THE J. PAUL GETTY MUSEUM LIBRARY Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/jeanbaptistegreuOOgreu 1 I-' ? > ■■■■ l'^ «/ • U f-i f I I r *• 4 ■X MASTERS IN ART ®tjf ;0lustnan A Monthly Publication Devoted to the Educational Interests of Music Edited by THOMAS TAPPER 15 cents per copy $1.50 per year W E HA\’E PURCHASED the above-named publication, and the December number was the first issue under our ownership. We intend to make this well- known publication more than ever desirable and complete. We have set a verv high standard for ourselves in this venture, and shall not be satisfied unless we produce the finest musical journal published anywhere. The Alusical Record and Review is dis- continued. We shall earnestly endeavor to deserve the co-operation and interest of all music lovers, and already haye reason to be much gratified from the evidences of a disposition on the part of the music-loving public to assist us in carrying out our plans. Cijoii: flult Cljoral Edited by THOMAS TAPPER A Monthly Magazine for Choirmasters Each number contains i6 pages of new music $1.00 per year lo cents a number Sample copy free OLIVER DITSON COMPANY, BOSTON, MASS. b88 BRAUN’S CARBON PRINTS FINEST AND MOST DURABLE IMPORTED WORKS OF ART NF, miNDRKD TilOUS.AND dirctt rcpriuluctions from the original [laintings and drawings by old and modern masters in the galleries of Amstertiam, Antwerj), Herlin, li)res- tlen, Florence, Haarlem, Hague, London, Ma- drid, Milan, Paris, St. Petersburg, Rome, Venire, V'ienna, Windsor, and others. Special Terms to Schools art (©alltrits OF EDWARD BRANDUS 391 FIFTH AVENUE 391 Between 36th and 37th Streets NEW YORK 16, RUE DE LA PAIX, 16 PARIS erl)ibition of paintingis Bv the Ijcading Masters of the French School AM) BRAUN, CLEMENT & CO. 249 Fifth Avenue, corner 28th Street NEW YORK CITY Small catalogue free Ancient portraits By the Old Masters of the Early French, English, and Dutch Schools In answering advertisements, please mention Mastkrs in .Art MASTERS IN ART ^Exercise Your Skin Keep up its activity, and aid its natural changes, not by expensive Turkish baths, but by Hand Sapolio, the only soap that liberates the activities of the pores without working chemical changes. Costs but a trifle. ^The Perfect Purity of Hand Sapolio makes it a very desirable toilet article; it contains no animal fats, but is made from the most healthful of the vegetable oils. It is truly the “Dainty Woman’s Friend.” Its use is a fine habit. Cupid Tinds His Strongest Ally “A box of dainties now V /m / m m / m m %/ and then is relished by M / m / ^ M m M / 0 both maids and men.” m / ml /m m /\y — Cupid. g/ fl /m r Chocolates and / Confections Whitman *s Instantaneous Chocolate STEPHEN F. WHITMAN & SON, 1316 Chestnut St., Philadelphia. Made instantly with boiling milk. Sold everywhere. In answering advertisements, please mention Masters in Art MAHTI-iliH IN Ain I'l.ATK I PmQTOO**^** it U*Nft|l.k I ; ni l /K I II !•: i.is 1 1- \ I m; I ; I II I. W M.I. M l; I nl.l.l i l lns . l.iiN l>"\ y\ Till-; nm >K i s J*i i ‘ hi* i i.nr V m . PA in>» MAHT^.HH IN AHT IM.AIK M if •»*«», * O't t 47l MAHTKI'H t.V AKT I'l.ATK IM *MOT0Oa*^>< •f )I*AUW. r 1 MAHTKIIH I .V AHT IM.A I K V t r,;i ] c;i(i;i ZK iMiii i i(.\ n iiK Tin: i ( ) r N r i:."is mdi i. IMIIV A I K i iim.h: riii.v .1 i:v MAHTKItS t\ Airr I'r.A'IK VI 'MOrOORA^M «V UA«t|l I [or.] i . iu:r/K IWni KN« K u vi.i.M i; roM.i:« rin\, i,on*|hi\ I II I ; i.i; ) I y.H MAHTKKH l.V A H'l* PI. A I K VII fNOfOOKA^M tf ••AUM, 4 ' • im 1 MK. M.IKIIl m Hn I IIS' M I I Ml \.i I in.N, l.n\ DON Gin;iT/K I’HK VIM.AGI-: HK1J)E LOUVliE, PAHIS 2 i 5 a P MASTKHS IX AKT Pl.ATK \X MASTh.HH t.\ ,\in IM.AIK X **ou A f ' MA'.A/ HI »mr ; ti:\] »; in:i /i I'lmiKWI Ml MM. I \M\orM) M M 1. \M • MI.M I I M SN , I.M \ IH »N PUKTKAIT OF GKEUZE BY HIMSELF LOUVHE. PAHIS Greuze was of medium height, and distinguished in appearance. His head was well formed, his forehead high, his eyes large and bright, and his expression frank and ingenuous. He wore his hair in curls on either side of his face, and being fond of dress and finery frequently affected striking and gay-colored clothes. The portrait here reproduced was painted by the artist late in life, and is one of the best examples of his skill in portraiture. His hair is powdered, and he wears a blue coat, gray vest, and loosely knotted white cravat. MASTERS IN ART BORN 172 5; DIED 1805 FRENCH SCHOOL J EAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE was born at Tourniis, P rance, on August 21, 1725. His father, a master-mason anti builder by trade, was desirous that his son, who, when only eight years old showed a decided talent for drawing, should adopt architecture as his profession; but the boy had set his heart upon becoming a painter, and no arguments or threats could shake him in his determination. All his spare moments were devoted to sketching, any stray piece of paper or even a whitewashed wall being sufficient to tempt his pencil. When forbidden by his father to waste his time thus, Jean-Bap- tiste, by no means obedient to his parent’s wishes, persistently exercised his skill in secret, drawing and sketching in his own room long after he was supposed to be abed and asleep. Finally a pen-and-ink copy of a head of St. James which he gave to his father as a birthday present, and which was so skilfully executed that it was mistaken for an engraving, convinced the elder Greuze that his son’s talent justified the boy in his wish to be an art- ist; and accordingly Jean-Baptiste was sent to Lyons, where he became a pupil of Grandon, a portrait-painter of that place. Grandon’s studio was a veritable picture-factory, and (jreuze, taught to work with more speed than excellence, was expected to produce a finished picture each day. As a result, he became disgusted with this mechanical method, and, conscious of powers which he longed to display in a broader field, decided to go to Paris and try his fortune in the city where so many had gone before him, equally hopeful, ecpially ambitious, and etjually destitute. P'ew details of Greuze’s early life in Paris are known. He does not seem to have attached himself to any studio nor to have studied under any