to form parts of a whole ; the same philosophical spirit controls them all. They seem manifestations of one large, grand intent, and show how the world — its histories, science, philosophies, traditions, and aspirations — should be viewed by man. Henry Marcel says of his work: "It offers in its entirety a character of serene philosophy and of well-considered optimism. It is the work of a calm intelligence which, beholding from above the course of things, gives justice to the immense transformation impressed by the intelligence of man upon our planet, without preoccupying itself but reasonably with the question whether morality has followed' the same steps and made the same progress ; for that would involve the PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 237 drama, and for the dramatic the artist cares nothing. Li Puvis the artist is higher even than the thinker. He has accomplished a decisive revolution in the art of dec oration. He amplifies the human body by renouncing a too literal figuration and by reducing it to its grand fundamental divisions. A simplified mimique, by omit ting everything that is accidental, accentuates this im pression of majesty by in some way imparting to the body the idea of permanence. Thus his creatures are lifted to the level of the symbols they express and are clothed with a sort of august authority. The natural beauty of attitudes where there is no constraint or ten sion; the purity of the expression of faces liberated from human grimaces ; the chaste grace of the grouping uniting here and there these noble forms ; above all, the wonderful framework of fresh and virgin nature in which these forms move; the tender paleness of young shoots and of sensitive flowers amid the supple eddies of flowing waters ; the changing marvel of sky now pale green, then golden, then mauve, — these are the novelties which mural decoration had never before tried to express, and which to his eternal glory Puvis de Chavannes was the first to introduce." Other critics are not so fulsome as Marcel. For in stance, Teodor de Wyzewa, in his Peintres de jadis et d'aujourd'hui, writes as follows : " It is only necessary to study for five minutes the paintings of M. de Chavannes to be convinced that they are badly drawn ; that the colors, whether pleasing or not, are elementary, and that never did a painter push so far his ignorance, or, if you wish, his disdain, of the technique of his pro fession. There is not a pupil of the Ecole des Beaux 238 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Arts who cannot draw and paint more skillfully than this famous painter, surely the most famous of all liv ing painters. ... It is a fact that M. de Chavannes' figures, even when they are intended to symbohze health or elegance or physical beauty, are deformed in some parts of their bodies ; have limbs which are not alike and are badly joined, have irregular features, and pose and gesture as if they were infirm. As this could not have been the artist's intention, it can be most posi tively affirmed that he does not know how to draw. Moreover, the colors are put on in uniform layers, with out gradation, without transparency. They are, more over, effaced, deadened, reduced to the smallest possible importance. No drawing, no color, or rather a de testable drawing and hardly any color, — these are the things that can always be asserted of the pictures of Puvis de Chavannes. Neverthelesss, there is something in these pictures that imposes respect, if not admiration, upon the most obdurate, and which causes us to place them far above others which are more skillfully executed. What is it? Some call it genius. M. de Chavannes can neither paint nor draw, but he has genius, and that suffices to put him infinitely ahead of the most learned and skillful of the painters of mere talent. But the genius of a painter must express itself in his painting; while in his painting genius is not expressed either in the drawing or in the color, — for there cannot be genius in a drawing which does not succeed in realizing even the intention of the artist, or in a color which tries its best to be forgotten. The truth is that not only we do not admire M. de Chavannes' drawing and coloring, but on the contrary, we pardon them. What we admire PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 239 in him and what constitute the only real and unique merits of his art are his intention and his composition. In those particulars, and only in those particulars, he dominates his colleagues. He employs his art to express emotions by a harmonious arrangement of lines. In opposition to the majority of painters who paint in prose, he tries to paint in poetry. The distinction between prose and poetry can exist in painting and music as well as in literature. The thing that is of importance to M. de Chavannes and in conse quence to us in his pictures is the general effect. For the sake of the general effect we consent to overlook, to forget, the detail. But even this explanation is not sufficient to explain the profound respect he inspires." M. de Wyzewa then goes on to explain that the effect of De Chavannes' work is partially on account of its contrast to the painting of his immediate predecessors, of which the art world was becoming tired and sick. " The art of M. de Chavannes," he adds, " has therefore been to us like a new cure. We are attached to him as sick people are attached to a new treatment. But the new treatment must not in turn become a new sickness." M. de Wyzewa is an entertaining critic, but not a safe one to follow. No painter has lived about whom such diverse opinions have been, and are, held and expressed. His admirers proclaim him to be one of the greatest painters of his tory and insist upon their views being accepted. There are capital judges, on the other hand, who see little in him to admire and much to blame. To appreciate him the difference between easel painting and decorative painting must be understood. An easel picture is com- 240 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING plete in itself and is in a great measure independent of its surroundings. Though painted to hang over an altar, it may look equally well in a public museum or in a millionaire's sitting-room. A decorative painting, however, is made to decorate a certain space in a build ing, and must correspond to the space to be decorated and to the architecture of the building. If the space be rectangular, the leading lines of the picture must be rectangular. If the space be so long that the picture cannot be seen all at once, then it should be panoramic, that is, without any one vanishing point to which the lines of the composition converge. Figures should be in a measure independent of one another, without per spective grouping and without elaborate foreshorten ing. There should be, greater uniformity in color and a certain sober confirmation to the colors of the sur rounding architectural surfaces. Distant effects and aerial perspective are to be avoided. The result will naturally be a certain formality and stiffness to which the eye must become accustomed. Puvis de Chavannes was a master of decoration. In fact, he established the laws which since his time, in France at least, have been accepted as governing decorative painting.1 As the peculiarities of De Chavannes are entirely in his style, and as he treats all subjects alike, the study of a few of his works will make him sufficiently well known. The pictures in the Pantheon relating to the youth of Sainte Genevieve are regarded as among his most successful and attractive productions. Sainte * See an admirable article by Robert de La Sizeranne in the Revue des Deux Mondes for June, 1906, entitled Le Sentiment Decoratif aux Salons de 1906. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 241 Genevieve was born about 420 a. d. at Nanterre, a vil lage about seven miles west of Paris. All that is left of Genevieve to-day at Nanterre is a well blessed by Gene vieve, of which the sacred waters still occasionally per form miraculous cures. Genevieve was the daughter of a shepherd and took care of the sheep. It is singular how many saints started their pious history with sheep. In 429 two French bishops on their way to England stopped over night at the house of Genevieve's father. Struck by the pious demeanor of the little lady, one of the bishops, Germain from Auxerre, gave her the next day, before leaving, his blessing and a medal bearing a cross. He also exhorted her to give herself to the Church. On his return from England he permitted her to become a nun. For twenty years thereafter her life was uneventful. In 450, when Attila and his Huns threatened Paris, she played the part of a Jeanne Dare in encouraging the inhabitants of the city by assur ing them that Attila would not come near it. Sure enough, he changed his course and went south towards Orleans. Genevieve got the credit for the barbarian's change of mind, and from that time on she was regarded by the Parisians as a prophet, as their patron saint and savior. Towards the close of her life she was in some way concerned in the conversion of Clovis and in molli fying his cruel intentions towards Paris. She died in Paris in 512. From her death until the Revolution her shrine was the most sacred shrine in Paris. The pictures by De Chavannes are on the right as you enter the Pantheon and were painted in 1867, before the Prussian War and when the building was still a place of worship. The first one represents Sainte Gene- 16 242 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING vieve as a very young girl at prayer (Fig. 173). The composition is simple. A young girl kneels before a cross fastened to a tree. Her attitude is devout, very gentle and attractive. In the foreground stand her parents pausing to observe the piety of their child. The father takes off his hat in reverence, the mother raises her hand in wonder. In the background are sheep, trees, a pair of oxen, and a plow, — simple elements of pastoral life. Notice that all the elements of the composition are upright, or nearly so, to correspond with the lines of the building. Exact correspondence would not be artistic. When you see the picture, you will notice two things which do not appear in the photo graphs. In the first place the colors are not bright, but are toned down to meet those of the architecture; and, in the second place, modeling is also restrained to meet the surface of the walls. The figures are not modeled as thejT should be in easel painting. They do not seem to project, to stand out, as they do in nature. To some of De Chavannes' critics this seems a fault, a defect, and not an acquired excellence. Another picture, called " Sainte Genevieve marked with the Divine Seal," is thought to be one of De Cha vannes' finest works (Fig. 174). You notice all 'the excellences of the first picture, only on a larger scale and with the introduction of many figures. The same calm, simple spirit pervades the scene, the same vertical system of lines controls the composition. The serenity of the child, and the deep, solemn impression made by the consecrating act of Germain, the bishop, are ren dered most admirably and well within the moderation prescribed by the best rules of art. This picture is Fig. 174. — Puvis de Chavannes. Ste. Genevieve. (Pantheon, Paris) Fig. 175. — Puvis de Chavannes. Carton for Sorbonne Fresco. (Paris) Fig. 176. — Puvis de Chavannes. Left end of Sorbonne Fresco. (Paris) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 243 sufficient to put De Chavannes at the head of decora tive painting and to make you thoroughly acquainted with his excellences. At the same time you cannot fail to observe how badly drawn is the head of the bishop. Of his allegorical pictures, the one at the Sorbonne in Paris is the best known and the easiest to inspect (Fig. 175). In a large clearing in the forest and in the center of the scene sits a figure that represents the Sorbonne. On each side of her is a genius bearing palms and wreaths for distribution. Standing a little to the right of this central group is Eloquence, declaiming. Some little distance to the right and left are classical figures representing the different kinds of poetry and music. In front, and from the rock rushes a refreshing stream which youth drinks with avidity and with which age would renew his youth. The scene is closed by two large groups. To the left philosophy and history are symbolized (Fig. 176), — philosophy by a group rep resenting the struggle between materialism and spirit ualism in the presence of death. A seated figure in black holds in her lap a skull. The figure representing spiritualism is standing. She touches the skull with the fingers of her left hand while raising her right hand to heaven in testimony of her faith. Materialism calls attention to a flower as the expression of terrestrial joys and the transformations of matter. History stands in the midst of excavations and excavators interrogating the past. At the end of the picture is seated an old man doing nothing in particular. The right end of the picture is devoted to science (Fig. 177). Adult scien tists are offering to surprised students the rich treasures of plants, the sea, the earth, and life. About a statue 244 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING of Science are young men vowing to devote themselves to her service. At the extreme right are other adult scientists solving scientific problems. The scene re quires explanation. It does not contain a single beauts ful figure, hardly a correct human feature. The noses, eyes, mouths, chins, and heads of the female figures are particularly ugly and unnatural. The grouping is novel and interesting. The background of encircling forest and all the landscape accessories are lovely. (Read L'CEuvre de Puvis de Chavannes, by A. Michel, in his Notes sur VArt moderne.) WILLIAM ADOLPHE BOUGUEREAU (1825-1905: P. d. R., 1850 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1855 E. U. ; Med. 1st cl, 1857; ft, 1859; Med. 3rd cl, 1867 E. U.; I., 1876; O. ft, 1876; Med. d'hon., 1787 E. U.; Med. d'hon., 1885; C. ft, 1885; G. O. ft, 1903). Bouguereau was born and died at La Rochelle. Little has been published about his private life. He went, to Paris when quite young and studied under Picot.1 When he was twenty-five, he captured the Prix de Rome. During his apprenticeship at Rome he painted the large picture, now in the Luxembourg, of the body of Saint Cecilia taken to the catacombs (Fig. 178). This was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 and was favorably noticed. Through an arch leading down into the catacombs Christians lower the body of the martyr lying on a bed of palms. Others receive it, while still others kneel in prayer. The head of the saint, 1 Francois Edward Picot (1786-1868: pupil of Vincent; P. d. R., 1813; I., 1836), a painter of great facility and industry, equally excel lent in sacred and profane subjects. His Couronnement de la Vierge in the church of Notre Dame de Lorette in Paris is a good specimen of his abilities. He was a conscientious teacher and had many pupils. Fig. 178. — Bouguereau. Saint Cecilia. (Luxembourg) Fig. 179. — Bouguereau. The consoling Virgin. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE. SECOND EMPIRE 245 from beneath the arch, seems the center of pale, lumi nous radiation. At the same time Bouguereau exhibited a picture of L' Amour fraternelle, which was greatly praised by Gautier : " It reminds you of Andrea del Sarto. A beautiful young woman whom you would take to be the Holy Virgin, or Charity personified, bends maternally towards two children who kiss each other like Saint John and the infant Jesus in Andrea's pic tures. Nothing could be purer, more delicious, more charming than this group. The profile of the woman has a chaste grace which recalls, but without imitation, the old Itahan masters. The children are wingless angels whom all mothers would embrace and consume with their caresses, A vague and light color as that of a fresco clothes this admirable group." This is about the only bit of pleasant criticism Bouguereau received during the entire course of his long and productive active hfe. With the public he was always successful, but art critics and his fellow artists did not like his pic tures, — they were too highly finished ; his flesh was not human flesh, but an artificial porcelain flesh ; his women all looked alike and none had the expression of human beings ; he had but one type for children ; but one for women, whether they were saints, goddesses, nymphs, or human mothers ; every expression of his figures was artificial ; there was nothing human or nat ural in his drawing or in his coloring ; etc. As artists during the Second Empire were all too prosperous to be jealous of one another, their expressions must be taken as sincere, especially as they accorded with the best literary criticism of the day. His enormous egotism and his reserve undoubtedly contributed to his unpopu- 246 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING larity. He continued to paint his pictures in precisely the same style from start to finish, and he sold them at large prices just as fast as he could paint them. There are enough of his pictures in private collections to make his style well known. Besides the Saint Cecilia there are three of his pictures in the Luxembourg, of which the Vierge consolatrice, of 1877 (Fig. 179), and the Naissance de Venus, of 1879, are the best known. The Vierge consolatrice is thus described by Henry Hous- saye in his L'Art Francais depuis dix Ans: "With a gold nimbus about her head, her person draped in dark blue and red according to the laws of hierography, the Virgin is seated on a marble chair. She holds up her two wide-open hands. A woman whose mourning jacket has become loosened at the shoulder falls almost inani mate upon the knees of the Divine Consoler. She is in the extreme prostration of despair. Her body sinks, her arms hang inert, her face is pale and emaciated by vigils and grief. She is inconsolable, because she will not be consoled, ' inconsolata quia nolet consolari.' She is a young mother grieving for the loss of her child who is stretched dead on the floor of the chapel at the feet of the Virgin. His little body, white as wax where the light strikes it and of a livid green in the shadows, is superbly modeled, but of disgraceful pose. This pose and the labored technique are the only reproaches to be made against the picture." The picture is not at all consoling. The Virgin in her Byzantine attitude seems protesting that under the circumstances she can do nothing. Moreover the mother's maternal instincts even in the most intense grief should have induced her to cover the dead body of her child. Virgin, mother, Fig. 180. — Bouguereau. The birth of Venus. (Luxembourg) Fig. 181. — Chaplin. Bubbles. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 247 and child are sacrificed to Bouguereau's idea of the picturesque. The Naissance de VSnus (Fig. 180) is a superb study of the nude, and nothing more. In drawing and model ing Bouguereau was without a rival. The type he chose for the faces of all his women is not attractive, and it is far from pleasant to see exactly the same face serving as Venus and the Virgin. CHARLES JOSHUA CHAPLIN (1825-1891: Med. 3rd cl, 1851 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1852 ; Med., 1865 ; ft, 1865; O. ft, 1,877). Chaplin was born at Les Andelys on the Seine, below Paris, where are the ruins of the Chateau Gaillard. His parents were English, but he became a French citizen and must therefore be ranked among French painters. He came to Paris and studied under Drolling.1 Chaphn commenced his artistic career by painting rustic scenes from the center of France. In these he was not very successful, but attracted the attention of critics. About 1850 he began painting portraits which attracted general attention, especially his portraits of women, which were painted with a lovely delicacy of touch and with an elegant refinement which made him very popular at the new imperial court. During the entire Empire he was the favorite painter of fashion. 1 Michel Martin Drolling, 1786-1851, pupil of his father, Martin Drolling, a naturalized German, and of David. P. d. R. in 1810. He took many medals and became a member of the Institut in 1833. He painted two ceilings of the Louvre, a chapel at Saint-Sulpice, and has a painting at N. D. de Lorette. Pictures by him are at Lyons. Bordeaux, and elsewhere. His picture of the Communion de Marie Antoinette in the chapel of the Conciergerie is well known. He was a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and was an excellent teacher, 248 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING His portraits are not models of drawing, but are suffi ciently resembling, and give his sitters not only lovely complexions but an engaging air of aristocracy. Chap lin was most skillful in rendering diaphanous garments, and when he chose he could paint flesh to rival Rubens. Chaplin was at heart a sensualist. His fancy pieces are, some of them, very sensual and suggestive. One was refused at a Salon on this account. Another at the Luxembourg, called Souvenirs, should have its face turned to the wall, though as a study of flesh it is un surpassed in modern art. Chaplin was gentle and re fined in manner and appearace. His features, however, betrayed the sensuality which increased as he grew older. He was the typical boudoir painter of the Second Em pire. He had many pupils, some of them young girls from England and the United States.1 GUSTAVE MOREAU (1826-1898: Med., 1865 and 1869; ft, 1875; Med. 2nd cl, 1878 E. U.; O. ft, 1883; I., 1889). Moreau was born and died in Paris. He was rich and independent. He studied for a while under Pils at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but soon formed for himself an original style to which he adhered and which he ¦ developed all his life long. He was the Burne Jones of France. He was not so popular as Burne Jones, for eccentricities are not popular in France. The French ask of their artists some connection with the sentiments, movements, and aspirations of the day. Moreau worked in a world entirely apart from his times and with 1 Les Bulks de Savon (Soap-bubbles), at the Luxembourg (Fig. 181), shows his good points. Fig. 182. — Moreau. Salome. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 249 methods which had no connection with those of any French school. He shut himself up with his imagi nation and fed it with myths from Greece, India, and Palestine, which he travestied and distorted as he pleased. He apparently did not care for sympathy, but wished only to confuse with his subjects while dazzling with the manner in which they were presented. His first picture to attract attention was painted just after the death of Chasseriau in 1865. He was deeply at tached to Chasseriau, and the picture was accepted as an expression of grief, though no one could understand how grief could be expressed in such a manner. Moreau was a wonderful colorist. His colors seem to radiate and reflect light like gems. He paints as if he had been taught in India, China, and Japan. No pho tograph can give any idea of his powers, but may only show the peculiarities of his compositions. One of his most characteristic pictures is in the Luxembourg and is called L' Apparition (Fig. 182). It represents Salome, while dancing before Herod, suddenly stopped by an apparition of the head of John the Baptist swinging in the air in a magnificent halo of light and glory. The part that Moreau's phantasy played in the composition is easily distinguished from the gospel narrative or from any suggestion of tradition. The story fired his fancy to the production of a scene wherein he could dis play the marvels of his palette. He most certainly suc ceeded, for more brilliancy of color was never produced by the use of pigments. If Moreau's pictures are not attractive, it is because they show a man destitute of human and modern sympathies who used the marvelous powers of his art only for his own selfish pleasure. In 250 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING the Gazette des Beaux Arts of 1885 and 1886 are arti cles by Ary Renan on Moreau which may be read by the curious. To the ordinary observer Moreau's pic tures are interesting as are jewels displayed in a shop window. When Moreau died, he left his house and his unsold paintings and sketches to the French govern ment to be kept as a museum to his memory. The house is No. 14 Rue de la Rochefoucauld, and contains thou sands of sketches and hundreds of pictures, most of them unfinished, which show the growth of wild fancies in his imagination and the little value of his works in the history and development of art. The change to Jules Breton is like passing from the sickening glare and orgies of a Hindoo temple to the cheer and happi ness of Christian sunlight. FELIX FRANCOIS ZIEM (1826- : Med. 3rd cl, 1851 ; Med. 1st cl, 1852 ; bronze med., 1855 E. U. ; ft, 1857; O. ft, 1878). Ziem was born at Beaune, Cote-d'Or, and is one of the oldest of living French artists. The Qui etes-vous for 1908 states that he was born in February, 1821. That would make him eighty-seven. He is one of the most magnificent of colorists. His pictures are prin cipally of Marseilles, Constantinople, and Venice. His harmonies of chrome yellow, vermilion, and ultramarine, painted thirty years ago, are wonders. Equally so are his drawing of vessels and his compositions of the ele ments of sea and harbor life. Of la'te years, however, he has painted apparently from memory and has lost his eye for the harmony of brilliant tones. A room in the Petit Palais is devoted to his works and shows him PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 251 at his best and at his worst. An excellent specimen is in the Luxembourg. A fair specimen is in the New York Metropolitan Museum. JULES ADOLPHE BRETON (1827-1906: Med. 3rd cl, 1855 E. U. ; Med. 2nd cl, 1857 ; Med. 1st cl, 1859; Rap., 1861; ft, 1861; Med. 1st cl, 1867 E. U.; O. ft, 1867; Med. d'hon., 1872; C. ft, 1885; I., 1886). Breton was born in the North of France at a place called Courrieres, not far from Calais. He first studied with a Belgian artist named Felix de Vigne, whose daughter he married after he had established his posi tion. He came to Paris in 1848 and studied for a while with Drolling. In 1849 his pictures began to be ac cepted, but it was not until 1853 that they attracted attention. He had three pictures in the Exposition Universelle of 1855 which were favorably noticed by Gautier and which procured for him a third-class medal. Of one of them, Les Glaneuses, Gautier writes : " The harvest is finished and the poor gleaners pick from the furrows, bristling with stubble, the grain fallen from the sheaves of the rich. They follow in file, these Ruths, who will probably not find a Boaz at the end of ^heir day's work, though they are quite as lovely as could have been the Bible gleaners, with their chemises in holes and their skirts in pieces in the golden atmosphere which bathes them. A garde-champetre, with his sign of office on his arm and his pipe in his. mouth, watches them benignly. Further back, birds alight and pilfer a few seeds. Must we not all live ? " The appreciation of this picture encouraged Breton to continue in the same style; It was followed by the 252 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Benediction des Bles, which was exhibited in 1857 and was honored with a second-class medal. It hangs in the Luxembourg and is a good specimen of Breton's best style (Fig. 183). The picture is a large one, about ten by four feet, and the figures are nearly half life-size. A procession winds its way from right to left and dis appears in a path leading through an immense field of standing grain. The head of the procession is too far away to be made out. Where it enters the path is a small statue of the Virgin on a platform borne on the shoulders of six veiled women dressed in white; the statue is under a bower of flowers. Before the bearers is another woman in white ; and behind them, still an other carrying a tall candle. Then come two choristers, reading or chanting from the large books they carry. Four dear little girls in white, with garlands about their heads, carry platters swinging from their necks with ribbons. Then follow two other assistants in full robes. Beneath a canopy, upheld by four land-holders perhaps, in their Sunday dress, marches the priest with the sacred host. Acolytes march on each side, — two with candles, two with censers. Then follows a group of undoubtedly the principal men of the parish; some have sashes and may be magistrates; all carry candles. Then follow women and children extending out to the end of the picture. At their head marches a garde-champetre to keep them in order. His drawn sword is in his right hand, and he gestures with his left, as if his task were not an easy one. In the foreground, but not so as to obstruct the view of the procession, are men and women on their knees, some with children whom they are teach ing to worship. Off in the distance to the right are Fig. 183.