master, but to have worked alone and in obscurity, earning a living as best he could by the exercise of his profession, which he pursued in spite of hardships and discouragements. In the course of time we hear of him at the Academy, where he studied drawing under Natoire, and where he encountered the hos- tility and jealousy of his fellow-students, who so hurt the pride and self-es- teem of the young provincial artist by the lack of consideration with which they treated him that he finally complained to Silvestre, director of the Acad- 24 MASTERS IN ART emy. Struck by the ability that the young man’s studies and sketches dis- played, Silvestre forthwith agreed to have his portrait painted by Greuze — a commission which gave the painter a certain notoriety. It was owing, too, to the protection and patronage of Silvestre and to the kindness of Pigalle, the king’s sculptor, that Greuze was later accepted as a candidate for mem- bership in the Academy, thereby acquiring the right to exhibit his pictures at the annual exhibitions, or Salons, held by that body. At about this time (17 55) Greuze had the good fortune to attract the at- tention of a rich and influential amateur, M. de la Live de Jully, by a picture that he had painted some time previously, entitled ‘A Father Reading the Bible to his Children.’ This work was bought by M. de Jully, who invited the artists and art-lovers of Paris to his house to see his new acquisition. Its success was immediate, and Greuze suddenly found himself famous. When exhibited at the Salon of 1755 the picture attracted the attention and aroused the enthusiasm of all. Nothing of the kind had been seen in Paris; and people crowded around the canvas to study each detail of this portrayal of humble life, that was as different from the pompous and grandiose pictures of the court-painters, in which royalty was wont to figure under the guise of some Greek or Roman hero, as from the Arcadian scenes and ‘Fetes galantes’ of Watteau and his followers, or the frivolous and sensual allegories of Boucher. T his picture by Greuze, in which a venerable peasant propounds the Scrip- tures to his family, tells a moral story that coincided so exactly with the ideas contained in the dramas of Diderot, a well-known writer of that period in France, that it was no wonder that the painter who had sprung so suddenly into notice should have been spoken of as “a pupil of Diderot.” And Dide- rot, advocating that art should be devoted to the cause of morality, that to make virtue attractive and vice repulsive “was the duty of every honest man who could wield pen, brush, or chisel,” was loud in his praise of Greuze, whose fame was vastly increased by these eulogies. Towards the end of this year, Greuze, now thirty years old, went to Italy with the Abbe Gougenot, who defrayed the expenses of the tour; but although he studied diligently during the two years that were spent in Italy, he was too thoroughly French to acquire anything of the Italian manner. The principal occurrence that marked this period of his career was a love- affair with a young Roman lady, Laetitia, the beautiful daughter of the Duke del Orr . . . , to whom the painter had been given a letter of introduction. Cordially received by the duke, Greuze was engaged by him to give lessons in painting to his daughter; and before long the two young people had fallen in love with each other, and Greuze, fully aware of the hopelessness of his attachment to one so far above him in station, was plunged into so melan- choly a mood that he won for himself among his fellow-students the title of “the lovesick cherub,” a title which his light curly hair and boyish appear- ance made especially applicable. Laetitia, fearing that her affection was un- requited, was equally in despair, but upon an avowal of love which she wrung from the painter her gay spirits returned, and it was long before Greuze could convince her that all must be at an end between them. Her reproaches [ 66 ] GREUZE 25 were hard to bear, and more than once the lover almost yielded to her per- suasions that they should elope. Finally, however, feigning an illness that later became genuine, Greuze firmly resisted all temptation to see Lstitia; and it was only at the request of her father, who wished him to paint her portrait, that upon his recovery he again visited the palace. Three months had meantime gone by, and Laetitia’s hand had been promised in marriage to a young nobleman chosen by her father as a suitable husband for her; and Greuze, heart-broken, left Rome, secretly carrying with him a copy of the portrait that he had painted of her whom he had so hopelessly loved. Upon his return to Paris he devoted himself to his art more assiduously than ever. Among the list of his pictures for the year 17 57 are many that bear Italian names and in which the figures are dressed in Italian costumes, but beyond this the influence of Italy is not perceptible in his work, and in- deed the only foreign influence ever to be observed there is that of the great Flemish master, Rubens, for whose pictures Greuze entertained an unbounded admiration, frequently gaining permission to study those that were at that time in the Luxembourg Palace, where, mounted on a ladder that he might observe them at close range, he would spend hours. In addition to his subject pictures, Greuze exhibited at this time several portraits and the first of his numerous representations of heads of young girls and children, upon which his fame to-day especially rests. In 1761 he sent a picture to the Salon that vied in popularity with his painting of ‘A Father Reading the Bible to his Children,’ exhibited six years before. This was ‘The Village Bride’ ( ‘L’Accordee de Village’), which created a sensation in Paris and called forth a gushing rhapsody from Diderot. The success of this picture confirmed Greuze in the direction of his art — the representation of moral scenes from the life of the lower classes — and from that time he was indefatigable in his search for such subjects, finding them in the streets and market-places of Paris, on the quays, in the little cafes of the boulevards which he visited in the evenings, sketch-book in hand — any- where, in short, where he could observe the life of the people. His desire was to paint a series of twenty-six pictures after the fashion of the English Ho- garth, in illustration of a narrative of his own composition entitled ‘Basil and Theobald, or the Two Educations.’ This project was never carried out, but an idea of its intended style may be deduced from the two companion pic- tures now in the Louvre, painted at about this time, ‘The Eather’s Curse’ and ‘The Punished Son.’ Greuze was now the fashion, and orders for his works poured in upon him faster than they could be filled. Eortunate and prosperous as he was in his profession, however, his home life was anything but happy. Soon after his return from Italy he had been attracted by Mademoiselle Anne-Gabriellc Babuty, the daughter of a bookseller in Paris, and herself in charge of the little book-shop where Greuze first made her acquaintance. She was then somewhat over thirty years of age, and possessed of a fine figure, a certain doll-like beauty, a pink-and-white complexion, and an innocent, naive ex- pression, which captivated the fancy of the painter, always susceptible to the 26 MASTERS IN ART charms of woman; and before long, by the scheming of Mademoiselle Babuty, he had been persuaded into a reluctant marriage. At first all went well. Greuze frequently painted his wife, whose beauty was of the kind most pleasing to his fancy, introducing her portrait into many of his compositions. Three children were born, of whom two daughters lived to be the comfort of the painter’s old age; but as time went on no more wretchedly unhappy household could be found than that of Greuze, whose wife made his life miserable by her extravagant ways, her violent temper and neglect of her children, and finally, by her faithlessness and flagrant immo- rality. Greuze bore his trials long and patiently, but at last in despair he ob- tained the legal right of separation from his wife. Jn the meantime, a disappointment embittered for a period his artistic career. Although many years had gone by since his admission as a candidate for membership in the Academy, the picture which the rules of that body re- quired that an artist should paint before he could become an academician had never been executed. The necessity of complying with the rules of the Academy was brought home to Greuze by a refusal to admit any more of his works to the yearly exhibitions until he had painted the requisite picture, and accordingly he now set to work upon his task; but as the full honors of membership were granted only to a painter of history, he foolishly selected a classic subject, utterly foreign to his talent, ‘Septimius Severus rebuking his son Caracalla for having attempted his Life.’ When completed the work was submitted to the members of the Acad- emy while Greuze confidently awaited their decision in an adjoining room. At the end of an hour he was summoned. “Monsieur Greuze,’’ said the director, addressing him, “you have been received, but it is as a painter of genre. The Academy has considered your former productions, which are ex- cellent, but has closed its eyes upon this picture, which is worthy neither ot the Academy nor of you.’’ Greuze, astounded and deeply hurt, attempted to defend his picture, and even carried on his defence later in the newspapers; but, alas, the public echoed the opinion of the Academy and even Diderot condemned the work. Diderot’s fervor, indeed, had cooled, and in his notice of the Salon of 17 69, the date of Greuze’s unfortunate experience with the Academy, he retracts much of the extravagant praise previously lavished upon the painter, curtly remarking, “I no longer care for Greuze.” From the day of this humiliating repulse Greuze was at daggers drawn with the Academy, and refused for many years to send his pictures to the annual exhibitions. He even left Paris and lived fora time in Anjou. When, how- ever, he returned to Paris his popularity was as great as ever. His studio became the resort of the fashionable world. The Emperor Joseph ii. and other foreign princes made it a point when in Paris to visit the famous Monsieur Greuze; the Empress of Russia invited him to her court — an invitation, however, which he did not accept — he was appointed painter to the t rench king, and assigned an apartment in the Louvre. High prices were paid for his works, notably for his numerous heads of young girls which cap- [ 68 ] GREUZE 27 tivated the public taste and added immensely to his reputation, and the sale of engravings made from these as well as from his other pictures still further increased his wealth. Such success might well have turned the head of a stronger man than Greuze, who, notoriously vain and easily flattered, was intoxicated by the adulation he received. Sometimes he made himself ridic- ulous by his bombast and foolish conceit. “O monsieur,” he would ex- claim, pointing to one of his own works, “here is a picture that astonishes even me who painted it. It is perfectly incomprehensible how with merely a few bits of pounded earth a man can put so much life into a canvas. Really, if these were the days of mythology I should fear the fate of Prometheus!” “He is a little yain, our painter,” wrote Diderot, “but his yanity is that of a child — the intoxication of genius. Take his naivete from him and you take away his spirit; the fire would be extinguished and all his charm gone. I very much fear that when Greuze becomes modest there will no longer be any reason for his being so.” Not every one, however, took so charitable a view of the painter’s exaggerated self-esteem as did Diderot, and many of his fellow artists were irritated by his inordinate conceit. On one occasion the Marquis de Marigny, an authority in the artistic world of Paris, as he passed through the rooms of the Salon followed by his usual train of artists, paused before a picture by Greuze and turning to the painter exclaimed, “That is beautiful I ” “I know it, monsieur,” replied Greuze with his customary com- placency; “moreover, every one praises me; and yet I am in need of com- missions.” Whereupon, Joseph Vernet, the marine painter, who was pres- ent, addressing Greuze said, “That is because