— I. Breton. Blessing the grain. (Luxembourg) Fig. 184. — J. Breton. The gleaner. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 253 the village and the village church ; on the left and at a greater distance are low-lying hills. The picture is well conceived and excellently executed. It is pervaded by an attractive spirit of simple and earnest religious belief which causes regret that such customs should exist no longer. The procession is admirably constructed and moves with quiet and dignified grace. There is no crowding, no exaggeration ; an impressive scene is pre sented exactly as it happened. Breton's peasants are true to life. They may not be beautiful ; peasants rarely are, but they are not repulsive, as are those of Millet, and they are presented in acts which clothe them with poetic beauty. Another picture, of perhaps still deeper poetic beauty, called Les premieres Communi- \antes, is somewhere in the United States. At the Morgan sale in 1886 it brought the enormous sum of $45,000. There is also in the Luxembourg by Breton a picture called La Glaneuse (Fig. 184), which presents a single figure of superb build and pose. She has fin ished her gleaning for the day and is bearing home the result of her labor. For form and face she might pose as a model for Judith. Woe betide the man who is not true to her ! Breton and Rosa Bonheur had the same grand and hearty view of nature; their pictures are equally comfortable and happy. Breton was a writer as well as a painter. He published books of verses that may almost be called poems. His work Nos Peintres du Siecle is one of the best guides for the student of mod ern French painting. Henry Marcel associates with Breton a number of painters of lesser fame, though the association is not always clear. 254 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ADOLPHE LELIEUX (1812-1891: Med. 3rd cl, 1842; Med 2nd cl, 1843 and 1848; ft, 1855) passed most of his life in Brittany and devoted himself to illus trating Brittany costumes and customs. One of his pictures, painted in 1863, called Une Noce en Bretagne, hangs in the Luxembourg and is full of movement and good-humor. He had a brother ARMAND (1818- 1885: Med. 3rd cl, 1844; Med. 2nd cl, 1847 and 1848; Rap., 1857; Med. 1st cl, 1859; ft, 1860), who was an equally exact and conscientious painter. He traveled in Spain and Italy and sent home pictures of what he had seen. One is, or was, in the Luxembourg, and represents the interior of the pharmacy of the con vent of the Capuchins at Rome. These two brothers do not seem to have been active as painters after 1860. EDMOND HEDOUIN (1820-1889: Med. 2nd cl, 1848 ; Med. 3rd cl, 1855 E. U. ; Rap., 1857 ; ft, 1872) was another excellent and conscientious painter whose works had not the qualities which assure continuous regard. He also has a Glaneuse at the Luxembourg. GUSTAVE BRION (1824-1877: Med. 2nd cl, 1853; Rap., 1859 and 1861; Med. 1st cl, 1863; ft, 1863; Med. 2nd cl, 1867 E. U. ; Med d'hon., 1868) was one of the best painters Alsace produced. There is, or was, one of his pictures at the Luxembourg, Les Pelerins de Sainte Odelle. He was an archaeologist and assisted Napoleon III in his History of Julius Caasar. He is particularly known for his illustrations of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. CHARLES FRANQOIS MARCHAL (1826-1877: Med., 1864 and 1866; Med. 3rd cl, 1873) and PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 255 ADOLPHE JUNDT (1830-1884: Med., 1868; Med. 3rd cl, 1873) were two other good painters from Alsace, who disappeared as completely as the liberties of their country. FRANCOIS NICOLAS AUGUSTIN FEYEN-PER- RIN (1826-1888: Med., 1865 and 1867; Med. 3rdcl, 1874; ft, 1878). Feyen-Perrin was an all-round artist. He drew topics from Dante, from every-day life, and from history. Afterwards he lived in Brittany and painted the peas antry and their doings. In the Luxembourg is a large picture by him, called Le Retour de la Peche aux Huitres, in which the peasantwomen returning with their baskets are painted with very long bodies and very pretty faces, and look as if they could stand love- making better than hard work. They are very pretty, however, and' carry their baskets with innocent and juvenile grace. PAUL JACQUES AIMEE BAUDRY (1828-1886: P. d. R., 1850; Med. 1st cl, 1857; Rap., 1861; ft, 1861; O. ft, 1869; I., 1870; C. ft, 1875; Med. d'hon., 1881). Baudry was born at La Roche-sur-Yon in the Vendee, near the coast, about half-way between Nantes and La Rochelle. His father was a poor shoemaker. When a small boy, Baudry distinguished himself by playing on the violin and also by drawing all sorts of things. As he grew up, his drawings attracted the attention of the authorities of his town. Finally they made him an allowance of 400 francs a year with which he started for Paris and entered the studio of Drolling. As Drol- 256 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ling charged his pupils 25 francs a-month, Baudry had but little of his pension left to live on. He managed to hve somehow or other until he was twenty-two, when he took the Prix de Rome. From then on it was plain sail ing. Baudry was a small man, with black eyes and a dark complexion. He had strong features and a singu larly broad and bifurcated chin. He had thick black hair, and wore a - small mustache the ends of which were always twisted if not waxed. He had the appear ance and manners of an Italian or of a Montagnard of the Pyrenees. He was tremendously energetic and in dustrious, very devoted to his friends, and did not care for strangers. He was one of the very greatest painters of the Second Empire. His greatest work, to which he devoted nearly ten years of his life, was decorating the foyer of the new Opera House, planned and built by the great architect Gamier who was one of Baudry's dear est friends. The foyer is one hundred and seventy-five feet long, forty-two feet wide, and fifty-nine feet high. The ceiling and pendentives are covered with paintings by Baudry representing melody and harmony in the center with tragedy and comedy at the sides. Over- one chimney is Mount Parnassus ; over the other, the ¦ poets of antiquity. There are many smaller scenes and connecting compositions. In all there are thirty-three paintings of different sizes. To get himself into a right state of mind for the work, Baudry is said to have de voted years to the contemplation and study of Michael Angelo's frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Unfortunately for Baudrjr's reputation, the gas and dust of the place are spoiling his colors. Moreover, it is hard enough at all times to bend back so as to appreciate the paint- Fig. 185. — Baudry. Fortune and the child. (Luxembourg) Fig. 186.— Baudy. The abduction of Psyche. (Chantilly) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 257 ings on a ceiling; to do so while promenading be tween the acts of an opera is impossible. Some time before Baudry's death a movement was started by M. Claretie of the Theatre Francais, another of Baudry's dear friends, to remove the pictures to the Louvre and substitute copies, but nothing came of the movement ; now it may be too late to save them. One of his earliest pictures, sent from Rome while he was still a student but not exhibited until 1857, hangs in the Luxembourg. It is called La Fortune et le jeune Enfant (Fig. 185) and illustrates one of La Fontaine's fables : " La Fortune passa, l'eveilla doucement Lui disant: Mon mignon, je vous sauve la vie; Soyez une autre fois plus sage, je vous prie." Could there be a more enchanting illustration of a lovely fable? The painting is unfortunately beginning to crack and tarnish, showing that Baudry was not sufficiently careful in his selection of pigments. There is a picture at Chantilly by Baudry which gives an idea of his power in representing motion (Fig. 186). It is hardly more than a sketch, and shows Mer cury carrying Psyche up to heaven. The grand power with which he moves upward and the ease with which he carries his precious burden show that Baudry must have studied Michael Angelo's " Last Judgment " as well as his ceiling paintings. Eros, leading the way, is a delicious bit of lightness and joy. To the skill of the sixteenth century are added the grace and charm of modern Paris. This was one of his last works, painted but two weeks before he died. The Medaille d'honneur of 1881 was given for La Glorification de la 17 258 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Loi, painted for the Chambre Civile of the Palais de Justice. It is an allegorical picture, with large figures of Law, Truth, etc., difficult to understand and appre ciate, but regarded by Claretie and others as Baudry's greatest work. Pictures by Baudry are at Lille, Nantes, and Bordeaux. At Lille is his Supplice d'une Vestale, which is rather crowded but full of fine details, espe cially the fainting victim. Several buildings in Paris were decorated by him, L'Hotel Gullemin, Fould Nar- daillac, and especially Galliera (now the Musee Gal- liera), where are fine pictures representing the grand cities of Italy. Baudry has been particularly praised for his por traits. As these are in private collections, they cannot be seen. The last catalogue does not show that any of his pictures have as yet been promoted to the Louvre. At the time of his death he had been charged to paint for the Pantheon pictures to illustrate the life of Jeanne Dare. JULES ELIE DELAUNAY (1828-1891: P. d. R., 1856; Med. 3rd cl, 1859; Med. 2nd cl, 1863 Med., 1865; Med. 2nd cl, 1867 E. U. ; ft, 1867 Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U. ; 0. ft, 1878 ; I., 1879 Gd. p., 1889 E. U.). Delaunay was born at Nantes where are some of his earliest and best pictures. His father was a wax- chandler in comfortable circumstances, and his family was of good repute and long established. The father opposed the youthful inclinations of his son and yielded only to the solicitations of all the other members of the family. After a year of trial with a local artist named Gotta, he was permitted to go to Paris and entered the PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 259 studio of Flandrin. In 1848 he was admitted to the Ecole des Beaux Arts. It was eight years before he captured the Prix de Rome. Three years afterwards, while still at Rome, he secured a medal. After that his success was rapid and regular. The picture by which he is best known to the public is in the Luxembourg and is called Peste a Rome (Fig. 187). The subject is taken from the story of Saint Sebastien as recorded in the Golden Legend. " It is stated in the history of the Lombards that during the reign of King Humbert Italy was ravaged by a plague so severe that there were hardly people enough left alive to bury the dead. The plague was especially severe at Rome and at Pavia. Then a good angel appeared and gave orders to the bad angel who was armed with a hunting spear, that is, with a spear for killing boars. The orders were to strike houses with the spear, and as many times as a house was struck so many dead people it contained and were brought out. It was divinely revealed to a man of wealth that the plague would not cease until an altar to Saint Sebastien had been consecrated and dedicated at Pavia. When this was done, the plague ceased and the remains of Saint Sebastien were brought from Rome." About as clear and as logical as most legends. The scene is horrible. It presents a street in Rome where the dead and the dying are scattered about. On the right are the good and the bad angels. The grand movement of the flying good angel must have been sug gested by Raphael's fresco of Heliodorus. The bad angel, as directed, is striking a door with all his might. A horrified figure looks over the roof of an adjoining house. On the left, down steep steps, is advancing a 260 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING religious procession. At the foot of the steps is an equestrian monument to " Divo Constantino Augusto." Away up the street in the distance is burning a fire to destroy infection. On the extreme right in a niche against the infected house is a statue of JEsculapius with garlands about it. A woman sinks beneath it and curses him. It would satisfy curiosity to know why Delaunay painted so repulsive a scene. The sub ject almost destroys interest in the wonderful powers displayed. The picture was exhibited in 1869. The figures are about half life-size. There are other pic tures of his at the Luxembourg; among them a large picture of La Communion des Apotres (Fig. 188). It is a replica of a picture at Nantes and is full of solemn and religious sentiment. Delaunay made his greatest reputation as a portrait painter. For his portraits critics gave him the highest praise. These, being in private collections, are unfor tunately not to be seen. One of his best, in the Nantes Museum, is of the aged General Emile Mellinet (1798- 1894), who was born and died in Nantes. He was seriously wounded and disfigured before Sebastopol One of the side rooms of the foyer of the Opera House was decorated by Delaunay. His work is esteemed by critics as quite equal to Baudry's in the larger and ad joining room. The success of his work at the Opera led to his being selected in 1874 for work on the new Hotel de Ville, in the Palais de Justice, and at the Pantheon. He died leaving these works unfinished. For the Pantheon he left sketches for two pictures which were subsequently painted by an artist named Cour- celles Dumont. One represents Attila marching on to Fig. 187. — Delaunay. The pest at Rome. (Luxembourg) Fig. 188.— Delaunay. The communion of the Apostles. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 261 Paris ; the • other Sainte Genevieve encouraging the Parisians during his march. The first picture is strong, but not inviting. The upturned face of a dead child in the foreground lying by the side of its slaughtered parents is inartistic and repulsive. The place to enjoy Delaunay is Nantes. His pic tures in the convent of the Visitation and in the church of Saint Nicolas are filled with a gentle pre-Raphaelite spirit, while some of his most charming single pieces are in the Nantes Museum. His sudden death in the midst of his art activities terminated a career which seemed all the while expanding with larger and grander capacities. He and Baudry were intimate friends and had many points in common. JOHN LEWIS BROWN (1829-1891: Med., 1865, 1866, and 1867; ft, 1870; gold medal, 1889 E. U.). Brown was born at Bordeaux, of one of the families which left England after the execution of Charles I. His Enghsh name suggested English traits and cus toms, but he was thoroughly French, — could neither speak nor understand a word of English. No more attractive gentleman or charming artist was produced by the circumstances of the Second Empire. He loved dogs, horses, and horsemen. His specialty was hunt ing scenes. His horses, their riders, and their riders' costumes were painted as accurately and admirably as those of Meissonier; while his woods, landscapes, and skies were inspired by Watteau. He was favored by the Empress Eugenie and by the Princess Mathilde. His red ribbon was one of the very last given by the emperor 262 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING just before the outbreak of the Prussian War. The war hurt him severely, as it did many artists who had been favorites at court. He, however, recovered and painted battle scenes which pleased Republicans. After a while he reverted to his first style with only partial success. There are, or were, in the Luxembourg two pictures by him, — one called Avant le Depart; the other, one of his battle pieces painted to please Republicans.1 JEAN JACQUES HENNER (1829-1905: P. d. R., 1858; Med. 3rd cl, 1863; Med., 1865 and 1866; ft, 1873; O. ft, 1878; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U.; I., 1889; Med. d'hon., 1898; C. ft, 1898; Gr. p., 1900 E. U.; G. O. ft, 1903). Henner was born in Bernviller, a little town in Alsace, not far from Switzerland. He early developed a talent for painting. His family was able to send him to Paris, where he studied under Drolling and Picot. It was not, however, until he was twenty-nine and after many un successful attempts that he finally captured the Prix de Rome. After his return from Rome he captured a third-class medal in 1863. From that time his success was great and continuous. When he died, in 1905, he had received about every honor a painter can receive. How he acquired his peculiar style is not known. In 1 The author would testify to the deep affection and the great admira tion with which M. Brown inspired him. His fellow artists accused him of "chic " because he worked without the models they found necessary for the production of their works. But he carried in his mind scenes he had seen and reproduced them from memory. In the representation of costumes and accouterments no one could have been more careful. His studio was full of them. To sit by his side and see his works grow, while listening to his delightful talk, was a pleasure and an experience that can never be forgotten. Fig. 189. — Henner. Idyl. (Luxembourg) Fig. 190.— Henner, Fabiola. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 263 some particulars it is like Prud'hon's. He produces the same brilhancy in his lights, which he surrounds with the same dark shadows. But his outlines are always indistinct, as if they floated into his backgrounds. His subjects are generally Magdalenes or nymphs. He was more successful with single figures than with groups; his groupings are awkward. In 1872 he exhibited a picture called Idylle (Fig. 189), which his admirers re gard as a wonderful work of art, quite worthy of the Venetian Giorgione. It is now in the Luxembourg. Claretie, who was a great admirer of Henner, thus describes it : " It is a Giorgione with a modern melan choly added; a sentiment peculiar to our age which Giorgione did not possess. Two naked women of that chaste nudity which only excites admiration for perfect beauty, two women who have stopped by a fountain, breathe softly the healthy freshness of a beautiful even ing. They come from that antiquity where humanity walked proud and beautiful in its majesty. One of them, seated, plays slowly a sweet, melancholy air on the reed. The other, standing up and leaning against the edge of the fountain, listens with a calm and sad impression to the sounds which arise in the evening air. The darken ing light descends from the gray sky which is peace fully reflected in the water of the fountain. What peace, what calm, in the landscape! What nobility in these two figures! The whole tone of the picture is a silvery gray, yet it is admirably colored. How the light glides over the charmingly modeled breast of the standing woman, her auburn hair framing her majestic face! How plump, alive, and womanly is her flesh! How its almost milky tone detaches itself from the 264 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING greensward, from the background of greenish blue formed by the tree in the middle of the picture, while the earth stretches out to the horizon! I have called it a work of Giorgione: I add that the work of the modern painter is materially better painted, and leaves a" very different and stronger impression of calm, of pure beauty, of an ancient biblical dream, than all the pictures of the Venetian master. Henner's picture ex cites no noise, does not attract a crowd, but every man who loves art in its most exquisite manifestations would give in his gallery a chosen corner to this chef-d'asuvre." It is difficult to follow Claretie in his rhapsody or to see what he saw. To most observers the women are ordinary in pose and outline, while the scene is badly composed and unmeaning. Other writers are not so complimentary. T. de Wyzewa, one of the critics of the Revue des Deux Mondes, in his review of the Salon of 1891 writes thus of Henner : " Year by year he more manifestly neglects his painting. His nymphs and his Christs have ceased to have human forms. If ever an artist did not merit to have genius, it is M. Henner, who for the last twenty years does not once seem to have felt the necessity of reflecting about himself, about the value of art, or about anything that is a bit lofty. He has remained stock-still, ever preparing his unvarying little sauce, ever overdoing his little piece of white flesh. Neverthe less it cannot be denied that he has obtained from Heaven something that is akin to genius. He has an art and a hand that are his own. If he had been more intelligent and more scrupulous, the one note he brought into the world might have been as valuable as the one PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 265 which long ago was contributed by Corot," etc.1 Hen- ner's " note," like Corot's, is easily imitated. There are quite as many false Henners in existence as false Corots. Both artists have had, and will continue to have, plenty of admirers ; while others will continue to assert that both artists captured the public eye by devising singu larities which they developed and continued with profit. EDOUARD MANET (1832-1883: Med. 2nd cl, 1881 ; ft, 1881). Manet belonged to a rich and prominent Paris family. He early displayed talent for painting. In order to prevent its development his family shipped him on long voyages. As these had no effect, he was finally allowed to follow his inclinations. For a while he studied under Couture, but he did not study seriously. About 1860 he began sending pictures to the Salon. In 1861 three were exhibited. In 1863 he painted a large picture, Le Dejeuner sur I'Herbe, which was rejected by the jury of the Salon for indecency. It is now in the Moreau- Delaton Collection of the Louvre, where its indecency can be attested. It represents an out-of-door picnic, the two female participants of which are nude. There is nothing to attract attention to the picture but the ordinary nude bodies of the women. There is no beauty in the persons present, in their grouping, or in the landscape. The picture is very strongly painted, and is so real that Manet must have seen the exposure and lived in circumstances where such exposures occurred. Manet had already introduced naked women into a view he had painted of the Garden of the Tuileries. 1 Henner worshipers are particularly enthusiastic over his single heads (Fig. 190). 266 " MODERN FRENCH PAINTING In 1863 so many artists had their pictures refused that they organized an outside exhibition of their re fused works and called it Le Salon des Refuses. There Manet exhibited his pictures. The next year he painted his still more famous Olympia, which was admitted to the Louvre in 1907 (Fig. 191). A naked and unat tractive courtesan is stretched out on her bed. At its foot is a black cat, while a negress brings in a large bouquet to her mistress. The scene is as real as can be, without the slightest excuse or veiling. Nor is there any beauty in the painting. The courtesan's face is the dull, heavy, soulless, and unnatural face subse quently affected by impressionists. Her skin looks like kid, and her limbs look as if they were stuffed with sawdust. That such a disgusting work could have been admitted to the Louvre shows how low is the French taste of to-day. There are pictures which show that Manet was a genius, and that with proper preparation and disciphne he would have been one of the greatest painters of the nineteenth century. His Le bon Bock (Fig. 192) is one of his very best, and worthy to be compared with the best works of Franz Hals. His Le bon Pipe which fol lowed is a failure, and is evidence that without thorough preliminary training success in painting is accidental. Manet's pictures were excluded from the Exposition Universelle of 1867 ; so he hired a neighboring hall and exhibited fifty of them. Zola became his greatest friend and most heroic defender. It was not until after the war that Manet allied himself with the impressionists and became their leader. After the war he rarely sent his pictures to the Salon, and those he sent were rarely Fig. 191. — Manet. Olympia. (Louvre) Fig. 192.— Manet. The good bock. (Paris) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 267 received. In 1882 the Bar des Folies Berg&re was ac cepted. It was about his last work. It is at the Lux embourg, and shows how low a painter can fall who has nothing but cleverness to back him. The essential of a work of art is beauty. The sense of beauty, if it be in tuitive, needs prolonged and unremitting discipline to become reliably productive. Manet's works are powers in France to-day, but powers for evil. Pictures by both Manet and Henner are at the New York Metropolitan Museum. To Manet is attributed the first use of light- colored and transparent shadows, of natural back grounds, of unmixed pigments, and the discarding of north lights. PAUL GUSTAVE DORE (according to Claretie, Dore was born in January, 1832 ; according to Larousse and Marcel, he was not born until 1833. He died in Paris in 1883. ft, 1861; O. ft, 1879). Dore was born in Strasburg. He was a precocious genius, — when twelve, he published lithographs ; when sixteen, he was attached to a Paris illustrated news paper. In 1854 his illustrations of Rabelais appeared and met with enormous success. These were followed by his illustrations of the Wandering Jew. In 1856 ap peared his Balzac; in 1861, his Dante, which won for him the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur. Don Quixote appeared in 1862 ; The Bible, in 1864. He then went over to England, where appeared his Milton in 1865. In 1867 he illustrated La Fontaine's fables. In 1868 he completed his Dante. Finally, in 1879, he published his illustrations of Orlando Furioso. His very last com pleted work was of Poe's Raven and was issued in Lon don. When he died he was engaged in illustrating 268 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Shakespeare. These are his great works which made him famous and by which he will always be known. They display an unparalleled richness of fantastic imagi nation. Sometimes his illustrations are so grand and appropriate as to be almost sublime; at other times they are so grotesque as to be ridiculous. They were evidently executed with a thoughtless rapidity, without proper consideration or previous plan. Dore's ambition was to succeed as a painter. In painting he was not successful. He had none of the requisite qualities. He lacked the repose, the precon- sideration, the sense of order, spacing, and composing, which must be evident in a painting. He could not re strain his imagination to the limits prescribed by the art. In sculpture, which he also tried, he was equally unsuccessful There is^invthe Place Malherbes in Paris a monument to Dumas feBs, of which he is the author. The bgs^eliels- on the pedestal are not without merit. His lack of success as a painter embittered and short ened his life. There is at Versailles an enormous pic ture by Dore of the Battle of Inkerman. The battle itself was confused. Dore's picture is a triumph of confusion and disorder. It is nearly fifteen feet square. Lately it has been removed from the galleries. There is at the Luxembourg a picture by Dore which is about the best of his paintings (Fig. 193). It is a comparatively small picture, only about three by two feet, and is called L'Ange de Tobie. After having done all he could for Tobias and his father, the angel takes his departure. To the left of the picture is the entrance to a tomb or temple. Leaning against one of the columns of the entrance is Tobias. Near him is his Fig. 193. — DoreJ The angle of Tobias. (Luxembourg) Fig. 194. — Bonnat. M. Thiers. (Louvre) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 269 bride. Then, in a line running down towards the right- hand lower corner of the picture, are members of Tobias' family, on their knees or prone, with their backs to the spectator. The distance is Oriental landscape backed by far distant mountains. There are encampments in sight and caravans. High up in the air, swinging in the skies like a meteor, is the bright figure of the winged receding angel. It seems very far away from the wor shiping family, altogether too far away to cast the black shadows behind their backs which are so con spicuous in the foreground of the picture. " Dore had spirit, temperament, assurance, audacity, imagination; in fact, all the faculties the art fairy can scatter over the cradle of the child she adopts. On the other hand, he possessed none of those qualities which are acquired, and which, if they cannot take the place of natural gifts, are the only forces which enable natural gifts to bear their full fruit," etc. (See Jules Comte in the G. des B. A. for 1885.) Dore as a painter was more highly appreciated in England than in France. There is a Dore gallery in London, where are a number of his works. LEON JOSEPH FLORENTIN BONNAT (1834- : Med. 2nd cl, 1861 ; Rap., 1863 ; Med. 2nd el, 1867 E.U.; ft, 1867; Med. d'hon., 1869; O. ft, 1874; I., 1881; C. ft, 1882; G. O. ft, 1897; G. C. ft, 1900). Bonnat was born at Bayonne in the South of France. When fifteen, his father, who was a bookseller, moved to Madrid. Here the lad became inspired by the pic tures of Murillo and Velasquez. All the time he could 270 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING spare from his duties as his father's clerk, he devoted to drawing and to copying the pictures in the Museum. His copies were so good that he sold some of them. Others he sent to Bayonne, where they were so highly appreciated that the municipality voted him a pension of 1500 francs to study in Paris. So at twenty he is in Paris studying under Cogniet. In 1857 he competed for the Prix de Rome, but came out second. The Bayonne authorities were persuaded to continue his pen sion for three years longer. In 1858 he started for Rome, where he was cordially received by Schnetz, the director of the French school, who invited him to avail himself of the school's privileges. He soon began to distinguish himself, and to the present day there has been no relaxation in his tremendous energies, no stop to his increasing powers or to his enlarging success. He first painted religious scenes. A Bon Samaritain attracted attention, was purchased by the French gov ernment, and is now at Bayonne. This was followed by a Marty re de Saint Andre" and a Adam et Eve. The Martyre de Saint Andre was exhibited in 1861 and gave him his first medal. At the same time he painted Italian peasant children, inspired by Murillo and re minding of Hebert. They are charming. Bonnat must have thought so himself, for every now and then he would revert to this -early style. One, " A Girl at a Fountain," painted in 1875, is in the New York Met ropolitan Museum, and is lovely. People not well acquainted with Bonnat are sure to assign it to Hebert. Bonnat's Italian peasants have not the melancholy charm of Hebert's. They are more robust, more hearty, more real. Bonnat sent five pictures to the Exposition PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 271 Universelle of 1867, — four Roman scenes and the superb St. Vincent du. Paul prenant la Place d'un Galerien, which now hangs in one of the chapels of the church of Saint Nicolas des Champs at the corner of the Rue Reaumur and the Rue Saint Martin. About 1867 he visited Egypt, Palestine, and Greece with Gerome. On his return he painted an Assomption de la Vierge for the church of Saint Andre at Bayonne. This picture, exhibited in 1869, secured for him the Medaille d' honneur. In 1870 he exhibited two scenes from the East, Une Rue a, Jerusalem and Femme Fellah et son Enfant. These pictures had a tremendous success. The second is in the New York Metropolitan Museum and is one of its treasures. It was after the Prussian War that Bonnat began to develop his great talent as a portrait painter. As a painter of robust portraits Bonnat has ever since stood at the head of the French School. His portraits are not only exact likenesses, triumphs of realism; but the par ticular character of the individual is brought out and made prominent. Bonnat is no flatterer. He cannot fail to see and cannot help making evident his sitter's leading characteristics. No painter has ever revealed the inner self more clearly, more thoroughly. Let no man sit to him who does not care to have himself known as even he himself may not have known himself before. No finer portraits have ever been painted than Bon- nat's portraits of Thiers, Renan, and Victor Hugo. No revelations of character have ever been more exact and complete than his portraits which hang in the New York Metropolitan Museum. Of the portrait of Thiers (Fig. 194), painted in 272 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING 1877, Claretie writes as follows : " The portrait of M. Thiers is a historic page of considerable importance and a work, of art of evident superiority. The M. Thiers of Bonnat will be the portrait that history will select to explain hereafter the valor of the French statesman who in spite of violent partisan injuries will remain before posterity the Liberateur du territoire. Doubtless M. Bonnat has left out of M. Thiers' face the sparkle, the spirit, that animated his active phy siognomy, the promptness of speech which denoted in cessant and marvelous vigor of thought. M. Thiers was often more smiling ; but this portrait was well suited to the hour. It is thoughtful, anxious, oppressed. The glance sent through the spectacles is severe. In the robust man, facing full to the front, with his hand firmly placed on his hip, we see the observer of the faults of others and the patriot alert and ready to repair them. In the magnificent modeling of the forehead, in the frowning of the brows, in the strong, yet dis dainful, line of the lips, in the thick silvery hair with its lively white crest, there seems such a will, such power, such complete virility, that this dreamy por trait comforts and reassures. . . . The figure de taches itself from the background with a rare intensity of life. It is one of Bonnat's finest works, the work of an artist who thinks and who causes others to think." All of Bonnat's portraits are worthy of equal praise. They make it appear that painting can be put to no higher use. Some of Bonnat's compositions are so real as to be startling. His Job, in the Luxembourg, is an unpleasant study of the anatomy of an old man. Also in the Luxembourg is one of his most excellent .1.4*4. Fig. 195. — Bonnat, Cardinal Lavigeris. (Luxembourg) Fig. 19G.— Bonnat. St. Denis. (Pantheon) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 273 portraits, that of the Cardinal Lavigerie (Fig. 195). Lavigerie was one of the most magnificent prelates of modern times. He was a townsman of Bonnat's, bom in 1825. His most distinguished work was done in Algiers. He was made cardinal in 1888, and was created by Pope Leo XIII Primate of Africa and Metropolitan of Carthage. His best efforts were directed towards breaking up the African slave trade. He died in Al giers in 1892. There is a very tremendous picture by Bonnat in the Pantheon, on the left on entering, repre senting the martyrdom of Saint Denis (Fig. 196). Saint Denis, as everybody knows, was decapitated to the North of Paris very early in the history of Chris tianity. With him were decapitated two other Chris tians. Nothing of an extraordinary nature occurred at the execution of these minor saints ; but when Saint Denis' head was lopped off, he grabbed it with his hands and marched back with it to the site of his present cathedral. The further statement that to cross the river Seine he took his head in his teeth and swam over is an addition of a later day and not worthy of credence. The executions apparently take place on the steps of a gigantic temple of Greek or Roman architecture. The execution of the minor saints has already taken place. Their decapitated bodies and heads are lying about. Saint Denis occupies the center of the picture, has just been decapitated, and is reaching out his hands to his head. Where was his head is a ball of blazing light. The executioner and the attendant priest or magistrate are naturally amazed at the sight. Their attitudes also express a startled curiosity. A third party has taken to flight. All that is left of him in the 18 274 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING' picture is his fleeing left foot and a bit of his flowing garment. High up in the right-hand corner of the picture swings in, head downwards, a muscular angel, holding in his stretched out right hand the martyr palm and the victor's wreath. The picture realizes Bonnat's robust faith in the miraculous. As a work of art it is as strong in color as in composition and draw ing. It attracts more attention than any other picture in the building. Bonnat to-day (1909) at seventy-five is as active and energetic as ever. His portrait of President Fal- guieres, exhibited in 1907, has all his peculiar excellen ces. He is a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He has been president of the Societe des Artistes Francais. He is the greatest power in France to-day against ig norance, presumption, and pretense ; the best living example of the virtue of hard and unremitting labor. Long may he live to champion the principles established by David and illustrated by Ingres and his disciples ! JULES JOSEPH LEFEBVRE (1836- : P. d. R., 1861; Med., 1865, 1868, and 1870; ft, 1870; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U. ; 0. ft, 1878; Med. d'hon., 1886; Gd. p., 1889 E. U. ; I., 1891; C. ft, 1895). Lefebvre was born at Tournon, Seine-et-Marne. He came to Paris and studied under Cogniet. He took the Prix de Rome when he was twenty-five; his first medal at thirty-one. His life has been a progress of continual success. He is distinguished for three things; his studies of the nude; his portraits, especially his por traits of women; and, above all else, his kind, sym pathetic, and most excellent instruction. It has been Fig. 197. — Lefcbvre. Truth. (Luxembourg) SI s3 ¦a a sH I PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 275 calculated that over fifteen hundred students have en joyed his teaching, among them many Americans ; there is not one who cannot testify to his quick perception of the cause of failure and his immediate suggestion of the proper remedy. His patience and kindness drew from his pupils their very best efforts. Few of Lefeb- vre's works are where the public can see them. Of his compositions La Verite, exhibited in 1870, is at the Luxembourg ; Diane surprise, of 1879, is at the Ecole des Beaux Arts ; La Cigalle, of 1872, one of the loveli est of his works, is in the Museum of St. Louis, United States. Two are in the New York Metropolitan Mu seum, each of 1878, — Graziella, of the Wolfe Collec tion, and Mignon, of the Vanderbilt Collection. La Cigalle and Mignon are two of his very best. Of his portraits none are in public galleries. His Virite (Fig. 197) has not the ideal grace or poetic beauty of some of his other subjects. She is a nude woman of ample proportions and life-size, standing upright in the bot tom of her well. Her right arm, stretched straight up, holds a gleaming incandescent globe. With her left hand she holds the rope with which she ascends and descends. The rope is realistic ; the electric globe is very modern; the well looks damp and uncomfortable. Lefebvre is one of the professors at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and is as much opposed as Bonnat to the modern a peu pres style of painting. HENRI FANTIN-LATOUR (1836-1904: Med., 1870; Med. 2nd cl, 1875; ft, 1879). Fantin-Latour was born at Grenoble, and was the son of a painter in pastel who had acquired reputation. 276 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING The father supervised his son's artistic education. Noticing promising aptitudes, he took him to Paris and placed him with Cogniet. Young Latour, hke Manet, was impatient of instruction and discipline, and, like Manet, to whom he became deeply attached, he formed an independent style, — quiet, reserved, gentle. His coloring is dull ; he seems to see things through a gray and rather sad mist. His drawing is correct, his grouping satisfactory. At the Salon of 1885 he ex hibited a picture called Au Piano, which is thus de scribed by Andre Michel in the Gazette des Beaux Arts: " As M. Fantin-Latour has never liked noise, and as his life has been more meditative than active, fame has been slow in reaching him. But at each exposition where his works have appeared their intimate and penetrating accent has been more conspicuous. A great simplicity of workmanship ; a fine, large, and precise method of drawing ; a color voluntarily veiled, that seems to lower the tone, as if serious and profound things should be spoken only in a whisper ; a sturdy loyalty in the ob servation of individual types, and with it a desire to look to the very bottom and find the soul beneath the form; in addition, a certain tenderness and re straint, which give to all his portraits, friendly as they seem, the same haughty reserve which marks the artist himself, — all these qualities particularly distinguish his works. In his Au Piano he has gathered a few of his friends. One is seated and plays ; the one near est him is astride a chair and turns the music. The others, either seated or standing, listen in silence. One smokes a cigarette ; one is j ust coming in. The tech nique is simple, almost monotonous, without anything PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 277 startling or descriptive. There is nothing to distract attention. The colors are grays and blacks. The neutral backgrounds show as little as possible. All the interest is in the figures themselves ; each one soberly, yet deeply characterized. A solemn calm reigns in the room ; it seems, if the term may be used, as if padded with friend ship. It is evident that no worldly or ordinary interest has drawn these friends together ; they love to discuss elevated and serious topics. To the cafSs of the boule vards they prefer the charms of a discrete intimacy, where art acts as a common bond." Precisely the same criticism applies to a picture in the Luxembourg called Atelier aux Batignolles (Fig. 197"), exposed in 1870. It represents Manet painting the portrait of a fellow artist, Zacaria Astruc. Stand ing back of Astruc are Renoir and Zola, Zola with a cigarette. Standing on the extreme right is Manet. The charge against Latour that his figures seem life less, that they stand as if they were monuments, is in a measure true. His pictures are highly esteemed to-day. The impressionists cannot claim him, though he is as modern as he is independent. He excelled as a lithog rapher. He was an ardent admirer of Wagner. EMILE AUGUSTE CAROLUS-DURAN (1838- : Med., 1866, 1869, and 1870; ft, 1872; Med. 2nd cl, 1878 E. U. ; O. ft, 1878; Med. d'hon., 1879; C. ft, 1889; G. O. ft, 1900; I., 1904). Duran was born at Lille. His real name is Charles Durand. He studied at home, then in Paris, but pre pared himself for his career by traveling in Italy and Spain. He distinguished himself at the Salon of 1866 by a large picture called L'Assassine, which is now at 278 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING the Museum of Lille. The victim stretched on a bier is surrounded by his friends and relatives, who are variously affected by the murder. A woman, appar ently his wife, falls over the body. On the right and back of the handles of the bier his mother swoons in the arms of those about her. On the. left is a group of persons who express various phases of astonishment, horror, and revenge. The scene is supposed to take place at the entrance to a village. The background on the right is a house; on the left, distant landscape. The picture is well composed, highly dramatic, realistic, and effective. After his return from Spain Duran de voted himself to portraits, especially of women and chil dren, in which his success has been brilliant, decisive, and unrivaled. He poses his sitters most gracefully; he is a master of delicate flattery and imparts an aristo cratic elegance without impairing likeness. His color ing is brilliant without being coarse or lacking in harmony. Duran, with Meissonier, headed the defec tion from the old society and founded the new. He was its second president, succeeding Meissonier. He is now (1908) director .of the French School at Rome. His portraits are most of them in private collections and of course not visible to the public. There is one of his groups in the Luxembourg that shows his excellences most delightfully (Fig. 198). A mother is seated, three quarters turned to the left, with her face to the front. By her left side stands a lovely little girl about ten, dressed in white satin. She rests her right hand on her mother's lap. In her left hand, which hangs down by her side, she holds a large rose by a long stem. Some of the leaves of the rose are scattered on the Fig. 198. — Carolus Duran. Family group. (Luxembourg) — f *' K ¦ .. : i " - " W^' -¦ m k Ii Mm\ ; QW ¦1 ' 'WBflflM^B^BH bb, *$ i K'- ¦ fs H^ ' *'^P W^ ' ¦ -.^^¦H ¦L T»S kN '" >*;.^M »*™$jjfe« Fig. 199, — Carolus Duran. The lady's glove. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 279 ground. A boy about eight in black velvet knicker bockers leans against his mother and looks lovingly up into her face. A more charming family group can not be imagined. The colors are rich and strong, but harmoniously contrasted. The Luxembourg also con tains his celebrated La Damme au Gant (Fig. 199), one of his early portraits, exhibited in 1869 and which obtained a medal at the time there was but one medal and no classification of medals. The figure is life-sized and dressed in the abundant crinoline of the day. In spite of the crinoline, the pose and sweep of the figure are very fine and impressive. In taking off her gloves one has fallen to the ground, whence the name of the picture. It is a mcdel of style, and defines the word. Though Duran belongs to the new society, he is a firm believer in education and discipline in art, and while admitting the contributions of impressionism is op posed to its eccentricities and pretensions. Though seventy (1908), Duran is robust and energetic, and is another evidence that artistic life in France is produc tive of long life. There were hundreds of other painters who distin guished themselves during the Second Empire. A few of them are still living, many of their works are still es teemed. A few names should be mentioned. Victor Gi- raud and Henri Regnault were victims of the Prussian War. They were both killed during the siege of Paris. VICTOR GIRAUD (1840-1871: Med., 1867, 1868, and 1870). Giraud was born in Paris. He studied under his father, Eugene Giraud (1806-1881: Med. 3rd cl, 280 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING 1833; ft, 1851; Med. 2nd cl, 1863; O, 1866), whose works except as a lithographer and engraver are about forgotten, and subsequently under Picot. He was a young artist of great promise. His Marchand d'Esclaves in the Louvre shows it. ALEXANDRE GEORGES HENRI REGNAULT (1843-1871: P. d. R., 1866; Med. 1869). Regnault was born in Paris. His father was a cele brated physician and did not interfere with his boy's pronounced taste. He entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts and studied under Cabanel. ^When twenty-three, he took the Prix de Rome. While in Rome, he painted the famous picture now in the Boston Art Museum, of " Automedon taming the Horses of Achilles." In 1869 he visited Spain, became fascinated with Velasquez, and longed to paint somebody in the style of that great painter. At the time General Prim was a conspicuous leader and offered himself as a subject. In the picture Regnault painted (Fig. 200), the general, mounted, is represented coming in from the right. He suddenly pulls up his steed, a magnificent black Andalusian that straightens his forelegs and foams at the bit. The general is bareheaded ; his locks seem pressed to his fore head. He is turned three quarters to the left. His dress is bluish black (it has become very inkish black), with gold linings at the sleeves and a red sash about the waist. With his two hands he pulls up the reins ; in the right is a cap embroidered with gold. In the back ground is a surging crowd of armed peasants waving. banners. When the picture was finished, the general did not like it and refused to accept it ; whereupon Fig. 200. — A. G. H. Regnault. General Prim. (Louvre) Fig. 201. — A. G. H. Regnault. Execution without judgment. (Louvre) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 281 Regnault shipped it to Paris, where it was exhibited at the Salon of 1869 and excited unbounded praise. It is now in the Louvre. Another picture by Regnault, also in the Louvre, was painted in Grenada in 1870 and is called L'Execution sans Jugement sous les Rois maures (Fig. 201). Upright, at the entrance of the vestibule of a Moorish palace, a negro executioner with a white turban on his head wipes off the blade of his sword on the skirt of his rose-colored garment. At his feet lies the convulsed body of the victim covered with a green cloth. The decapitated head has rolled down to the foot of steps over which blood is spread in large puddles. The background is a wall covered with com plicated designs copied from one of the principal halls of the Alhambra. The picture is over nine feet high, and the figure of the executioner is colossal. An offensive subject most realistically carried out. The original effective contrast of colors has been injured by time. As one critic puts it, the blood now looks more like raspberry jam. A third picture in the Louvre by Regnault is charming. It was painted in Madrid at the time General Prim was painted and was also ex hibited in the Salon of 1869. It is a portrait of the Comfesse de Barck. She is standing and is turned three quarters to the left. ' Her dress is white and rose ; she wears a black lace mantilla over her head and shoulders ; there is a red rose in her hair. Her arms are crossed about her waist ; in her right hand is a fan. Her dress is tucked up ; the underskirt is short, showing ankles and slippers. The background is a variegated curtain, in one corner of which is a coat of arms. The pose is easy and graceful ; the lady's face, though neither young 282 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING nor pretty, is attractive ; the coloring, charming. This picture more than any other shows what Regnault might have become had he hved. The only drawback to the picture is that the head is too large for the body. LOUIS GUSTAVE RICARD (1823 or 1824-1873: Med. 2nd cl, 1851; Med. 1st cl, 1852). Ricard was born at Marseilles ; studied'under Cogniet, traveled a great deal, copying Titian, Correggio, and Rembrandt, on whom he formed his style. He con fined himself to portraits, which have many of the fine qualities of the old masters he studied. Two of his por traits are in the Louvre, — one of himself, the other of Heilbuth. Other portraits are at Marseilles ; one is at Versailles. GUILLAUME REGAMEY (1837-1875: Med., 1868). Regamey was born at Paris and died too early for the development of his powers. Two of his pictures exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 made a sensation ; one of them, of drummers, is at Pau. His Cuirassiers dans une Auberge, in the Luxembourg, gives but a poor idea of his powers. GUSTAVE RODOLPHE BOULANGER (1824- 1888: P. d. R., 1849; Med. -2nd cl, 1857; Rap., 1859 and 1863; ft, 1865; Med. 2nd cl, 1878 E. U.;L, 1882). Boulanger was born and died in Paris. He studied under Delaroche. He was Gerome's assistant at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and with Gerome insisted upon accuracy of drawing as the foundation of painting. He devoted himself to classical and Eastern subjects, Fig. 202.