you have a host of enemies, and among them one who, although he loves you to distraction, will never- theless be your ruin.” “And who is that?” asked the painter. “Yourself,” was the reply. Easily flattered, Greuze was as easily offended by any adverse criticism of his work. The famous Madame GeofFrin, at whose house all the wit and fashion of Paris were wont to congregate, once described a picture of his representing a young mother surrounded by her numerous offspring as “a fricassee of children.” Greuze never forgave her. “ What does she mean by criticizing such a work of art!” he cried. “J.et her beware, or I will paint her as a school-mistress, rod in hand, so that children for all time shall look upon her with terror.” Hut although irritated by what he considered disparagement of his talent, and at times brusque and rude in his manner, Greuze was, as a rule, an agree- able companion. His conversation was elevated in tone, and when speakitig on the subject of his art, in which he was absorbed, he became animated and even elotpicnt. In his intercourse with women, in whose society he ttu>k great delight, he was invariably gracious and charming, and praise from women was especially acceptable to his selt-love. For twenty-five years Greuze was the fashionable painter of Paris. C’ourted by the rich and influential, popular as well among the lower classes, to which his work so strongly appealed, he was at the height of his success when sud- denly the Revolution swept like a wave over Paris, bringing tlestruction to the 28 MASTERS IN ART old order ot things and engulfing the fortunes of thousands. Greuze lost all that he possessed. Even his glory had waned, for the star of David had arisen, and at once the fickle taste of the public turned to the new art that he rep- resented — the classic, severe, and “antique-heroical” — and away from the moral scenes and pretty faces painted by the artist who but yesterday had been its idol. Greuze, in short, had outlived the movement in art of which he had been the interpreter. Neglected, almost forgotten, he realized that his day was over. In spite, however, of every discouragement, he worked on in- defatigably to the end. The pension that had been granted him by the king came to an end with the cessation of royal authority, and at seventy-five he was reduced to the utmost poverty. The touching appeal that he addressed to the Minister of the Interior tells of his changed fortunes. “The picture that I am painting for the government,” he writes, “is only half finished, but my circumstances are such that I am forced to ask you to pay me part of the money in advance, that I may be enabled to go on with the work. . . . I have lost everything but my talent and my courage. I am seventy-five years old and I have not a single order for a picture. It is the saddest hour of all my life.” On the twenty-first of March, 1805, Greuze died at the age of eighty years. To the last he had retained the affection and regard of a few faithful pupils and the devotion of one of his daughters, who lived with him. It is said that when Napoleon heard of his death he exclaimed, “Dead! Poor and neglected! Why did he not speak.? I would gladly have given him a pitcher of Sevres filled with gold for every copy ever made of his ‘Broken Pitcher.’” %i)e art of (®mije CHARLESNORMAND ‘J.B. GREUZE’ I N his own day Greuze was all the fashion. From the time of Boucher to that of David, his works aroused an enthusiasm that was beyond their deserts. But, notwithstanding the enthusiasm of the public, his contempo- raries saw clearly just where the weakness of this so much vaunted painter lay; and Diderot’s estimate of him, if all its qualifications — all its “buts” and “howevers” — be included, would, after all, form quite a comprehensive crit- icism of Greuze, for in his various notices of the artist’s pictures he has pointed out his monotony and artificiality, the dryness of his inspiration, his carelessness in the drawing of draperies, his excessive use of purplish tones, and many other things. Diderot says that one day while visiting La Tour, the famous pastellist, he asked La Tour why it was that in so charming a picture as the ‘Little Girl with the Dog’ by Greuze, where the painter had so admirably succeeded in the difficult art of painting flesh, he had not been able to paint linen, for that the drapery falling over one of the girl’s arms was like a piece of stone furrowed out to resemble folds. “The reason,” answered La Tour, “is also [7 01 GREUZE 29 the cause of many other and more important faults, which all come from teaching pupils to embellish nature before they have learned to know what nature really is, so that when it comes to any faithful delineation of details they are completely at sea.” This was the case wdth Greuze. La Tour’s words applied to his work explain the relative depreciation which it has undergone, and from which its good qualities, however real they may be, have not been able to save it. First of all, his principal fault — the prevailing fault, indeed, of his century — is that he is artificial: artificial in the choice of his moral subjects, which attained their excessive popularity because they responded to a passing state of mind which for us of the present day has only a historic interest; artificial in his attempt to preach morality by means of art, which in preoccupying itself with an end foreign to its nature overlooks its own proper aim and object — itself. This attempt led the painter to appeal to the eye of the spec- tator by means of a wholly scenic arrangement, in which antitheses jar upon one, and in which the exaggerated gestures and melodramatic attitudes are far more unnatural than any seen upon the stage. . . . In addition to this absence of sincerity there is great sameness in his works, a sameness that results from the paucity of his imagination. Never did a painter repeat himself more persistently or more zealously. Having seen a few carefully selected samples of his works we know them by heart; there is no fear that he will ever take us by surprise. Blondes or brunettes, with a ribbon in the hair and a bouquet of flowers in the bosom, his young girls are all the same; or, at least, the family resemblance among them is so strong that there is no mistaking them. The same may be said of his puffy little urchins, of his lean and bony old men, and of his blooming young mothers surrounded by their numerous offspring. There is nothing more irritating and tiresome than this unfruitful abundance, so to speak, forever placing in different situations three or four figures invariably the same. In addition to these faults of a general nature, there are others in Greuze’s work which more especially concern his technique. We have seen what La 'Four and even Diderot thought of the lack of frankness and truth in his compositions; he was also reproached, and justly, with not knowing how to paint large figures, with suspiciously avoiding the nude, with not paying sut- ficicnt heed to the disparity of age between the heads and the bodies of his figures; and, finally, he was accused of such carelessness in painting dra- peries that they resembled plaster casts. In regard to this last point, how- ever, Greuze seems to have been more inclined to take credit to himself than to try to correct the fault, saying that he neglected the draperies intention- ally, the better to bring out the flesh-tones — an ingenious excuse, which he found preferable to an acknowledgment of inability. Finally, exception might well be taken to the lighting of his pictures — to the way in which the light is scattered, to the heavy atmosphere surrounding his figures, to the whites, which have turned to dirty gray, to the stiffness and the metallic finish of his materials, to his purplish tones, and to his dull backgrounds, which darken scenes alreadv insufficientlv lighted. . . . 30 MASTERS IN ART But, after all is said and done, his faults and his failings have not pre- vented Greuze from maintaining, after a passing eclipse, his position in the estimation of connoisseurs. The reasons for this are, first of all, that he is documentary. I'hat is to say, he marks an epoch in the history of the evo- lution of ideas, and of the art that interprets those ideas by giving them pictorial form. He is the painter of the period overflowing with good and generous impulses and tender emotions, as well as with the illusions that pre- ceded and prepared the way for the French Revolution. He personified a manner of thought which, carried to excess, became somewhat ridiculous, but which had its excuse in the lofty ideal for which it stood. Like that ideal, Greuze is theatrical and declamatory; and again, in accordance with that ideal, he preaches love for the humble and unfortunate, practice of domestic virtues, family affection, labor, order, economy — in a word, all the virtues in which the strength and honor of the middle classes in France still consist. In this sense, his moral scenes have a historic value that would alone be sufficient to assure him a distinct place in the history of French art of the eighteenth century. Another reason for the position which he occupies is that he rep- resents a special style of painting that was, if not created, at least revived by him. Every new state of society calls for a new kind of art, and that art Greuze tried to give to his own time. Whether he succeeded, or whether he was prevented from succeeding by too great a deference to the prevail- ing art tendencies of the day, to say nothing of his own individual tendencies as well, is another question. He painted human nature as he conceived it in the lower classes, giving rights of citizenship to the bourgeoisie, to peas- ants— to all those, in short, whom the fastidious taste of the upper and fash- ionable class, tbe nobility, had until then banished with supercilious scorn. He did not wholly accomplish this, it is true, but he started the movement, and was the first to open up the path and to attempt a new formula for the portrayal of the world’s sorrows and hopes. Not to every man is it given to be an initiator, and it would be unjust to Greuze were he denied that glory. There are, moreover, other and more technical reasons which help to save his name from oblivion. He had an unusual gift for composition. True there is bombast in his moral scenes, but there is also movement and vigor; and there is unity in the action which animates his personages. His pictures of familiar every-day subjects, less theatrical than the others, show an as- tonishing abundance of life. No one understood as he did how to depict the pretty disorder which children occasion in the family circle. He scarcely varied his compositions, but he knew how to arrange them. His portraits, too, are well composed, and in recognizing that fact no slight praise is awarded him. Greuze has still other qualities, one in especial. He is the painter par excelleyice of woman, or, more strictly speaking, of the young girl. Man, in his achievement, is the exception ; the young girl is the rule. He never grows weary of her, but portrays her in every situation and in every attitude. She is always the same and always charming. He paints her with pure love of the subject and in a way that clearly shows that in his eyes she is the most [ 72 ] GREUZE 31 important thing in nature. This exclusive passion for painting young girls of that uncertain age between the child and the woman added immensely to the artist’s reputation, concentrating the admiration of the public, which likes to feel sure of its ground, upon one single point in his work, and resulting in the creation of a type of young girl peculiar to him and to which his name will always be attached. A subject that is dear to the heart of a painter is sure to inspire his brush. So it is with Greuze each time that he paints the red lip or the blushing cheek of a young girl. Although as a rule unpardonably careless in his treat- ment of draperies and accessories, his brush lingers lovingly on these youthful faces, so full of health, so round and firm, beautiful as flowers, tempting as ripe fruit. Dull and gray at other times, Greuze is in these pictures a colorist; and when we see these delicate and harmoniously blended tints we can well understand the enthusiasm they aroused in a public accustomed to the sub- stitution of rouge and paint for the natural colors of the complexion. As a matter of fact, however, Greuze was more of a draftsman than a colorist. The inexorable school of David, it is true, found that his drawing was not accurate, his modeling weak, and that the bodies of his figures were not always definable beneath the amplitude of their drape, ries. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Greuze, without manifesting the impeccability of more recent masters, drew when he so wished (especially is this the case with heads) correctly and accurately. And this is hardly enough to say: his preliminary studies have a certain personal accent; they are better, indeed, than the fin- ished figures which he painted from them, for these suffered from what La Tour called “the embellishment of nature.” In short, Greuze’s pencil was truer than his brush. One was guided by the daily, incessant observation of the artist; the other obeyed the fashion, and was subservient to the influence of superannuated precepts or of preoccupation foreign to art. To conclude : Jean-Haptiste Greuze is a painter of the second order whose position among the foremost of his time was due to a happy chance. T hat he lived when he did was his good fortune; that he knew how to profit by the fact is to his credit. His works were all the fashion for about twenty-five years. He came just between Boucher, whose day was over, and David, who was destined to revolutionize all the traditions of the French school of paint- ing. Greuze was not an originator— the familiar scenes that he portrayed were no novelty after those painted by the Flemish and the Dutch; he merely revived them by adapting them to the taste of his day. In that respect, he became the interpreter of a special condition of mind which fcniiui in him its painter, as it had found in others its poets or its philosophers. Fo personify an epoch, however short — a moment, it may be, in the busy and tumultuous life of a nation like France — is a piece of good fortune which is at the same time a warrant of perpetuity. Greuze had that good fortune to an extent tliat was, perhaps, beyond his deserts. He is one of those men whom one cannot praise highly without running the risk of over-praising, and whom it would be etjually unjust to disparage to the point of contempt. 1 le hail the ijualities of a great painter along with faults and weaknesses which he never overcame. 32 MASTERS IN ART He was more sentimental than feeling, more moral than pure, more declama- tory than pathetic, more prolific in his gift than fertile in his fancy. He was moreover a mediocre painter of light, understanding but imperfectly the man- agement of chiaroscuro. Compared with the brilliant colors of some painters, his palette is too often heavy, gray, and monotonous. But for all that, Greuze possesses charm, and grace, and a delightful freshness that he seems to have borrowed from his favorite subjects — children and young girls. And this is sufficient to insure him a permanent place among painters, if not in the or- chestra itself, at least in the front rows of the parquet. — from the french EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT ‘l’aRT DU XVIIl“®SIECLE’ T O the unethical eyes of the present generation it has become apparent that the charm of Greuze, his true talent, his originality, and his strength are evidenced in his heads of children and young girls, and almost only in them. They alone serve to redeem the faults, the weaknesses, and the defects of color so apparent in his large pictures, with their leaden and heavy color schemes, their mixtures of purple and shot hues, their uncertain reds and dirty blues, their muddy backgrounds, and their opaque shadows. Indeed, since these story-telling pictures have gone out of fashion it would seem as though the light had faded from them. But turn to one of Greuze’s little blonde heads, which seems lighted by a ray of sunlight that gleams over it like a caress, and we feel that here the brush that rounded this rosy cheek, modeled this smooth, white little fore- head, gave these blue eyes the light of the sky, softly shadowed the delicately penciled eyebrows, and set the cherub-bow lips between the soft curve of the cheeks, was the inspired brush of a true painter. Surely nothing could be fresher, more lifelike, or more delicately handled. Excelling as a delineator of childhood, Greuze was a master when he painted the head of a young girl, and an unmatched master in depicting that transient and ephemeral loveliness wherein the woman’s beauty is just be- ginning to work its wondrous transformation in the contours of the child. With what adorable lightness does he paint the fleecy, fly-away locks of hair, vainly confined by a ribbon, the shadowy golden down where the forehead joins the hair, the delicate network of blue veins that branch across the tem- ple! What a slumberous veiled flame, or what a swimming glance, he gives the eyes, and how tremulously sweet is the look when a tear hides in the lashes! Indeed, he loved all the signs of maiden youthfulness — the fine sensitive nostrils, the bated breath that half opens the pouting lips with vague wonder and aspiration. Glazings strengthened by dashes of opaque color, rays of light gleaming through liquid half-tones and sparkling against thin under-tints — with such slight means did Greuze evoke on his canvases those fair, rosy faces, the tender warmth of flushed and downy flesh, those slender necks, those rounded shoulders like twin doves, and those little breasts that catch reflections from the gauzy drapery that half hides them. Such pictures — happy inspirations of color — plainly painted because of the artist’s love of them, recall at times [ 74 ] GREUZE 53 Rubens, the great master whose genius and whose secrets Greuze studied assiduously tor hours together, perched upon a ladder in the Luxembourg Palace. — from the french ARSENE ALEXANDRE ‘HISTOIRE PO PUL A IRE DE LA PEINTURE’ G reuze painted some really good pictures as well as some that are very poor, if not actually bad. He belongs so completely to his own day that there is no wonder that his popularity should have been great — far greater, for instance, than any accorded to Chardin, who