— G. R. Boulanger. The Kabyles. (M. Periere, Paris) Fig. 203. — Comte. Henry III and the Duke of Guise. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 283 especially to Moorish scenes and personages, in which he was a master. He was a most excellent and sympathetic teacher and a most delightful companion and friend. For many years he and Lefebvre taught at Julien's Academy gratuitously. There is one of his pictures at Versailles, called Repetition du Joueur de Flute. His Defaite des Kabyles belongs to M. Periere and is a wonder in drawing and action (Fig. 202). JULES EMILE SAINTIN (1829-1894: Med., 1866 and 1870; ft, 1877). Saintin studied under Drolling and Picot. He passed many years in the United States, where he made many portraits and many friends. He was a charming gentleman and an excellent painter of domestic and idyllic subjects.1 EMILE LEVY (1826-1890: P. d. R., 1854; Med. 3rd cl, 1859; Med., 1864 and 1866; Med. 3rd cl, 1867 E. U.; ft, 1867; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U.; gold med., 1889 E. U.). Levy enjoyed a reputation during his life which seems hardly justified by those of his pictures which may be seen by the public. His Mort d'Orphee, at the Luxembourg, seems but an excuse for the exhibition of nudities. His Meta ludens, also at the Luxembourg, has good points and very weak points. His Apollo et Midas, at the Museum of Montpellier, is a far 1 One day in May the author, reaching Paris, went at once to the Salon, and there discovered a picture by Saintin called " Flirtation." It represented ais«Beli-on Flirtation Walk at West Point. On a bench were a cadet and a young girl flirting. Saintin had given the cadet a mustache. To hire a cab, drive to Saintin's studio, get him back to the Salon, and have that mustache painted out was a work of breathless haste. 284 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING better and stronger picture and partially justifies his reputation.ADOLPHE YVON (1817-1893: Med. 1st cl, 1848; Med. 2nd cl, 1855 E. U. ; ft, 1855; Med. d'hon., 1857; Med. 2nd cl, 1867 E. U. ; O. ft, 1867). Yvon was the official battle painter of the Second Empire. He was a conscientious and an industrious artist. He followed the army and was given every opportunity to observe its movements. Several of his pictures of the Crimean War are at Versailles. At the time they were painted they were received with en thusiasm; they have little artistic merit. His picture, also at Versailles, of Le Marechal Ney pendant la Retraite de Russie is a far better work. His enormous allegorical picture representing the United States, painted in 1870 and purchased for the Stewart Collec tion, made him known to the American people. PIERRE CHARLES COMTE (1816-1896: Med. 3rd cl, 1852; Med. 2nd cl, 1853 and 1855 E. U. ; Rap., 1857; Med. 3rd cl, 1867 E. U.). Comte was a painter of decided but unequal talent. He devoted himself to historical subjects, especially to the Valois period of French history. His Henri III et le Due de Guise (Fig. 203), at the Luxembourg, is excellently composed and interesting historically and artistically. The scene passes in the court of the Chateau de Blois in front of the escalier Francois I. Henri III is just emerging from the staircase and is a little in front of his suite. His trim figure is elegantly painted. The duke and his suite advance to meet him. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 285 The duke is distinguished by his bright attire. On his right is the cardinal, his brother, who shared his fate. Back of these two is a crowd of followers. Their prayer- books show that they are on their way to Mass. The ceremony of the supposed reconciliation took place on the 22nd of December, 1588, the day before the assassi nation. This picture and Delaroche's picture of the assassination should be hung together. JAMES TISSOT (1836-1902: Med., 1866; gold med., 1889 E. U.). Tissot's picture in the Luxembourg, Rencontre de Faust et de Marguerite, shows him to have been an exact and careful draughtsman. He became a religious enthusiast, traveled in Palestine, and will always be best known by his illustrations of the life of Christ. Space compels a termination of this very incomplete list of the painters of the Second Empire. Enough of them have been shown to indicate the very high level which painting attained under the wise and liberal patronage of Napoleon III. There are three artists, not Frenchmen, who lived in Paris during the Second Empire and who so "identified themselves with French art and French life that they should not be omitted from a handbook of French painting. These three are Winterhalter, Heilbuth, and Stevens. FRANZ XAVIER WINTERHALTER (1806-1873: Med., 1836 and 1837 ; ft, 1839 ; Med., 1855 E. U. ; O. ft, 1857). Winterhalter was born at Mengenschwand, a small town in the Black Forest of Baden, and died at Frank fort. He studied at the art school of Munich. When he 286 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING was twenty-eight, he went to Carlsruhe, capital of Baden, and was soon made painter to the court. After traveling through Italy, Spain, Belgium, and England, he finally, in 1834, settled in Paris. His reputation as a painter of aristocratic portraits preceded him, and he was soon recognized by Parisians as the chief of the style. During the Second Empire his services were in great demand, as testify the many portraits of the Empress Eugenie and the ladies of her court in their ample crinoline. Not only in France, but all over Europe, he was recognized as the foremost painter of royalty and aristocracy. No royal or princely beauty left Paris without giving him sittings. There is in the Louvre a large picture of Eugenie and her ladies of honor in very pleasing and graceful grouping. One of his largest and most celebrated pictures, called " Flo- rinda," is in the New York Metropolitan Museum. The fall of Napoleon III terminated Winterhalter's career. He retired to Frankfort, where he died. FERDINAND HEILBUTH (1825-1889: Med. 2nd cl, 1857; Rap., 1859, 1861; ft, 1861. He was naturalized). Heilbuth was not so well known as Winterhalter, but was a better painter. He was born in Hamburg and early in life drifted to Paris, where he died. He tried several styles of painting, but distinguished himself in representing garden and boating parties, high life out of doors, fine dresses amid flower-gardens, etc. He too was greatly prized during the Second Empire, but his reputation was lasting and he enjoyed equal favors under the Third Republic. PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 287 ALFRED STEVENS (1828-1906: Med. 3rd cl, 1853; Med. 2nd cl, 1855; ft, 1863; Med., 1867; 0. ft, 1867; Med. 1st cl, 1878; C. ft, 1878; in addition he received medals and orders from Belgium, Hol land, Austria, and Bavaria). Stevens was born in Brussels and died in Paris. As a painter of lovely ladies becomingly dressed and in elegant interiors he is without a rival. He paints in delicate colors; his touch is easy and light. His pic tures are charming visions. His ladies are not attrac tive because they are aristocratic; it does not always appear that they are, but it always appears that they must have good hearts, kind sensibilities, amiable sym pathies, and pleasant manners. They also know how to dress themselves so as to be very attractive and in the fashion. Generally they are alone; rarely are there more than two of them. They are doing all sorts of trivial things. Sometimes they are sad* almost always they are very glad and happy; you would like to be with them. He was aristocratic in appearance and manner. His studio was filled with the fine furniture and bric-a-brac he put into his pictures. He was cour teous, and after a while kind, amiable, and vastly enter taining ; but he would let no one see him paint. Perhaps Schreyer and Schenck should be added to this list. ADOLPHE SCHREYER (1828-1899: Meds., 1864, 1865, 1867). Schreyer was born in Frankfort-on-the-Main, studied in Diisseldorf and Munich, and devoted himself to horses. When he was about twenty he attracted the attention 288 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis and traveled with him through Eastern Europe. Afterwards he made repeated visits to Syria, Egypt, and Algiers. About- 1862 he settled in Paris, where his pictures of Arabia'n horse men gave him reputation, position, and wealth. _ So long as the Empire lasted, his services were in great demand. At the outbreak of the German War he returned to Frankfort and settled in a little town named Kronberg, not far from Frankfort. There he lived until he died, making occasional visits to Paris. He was very indus trious, and produced an enormous number of pictures of Arabian horsemen in every conceivable attitude and action. His horsemen are well drawn, and his horses are full of lively and well-conceived action. He paints with a sure, but light and sketchy touch. His pictures are monotonous and tiresome. After a while they be came heavy and lost their breezy atmosphere. Many of his pictures are in the United States ; several are in the New York Metropolitan Museum. The high prices they once commanded have not been sustained, as they have not lasting qualities. The same criticism applies to Schenck, who painted sheep as assiduously as Schreyer painted horses. AUGUSTE FREDERIC ALBRECHT SCHENCK (1828-1901: Med., 1865; ft, 1887). Schenck was born in the duchy of Holstein, which then belonged to Denmark, and died at Ecouen, Seine- et-Oise, not far from Paris. He came to Paris when young, studied under Cogniet, and early devoted himself to sheep. Sheep huddled together in a blinding snow storm are his special delight, with a terrified shepherd PAINTERS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE 289 and a distracted dog thrown in. He renders fleeces of wool and fleeces of snow with equal dexterity. During the Second Empire he enjoyed an equal reputation with Schreyer. Collectors must have a Schreyer and a Schenck. At the outbreak of the Prussian War Schenck did not forsake his adopted country and con tinued to enjoy reputation and esteem under the Third Republic. One of his best and most characteristic pic tures, painted in 1873, belonged to the Wolfe Collection, and is now in the New York Metropolitan Museum. 19 CHAPTER V PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC THE crushing defeat of France by the Prussians in 1870 and 1871 could not fail to have its effects on art, nor have those effects as yet been entirely removed. The highest art cannot flourish in a country that is not independent, autonomous, and whole. France could rapidly have recovered from the enormous subsidy imposed by the victors, but the loss of two of her largest and richest provinces will ever humiliate and weaken. Such wounds can never be healed or forgotten ; they cripple national energies in the same degree that they hurt national pride. France has ever since acted under limitations. The bold, free spirit of independence has been absent from her poli tics, literature, and art. Her life is clouded, fettered, hindered in its various developments. It was not until September, 1873, that the Prussians evacuated French territory. It was not until 1875 that a Republican form of government was definitely established, that French life resumed its flow, and that the Salons re covered any measure of their former importance and influence. Of the artists of the Third Republic two stand out prominently as having done everything art could do to reinspire their countrymen and to console them in their misfortunes. These two are De Neuville and Detaille. PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 291 ALPHONSE MARIE DE NEUVILLE (1836-1885: Med. 3rd cl, 1859 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1861 ; ft, 1873 ; 0. ft, 1881). De Neuville was born at Saint-Omer, in the North of France, not far from Calais. He was of a rich and aristocratic family who intended him for the bar and who virtually cut him off when he determined to go to Paris and study painting. At Paris he was for a while with Picot, but devoted most of his time to the study of the works of H. Vernet, Charlet, and Raffet. He became an admirable illustrator and found plenty of work from publishers. Alfred de Lostalot writes of him (Gazette des Beaux Arts for 1885) : " Alphonse de Neuville had exceptional ability in the art of inventing a picture and of composing a moving drama, but he was not a faultless painter. At the same time to those of his confreres who affected to consider him only an illustrator he occasionally replied by a victorious paint ing which silenced their railing. Le Bourget and the Cimetiere de Saint-Privat are examples." As a draughtsman he is well known by his " Types of French Soldiers," published by Goupil & Co. In 1859 he sent a picture to the Salon and won a third-class medal. It was not, however, until after the war that his talents as a military painter were fully developed. As the French had no victories to celebrate and as French commanders had shown nothing but ignorance and in capacity, the only things to be remembered with satis faction, the only things upon which to build hopes for the future, were the qualities displayed by the men in the ranks, either individually or in small bodies under 292 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING heroic leadership. Two of De Neuville's pictures will suffice to show the qualities of his patriotism, — Les dernieres Cartouches a Bilan, exhibited in 1873, and Le Bourget, exhibited in 1878. Bilan is a small town not far from Sedan, where there was most desperate fight ing between the French and the Prussians on the 1st of September, 1870. The scene (Fig. 204) represents the interior of a house in the vain defense of which the French are consuming their last cartridges. It repre sents one of those extreme moments of warlike passion when all sense of personal danger is lost in the one over whelming desire to kill ; when the spirit of Bellona fills every breast ; when wounds are not felt, are not heeded, until they incapacitate. Le Bourget is a larger and more elaborate picture. Le Bourget is a small town about seven miles to the northeast of Paris. When attacked by the Prussians during the siege of Paris, it was desperately defended. When the town itself was captured, a party of French troops barricaded the church and there continued the fight until they were nearly all killed or wounded. The scene represents the carrying out of the dead and dying after resistance was at an end. Two lines of Prussians extend from the door of the church from which the terrible procession emerges. They push back the people, among whom are many French soldiers already made prisoners. The picture will keep alive for centuries the memory of the national disaster, and gives the only possible consolation, — that the men themselves were heroic, their courage equal to every trial1 The Cimetiere de Saint-Privat, painted in 1 Le Bourget belongs to the Vanderbilt Collection in the New York Metropolitan Museum. Fig. 204.-De Neuville. The last cartridges. (Luxembourg) Fig. 205. — DetaiUe. A passing regiment. (Petit Palais, Paris) ' PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 293 1880, is equally heroic and patriotic. It is in the Lux embourg ; also his Villersexel. De Neuville and DetaiUe painted together the " Panoramas of Champigny and of Rezonville," at one time exhibited on the Champs Elysees in Paris. Henry Marcel writes of De Neuville : " He was the first to depict the unequal struggles of the terrible year in pictures which are a httle careless and summary, but where the rage of hand-to-hand fighting, the frenzy of hopeless defense, and the stoical waiting for death are expressed in a manner never to be forgotten. The rapid execution, the result of his long experience as an illus trator, gives to De Neuville's compositions a remarkable homogeneity; they seem as if produced by a single effort. This explains the feverish movement, the con vulsive aspect, of these pictures, the personages of which struggle, with a tragic unconsciousness which is only manifest in instinctive violence, amid puddles and ruins, in a hell of explosions, cries, and flames." JEAN BAPTISTE EDOUARD DETAILLE (1848- : Med., 1869 and 1870; Med. 2nd cl, 1872; ft, 1873; O. ft, 1881 ; Med. d'hon., 1888; Gd. p., 1889 E. U.; I., 1892; C. ft, 1897). DetaiUe was born in Paris of a well-to-do family. Early in life he developed talent for painting. In 1865, when seventeen, having completed his school studies, he entered the studio of Meissonier, to whom he became deeply attached and who took an affectionate interest in the artistic education and development of his young and very apt pupil. In 1867 he exhibited his first pic ture. It was a view of Meissonier's studio, and attracted 294 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING attention by the carefulness of the drawing and the ex actness of the representation to the minutest detail. During the winter of 1867-1868 he was in the South of France and painted his first military pieces. He sent a number of pictures of various styles to the Salon of 1869 and carried off a third-class medal His first marked success was in 1870, with a picture of a combat between Cossacks and French troops during the Russian campaign of Napoleon I. Gautier called it a true marvel of execution. During the Prussian War De taiUe was in the eighth battalion of the Garde Mobile de la Seine and participated in several engagements. One of his brothers was killed ; another died in a Prus sian prison. After the war he commenced a series of pictures that made him famous. In them, like De Neu ville, Detaille sought to glorify the deeds of the indi vidual French soldier, or of small bodies of soldiers under the heroic command of subalterns. The list is long; the works can only be enumerated; but few of them are in public galleries. In 1872 appeared Les Vainqueurs, which represents a line of German wagons laden with plunder on its way from Paris, escorted by soldiers, with here and there a shabby Jew thrown in. In the background are seen the dome of the Invalides and the towers of Saint-Sulpice and Notre Dame. The picture was true to the life and had a tremendous suc cess, as it administered to popular sentiment. He was rewarded by a second-class medal, followed by the Cross of the Legion d'Honneur. In 1873 appeared En Re- traite; in 1874, Les Cuirassiers de Morsbronn; in 1875, the Regiment defilant sur le Boulevard (Fig. 205), in which all the surroundings, circumstances, and incidents PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 295 of a regiment marching through the streets of a city are given with a reality and a dehghtful interest that in a general way would fit any city at any time. This picture revealed DetaiUe in a new light and added im mensely to his popularity. In 1876 appeared En Re connaissance (Fig. 206), in which a dead Uhlan, fallen to the ground with his horse, makes a drawing prodi gious in attempt and wonderfully successful in execu tion. In 1877 appeared the Salut auyBlesses, in which a line of German prisoners is passing before a French Etat-major. Hardly a year passes in which Detaille does not pro duce a work that receives more criticism than any other in the Salon des Artistes Francais, — not always favorable criticism, for he is more successful with the people than with the critics. The critics are slower than the pubhc to be moved by his talents. After 1879 Detaille for a few years was occupied with De Neuville in the production of panoramas ; then he visited Russia and England. In 1888 appeared Le Reve, now at the Luxembourg ; followed by the Sortie de la Garni- son de Huningen, also at the Luxembourg; in 1898, the Revue de Chalons, now at Versailles. His pictures for the Hotel de Ville of 1902 are surpassed only by his grand composition for the Pantheon of 1906. In both it appears that he has studied the processes of impres sionism, has extracted the good and discarded the bad. Le Chant du Depart, in the Salon of 1908, shows that Detaille's style is still increasing in grandeur of effects without losing in exactness of detail or in reality of expression. Le Reve and the Sortie de la Garnison de Huningen are worthy of special inspection. Le Reve 296 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING (Fig. 207) was painted the year Detaille received the Medaille d'honneur. The Medaille d'honneur is not al ways given for any one meritorious work, but often as the culminating reward of a long and successful artistic career. Le Reve represents a vast field on which is sleep ing an army. The army is without tents, and must therefore be conceived as snatching a few hours of sleep during a hurried march. In the center of the fore ground is the head of a regiment which stretches at an angle to the left towards the horizon as far as the eye can follow it. In front of the line are stacked the muskets. They too form a line reaching off to the hori zon on the left. Trumpets and the regimental colors are on the stacks at the head of the line. The men, wrapped in their coats and blankets, are lying in every imaginable position. Here and there along the line smoke is rising from campfires still smouldering. All over the plain and in the far distance are other and countless lines of smoke, showing the size of the army. Away up in the skies, dimly outlined, is the dream the young heroes are dreaming. Veterans of all the wars of the century, from the time of the Revolution, are returning home joyously shouting, swinging their caps, and bearing the battered banners which they have borne through shot and shell to victory. The sentiment of the picture is strong and deeply patriotic. "The great skill of the artist is displayed in the drawing of the sleeping soldiers in the foreground. Each one is a study in perspective and foreshortening, yet each one sleeps so easily and naturally that there is not a trace of study apparent. No one can thoroughly appreciate Detaille's skill who has not studied perspective and foreshortening Fig. 206. — Detaille. A reconnaissance PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 297 sufficiently to understand the difiiculties he has overcome with such apparent ease. The Sortie de la Garnison de Huningen (Fig. 208) is a very different picture. By some it is regarded not only as Detaille's chef-d'asuvre, but as one of the very finest works of modern art. Huningen (German, Grosshuningen) is a small town in Alsace, on the left bank of the Rhine and close to Bale. When France obtained possession of Alsace, Huningen was strongly fortified by Vaubin, and so long as France held possession of Alsace it was regarded as a strong fortress against the Austrians. It was besieged and captured a number of times; the last time was in 1815, when the Austrian Archduke John besieged it with twenty-five thousand men and the French general Bar- banegre had hardly two thousand men for the. defense. The town was invested on the 26th of June and was bombarded incessantly from the 21st to the 26th of August. On the 27th of August, when the fortress was nearly knocked to pieces and Barbanegre had only about a quarter of his men left, he consented to surrender with the honors of war, which were accorded. The picture represents the remnants of the heroic garrison leaving the fortress between two files wf Austrian troops who are presenting arms to their valorous enemies. Accord ing to the accepted story, when the general with his head bandaged issued leading his troops, the archduke, followed by his staff, broke through the ranks, seized the general by the hand, and with real or affected curi osity asked where was the garrison. When the general rephed, " This is all that is left of us," enthusiasm for the heroic French filled every breast. The picture is composed with wonderful skill and is filled with charm- 298 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ing details. The battered fortress in the background, the two matter-of-fact French drummers in the fore ground, the attitude and dress of the Austrian officers, the curving and exact line of the Austrian troops on the right, the fine bearing of the battered and wounded Frenchmen, and the cordial greeting of the two com manders, all go to make up one of the finest military spectacles ever put on canvas. Detaille's desire was un doubtedly to call the attention of his countrymen away from their sufferings under the Germans by the con templation of a period when warfare was chivalric and when to the vanquished was given the courtesy due to their bravery. The smaller works of Detaille and De Neuville have been made popular by engravings. Le Depart du Ba- taillon and ^n^Srmie are most spirited and attractive. Detaille is well represented in. the New York Metropoli tan Museum. His " Cossack Fight," of 1870, and a superb " Cuirassier," painted in 1872, are in the Wolfe Collection ; the " Defense of Champigny," a large pic ture, four by seven feet, painted in 1879, was pre sented by Judge Henry Hilton in 1887. There are also three pictures by Detaille in the Vanderbilt Loan Collection, including his " Ambulance Corps," painted for Mr. Vanderbilt in 1878, and a superb water-color, painted in London, called " Band Practice, Tower of London." Among other artists who painted episodes of the war should be mentioned Berne-Bellecour and Morot. Kindness of Manzi. Jovant & Co. Fig. 208.— Detaille. The evacuation of Huningen. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 299 ETIENNE PROSPER BERNE-BELLECOUR (1838- : Med., 1869; Med. 1st cl, 1872; ft, 1878 ; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U. ; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; bronze med., 1890 E. U.). Berne-Bellecour was born at Boulogne. He studied under Picot and has been an industrious and successful artist. His Coup de Foudre, exhibited in 1872, was a great success. His Tirailleurs de la Seme, of 1874, was even more successful. The pictures he has painted lately seem to have lost some of his former spirit. Two of his pictures are in the New York Metropolitan Museum. Morot is better known. AIME NICOLAS MOROT (1850- : P. d. R., 1873; Med. 3rd cl, 1876; Med. 2nd cl, 1877; Med. 1st cl, 1879; Med. d'hon., 1880; ft, 1883; Gd. p., 1889 E. U.; I., 1898; O. ft, 1900; Gd. p., 1900 E. U.). Morot Was born at Nancy and studied under Cabanel. Though. Morot is particularly distinguished for his excellent portraits, he has occasionally painted battle pieces of tremendous force and fury. One at Versailles represents the heroic but useless and destructive charge of the French cuirassiers at the battle of Reichsoffen, on the 6th of August, 1870 (Fig. 209) ; the other, at the Luxembourg, the episode of a hand-to-hand encoun ter between French and German cavalry at the battle of Rezonville. The charge of Reichsoffen was justified by a supposed necessity of momentarily stopping the advance of the Germans in order to cover the retreat. of the defeated French. At Rezonville, near Metz, there was superb cavalry fighting on the 16th of August. 300 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING It was part of the fighting known under the general name of the battle of Gravelotte, the only battle during the war where the issue was at any time in doubt. These two pictures are lifelike. They might be taken for in stantaneous photographs of the scenes. Like Detaille's pictures, they presuppose long and conscientious studies of anatomy, perspective, and foreshortening. One of Morot's early works is at Nancy, and represents epi sodes from the battle of Aquae Sextas, in which the Cim- brian women took valorous part. He also traveled in Spain and painted pictures of bullfights ; two are, or were, in the Luxembourg. His decorations of the Hotel de Ville at Nancy are not regarded with favor by critics. Among the artists, many of whom are still living, who have distinguished themselves during the present political period of French history, it would be impossible in this Handbook to mention but a few of the most prominent of those whose reputations may be perma nent. They will be considered in the order of their birth. PIERRE AUGUSTE COT (1837-1883: Med., 1870; Med. 2nd cl, 1872; ft, 1874; MeA 2nd cl, 1878 E. U.). Cot was for a time very popular. His L'Escarpo- lette, painted in 1873, had a widespread reputa tion ; its chromos were everywhere. His Mireille sor- tant de VEglise, now in the Museum of Montpellier, was equally popular. JEAN PAUL LAURENS (1838- : Med., 1869; Med. 1st cl, 1872; ft, 1874; Med. d'hon., 1877; O. ft, 1878; I., 1891; C. ft, 1900). Laurens is one of the greatest of living French painters. He owes his success to modest and faithful PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 301 study, to quiet and contemplative observation, and to accurate historical and archaeological research. He is always self-contained and well in hand, free from ex aggerations and surprises. His pictures deserve and attract study, though they may not excite enthusiasm or administer to passion. Of late years he has devoted .himself to decorative art, a style in which he is to be compared to De Chavannes, from whom he differs, how ever, by being more real, more true to nature, though less imaginative, less ideal, and perhaps less obedient to the strict laws of decoration. He was born at Four- quevaux, a little town not far from Toulouse, for which city the decorative works which have appeared in the Salons lately are intended. According to accepted story, when quite young he became so interested in the work of Italian strolling artists who were employed to daub a copy of Leonardo's " Last Supper " on the vil lage church that when they had finished their task he ran away with them and became their apprentice. He became so proficient a draughtsman that he won at Tou louse a prize which enabled him to go to Paris, where he studied under Cogniet. Like many other struggling young artists, he supported himself by illustrating. It was not until he was thirty that he began to be known as a painter. In 1871 he painted a picture which is now in the church of Saint Nicolas-des-Champs of Paris. It did not attract particular attention at the time, but is now appreciated. It is in the seventh chapel on the left on entering. It represents Saint Bruno, the founder of the Cistercians, refusing gifts offered by Count Roger of Calabria. There was a branch of the Cistercian Order (Chartreux) at Paris. (See Le Sueur's 302 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING pictures of Saint Bruno in the Louvre.) It was not until 1872 that Laurens' position was estabhshed. In the Salon of 1872 he exhibited two pictures which showed him to be a historical painter of eminent ability. One of them, La Mort du Due d'Enghien, is in the Museum of Alencon and was shown in the Exposition Centenale of 1889. The Due d'Enghien was executed at Vin- cennes, by the orders of Napoleon I, at dawn on March 21, 1804. He had been brought from Strasburg the previous afternoon, had been tried and condemned dur ing the night, and was shot about 4 a. m. without appeal or preparation. To guide the firing . squad, a lantern was hung about his neck ; it was found pierced by seven balls. All the horrors of the scene are brought out and emphasized in Laurens' tragic picture. The other picture of 1872 was even more terrible, representing the scene where Pope Stephen VII caused the body of his predecessor to be disinterred and brought before him that he might curse it. This almost savage picture is in the Museum of Havre. Apart from the church of Saint Nicolas-des-Champs there are five places in Paris where Laurens' works may be seen, — at the Luxembourg, the Pantheon, the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de la Legion d'Honneur, and the Petit Palais. In the Luxembourg is the " Excommuni cation of Robert the Pious " (Fig. 210). Robert II, son and successor of Hugh Capet, was excommunicated in 998 for marrying his cousin. The history of the event is not clear but the circumstances are sufficiently attested for the purpose of a picture. The scene is laid in a large hall of the royal palace. The condemna tion has been spoken; the Pope's representatives are Fig. 210. — J. P. Laurens. Excommunication of Robert the Pious. (Luxembourg) Fig. 211. — J. P. Laurens. The death of Ste. Genevieve. (Pantheon, Paris) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 303 leaving through a doorway on the right under a large Romanesque archway supported by columns with tenth- century capitals. The king and his consort are seated on a broad throne a little to the left of the center of the picture. The king has dropped his scepter; the queen clings to him in despair. In front of them is a large candlestick from which the still smoking candle has fallen. The king and queen are alone; all their attendants have fled. The coloring of the picture is strong, but in admirable harmony. Laurens' pictures in the Pantheon have been vari ously criticised. The " Death of Sainte Genevieve " is divided into three parts, of which the central part, giv ing the actual death, is the most important (Fig. 211). It is urged, in the first place, that the colors are too strong for a mural painting; in the second place, that there are too many figures introduced and that they are too real, mural painting requiring idealized figures. The third objection is that the scene is put at an angle which prevents its lines from harmonizing with the lines of the building. From the point of view of Puvis de Chavannes these objections are valid. A comparison between Laurens' pictures and the near-by ones of Puvis de Chavannes is a capital lesson in decorative art. At the Hotel de Ville the general tone of the decora tions is higher, more varied, and festive. Besides, the number of the rooms, their various dimensions and uses, permit variety in subject and style. Laurens' works at the Hotel de Ville are too numerous to be described in this Handbook. One room, called the Salon Historique, is given up to them, and contains pictures relating to French history from the fourteenth 304 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING to the eighteenth centuries. The one representing Eti- enne Marcel protecting the Dauphin is in Laurens' best tragic style. In the Petit Palais are two grand pic tures, " The Proclamation of the Republic of 1848 " and " The Field of the Battle of Waterloo." Henry Marcel writes of him : " The example he shows of a con tinued effort to renew his powers, of a view of things even more synthetic and philosophical without dimin ishing the expressive value of his technique, offers one of the best lessons of contemporary art in energy and will." It seems a pity that his latest works should be destined for so far away a city as Toulouse. JULES LOUIS MACHARD (1839-1900: P. d. R., 1865; Med. 1st cl, 1872; Med. 2nd cl, 1878 E. U.; ft, 1878; silver med., 1889 E. U.). Machard distinguished himself during the seventies. His Narcisse a la Source, exhibited in 1872, was one of the most successful pictures of the Salon. His Silene, of 1874, was equally successful. During the last part of his life he devoted himself with equal success to portraits.1 HENRY LEOPOLD LEVY (1840-1904: Med., 1865, 1867, and 1869; ft, 1872; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U.). Levy was born at Nancy, where is one of his very best pictures, Mort d'Eurydice. When quite young, he came to Paris and studied at first under Picot and then under Cabanel and Fromentin. He seems to have acquired some of the characteristics of all three. His Sarpedon, 1 I do not know where any of his pictures are at present to be seen. — Ed. PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 305 in the Luxembourg, is a good specimen (Fig. 212). Death and Sleep are bringing to Jupiter the dead body of his son slain at the siege of Troy. The picture is a large one, nearly ten by seven feet. Jupiter bends from his celestial throne to kiss the dead body of his son, brought up through the clouds to him by the angels of Sleep and Death. According to one tradition, Sar- pedon was King of Lycia and took part with the Tro jans against the Greeks. He was slain by Patroclus. After his death Jupiter ordered Apollo to cleanse the body, bathe it in ambrosia, and wrap it in an ambrosial garment ; then Sleep and Death carried it back to Lycia. There is no record of their having stopped on the way, in accordance with Levy's picture. Marcel calls the picture a bouquet of delicate tonalities. An other good picture by Levy is in the church of Saint- Merry on the rue Saint-Martin, one block from the rue de Rivoli. His works at the Pantheon did not answer the expectations founded on his previous and smaller works. They are in the south transept and relate to Charlemagne. One, a very large one in sections, sets forth his. crowning by Leo III in Saint Peter's at Rome on Christmas Day, a. d. 800. The composition is con fused, arid the individual figures lack force and distinct ness. In the central section, where the actual crowning is set forth, the distance between the outstretched crown and Charlemagne's head is too great, and Charlemagne is represented as the chief of a tribe of barbarians rather than as the sovereign of a nation struggling to be civilized. It seems established that Charlemagne did not wear a beard and that his features were rather French than German. The introduction of Saint 20 30G MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Peter with his keys, upborne by angels and floating over the head of the emperor, does not add to the artistic merit of the composition. The panel called Charlemagne restaure les Lettres et les Sciences is better, though Charlemagne himself is too far away and is not suffi ciently prominent. The group in the right-hand fore ground is excellent and recalls Fra Bartolommeo. JEHAN GEORGES VIBERT (1840-1902: Med., 1864, 1867, and 1868; ft, 1870; bronze med., 1878 E. U.; 0. ft, 1882). Vibert was born in Paris and studied under Felix Barrias and Picot. He is particularly known for his pictures of ecclesiastics where they are made to appear ridiculous or. contemptible. At one time these pictures were in great favor and commanded enormous prices. They are well drawn and composed, with, however, very bright and crude colors. One of them, called Le Recit du Missionnaire, was sold in New York for a fabulous sum.1 The contrast between the thin, badly clad, and enthusiastic missionary and the plump, magnificently attired, worldly, and indifferent ecclesiastics was strongly drawn. Vibert is represented in the New York Metropolitan Museum by seven characteristic specimens, His overdrawn and exaggerated style has ceased to please. JULES WORMS (1832- : Med., 1867, 1868, and 1869; ft, 1876; bronze med., 1878 E. U. and 1889 E. U.). Worms was born in Paris and studied under Lafosse. His ecclesiastical pictures have frequently been com- 1 I think $4T,000. — Ed. Fig. 212. — H. L. Levy. The death of Sarpedon. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 307 pared to those of Vibert, which they resemble in sub ject. He is a more harmonious colorist than Vibert and presents a variety of subjects. His Spanish pic tures are excellent and continue to please. There are two good specimens in the New York Metropolitan Museum. LUCIEN MELINGUE (1841-1889: Med. 1st cl, 1877; ft, 1880). Melingue was born in Paris and studied at first under Cogniet and then under Gerome. During his lifetime he enjoyed a great reputation as a painter of historic scenes. To-day's criticism does not regard his works with favor. In the Museum of Dijon is a large picture, " The Siege of Metz by Charles V." In the Luxembourg is " Etienne Marcel protecting the Dau phin " (Fig. 213). The picture is a large one, about ten by eight feet, and the figures are over life-size. After the battle of Poitiers, in 1356, where John II, King of France, was taken prisoner by the English, his son, subsequently Charles V, governed France as his father's representative. On the 22nd of February, 1358, the people of Paris, headed by Etienne Marcel, exasperated by Charles's want of faith, broke into the palace and slew two of Charles's advisers at his feet. " Save my hfe ! " cried Charles. " Have no fear," said Marcel. Whereupon Marcel changed hats with him and thus protected him, as Marcel's hat was the people's hat and the hat of their party. All the day long Marcel wore proudly the royal head-dress. (See Miche- let, Histoire de France, vol. iv.) The picture represents the irruption of the mob and the moment of hat chang- 308 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ing. One of the advisers is already dead; the other is about being assassinated. The scene is too crowded; the act of Marcel needs explanation. JACQUES CHARLES FERDINAND HUMBERT (1842- : Med., 1866, 1867, and 1869; ft, 1878; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U. ; 0. ft, 1885; Med. d'hon., 1900; I., 1902; C. ft, 1906). Humbert was born in Paris and studied under Picot, Fromentin, and Cabanel. He distinguished himself under the Second Empire, equally so under the Third Republic. He is now one of the professors at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. His first pictures to attract attention were academic studies of the nude ; he also painted religious subjects. In the Luxembourg is a Holy Family by him, painted in 1874; also an admirable portrait of a lady. There are four pic tures by him in the Pantheon, at the end of the north transept, representing man's four devotions, — religion, the family, patriotism, and charity. Many critics con sider these works quite the equal of Puvis de Chavannes' as decorations, while superior to them in color and drawing. Humbert's portraits are pictures. He intro duces architectural, landscape, or other attractive back grounds in so skillful a manner that they add to the interest of the subject without lessening the individu ality or the value of the likeness. Humbert is as active as ever. Hardly a Salon passes at which he does not exhibit some of his most excellent portraits. He is a conservative upholder of the best principles and tradi tions of French painting. PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 309 JULES JEAN ANTOINE LECOMTE DU NOUY (1842- : Med., 1866 and 1869; Med. 2nd cl, 1872; ft, 1876; silver med., 1889 E. U.). Nouy was born in Paris and studied under Gleyre and then under Gerome. His pictures are scattered all over France, — at Grenoble, Arras, Tours, Boulogne, Rheims, Caen, and elsewhere. He traveled in the East and painted a number of portraits for the reigning families of Rumania and Servia. He has a large pic ture in the church of the Trinity at Paris, Saint Vincent de Paul ramene les Galeriens a la Foi. He is best known to ordinary travelers by a picture in the Luxembourg, Les Porteurs de mauvaises Nouvelles (Fig. 214). Pha raoh is stretched out on a couch on the roof of his palace overlooking an Egyptian city. In the back ground is the Nile backed by mountains. He is await ing news from his armies. Three messengers bringing news of defeats have already been struck down by the sword which is within his reaeh. The picture shows exact and careful drawing and close archaeological studies. EDOUARD THEOPHILE BLANCHARD (1844- 1879: P. d. R., 1868; Med., 1870; Med. 1st cl, 1874). Blanchard was born in Paris and studied under Cabanel, whose style he closely followed. His early death terminated a career of the highest promise. 310 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ALBERT PIERRE RENE MAIGNAN (1844-1908: Med. 3rd cl, 1874; Med. 2nd cl, 1876; Med. 1st cl, 1879 ; ft, 1883 ; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; Med. d'hon., 1892; O. ft, 1895). Maignan was born at Beaumont-sur-Sarthe, in the department of Sarthe, southwest of Paris. He went to Paris when quite young and at first studied law. He was admitted to the bar before his artistic proclivities controlled him ; he then studied under indifferent artists for a while, but occupied himself chiefly in studying and copying the old masters. He was thirty when he took his first medal. After that his progress was steady and brilliant. His early pictures were historical sub jects; later he became imaginative and poetic. Good specimens are at Lille, Admiral Carlo Zeno; Amiens, Dante rencontre Matilde; Angers, Louis IX console un Lepreu, and at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, Attentat d'Anagni. One of his very best is at the Luxembourg, Hommage a Carpeaux (Fig. 215), painted in 1892, the year he received the Medaille d'hon neur. The scene represents the interior of Carpeaux's studio. The dying artist is stretched out on a couch. The vast studio is filled with phantoms of his greatest works, — on the right, La. Danse from the facade of the Opera House; in the center of the picture, on his working-table, the group of the four quarters of the globe from near the fountain of the Observatory ; back and on the left-7" Flora " from the Pavilion de Flore of the Tuileries. From La Danse one of the figures comes down and kisses his brow; from the central group a 3 O J3 3 oa 3 O3 O 60 Fig. 215. — Maignan. Adieu to Carpeaux. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 311 figure kneels to throw him flowers ; from the third group the children are stepping down to dance about the studio. The composition, grouping, and intent are artistically lovely. In the management of hght Maignan has availed himself of the innovations of impression ism. Maignan devoted himself to decoration. The decorations of the foyer of the new Opera Comique are by him, also the cupola of the commemorative chapel of the bazar fire. He left unfinished drawings for the Chamber of Commerce of Saint-Etienne and for the Tribunal de Commerce of Paris. LEON AUGUSTIN LHERMITTE (1844- : Med. 3rd cl, 1874; Med. 2nd cl, 1880; ft, 1884; Gd. p., 1889 E. U.; O, ft, 1894; I., 1900). Lhermitte was born at Mont-Saint-Pierre, Aisne, and studied under Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who, if not much of a painter, knew how to teach others. Lhermitte did not begin to distinguish himself until 1880. Since then he has devoted himself to landscapes with peasants en gaged in their various occupations. His peasants are strong, hearty creatures, painted honestly and accu rately, without the appeal to sentiment of Millet and without the exaggerated virtues of Breton. He pre sents peasant life as it appears to the ordinary observer. The present interest taken by France in the laboring classes makes Lhermitte popular and gives him a ready sale for his pictures. He is not a strong colorist, and uses color to enforce his excellent drawing and composi tion. A picture in the Luxembourg, La Paye des Mois- sonneurs (Fig. 216), painted in 1882, gives a satisfac tory idea of his style and ability. Strong honest men 312 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING are being paid. They have done their work well, they know it, and are satisfied with their wages. The elderly man seated and facing the front is a model of dignified and independent labor ; the young man just receiving his pay has an equally fine and independent face and pose. With such workmen agriculture must prosper. All of Lhermitte's pictures breathe the same wholesome, sturdy spirit. There is a fair specimen of his work in the New York Metropolitan Museum, called " The Vintage." Lhermitte is at present (1908) the vice-president of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts. JEAN JOSEPH BENJAMIN CONSTANT (1845- 1902: Med. 3rd cl, 1875; Med. 2nd cl, 1876; ft, 1878; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U.; O. ft, 1884; I., 1893; Med. d'hon., 1896). Constant was born in Paris and studied under Caba nel. His first efforts were in historical subjects, which he treated from the point of view of color rather than from that of historic interest. His first marked suc cess was in 1878, with a picture of the Entree de Mahouset II a Constantinople, now in the Museum of Toulouse. One of his last works, Entree d'Urban II a Toulouse, is in the same city, and shows a return to his first style. After a few early efforts he apparently tired of the necessities of historic accuracy, and invented scenes for the display of nudities and of his brilliant if monotonous coloring. Two specimens of his second and exaggerated style are in the Luxembourg, — Les der nier s Rebelles (Fig. 217), which represents a mounted Arab chief and his followers surveying a long line of dead rebels, with every possible accessory of Egyptian pomp Fig. 216. — Lhermitte. Pay day. (Luxembourg) Fig. 217. — Benjamin Constant. The last rebels. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 313 and color thrown in, and Harem, an interior scene. A large hall in an Eastern palace is strewn with nude corpses of women killed for revolt or infidelity. Two executioners sit passively by, but faintly distin guished amid the red and murky haze which bathes the whole scene. They are unpleasant pictures, too vague and too exaggerated to excite interest and not at tractive in treatment. As a painter of portraits Ben jamin Constant was more successful. Two good specimens are, or were, in the Luxembourg. One, a portrait of his son, ranks among the best of modern portraits ; exhibited in 1896, it obtained the Medaille d'honneur for the father. There are mural paintings by him at the Sorbonne, at the Hotel de Ville, and at the Opera Comique. His talents, apart from his abil ity as a portrait painter, were more German than French.FERDINAND CORMON (1845- : Med., 1870; Med. 2nd cl, 1873 ; P. de Salon, 1875 ; bronze med., 1878 E. U. ; ft, 1880 ; Med. d'hon., 1887 : Gd. p.- 1889 E. U.; O. ft, 1889; I., 1898). Cormon was born in Paris and studied under Cabanel and Fromentin. His father was a man of letters who encouraged and rejoiced in his son's talents. Cormon has a bold, dashing, careless, and original style which cannot be traced back to any previous school or in dividual. A large picture in the Luxembourg, painted in 1880, of Cain emigrating with his family, is a good specimen (Fig. 219). It is very large, nearly twenty- two -by eleven feet, and illustrates a verse from VictoT Hugo: 314 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING " Lorsque avec ses enfants couverts de peaux de betes, Livide, echevele au milieu des tempetes. Cain se fut enfui de devant Jehovah . . A far more interesting and agreeable picture, of 1887, is in the Museum of Rouen, and represents the women of Athens dancing out of the city with joy to meet the conquerors of Salamis (Fig. 220). The grand spring and sweeping swing of the maidens are finely given (Fig. 221). In 1884 Cormon was engaged to decorate the Museum of Saint-Germain, and took advantage of the opportunity to indulge his taste for prehistoric themes. He also, in 1902, decorated the Mairie of Tours. Lately he has devoted himself to portrait painting. He is professor and chef -a" atelier at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. PAUL JOSEPH BLANC (1846-1904 : P. d. R., 1867 ; Med., 1870; Med. 1st cl, 1872; ft, 1878; Med. 2nd cl, 1878 E. U.; gold med,, 1889 E. U.). Blanc was born in Paris and studied under Cabanel. He was regarded by his contemporaries as a master of composition. His pictures continue to be studied as models of grouping, arranging, and spacing. His first work to attract attention, L'Enlevement du Palladium, painted in 1872, is in the Museum of Angers. In 1873 he produced an enormous work, called L'Invasion, which seemed to combine all of his studies at Rome. It is in the Museum of Nancy. He is best known by his works in the Pantheon, executed after 1880. There are two Compositions, — one of the " Vow of Clovis," the other of his " Baptism." About fifteen miles southwest of Cologne is the modern town of Zulpich, the Tolbiacum Fig. 219. — Cormon. Cain emigrating. (Luxembourg) Fig. 220. — Cormon. Victors of Salamis. (Luxembourg) Fig. 221. — Cormon. Victors of Salamis, detail, (rjurxtmbourg^^ Fig. 221°.— B Jane. Clovis at Tolbiac. (Pantheon, Paris) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 315 of the Romans. Here, according to early French chron iclers, was fought some time during the year 496 a. d. a decisive battle between Clovis and the Alemanni. Dur ing the heat of the battle, when victory seemed turning against him, Clovis vowed that if victorious he would become a Christian. Blanc's large picture represents the turning-point in the battle. It is a tremendous and tumultuous battle scene. On the right are the Franks yielding to defeat. Clovis's family on an ox-cart are overcome with terror. On the left the advancing Ale manni are halted by angels with flaming swords. In the center (Fig. 221°), Clovis, turned back over his horse, with his eye to heaven and his arms outstretched, is making the vow which is heard and accepted by heavenly personages. In spite of the large number of figures involved and of the intricacy of the action there is no extreme violence, there are large breathing spaces, an evident reserve, and a prominence of individual in cident, that give the work high artistic merit. In the " Baptism " quiet and order prevail (Fig. 2216). The scene is dignified and impressive, The ceremony, which is supposed to have taken place in Rheims and to have been performed by Saint Remi, is placed in a church the architecture of which may not correspond to the times but which is artistically appropriate and impres sive. Blanc's style is very different from that of Puvis de Chavannes, but does not seem any the less appropriate to the building or to the subjects presented. The selection of colors is temperate and judicious. 