belongs to all time. Greuze had a decidedly individual feeling for grace; not however for grace of a simple and natural kind. His heads of young girls, bewitching as they are at first glance, are, as a matter of fact, artificial and affected. His best works, however, in the opinion of the critical, are these very heads of young girls. They are, indeed, the works of a true painter, whose touch is delicate, and who has selected subjects both fresh and charming. After all, the chief reason why Greuze, although his vogue is not now what it once was, is still one of the most interesting painters of his centurv, is that he owes absolutely nothing to any other artist. His color, which is often inharmonious and commonplace, his drawing, which is uncertain and affected, although at times bold and clever, his melodramatic and bombastic composition, his sensual kind of virtue — in a word, all his qualities and all his faults are whollv his own. — from the french SIDNEY COLVIN ‘PORTFOLIO’ tS7'2 G enerally, in discussing the f rench painters of the eighteenth cen- turv, we find that they are a long way removed from our taste. In the case of Watteau the brilliant, of the admirable Chardin — to some extent even of Boucher, the careless and voluptuous — what we have to do is a work of vindication, the work, most welcome to the true critical spirit, of reviving extinct sources of pleasure or trving to create new ones, of defining and put- ting their value upon things delightful in their degrees, and of which the de- lightfulness had in part escaped us. But as to Greuze the case is different. With the other masters of the eighteenth century Greuze had in his own country undergone his day of depreciation; with the rest of them he was rescued from that slight esteem, when it would have been just, or little less than just, that he should have remained in it. Like his betters, he now com- mands immense favor and immense prices. A French critic has remonstrated with us for making so much of a painter who, “after all,” savs he, “is of the second rank ; whose drawing is meanly rounded ; whose modeling is hea\ y and soft; who has no knowledge of chiaroscuro; whose simplicitv is part af- fectation; the movements ofwho.se figures are vulgar or pseudo-dramatic.” Beneath whatever may be trivial, affected, or in the worst case vicious, in the art of Greuze’s predecessors and contemporaries, there is always a real artistic gift — a first-rate dexterity of observation and draftsmanship in one, a profuse ingenuity and surprising decorative knack in another. Beneath what is wrong in Greuze, however, there is little but pretense. He has that ( •) 34 MASTERS IN ART shallow and obvious attractiveness, both in the look and meaning of his work, which appeals at once to coarse observations. It is this surface fascination which makes him so dangerous to such as are young in these things — to the public; it is for this he might be banished by the legislators of no matter how liberal a republic of art. Just as surely as Greuze offends the skilled percep- tions, so surely does he take the crowd; until it makes you fume to hear the exclamations of well-meaning fellow-creatures over his empty beauty, his ogling innocence, his immoral moralities, his styleless grace, his sentimentality without refinement, his artistic sententiousness, his ill composition and ill drawing, and the affectations in which he is steeped. One of Greuze’s merits is that he was original in his vein, such as it is — the vein of bourgeois and peasant life, treated from a dramatic and mor- alizing point of view. Middle-class and humble life, so treated, starts by the middle of Greuze’s century into the first place in the literary romance of the time. It preoccupies and gives its color to, more than any other one element, the literary sentiment in France of the days preceding the Revolution. But Greuze was its first exponent in art. . . . He has four main kinds of sample besides portraits. They are, first, the class of compositions of several figures telling a distinctly dramatic story, such as the famous ‘Village Bride.’ Of this class again are the pendants in the Louvre of ‘The Father’s Curse’ and ‘The Punished Son ’ — here, the old peasant stretching out his hands to curse a graceless son, mother and elder children variously deprecating or distressed, younger ones bellowing with dis- may; there, the same old man dying, the runaway coming home a cripple, just in time to see his father’s death, mother and children again reproaching or lamenting. Of this class, too, are many of the pieces in which Diderot especially delights, and which tickle perpetually with the same allusion. It is a girl pouting or crying over something lost or broken — broken eggs, a broken pitcher, a broken looking-glass, a dead bird, a withered bunch of flowers, and so on, and so on. Some of these belong to the class of large compositions with accessories and a story; some to another class of single figures with accessories and a story. Then there is another variety of the large compositions, which simply represents scenes without any or much nar- rative interest. And there is the fourth and best-known class of single sym- bolical heads: innumerable heads and shoulders of girls with faces fourteen years old and figures eighteen, smiling or ogling, languishing or devout, and set to typify Innocence or Repentance; to stand for Psyche or Magdalene, or whoever it may be; to entice with pulpy complexions and bare throats, disordered ringlets and fluttering scarfs, great violet-colored eyes and little coral mouths, and all the recipe fascinations of a shallow prettiness. Some- times there are formal mythologies, a Diana and Callisto, a Nymph sacri- ficing to Venus; once there is a great history-picture of Septimius Severus rebuking Caracalla; but these, especially the last, are failures. . . . In the history of the world as well as in the history of art, the work of Greuze has no doubt some importance, as it embodied the social and literary sentiment which we have seen — as it reflected, and in its way glorified, the classes in society who were to make the great Revolution and to change the old world into a new. But it will