316 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING THEODORE PIERRE NICOLAS MAILLOT (1826-1888: P. d. R., 1854; Med., 1867; ft, 1870) and JULES EUGENE LENEPVUE (1819-1898: P. d. R., 1847; Med. 3rd cl, 1847; Med. 2nd cl., 1855 E. U. ; Rap., 1861; ft, 1862; I., 1869; O. ft, 1876). Maillot and Lenepvue are two other artists who have been honored with commissions for the Pantheon. Mail lot's Procession de la Chasse de Sainte Genevieve is a curious and interesting study in archaeology. Lenep- vue's scenes from the life of Jeanne Dare have been severely criticised, but have popular qualities and at tract attention. His decorations in the church of Saint Ambroise and of the ceiling of the Opera House are more highly esteemed. NICOLAS LUC OLIVIER MERSON (1846- : P. d. R., 1869 ; Med. 1st cl, 1873 ; ft, 1881 ; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; I., 1892; O. ft, 1900). Merson was born in Paris and studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Pils. He became most expert with the pencil and the brush. To be appreciated, his decorations must be studied. They are at the Opera Comique, the Hotel de Ville, and the Sorbonne, also in the church of Saint Thomas d'Aquin in the Latin quarter. At the Cour de Cassation are two superb mural paintings from the hfe of Saint Louis. He also distinguished himself by illustrating Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris and works by Gautier, Flaubert, and others. He has also made drawings for Gobelin tapestries. He is a universal genius and succeeds with everything he attempts. Some of his best pictures are at Lille and Nantes. Fig. 221b. — Blanc. Baptism of Clovis. (Pantheon, Paris) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 317 MARIE AUGUSTIN GABRIEL FERRIER (1847- : P. d. R., 1872 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1876 ; Med. 1st cl, 1878; ft, 1884; gold med., 1889 E. U.; 0. ft, 1903; Med. d'hon., 1903; I., 1906). Ferrier was born at Nimes. When he reached Paris he studied under Pils and Hebert. He is particularly known by his very strong and realistic portraits, of which his portrait of General Andre in the Luxembourg is an excellent example. Andre's connection with the Dreyfus incident is well known. The picture shows the man's character as frankly as a picture by Bonnat. His strong pictures are in many French museums. Nimes has fine specimens ; so has Monte Carlo ; one is at Antwerp. His decorations are at the Hotel de Ville of Paris, the Sorbonne, and the Palais d'Orsay. JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE (1848-1884: Med. 3rd cl, 1874 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1875 ; Med. 3rd cl, 1878 E. U.; ft, 1879). Lepage was born at Damvilhers, in the department of Meuse, near the eastern border, south of Luxembourg. He was a pupil of the college at Verdun, where he de veloped such talent for painting that he was pensioned by his department. He went to Paris when he was nineteen, and studied under Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He was wounded during the Prussian War. In 1874 he began to exhibit portraits which attracted attention. A portrait of his grandfather, ex hibited in 1874, obtained for him a third-class medal. In 1878 Les Foins made him celebrated (Fig. 222). The picture is in the Luxembourg, and represents two harvesters, a man and a woman. The man is sleeping 318 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING behind his companion. She, seated on the grass and turned one quarter to her left, is a picture of tired and stupid peasantry. Her face is square, her eyes are with out expression, her cheek bones are like polished mahog any. Her partially open mouth and inert arms show the effect of long and severe labor. The picture is full of character and is painted with original force and ease. It evidently inspired Lhermitte and other living inter preters of labor. In 1880 appeared his Jeanne Dare entendant les Vols (Fig. 223), which made him illus trious. The picture is in the New York Metropolitan Museum and is . abundantly described in the Museum catalogue. The picture more than anything else revived in France the culte of the maiden of Domremy. Com plaints that a picture of such national interest was al lowed to leave France seem patriotic and just. A fair criticism is that Jeanne is represented as too old. Le page has been criticised by the schools, both new and old. The old claims that he was not true to traditions ; the new would have had him forsake them altogether. His early death at thirty-six cut short a career that prom ised to be one of the most brilliant of his generation. JOSEPH EDOUARD DANTAN (1848-1897: Med. 3rd cl, 1874; Med. 2nd cl, 1880 ; ft, 1889; gold med., 1889 E. U.). Dantan was born at Saint-Cloud and studied under Pils. He was killed by a carriage accident when forty- nine at Villerville, near Trouville. Dantan was an ex cellent artist whose works are distinguished by careful and accurate drawing rather than by brilliancy of color. Most of his subjects were the homes and labors Fig. 223.— Bastien-Lepage. Jeanne Dare listening. (Met. M., New York) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 319 of the working-classes. He was also successful in paint ing interiors of studios. Un Coin d' Atelier, at the Lux embourg, is a good example. HENRY LEROLLE (1848- : Med. 3rd cl, 1879; Med. 1st cl, 1880; ft, 1889; gold med., 1900 E U.). Lerolle was born in Paris. He has distinguished him self in various ways. His pictures, though original, recall at times the styles of Jules Breton, Cazin, and Besnard. A good specimen is in the Luxembourg, called Dans la Campagne. Through fields a woman is leading a flock of browsing sheep. The landscape is ad mirably painted. Very well done are the beech trees in the middle distance. A picture of the same character, called L'Arrivie des Bergers, is in the Museum of Car cassonne. There are decorations by Lerolle at the Hotel de Ville and the Sorbonne and at the church of Notre Dame at Caen in Normandy. One of his most successful pictures is in the New York Metropolitan Museum, and is called " The Organ " (Fig. 224 ; see Metropolitan catalogue). How the voice of the singer seems to fill the church is a wonderful effect; equally impressive is the apprehended stillness of the unseen congregation. LOUIS JOSEPH RAPHAEL COLLIN (1885- : Med. 2nd cl, 1873 ; ft, 1884 ; Gd. p., 1889 E. U. ; O. ft, 1899). Collin was born in Paris and studied under Cabanel and Bouguereau. Collin is famed for his nude young girls whom he loves to put out of doors in contact with the verdure of springtime. His Floreal, at the Luxem- 320 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING bourg, painted in 1886 (Fig. 225), is a good example. A nude young girl in the fields is lying on her back amid spring flowers. She turns her face to the front with an innocent, pleased, and curious expression at the thought of the impression her extraordinary exhibition must produce. Similar pictures are at the Sorbonne and at the Opera Comique. Collin is active and ener getic. He is a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, is a member of the Government Council of the Fine Arts, and a director in the Sevres Government Factory. His advice and opinion in art matters are highly es teemed and valued. PASCAL ADOLPHE JEAN DAGNAN BOUVERET (1852- : Med. 3rd cl, 1878; Med. 1st cl, 1880; ft, 1885; Med. d'hon., 1889; Gd. p., 1889 E. U.; O. ft, 1892; I., 1900; Gd. p., 1900 E. U.). Bouveret studied under Gerome and came within one of taking the Prix de Rome. Since his first medal in 1878 he has continued to advance in the estimation of critics and amateurs and now occupies a position sec ond to none. His works are distinguished by accurate drawing, energetic expression, and careful and harmo nious selection of strong but delicate colors. His early subjects are from Brittany. Two excellent examples are in the Luxembourg, L'Abreuvoir and Le Pain benit. The first shows a bright young man with a team of fine horses at a fountain ; one horse is still drinking. Be tween the man and his horses there is evidently the best of understanding. Le Pain benit, painted in 1886, shows the interior of a parish church, peasant women seated in pews, and an acolyte passing the bread. The first Fig. 225.— Colin. Floreal. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 321 picture to attract attention and one of his very best was painted in 1880, and is, or was, in the Walters Gal lery of Baltimore. It is called Un Accident, and shows a young peasant boy who has met with an acci dent heroically bearing the necessary surgical suffer ing. At one time Bouveret devoted himself to sacred subjects; lately he has confined himself to portraits. FRANgOIS TATTEGRAIN (1852- : Med. 2nd cl, 1883; gold medal, 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1889; Med. d'hon., 1899; gold med., 1900 E. U.). Tattegrain was born at Peronne, in the department of Somme, not far from Amiens. He studied under a number of masters, — among others, Boulanger and Lefebvre. He is a very strong and realistic painter who depicts the miseries of war in all their horrors without any of the embellishments or apologies of art. Many of his pictures are so extreme as to be revolting. His Les Bouches inutiles, in the Museum of Nantes (Fig. 226), is a specimen. It shows the plight of the poor souls who during the siege of the Chateau Gaillard by Philippe Augustus in 1203 were turned out of the castle to die because they were of no use to the garrison. Such incidents, if true, are not fit subjects for works of art. There are pictures by him of the same style, if not quite so- horrible, — at Lille, La Reddition des Casselois a Philippe le Bon, of 1887; at Dunkerque, Louis XIV apres la Bataille des Dunes, of 1889; at Saint-Quentin, Le Sac de Saint Quentin par les Es- pagnols, and at Amiens, Les Deuillants a Etaples, of 1883. One of his last pictures, Les Recompenses, the presentation of the art prizes of 1900, is at Ver- 21 322 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING sailles, and shows Tattegrain in a different and in a delightful light. His pictures in the Hotel de Ville, L'Entree de Louis XI a Paris, are interesting historic studies. Tattegrain is a great artist, one of the great est of the living artists of France. FRANQOIS FLAMENG (1856- : Med: 2nd cl, 1879; P. du Salon, 1879 ; ft, 1885; Gd. p., 1889 E. U.; O. ft, 1896; I., 1907). Flameng was born in Paris. His father, Leopold Joseph Flameng, is a celebrated engraver, member of the Legion d'Honneur, etc. The son studied with Cabanel and with Laurens. Flameng paints with ease, rapidity, and precision. He has been successful in portraiture and in historic subjects. He first attracted attention, in 1879, by Appel des Girondins, the call of the Giron dists to execution. This was followed, in 1881, by Les Vainqueurs de la Bastille, now in the Museum of Rouen; and, in 1884, by the Massacre de Machecoul, now in the Museum of Agen. These were followed by court scenes of the time of Louis XV, the Directory, and Napoleon I. A capital specimen is, or was, at Com- piegne, and is called Les Etapes de Napoleon, repre senting the reception of Maria Louisa at Compiegne in 1810. There are, or were, two large pictures by him at the Luxembourg, Vive I'Empereur! a scene from the battle of Waterloo, painted in 1898, and Eylau, painted in 1902. In some of his portraits of women he imitates Nattier by giving his sitters backgrounds of clouds and mythological accessories. His most highly praised works are six panels on the staircase of the Sorbonne and his decorations at the Opera Comique. Fig. 227. — Rochegrosse. ViteUius dragged through the streets of Rome. (Luxembourg) Fig. 228. — Rochegrosse. Knight assailed by flowers. (Luxembourg) PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 323 GEORGES ROCHEGROSSE (1859- : Med. 3rd cl, 1882; Med. 2nd cl, 1883; P. du Salon, 1883; bronze med., 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1892). Rochegrosse was born at Versailles and studied under Boulanger and Lefebvre. He is another of the strong and versatile painters of the present day of whom critics hesitate to predict an enduring reputation. He has ac quired great facility as draughtsman and painter. Some of his works are of enormous size. None of them charm by their beauty. His La Course au Bonheur, in which a wild crowd is following a fiend "to the brink of a preci pice, is an enormous composition. It was severely crit icised and could not have been enjoyed. His Mort de Babylone is nearly as large, and but little more than an extensive, elaborate, and complex study of unattrac tive nudities. His ViteUius traine dans les Rues de Rome, in the Luxembourg (Fig. 227), is smaller in size but equally unattractive. Absence of a sense of beauty is one of the prominent characteristics of many modern French painters. Another painting by Rochegrosse, in the Luxembourg, called the Chevalier aux Fleurs, is apparently an experiment with impressionism (Fig. 228). A knight in armor is floating through a field of grain. The flowers of the field in the shape of nude young girls are apparently endeavoring to lure him from the path of honor and duty. To be lured by such maidens, the knight would have to be irresolute and faint-hearted. Rochegrossefs decorations at the Sor bonne (staircase to the library) show him in a better light. The absence of an accepted standard and of the influence of dominating schools is accountable for many 324 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING of the irregularities of modern French painters. Under proper control and with the fixed ideas that come only from study under discipline Rochegrosse would be a great artist. EMILE FRIANT (1863- : Med. 3rd cl, 1884; Med. 2nd cl, 1885; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1889; gold med., 1900 E. U. ; O. ft, 1901). Friant was born at Deuze, in Alsace, about half-way between Metz and Strasburg. He studied in Paris un der Cabanel. He is at present one of the professors at the Ecole des Beaux .Arts. Many of his best pictures are at Nancy, the nearest French city of importance to his birthplace. At first he painted charming interiors ; then his attention was attracted to serious subjects, Jours des Morts at the Luxembourg, Au Cimetiere and Les Ages de la Vie at Nancy. Lately he seems to be departing from this high level and devoting himself with less success to more common subjects. He is an excellent painter of portraits. Among the hundreds of artists who have distin guished themselves in only a slightly less degree than the foregoing, most of whom are living, a few should be mentioned, not from choice, but as specimens. TONY ROBERT FLEURY (1837(8?)- : Med., 1855 and 1867; Med. d'hon., 1870; ft, 1873; Med. 1st cl, 1878 E. U. ; O. ft, 1884; gold med., 1889 E. U.). Fleury was born in Paris and is a son of the painter of the same name already mentioned. He is at present President d'honneur de la Societe des Artistes Francais and a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He began PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 325 with large historical compositions, of which his Dernier Jour de Corinthe at the Luxembourg, painted in 1870, was the most successful and secured him the Medaille d'honneur. It is a very large work. On the left the Romans are entering; on the right are Corinthian women in various conditions and attitudes of nudity. As a study of form and composition, the picture is re markable; as evidence of change of public taste since it was painted, it is interesting. Other pictures of equal size are in several cities of France. One at Bel- fort, of Vauban planning its fortifications, is partic ularly admired. About fifteen years ago Fleury, under the influences of impressionism, changed his ideas and his style completely. His subjects became contempo raneous, his pictures of ordinary size, and his style very modern. Born the same year as Fleury was EMILE BAYARD (1837-1891: ft, 1870; silver med., 1889 E. U.; O. ft, 1890), whose original and joyous phantasies for a while charmed everybody. His decorations of the Foyer du Theatre du Palais Royal are in keeping with the spirit of the place. FERDINAND ROYBET (1840- : Med., 1866; ft, 1892; Med. d'hon., 1893; O. ft, 1900). Roybet was born at Uzes, Garde, came to Paris when quite young, and for nearly fifty years has been a dili gent and successful painter. He is a wonderful mas ter of costumes. Lately he has devoted himself to portraits. 326 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING PAUL VAYSON (1842- : Med. 3rd cl, 1875; Med. 2nd cl, 1879; ft, 1886; gold med., 1889 E. U. and 1900 E. U. ; O. ft, 1906). Vayson was born at Gardes, Vaucluse. He has de voted himself successfully to sheep, cows, pigs, and all manner of domestic animals and domestic scenes. Most of his pictures are in Southern cities, — Bordeaux, Avignon, Marseilles. Six were exhibited at the Ex position Universelle of 1900, showing that his hand has lost none of its cunning. JEAN BAPTISTE ANTOINE GUILLEMET (1834- : Med. 2nd cl, 1874 and 1876; ft, 1880; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; O. ft, 1896). Guillemet was born at Chantilly, Oise. He has par ticularly distinguished himself by his charming views of Paris along the Seine, its quays, its bridges, and its near-by suburbs. He has not neglected other parts of Northern France. In the Exposition Universelle of 1900 a picture of Moret sur Loing and another of the church of Lapernelle, a village near the coast, were greatly admired. At the last Salon (1908) he was a candidate for the Medaille d'honneur. He is sure to have it in a year or two. THEOBALD CHARTRAN (1849- : P. d. R., 1877 ; Med. 3rd cl, 1877 ; Med. 2nd cl, 1881 ; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1890; O. ft, 1902). Chartran was born at Besan9on and studied under Cabanel. He has painted many excellent portraits, among others those of President Roosevelt and mem bers of his family. He has a magnificent picture at PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 327 Versailles, Ceremonie du Centenaire de Victor Hugo au Pantheon. JEAN BAPTISTE BARTHELEMY called VICTOR BINET (1849- : Med. 3rd cl, 1882; Med. 2nd cl, 1886; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1894; gold med., 1900 E. U. ; 0. ft, 1900). Binet was born at Rouen. He is a quiet and con scientious artist. He loves to paint scenes along the lower part of the Seine, and dehghts in evening effects. He has made many pictures of Croisset. JEAN BERAUD (1850- : Med. 3rd cl, 1882; Med. 2nd cl, 1883; ft, 1887; gold med., 1889 E. U.; O. ft, 1894). Beraud was born at St. Petersburg, of French par ents. He studied under Bonnat. He divides his ac tivities between religious scenes and portraits. He evidently hates affectations and hypocrisy and loves to expose the weak and the ludicrous. His sincerity as a moralist may be questioned; his skill as an artist is evident. LOUIS MAURICE BOUTET DE MONVEL (1850- : Med. 3rd cl, 1878; Med. 2nd cl, 1880; bronze med., 1889 E. U.; ft, 1897; gold med., 1900 E. U.). De Monvel was born in the city of Orleans. In Paris he studied under Cabanel, Boulanger, and for a short time under Carolus Duran. At first his pictures were only moderately successful. They were carefully fin ished, but were stiff and lacked ease and grace. After 1878 he began illustrating children's books and has been wonderfully successful. His illustrations of the 328 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING life of Jeanne Dare have been variously criticised. His style is exposed to exaggerations and eccentricities. JULIEN DUPRE (1851- : Med. 3rd cl, 1880; Med. 2nd cl, 1881; silver med., 1889 E. U.; ft, 1892). Dupre has painted many charming landscapes. ALFRED PAUL MARIE DE RICHEMONT (1853- : Med. 3rd cl, 1886; bronze med., 1889 E. U. ; Med. 1st cl, 1890; ft, 1894; gold med., 1900 E. U.). De Richemont was born in Paris and is a thorough Parisian of the old regime. He has made fame and fortune by his religious pictures, into which he is able to put the pious fervor the subjects demand. PIERRE ANDRE BROUILLET (1857- : Med. 3rd cl, 1884; Med. 2nd cl, 1886; bronze med., 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1894; bronze med., 1900 E. U.; O. ft, 1906). Brouillet is a historic painter and a painter of por traits. He attracted particular attention by a picture of the reception of the Czar and the Czarina of Russia by the French Academy. The Academy purchased the picture, and it now hangs on their walls. ALPHONSE ETIENNE DINET (1861- : Med. 3rd cl, 1884; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1896; gold med., 1900 E. U. ; O. ft, 1905). Dinet was born in Paris and studied under Bou guereau, T. Robert, Fleury, and Dinet. He frequently visits Algiers and devotes himself to Eastern familiar PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 329 and family scenes with graceful and poetic touch. Specimens are at the Luxembourg. Three artists were born in 1862, with whom this list must terminate: Bail, Lobre, and Baschet. JOSEPH BAIL (1862- : Med. 3rd cl, 1886; Med. 2nd cl, 1887; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; gold med., 1900 E. U. ; ft, 1900; Med. d'hon., 1902). Bail was born at Limonest in the Rhone valley and was instructed by his father, who also was a painter. Bail is an attractive and popular painter. His sub jects are domestic interiors, and he delights in the re flections of light from pots and pans, copper and glass, which he treats with a fascinating skill worthy of the seventeenth-century painters of the Netherlands. His pictures are comfortable and homelike; not startling or ambitious, but social and friendly. His position in French art seems assured. MAURICE LOBRE (1862- : gold med., 1900 E. U.) Little seems to have been known of Lobre until the Exposition Universelle of 1900, where he exhibited charming pictures of Versailles, of its apartments and also of its exterior aspects. Since 1900 he has equally distinguished himself by views of Chartres Cathedral, — of its exterior and also of its interior with the sunlight streaming through its stained- glass windows. Though middle-aged, Lobre seems pro gressing and gives promise of greater and more artistic accomplishment s . 330 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING A. MARCEL BASCHET (1862- : P. d. R., 1883; Med. 2nd cl, 1889; ft, 1889; gold med., 1900 E. U.; Med. d'hon., 1908). Baschet has devoted his energies to portrait paint ing. As a faithful and exact reproducer of features and expressions, he ranks high. His capture of the Medaille d'honneur will add to his reputation. Of landscape painters whose works have crowded the Salons for the last twenty years, one artist stands out pre-eminently, Cazin. JEAN CHARLES CAZIN (1841-1901: Med. 1st cl, 1880; ft, 1882; O. ft, 1889). Cazin was born at Samer, not far from Calais. He studied in Paris under Lecoq de Boisbaudran. He passed a part of his youth in England. He began ex hibiting in 1865. His first pictures did not attract attention. In 1871 he was again in England. He then traveled in Italy and Holland. In 1876 he returned to Paris and began to be appreciated. His first pic tures to meet with favor were landscapes of the sea shore about his native home animated with personages from the Old and the New Testaments. He gave Bible heroes familiar and popular appearances, as if they be longed to the country and were contemporaneous. In the Salon of 1880 he exhibited two pictures, Ishmael and Tobie, which won him a first-class medal and estab lished his popularity on a firm basis. That Cazin was one of the greatest of landscape painters is admitted. Though his pictures with figures are highly prized, his pure landscapes are preferred. There never hved a PAINTERS OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC 331 man who could more easily, poetically, and gracefully express his love of nature. He loved huts hidden amid sandhills, hnes of trees bordering canals, fields of grass floating in the breeze, village streets by drowsy moon light or awakened by the passing night coach, all the peaceful and- every-day aspects of the northern shores of France. He painted all things with a religious love, transforming them into beauty by the gentle tones with which he bathed them. He loved the evening hour when the rays of the setting sun pierce the cool vapors rising from the earth towards the sky, already cold and still, awaiting the stars that shine by night. Whoever can sympathize with Cazin will be made to love the scenes he loved. He painted with an easy and rapid brush, employing few colors but the grays. There is little foliage in his pictures. They look as if anybody could have painted them. Perhaps anybody could who had his artistic soul and apprehension, for his technique is so simple as apparently to have required no prepara tion for its perfection. Other landscape painters who may be mentioned and who are awaiting the verdict of posterity are: AUGUSTE EMMANEUL POINTELIN (1839- : Med. 3rd cl, 1878; Med. 2nd cl, 1881; ft, 1886; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; gold med., 1900; O. ft, 1903). Pointelin was born at the foot of the Jura Mountains and loves to paint them. JEAN HENRI ZUBER (1844- : Med. 3rd cl, 1875; silver med., 1878 E. U. ; ft, 1886; gold med., 1889 E. U.; gold med., 1900 E. U. ; O. ft, 1906). Zuber was born in Alsace, but does not confine his pic- 332 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING tures to his native country. His pictures of Paris, Versailles, and Fontainebleau are highly esteemed. He exhibited eleven works at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 and won his second gold medal. ANGTJLN (1824-1903), BAUDIT (1825-1900), and CHABRY (1832-1882) made their reputation during the Second Empire and enjoyed equal repute during the Third Republic. RENE BILLOTTE (1846- : ft, 1889; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; O. ft, 1900). PIERRE LAGARDE (1854- ; Med. 3rd cl, 1882; Med. 2nd cl, 1885; silver med., 1889 E. U. ; ft, 1891; gold med., 1900 E. U.), who diversifies his landscapes with the murderous fury of armies. ANDRE DAUCHEZ (1870- ; silver med., 1900 E. U.). JEAN FRANQOIS AUBURTIN(1866- : silver med., 1900 E. U. ; ft, 1900). Auburtin was born in Paris and has made a name for himself by his marine decorations at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the Palais de Longchamp at Marseilles. He belongs to the new Salon. These and others are well known to-day and may be better known fifty years from now. Speculations and prophecies have no place in a handbook. CHAPTER VI IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS THE word " impressionism " was the result of an accident. In 1863 the emperor allowed those artists whose works had been refused by the Salon to exhibit them in a separate hall called Salle des Refuses. Among the works refused were pictures by Manet, Monet, Fantin-Latour, Renoir, and others who were united in their opposition to the Academy and to the manner in which the Salons were governed and con ducted. In the Salon of 1867 there appeared a sunset picture by Monet which he named " Impressions." The word was seized by the public and applied in scorn to the whole body of independent artists of whom Monet was by that time the recognized head. The derided artists accepted the title as good as any other and have lived under it ever since, though there may be diversity of views between them relating to the practice and prin ciples of their profession. As to the claims of impres sionists, some are valid ; as to their practices, some are valuable contributions to technique and have been gener ally accepted and adopted. In the notice of Manet it was stated that he was one of the first to discard dark shadows and unmeaning and unnatural backgrounds, and also one of the first to paint with few simple and unmixed colors. Manet at first was opposed to Monet. It was only after the Prussian War that they were 334 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING drawn together and worked together. Manet, as already stated, was born in 1832 and died in 1883. Monet was born in 1840 and is still living (1908). From 1872 until Manet's death the two worked together to estab lish painting on a new and independent basis. The fundamental principles of impressionism are well set forth by Camille Mauclair in his L 'Impressionism, son Histoire, son Esthetique, ses Maitres. He writes as follows : " In nature no color has an independent existence. The apparent color of objects is an illusion. The only creative source of colors is the light of the sun, which envelops and reveals everything with infinite modifications according to the hour of the day. The mystery of color escapes us. We do not know at what moment the real separates itself from the unreal. All that we know is that our vision has acquired the habit of recognizing two notions in the universe, form and color, and that these two notions are inseparable. It is only artificially that we can distinguish between drawing and color; in nature there is no distinction. Light reveals form, and by playing with the different conditions of matter, the pulp of vegetation, the grain of rocks, the fluidity of deep strata of air, gives things different colors. If light ceases, forms and colors disappear to gether. Colors are the only things we perceive. Every thing has its color, and it is only by the perception of differently colored surfaces striking the eye that we conceive form, that is, the limitations of the perceived colors. The idea of distance, perspective, and volume is conveyed to us by colors being darker. or brighter. This idea is in painting called the sense of values. A IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 335 value is the degree of intensity, dark or bright, which enables our eyes to apprehend that one object is nearer or farther away than another. As painting is not, and cannot be, an imitation of nature, but only its inter pretation, and as, moreover, it disposes of only two dimensions out of three, values are the only means at its disposal to produce the effect of distance. Color is therefore the generator of drawing. Now, as color is simply the irradiation of hght, it follows that every color must be composed of the elements of the light of the sun, that is, of the seven colors of the solar spectrum. It is known that these seven colors appear differently on account of the inequality of the rapidity of luminous waves. The colors of nature therefore appear to us differently, as do those of the solar spectrum, and for the same reason. Colors vary with the intensity of light. A given object has no particular color. Its apparent color comes from the rapidity of the vibrations of light on its surface; and this rapidity depends, as optics prove, on the inclination of. the rays of light. As the rays are vertical or oblique, they illumine and color differently. Form and color are therefore two coexisting illusions, two words signifying the two summary pro cesses which our spirit uses to perceive the infinite mystery of life. There is no color without form, no form without color. Color by itself would become re duced to the solar spectrum ; form by itself would be a geometrical abstraction. In a drawing which delimits colored surfaces our eye aided by memory replaces the colors. Only in this way is a drawing comprehensible. " The colors of the spectrum are recomposed, there fore, on everything we see. All tones are derived from 330 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING the seven colors of the solar spectrum and their mixtures. Practical consequences result from these principles. In the first place, local color, as it has been called, is an error. A leaf is not green, the trunk of a tree is not brown, for the apparent color of leaf and tree is modified from hour to hour by the varying inclinations of the rays of light, that is, by the variations of the angle of incidence, as it is scientifically called. The thing to be studied about objects which are to be reproduced in a picture is the composition of the intervening atmosphere. The atmosphere is the real subj ect of a picture ; every thing that is represented exists only as perceived through it. A second consequence of this analysis of light is that a shadow is not an absence of light, but only a light of another quality and value. A shadow is not a place where light ceases, but where it is subordinated to another light which seems to us more intense. In a shadow the rays of the solar spectrum vibrate with different rapidities. Painting should therefore not represent shadows with black and bitumi nous colors made expressly for the purpose, but should seek in shadows, as in lights, the play of the atoms of the solar spectrum. A third consequence flows from these two : the colors in a shadow are modified by re fraction. For example, in a picture representing an interior, the source of light, a window, may not be indicated. The light circulating in the picture will therefore be composed of the reflections of rays the source of which is not seen, and all the objects acting as mirrors against which these reflections strike will be mutually influenced by these impacts. Their colors will influence one another even if their surfaces are dull. A IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 337 reddish gray falling on a blue carpet will undergo a very subtle but an absolutely mathematical change be tween the blue and the red, and this exchange of lumi nous waves will create between the two colors a zone of reflections composed of each. These composite reflec tions will constitute a scale of tonalities complementary to the two principal tones. These complementary colors can be mathematically ascertained by optics. If, for example, the yellow out-of-door hght falls on one side of a head and the bluish light of an interior falls on the other, along the dividing line will necessarily appear greenish reflections. • " The fourth and -last consequence of these propo sitions is that the mixture of the colors of the solar spectrum is accomplished by parallel and distinct pro jections. It is only artificially that our eye unites them on the crystalline lens. A lens interposed between the light and the eye and opposed in its action to that of the crystalline lens, which is a living lens, will separate the rays the crystalline lens has united and will show the seven distinct colors of the atmosphere. It is no less artificially that a painter mixes several colors on his palette for the purpose of producing a desired color. It is also artificially that colored pigments representing some of the combinations of the solar spectrum have been invented to spare artists the trouble of constantly mingling the seven solar colors. Such mixtures are in exact. They also have the disadvantage of creating heavy tonalities ; for what light can accomplish in re uniting in an intense white the united luminous rays because it remains transparent, the gross mixtures of powders and oils cannot accomplish.' Colors mixed on a 22 338 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING palette produce a dirty gray. What therefore must a painter do who is anxious to approach as nearly as possible to the divine fairy-land of nature and has only poor human means at his disposal? Here we touch the very foundation of impressionism. He should use only the seven colors of the spectrum and banish all others. Thus did the audacious Claude Monet, adding thereto only black and white. The painter in addition should not mix colors on his palette, but should juxtapose on his canvas touches of the seven colors and let the in dividual rays of each one of these colors unite at a distance on the eye of the spectator ; that is to say, the artist should act as Nature herself acts. " This is the theory, ' dissociation of tonalities,' as it is called, the cardinal point of the technique of impres sionism. It has the immense advantage of suppressing mixtures and of leaving to each color its own power and consequently its own freshness and brilliancy. The ex treme difficulty of the process is apparent. The eye of the painter must be of an admirable subtlety. Light becomes the one subj ect of a picture. The interest of the objects on which it shines is secondary. Painting thus understood becomes an art of pure optics, a seeking for harmonies, a species of natural poem, entirely distinct from expression, style, drawing, which have formed the main endeavor of preceding painting. It is almost neces sary to invent a new word for this special art which, while remaining thoroughly pictural, approaches music in the same degree as it departs from literature or psy chology. It is easily understood that impressionists, impassioned by this study, have become almost strangers to the painting of expression and entirely hostile to the IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 339 painting of history or of symbolism. It is, moreover, in landscape that they have had the greatest success, as it is to landscape more than to the figure that the technique apphes. . . ." Mauclair is not so clear as some Frenchmen, but he seems to cover the whole ground and he can be under stood. The optics of the question go back to Newton. Marcel's presentation is clearer, if less comprehensive. The subject is so important that he too should be quoted. He writes as follows : " Two principal events dominate the efforts made during the last thirty years to enlarge the domain of painting by introducing into it new sensations and by endowing it with more pene trating and more subtle methods of execution. These two are the influence of Manet and the entrance upon the scene of the impressionists. Manet, as has already been seen, urged by an instinct surer than all the theories, used on his canvas pure tones, in their initial freshness, without cooking ~them with heavy mixtures and attenuated thickenings hke the sauces of a restaurant. Moreover, and this was of prime importance, Manet perceived that shadows, heretofore treated with inky darkness, were only parts less clear, but not entirely deprived of light, where the tones, although weakened, preserved their nature and their own individual reality. He more over perceived that reflections from bright objects pene trated shadows and became incorporated with them. From these observations resulted the practice of color ing shadows. Finally, Manet had the boldness to give up the north light of studios, which sheds on objects only a cold and neutral clearness. He turned his can vases to the direct or reflected rays of the sun, all the 310 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING warm and vivifying energy of which he tried to intro duce into his own colors. These are the three capital innovations which are due to Manet. . . ." While Manet was fighting the opposition excited by his radical innovations, another and a parallel force em anating from the impressionists began to show itself. " These more generalizing and systematizing spirits than Manet propounded the principle that form in itself does not exist for the eye ; that no visible line or profile determines it ; that there are only masses and volumes, the reflected light of which alone circumscribes the limits and marks the projections. A house, a tree, only models itself in the ambient air, only manifests its different surfaces by its values, that is, by the varying quantities of light it contains as its various parts are exposed. The same thing may be said of color, which may be defined as the series of luminous modulations of which a given material is susceptible under direct or reflected illumination. Color has no absolute existence, as the angle of incidence of a ray, its diffusion amid re fracting mediums, and the proximity of divers objects are continually transforming it. In a word, there is no such thing as local color. " Light is therefore the principal, the essential, agent in everything that is painted. The play of its variations presents such an importance, constitutes for a picture such a large element of interest and life, that it is rarely necessary for a painter, in order to produce a work of art, to occupy himself with anything else, — no neces sity for pathetic dramas, for amusing anecdotes, not even for expressions and attitudes capable of holding attention and of exciting thought. By light and its IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 341 infinite modalities, by the magic clothing of tints, by the capricious play of reflections and shades, any object or place, the first to be thought of, becomes of itself a spectacle to satisfy all the curiosities and aspirations of the artist. This paramount office of light gives to the conception of the impressionist a singular if a narrow unity. To secure it he needs a sure and subtle instru ment ; he has found it in the division of tones. " The solar spectrum is composed of seven tones, only three of which — red, yellow, and blue — are called fundamental, the others being various mixtures of these three. Under the old technique colors were mixed on the palette and the mixtures were applied to the canvas. The impressionists, perceiving that mixed colors lost a great deal of the consistency and brilliancy of their constituent elements, conceived the idea of proceeding by juxtaposition and not by mixtures, — to make a green, for instance, by placing a blue and a yellow close together, leaving it to the eye at a suitable distance to fuse the two. The lightness and freshness resulting from this process are undeniable. The broken, cut, hacked appearance the process gives to pictures does not shock if the spectator place himself at a sufficient distance from the picture to permit the optical mingling to take place on the retina. Heretofore the point of view in order to take in the whole picture has been em pirically fixed at twice the picture's largest diameter. This point must be set back a little. But it is only a matter of habit to unconsciously adopt the required distance." A handbook is not the place to discuss the merits of any particular theory. Mauclair and Marcel set forth 342 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING the principles and claims of impressionism with sufficient clearness and fullness to help the reader when inspecting the works of impressionists to judge how far the school has carried out its ideas, how far it has been successful and how far it has been led into error. The founder and chief exponent of impressionism is Monet. CLAUDE MONET was bom in Paris in 1840 and now (1908) lives at Giverny, a little town on the Seine about half-way between Paris and Rouen. That so little has been written about the life and history of a man of such an international reputation is singular ; it is still more singular that, so far as appears from official records, his paintings have not received official recog nition. He began exhibiting in 1866 and ever since has been an active and industrious worker. His first picture to attract attention was a full-length portrait of a lady which was so much in the style of Manet as to be attrib uted to him. The lady wears a satin dress of broad green and black stripes and over it a fur jacket. Her person is turned from the spectator. Her head is in profile to the right, and her right hand is raised to the ' ribbons of her bonnet. The drawing is excellent. The style is quite as much like Courbet as Manet. The pic ture is now in Berlin and belongs to a Mr. Cassinier. Mr. Cassinier has also in his collection another picture, painted a few years later, in which Monet's studies of light are beginning to show themselves. It is called Le Dejeuner sur I'Herbe and represents a picnic in a grove. A large cloth spread out on the ground, covered with all sorts of things, is surrounded by a dozen men and women in various attitudes. The sunlight shining IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 343 through the foliage covers everything with spots of various colors as the light is direct or reflected. The effect is of a mosaic, is too confused, too kaleidoscopic. Monet must have made up his mind, after this picture was painted, that simpler subjects were better adapted to the development of the new principles and processes ; for he began to discard figures, to select subjects re quiring little drawing, and to devote himself entirely to effects of hght. The pictures of this period are simple landscapes in which the drawing and perspective are carefully and accurately done (Fig. 229). Monet cannot be accused, as can many of his followers and imitators, of forsaking old and well-established rules and principles. Mauclair states that while making his experiment he, if painting haystacks for instance, would take out into a field a dozen canvases, paint on each half an hour at a time, change them with the changing direc tion of the sun's rays and with atmospheric changes, and finally finish them all together. When assured of his technique, he applied it in various directions. Archi tecture particularly attracted him. He painted seven teen views of the front of Rouen Cathedral taken from sunrise to sunset (Fig. 230). Here nothing but the towers are introduced, nothing but the gray stone worn by time, darkened by centuries; no running water or waving foliage is added to help the play of light. With such a monotonous subject Monet has reproduced on canvas a series of the most brilliant pos sible effects of light. The pale rose of morning, the shining violet of midday, the golden purple of sunset, are given with thousands of reflected and compounded tones. When the mists of evening arise, the colossal 344 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING structure shines through the increasing darkness with all the splendor of an Eastern carpet, each detail of its architectural sculpture superbly respondent with truth and power. These wonderful pictures were exhibited in New York and wherever exhibited excited unbounded admiration. No better examples of the power of im pressionism have been presented. Monet's last great work consists of views of London taken, as at Rouen, at various hours of the day. Monet was attracted to Lon don by its vast variety of fog, mist, and smoke effects. These he has rendered with his unrivaled skill and patience. There are dozens of pictures of London Bridge, of the Houses of Parliament, and of Charing Cross taken under every variety of sunrise, noon, sunset, fog, mists, and clear weather. One of these days there must and will be a collection of his best works in Paris, for he is the Turner of France and entitled to equal honor. There are a few of Monet's unimportant pic tures in the Luxembourg, in the Moreau-Nelaton Collec tion of the Louvre, and in the New York Metropolitan Museum. Photographs can convey no idea of his powers. They may show, however, that his drawing was accurate and his perspective true. If his school had followed him in these particulars, had superadded in stead of discarding, its career would have been more brilliant and its influence more lasting and extended. Among the best known of the school are Sisley, Pissarro, and Renoir. Among those who have profited by the new teaching but who cannot technically be called im pressionists, Degas, Roll, Besnard, Carriere, Latouche, and Martin may be ranked, S liSil! |i ^ ¦¦ - V. Fie. 229". — Monet. View on the Seine Fig. 230. — Monet. Rouen Cathedral IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 345 ALFRED SISLEY (1839-1899). Sisley's name does not appear in any of the catalogues of the old Salon after 1870. He exhibited but without success in 1866, 1868, and 1870. When the new Salon was established, he was elected an " Associe " and was soon after elected a full " Societaire." From 1890 until he died, with the exception of 1897, he was a constant ex hibitor. He was born in Paris of English parentage and studied for a short time under Gleyre. He died at Moret on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau. Between 1870 and 1897 he passed much of his time in England. His pictures did not attract attention until he adopted impressionism, and then he followed so closely in Monet's footsteps that they are often mistaken for Monet's. He is a mild Monet and not quite such a master of the impressionist technique. His blue and yellow taches, for instance, do not always blend into satisfactory greens. His early impressionist pictures of views about the river Seine are highly prized by ad mirers of the school. His later pictures of views about Moret are not regarded with the same favor. He is generally a good draughtsman and an observer of the rules of perspective. Specimens are at the Luxembourg. He is not as yet represented at the New York Metro politan Museum. CAMILLE PISSARRO (1830-1903), like Sisley, does not appear to have attracted attention until the advent of impressionism, which he embraced with fervor. He went still farther than the first impressionists and became a " pointiliste." A pointiliste is an impression- 346 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING ist who is not satisfied with the effects produced by juxtaposing touches of the primal tones, but uses fine points, the idea being to increase the vibrations of light and to enable the eye to mix the tones at shorter dis tances. The drawback to the process is that all materials appear alike. Sky, earth, water, vegetation, buildings, and persons appear as if composed of the same materials. All impressionist pictures have this defect to a certain degree, but it is far more apparent in the work of the pointilistes. Pissarro perceived, and in a measure cor rected, the defect. Some of his later pictures, of the streets of Paris taken from elevations, and of views along the Seine, are interesting, attractive, and among the best productions of the school. Specimens are at the Luxembourg. The original pointiliste was GEORGES SEURAT (1859-1891), a man of talent who did not live long enough to separate the good things of impressionism from the bad. He and his followers are called " Neo- impressionists." In the opinion of many critics the greatest of all the impressionists is PIERRE AUGUSTE RENODl (1841- ). Renoir was born at Limoges in the center of France. Although he has not sought Salon dis tinction, he has been made a member of the Legion d'Honneur. A number of his pictures were exhibited in 1900 in a special hall set aside for the impressionists; also, in 1904, a number were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne. He apphes the impressionist technique to the painting of figures. Marcel writes of him : " Deeply sensitive to feminine graces, he incarnates them in in- Fig. 232. — Rafaelli. Paris view. (Luxembourg) IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 347 stinctive and natural creatures who are happy to live and to expand like flesh-made flowers amid rays of hght which they seem to drink in by every pore. Their con struction is unsubstantial, but they attract by the tender and trembling charm of their faces glowing beneath thick golden tresses. From their eyes, from their vivid purple lips, emanates a burning sensuality which at the same time is innocent and guileless. He likes to mix them and their temporary friends together in the tumult of a public ball or in the joyous confusion of a finished repast, spotting them with lively reflections which look like variegated butterflies." A very charac teristic picture is in the Luxembourg and is called Le Moidm de la Galette (Fig. 231), and represents a scene at one of the public balls of Paris. The photograph gives no idea of him as a colorist, but shows how he ignored drawing and perspective and how little he and his school cared for form and proportions. Mauclair and Wyzewa praise his work most highly. JEAN FRANQOIS RAFFAELLI (1850- : ft, 1889; gold med., 1889 E. U. ; O. ft, 1906). Raffaelli is a " Societaire " of the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts. He is claimed by^ the impressionists, though his technique is original and differs from theirs. He paints in touches, as they do, but he does not divide tones on his canvas, as they do, but mingles tones on his palette. His work is very sketchy and suggestive, very light, airy, and dashing. He is a good draughtsman and obeys the laws of perspective. His works are popular and pleasing. He first distinguished himself as an illustrator when he was about twenty-five. Since then 348 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING he has devoted himself to views of Paris and of the Parisians, with a mastery of Parisian spirit and life (Fig. 232). He produces wonderful effects with a few apparently careless and accidental strokes. As he grows older he seems to be increasing in popular favor. Several of his characteristic works are at the Luxem bourg. He may also be studied at the Petit Palais, the Musee Victor Hugo, and the Hotel de Ville. He is well known in Europe, in the United States, and in South America. He has many imitators who lack his talents and repeat only his faults and weaknesses. BERTHE MORISOT is regarded as one of the shin ing lights of impressionism. She was born in 1841 at Bruges and died in Paris in 1895. She studied at first at Lyons under a painter of the name of Guichard and for a while, after reaching Paris, under Corot. In 1874 she married a brother of Manet and subsequently adapted the methods of impressionism. To judge from her latest paintings, she seemed towards the close of her life to feel the necessity of introducing into her work greater accuracy of drawing and modeling. Her pic tures are light, airy, and graceful suggestions and im pressions without strength or character, unfinished sketches which with proper care might have been de veloped into charming pictures. In an article written after her death by Wyzewa are sentences worth trans lating. He begins as follows : " There has been no lack of woman painters in the history of art ; there has been lack of woman painting, that is, a painting expressing the particular aspect things should present to a woman's ey.es and a woman's spirit. Some women, however, have IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 349 tried to make a woman's painting. The pastels of Rosalba Carriera and the portraits of Madame Vigee- Lebrun, although they have none of the qualities of superior works of art, are impregnated with a special charm which is strong enough to prevent their being lost in the crowd of valueless works. It is because, in spite of their defects, they transmit a vision of a world which a man feels to be very distinct from his own world, — lighter, more floating, sweeter, such as it ought to be in the eyes of a woman. " If neither Rosalba Carriera nor Madame Vigee- Lebrun has unfortunately been able to present this vision artistically, they at least have the merit of having respected it, and of having held it worthy of being presented. The majority of women painters of to-day seem, on the contrary, to despise their woman's vision; they try their best to banish it from their eyes. If their works still look as if they were painted by women, the subjects look as if their husbands had selected them. " The very first merit of Madame Berthe Morisot was that she consented to look at things with her own eyes. Each one of her works offers the same indefinable charm which, in spite of their defects, is offered by the por traits of Rosalba and of Madame Vigee-Lebrun. They reveal a world which is not man's world. The works of Morisot, like the works of Rosalba and of Madame Vigee-Lebrun, show at a glance an original vision which is altogether womanly. But Morisot was not content to see the things she painted with the eyes of a woman ; she, in addition, knew how to adapt to her personal vision the most perfect methods for rendering it. In this way 350 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING she created a homogeneous and complete art, composed of all the elements necessary to constitute an art and an absolutely exquisite art." Wyzewa thinks that impressionism was specially pre destinated to serve the talents of Madame Morisot, and that impressionism was by its essence the correct method to introduce woman painting : " Everything in im pressionism seems to point to this end. The exclusive use of clear tones accords with the qualities of light ness, of fresh clearness, of easy elegance, which consti tute the essential peculiarities of a woman's vision," etc. Further along in the article he writes of Morisot's par ticular charms: "The world is to her an elegant spec tacle wherein ugliness and bitterness have no place. The unique object of her pictures, her pastels, and her drawings is a harmony of clear tints, and of light and mobile forms. Her figures are shadows, but such grace ful shadows and of such friendly expressions that their lack of life and relief is not missed. . . . Among the musicians of painting Madame Morisot holds the first place. Her works suggest an indefinitely varied scale of womanly sentiments. No one knew as she how to adapt to the expression of a figure the appropriate combina tion of lines and colors." Morisot was the direct descendant of Fragonard, his great-granddaughter.1 1 At the Salon d'Automne of 1907 there were exhibited one hundred and seventy-four oil paintings, water-colors, pastels, and drawings by Morisot, most of them the property of her daughter, Mademoiselle Ernest Rouart. The chief impression left on the mind of the writer was one of regret that a person of such exquisite talent should have had her early education injured by the defective teachings of impressionism, and that she had not lived long enough to entirely correct them. IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 351 EDGAR DEGAS (1834- ^tf?1 ' 'V7 Degas is regarded as an impressionist because he sympathized with the impressionist movement and drew from it encouragement to paint as he pleased. Very little has been written about his early life. Mauclair states that he was a friend of Moreau and that the two at one time were admirers of the early Lombard School of painting. He moreover states that Degas devoted himself to copying Ghirlandajo and other pre-Raphael- ites. About 1870 Degas became attached to the im pressionists and ever since has shared their fortunes. His name does not appear as a contributor to either of the Salons, nor does it appear that his works have met with official recognition or reward. Those who know him state that he is quiet, reserved, shunning every kind of publicity and distinction. Degas was virtually unknown to the public until the Caillebotte Collection was added to the Luxembourg. In the collection are seven of his best pastels.1 One is an excellent specimen and is sure to attract and fascinate. It is called La Danseuse Etoile, "The Star-dancer" (Fig. 233). It represents the stage of a theater. In the foreground is the dancer, indicated by a few touches of light and shadow and illumined from the footlights. It would 1 Gustave Caillebotte was a rich amateur and was among the earli est friends of the impressionists. When he died he left a magnificent collection of pictures by the old masters and of various other works of art to the state on the condition that the state should also accept and place on public exhibition Ills collection of impressionist pictures. This condition met with violent opposition on the part of the professors of the Ecole des Beaikx Arts, headed by Gerome; but the state overruled the objections and accepted the legacy. 352 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING be difficult to conceive of a more light, airy, and grace ful creature. She is posed on her right foot; her left leg from the knee is extended behind her. Her arms are gracefully outstretched; her head is slightly turned to the right. She is as light and graceful as a butterfly, yet thoroughly realistic. Just such an effect might have been produced by a living dancer. The view is taken from an elevation, as is evident from the perspec tive of the ballet-girls standing at the back of the stage, whose feet are on a level with the star's head. The pic ture is small, about one by one and a half feet, a flash of genius. Degas painted numbers of pictures of ballet- girls just as they are when exercising and rehearsing and when away from the illusions of the stage, — poor, anaemic, ill-formed children of the people, with common features, ugly feet and hands, painfully posturing and pirouetting at the word or command of their trainer and to the scraping of a solitary fiddle. These sketehes are so full of life that it seems as if Degas himself must have been the drillmaster. Other pictures show the poor girls making their toilets or in their miserable homes. These works are painted with such an accuracy of pose and grouping that Degas must have studied hard and profitably before he adopted the apparently careless style which made him famous. Degas has painted racecourse scenes and has made studies of the nude which are highly esteemed by his admirers, also scenes in Montmartre restaurants ; but upon his ballet- girls will rest his reputation. More indirect than upon Degas has been the effect of impressionism upon Roll. Fig. 233. — Degas. Dancer. (Luxembourg) IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 353 ALFRED PHILIPPE ROLL (1847- : Med. 3rd cl, 1875; Med. 1st cl, 1877; ft, 1883; 0. ft, 1889; C. ft, 1900; Gd. p., 1900 E. U.). Roll was born in Paris and studied under Gerome and Bonnat. He is one of the strongest, most versatile and attractive of the painters of the day, and does as much as any living artist to keep alive the position and reputation of French painting. He belongs to the new Salon and is one of its strongest members. He is not an impressionist in the technical sense of the word, but accepts the best teachings of impressionism and makes use of its methods whenever they seem to him proper and valuable. He accepts the new without dis regarding the old, the tried, and the established. Upon Roll and those who agree with him are based the hopes of a reunited Salon and the reelecting of a new and single standard. Roll seems to have studied with profit many of his predecessors and to have made liberal use of their peculiarities. He first distinguished himself in 1874 by a picture of Don Juan et Haydee, now in the Museum of Avignon, in which are apparent in fluences of Fromentin and also of Manet. A military picture, of 1875, called Halte la, now at Versailles, and a picture of a flood at Toulouse, in the Museum of Havre, show decided influences of Gericault and a mas tery of violent action and complicated movements. In 1882 appeared the large picture Fete du 14 Juillet, now in the Petit Palais (Fig. 234). A grand composition, brilliantly setting forth the joy and exhilaration of the French Fourth of July. This was the beginning of other official pictures which show Roll at his best and 23 354 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING in full possession of his many acquired and innate powers. As a setter forth of French official and public life, Roll is without a rival. His two pictures, Cente- naire de 1889 and Inauguration du Pont Alexandre HI (Fig. 234°), are as fine commemorative pictures as were ever painted. They must not be overlooked by visitors to Versailles, as they show the very best of French democratic and republican life of the day. There is another and quite a different phase of Roll's character. He delights in rural, animal, and vegetable subjects. He loves the manifestations of the expanse of out-of-door life. A capital example is at the Lux embourg and represents a milking-scene (Fig. 235). A picture of youthful health and beauty has just fin ished milking. She stands to the front, holding her filled pail. Behind her is the cow, partially hidden by her figure. Amid the landscape background is seen the roof of the farmhouse. The composition is very simple and expressive, full of hght, rural health and happiness, academic exactness of drawing and modeling, and all the brightness of the new methods. Marcel calls it " a cordial gayety rendered sensible by wonderful tech nique." Other pictures in the same style are his Femme au Taureau, of 1885, and his Enfant et Taureau, of 1889. In his Caresse de Soleil, of 1907, love of nature may have carried him beyond the bounds of plastic art. A nude woman with arms outstretched and head thrown back seems drinking in the sunlight through every pore. The idea and the treatment are very im pressionistic. The picture did not add to Roll's repu tation. Roll has a fine picture at the Hotel de Ville called Joies de la Vie. He has painted a few portraits ; Fig. 23ia. — Roll. Inauguration of the Alexander III. bridge. (Versailles) Fig. 235. — Roll. In Normandy. (Luxembourg) IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS , 355 among others, " Jules Simon," in 1878, " Jane Hading," in 1890, and " Rochefort," in 1896. PAUL ALBERT BESNARD (1849- : P. d. R., 1874; Med. 3rd cl, 1874; Med. 2nd cl, 1880; ft, 1888; 0. ft, 1895; C, 1903). Besnard was one of the seceders from the old Salon and is one of the vice-presidents of the new. He was born in Paris and for a while studied under Cabanel. He began exhibiting as early as 1868 and captured a third-class medal the year he took the Prix de Rome. After his return from Rome he was for three years in England. After his return to Paris he received an or der to decorate the vestibule of the School of Pharmacy and succeeded admirably, developing high order of dec orative ability. Since then he has contributed to the decoration of a number of public buildings, the Hotel de Ville, the- Sorbonne, one of the Mairies, the Theatre Francais, and last year (1907) the Petit Palais. He has also painted a large number of portraits, in which effects of hght are more studied than accuracy of detail. Some of his studies in the methods of impressionism have excited comment, especially a picture in the Luxem bourg called Une Femme qui se chauffe (Fig. 236). A nude woman is warming her back at the fire. The artist's intent was to give the shining and the reflection of artificial light on the human epidermis. The picture is a wonderful example of the extraordinary optical effects which can be produced by the skillful and subtle management of pigments. Besnard is a master of color as understood and practiced by impressionists, and, like many of the school, seems willing to sacrifice 356 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING to it the beauties of line and composition. Another artist who devoted himself to the study of light is Carriere. EUGENE CARRIERE (1849-1907: Med. 3rd cl, 1885; Med. 2nd cl, 1887; silver med., 1889 E. U.; ft, 1889). Carriere was born at Gournay, not far from Paris. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Cabanel. He volunteered during the Prussian War and was made a prisoner. After the war he competed without success for the Prix de Rome. He began exhibiting in 1876. In 1879 he exhibited a picture of a nursing mother, now in the Museum of Avignon, which had such a suc cess that it established his style. Marcel writes of him : " From then on his dream is fixed. He never again left the four walls of the familiar home, where all the human interests of life are expressed in miniature by the drama of births, the cares of education, the sad ness of departures, the agonies of sickness while await ing the great ' perhaps ' of death. Carriere made him self the historian of one fireside, his own, and without fear of monotony and with a tender solicitude has noted all its incidents, well assured that everybody would recognize his own emotions in this microcosm. One figure dominates the whole cycle, that of the absorbed, sad, almost tragic mother, who in her troubled thought- fulness forgets herself to feel and suffer with all ; while about her are bunches of little ones complaining or laughing, filled with lively curiosity or coquetry, with small miseries or great griefs, who must be petted, pitied, and cajoled in turn. All this Carriere tells with .Fig. 236. — Besnard. Warming herself. (Luxembourg) Fig. 237. — Carriere. Family scene. (Luxembourg) IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 357 a few dull tones, grays, reddish browns, with a rare bit of rose. They suffice, however, to give him an atmos phere and to animate his forms. He succeeds entirely by the study of values ; distributing them, mixing lights and shadows, with a decisive certainty which almost without material help causes the reliefs to stand out, outlines to form themselves, depths to be defined. The same hght which is flashing and sonorous in Besnard's pictures is here silent and flowing, but its soft presence is everywhere felt like the presence of a sweet friend. A profound and subtle charm emanates from his canvas, as attractive as secret confidences." To ordinary ob servers Carriere's pictures appear as if they were bathed in a murky mist and as if in seeking originality he had cultivated eccentricity and discarded sobriety and order. It requires the faith of an impressionist to perceive their beauties. That they are perceived and enjoyed by the faithful cannot be doubted. As his pic tures are all alike, any one will do as a sample (Fig. 237). Another prominent artist who acknowledges substan tial indebtedness to impressionism and who makes use of its methods is Martin. HENRI JEAN GUILLAUME MARTIN (1860- : Med. 1st cl, 1883; gold med., 1889 E. U.; ft, 1898; Gd. p., 1900 E. U. ; O. ft, 1903). Martin was born in Toulouse, Haute Garonne, and studied under J. P. Laurens. Next to Puvis de Cha vannes, he is regarded as the foremost of French deco rators. Most of his best works are in the South of France, in Bordeaux, Pau, Toulouse, and Marseilles. 358 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING Specimens of his work are in some of the archivolts of the Hotel de Ville, Les Muses Consolatrices. His most highly esteemed work is in the Capitol of Toulouse. Les Fauchers (Fig. 238) is a good specimen of his earnest simplicity in drawing and composition and his very satisfactory arrangement of hght and color. Among the minor lights of impressionism should be mentioned Gaston Latouche, Jules Cheret, Paul Helleu, Jacques Emile Blanche, Mademoiselle Dufau, Albert Lebourg, Henri and Marie Duhem. Among those who seem to favor a return to former methods are Dauchez, Rene Menard, Charles Cottet, and Lucien Simon. Most of these have been rewarded in one Salon or the other; several are members of the Legion d'honneur; all have been favored by contem poraneous criticism and may be regarded as representa tive painters of the day. Here the Handbook may stop for the present. Most of the deceased painters mentioned and many of the living have permanent places in art history. The study of their works will add to a knowledge of the principles of art and will administer to the capacity of good judgment. To mention even the names of the hundreds of young painters whose works have been officially rewarded at the Salons of the last ten years, and to cite the favors they have received at the hands of kind criticism, would pro long this work beyond measure, without, perhaps, pro moting the obj ect of its compilation. At the last ( 1908) exposition of the. Societe des Artistes Francais over eighty painters received medals or honorable mentions ; Fig. 238. — Martin. Reapers. (Toulouse) IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 359 and yet according to the best criticism there was not a single chef-d'osuvre exhibited. The new Salon may be less prodigal of its distinctions ; but a little mathematics will show that for the last ten years at least a thousand claims would be presented to the impartial chronicler, not including those of the extremists who despise, or pretend to, the Salons and official recognition. Better let the chronicler wait until time has eliminated and given permanence to reputation. French critics agree that French painting is, and for a score of years has been, at a low ebb ; but they do not agree as to the causes or as to the remedies. When they do agree it will be time to cite them. Great art periods in the world's history have always had back of them great deeds, noble thoughts, profound beliefs, or heroic suffering. France is not the only nation that has few of these things to day. The French are as artistic as they ever were, and will continue to be so as long as the race lasts. But French art occupies itself to-day with the gratifica tion of individual and material taste, — with ornaments and decorations, with furniture and jewelry, with the palaces of the very rich, the upholstering of the very luxurious ; with everything known under the head of parure. The big art of the day, if there be one worthy of the name, is architecture, and its triumphs are econo mic and material. In a smaller way France is suffering from its methods. When there was one academy well established, it and its enemies had something to fight about and were inspired by the fighting. When there was one standard well recognized, there was but one way to reach it and artists had to submit to a control which fortified them to good work. Now hberty borders on 360 MODERN FRENCH PAINTING license, and license is the enemy of the hard work which lies at the foundation of success. Moreover, if an artist would work hard to-day, there is no one in authority to guide him how to set about it. He will be drawn in various ways by various masters. An idle theme to pursue. There may come a reawakening which will put all theories to blushing. Robert de la Sizeranne's con clusion to his review of the last (1908) Salons is worth quoting : " The average of talent has not ceased to in crease, and the percentage of works sufficiently well drawn and painted is more favorable to the artists of the Salons of the twentieth century than to those held in the old Palais de l'Industrie. But of what use is the ' average ' in art ? What are of use, are the summits. Art is not a harvest the good average return of which' compensates for the absence of fruits that are rare and precious. To play its part among a people it is not necessary that its products be numerous, but they must be perfect. A single work that succeeds in expressing in a .definite manner one of our sentiments and in fixing its impression on our memory, if seen, reproduced, and cited, passes into everybody's life, and thus will move and console generations without number, and may mys teriously refine everything in a race that can be refined. But for this accomphshment the work must be powerful. Thousands of things we forget cannot play the part of one we remember. If we try to console ourselves with the thousands, we resemble the horticulturist who, not being able to produce chrysanthemums, consoled him self by stating that each year he raised more apples. An apple may be a very useful thing, but a hundred apples can no more replace one chrysanthemum than a IMPRESSIONISM AND IMPRESSIONISTS 361 hundred honorable works of art can replace the one chef-d'ceuvre which is wanting to the Salons of 1908." Of Marcel Baschet's portrait of Henri Rochefort which took the Medaille d'honneur, Sizeranne writes as follows : " It is certainly the most conscientious, the most solid, and the most complete work that portrait painting has produced for many years. Undoubtedly what Preault * said of a great artist of his time may be said of Baschet: that is, he lacks restlessness. But restlessness when protracted becomes fatiguing, espe cially when nothing comes of it. As for twenty-odd years the prophets of ' modernism ' have been challeng ing artists to reveal souls, we are happy when a good painter, who understands his business, shows us a mask or a face well drawn, well modeled, well put in space, liv ing and breathing, of correct color and of exact values. This M. Marcel Baschet has accomplished." No further comment on French painting of the day seems needed. If a portrait of negative value can receive the highest honor, then French painting is indeed at a low ebb. 1 Antoine Auguste Preault (1809-1879), a distinguished sculptor and art critic. ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ARTISTS ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ARTISTS Auburtin (Francis), 332. Auguin, 332. Bail (Joseph), 329. Baschet (Marcel), 330. Baudit, 332. Baudry (Paul), 257. Bayard (Emile), 325. Bellange (Hippolyte), 121. Benjamin-Constant, 312. Beraud (Jean), 327. Berne-Bellecour, 299. Besnard (Albert), 355. Billotte, 332. Binet (Victor), 327. Blanc (Joseph), 314. Blancard, 309. Bonheur (Rosa), 230. Bonnat, 269. Bonvin, 218. Boucher, 19. Bouchot, 135. Boudin, 187. Bouguereau, 244. Boulanger (G. R.), 282. Boulanger (Louis), 139. Boutet de Monvel, 327. Breton (E. A.), 186. Breton (J. A.), 251. Brouillet, 328. Brown (John Lewis), 261. Busson, 186. Cabanel, 204. Cabat, 150. Carriere, 356. Cazin, 330. Chabry, 332. Champmartin, 125. > Chaplin, 247. Chardin, 29. Charlet, 121. Chartran, 326. Chintreuil, 181. Cogniet, 122. Coignard, 233. Collin, 319. Comte, 284. Constable, 144. Cormon, 313. Corot, 145. Cot, 300. Couder, 121. Courbet, 220. Court, 124. Couture, 141. Dagnan-Bouveret, 320. Dantan, 318. Daubigny (Charles), 162. Dauchez, 332. David (Louis), 54. Debon, 138. Decamps, 130. Defaux, 233. Degas, 351. Dehodencq, 226. Delacroix (Eugene), 103. Delaroche (Paul), 131. Delaunay, 258. Desportes, 47. Detaille, 293. De Troy, 44. Deveria, 140. Diaz, 152. Didier, 233. Dinet, 328. Dore, 267. 360 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ARTISTS Dupre (Jules), 155. Dupre (Julien), 328. Duran (Carolus), 277. Fantin-Latour, 275. Ferrier, 317. Feyen-Perrin, 255. Flameng (F.), 322. Flandrin (Hippolyte), 209. Flers, 148. Fleury-Chenu, 185. Fleury (Robert), 126. Fleury (Tony-Robert), 324. Fragonard, 25. Francais (F. L.), 151. Friant, 324. Fromentin, 223. Gerard, 74. Gericault, 99. Gerome, 189. Gigoux, 138. Giraud, 279. Girodet-Trioson, 70. Gleyre, 136. Greuze, 31. Gros, 77. Guerin, 67. Guillemet (J. B. A.), 326. Guillon, 186. Hamon, 227. Hanoteau, 186. Harpignies, 184. Hebert, 213. Heilbuth, 286. Heim, 110. Henner, 262. Huet, 149. Humbert, 308. Ingres, 85. Isabey (Eugene), 128. Lagarde, 332. Lambrinet, 185. Lami, 125. Lancret, 17. Lansyer, 185. Latour, 42. Laurens (Jean Paul), 300. Lebrun (Vigee), 45. Lecomte de Nouy, 309. Lefebvre, 274. Legros, 223. Le Liepvre, 185. Le Moyne, 36. Lepage (J. Bastien), 317. Lerolle (Henry), 319. Le Roux, 164. Levy (Emile), 283. Levy (H. L.), 300. Lhermitte, 311. Lobre, 329. Maignan, 310. Maillot, 316. Manet, 265. MariJhat, 183. Marchard (J. L.), 304. Martin, 357. Meissonier, 198. Melin, 233. Melingue, 307. Merson, 316. Michallon, 144. Millet, 165. Monet, 342. Moreau, 248. Morisot, 348. Morot, 299. Nattier, 40. Natoire, 45. Naxon, 186. Neuville (Alphonse de), 291. Oudry, 47. Pater, 17. Pelouse, 186. Pils, 207. Pissarro, 345. Pointelin, 331. ALPHABETICAL LIST OF ARTISTS 367 , Prud'hon, 64. Puvis de Chavannes, 235. Rafpaelli, 347. Raflet, 121. Rapin, 185. Regamey, 282. Regnault (J. B.), 52. Regnault (A. S. H.), 280. Renoir, 346. Ribot, 234. Ricard (L. G.), 282. Richemont de. 328. Riesener, 137. Robert (Henri), 48. Rochegrosse, 323. Roll, 353. Rousseau (Philippe), 233. Rousseau (Theodore), 156. Roybet, 325. Saintin, 283. Seheffer (Ary), 113. Schenck, 288. Schreyer, 287. Sege, 186. Seurat, 346. Sigalon, 109. Sisley, 345. Stevens (Alfred), 287. Tassaert, 129. Tattegrain, 321. Tissot, 285. Tocque, 41. Troyon (Constant), 177. Valenciennes, 144. Van Loo (Carle), 37. Vayson, 326. Vernet (Antoine), 113. Vernet (Claude Joseph), 113. Vernet (Horace), 113. Veyrasset, 233. Vibert, 306 Vien, 49. Vincent, 51. Watteatj, 10. Winterhalter, 285. Worms, 306. Yvon, 284. Ziem, 250. A few others are mentioned on p. 358.