not escape the student who can see when [ 76 ] GREUZE 35 expressional or dramatic painting is dexterous and true, and when historical or ideal painting is dignified and beautiful, that the painting of Greuze has neither the virtues of the one class nor of the other. It will not escape him that these types of village patriarch, virtuous poor matron, and sturdy peasant children, are shallow and false types, that their attitudes are forced and pre- tentious, that in their gesticulation, their facial contortions, the outspread hands and exaggerated passion of the actors, there is a vain display of science which does not exist. He will acknowledge, both in these and in the single heads which the majority find so seductive, a personal and not unpleasant choice of color — a skilful manner with the brush. Greuze, he will say, worked not unpleasantly in a key of his own, of light violet, quiet blue, gray, and maroon or cocoa-color. In an age when “touch” was everything, he found out a touch of his own, more like that of Rubens than of another; he laid on his thick smooth flesh-tints, creamy yellow in the lights and cool violet in the shadows, with something of the same rich and buttery succulence with which Rubens laid on his very different scale of carnations. He painted with a certain prettiness and cleverness the jumble of a boudoir or cottage. And it is to the credit of his technical processes that they have stood the test of time surprisingly. But he was one of the few p'renchmen who never had any instinct of composition; who told his story clumsily and heavily, and was tedious as well as affected. And he could not really draw; most of the heads and bosoms which a blunt perception hnds so fascinating are atrociouslv ill drawn; he had not even properly mastered the charms which he was con- tinually repeating. Grant him a few portraits in which he catches wdth some elegance and dignity, and without too much display, the elegance and dignity of the sitter. Still, to see through Greuze is in art the beginning of knowl- edge. CLAUDEPHILLIPS ‘ARTJOURNAI, ’1901 T hree chief phases are to be noted in the talent of Greuze. He is the sentimental moralist, starting not from a study of humanitv as it is, but from a preconceived idea of his own — or rather, perhaps, of the men of let- ters of his time. He is the erotic sentimentalist, outwardlv decent in his ret- icence, yet in suggestion infinitelv more insidious than a Boucher, a Baudouin, or a P'ragonard, since he lacks their open-air frankness, their humor. P'inallv, he is the portraitist, modest, charming, and distinguished in his rendering of women, simple and even severe in his rendering of men. It was as a sentimental moralist of the brush that his great fame was won at a bound, with such pictures as ‘A P'ather Reading the Bible to his Chil- dren,’ ‘The Village Bride,’ ‘ I'he P'ather’s Curse,’ and ‘ The Punished Son.’ But this is not the stern, wholesome moralizing of a Plogarth, who lays on the lash without mercy, pitying, it may be, yet abating nothing of his cruel flagellation; it is the outcome of the affected sensibility, the scntimcntalitv worn as a becoming garment, which is so peculiar to the eighteenth century. It is to be found in a loftier phase in the greatest literature of the moment, in the works of Diderot himself, and preeminently in those of Jean- jaccjues Rousseau. Here, in the painted work of Greuze, we have the sentimentality 36 MASTERS IN ART in the sniveling stage. It protests too much, and there is in it too little of real sympathy, of real comprehension. Greuze is playing '''‘grand premier prix de vertu” for the gallery, and Diderot too hastily accords to him the laurels — almost the halo. And then from the technical standpoint it is im- possible to enjoy these once famous pieces, so cold is the color, so black are the shadows, so defective and dramatically inexpressive is the general ar- rangement, so limited the power to realize tragic gesture, or the soul as it burns through the human physiognomy in culminating moments of emotion. Greuze’s great glory with the connoisseur and amateur of yesterday — and, in a less degree, cf to-day — is his vast gallery of young women in the bloom of womanhood, but more especially of young girls and children. Even here he is but rarely a true colorist, if we compare him to a Watteau, a Lancret, a Pater, a Boucher, or a Fragonard. His tints are at the best cold and porcelain-like in their prettiness; the sense of atmosphere is absent. But he has, it must be confessed, certain very striking qualities of his own; and to express for these celebrated studies of girlhood and womanhood, bv which he even to-day maintains his place as a popular painter, too exaggerated a disdain would be to yield to an instinct rather than to a conviction. He has an admirable way of stating his subject, of composing his single figure in such fashion that it stamps itself in the memory of the beholder. The brush is wielded with more energy and decision — especially in the broadly disposed and broadlv painted draperies — than the casual observer at first imagines. There is undoubted sprightliness, undoubted attractiveness of a kind in these things, though it is anything but the fresh unsullied charm that the admirers " les nueurs dans V art'" may have chosen to discover in them. The typ- ical instance, though not by any means the best picture, is ‘The Broken Pitcher,’ of the Louvre; and with it, as regards the mode of presentment and the quality of the suggestiveness, may be classed many others in which Greuze gives with a rare subtlety, with a suggestiveness the more unpleasant because it is so decently veiled, the unripeness of sweet youth that has not in it the elements of resistance to temptation. . . . In the category of portraits are some exquisite things which might quite as well be placed in the class which we have just been discussing. Among these should be cited the discreetly fascinating ‘Madame de Porcin’ in the too little visited museum of Angers, and the voluptuous ‘Mile. Sophie Arnould,’ in the Wallace Collection. Among the portraits of men, none is more typical of the austere side which so seldom peeps out in the art of Greuze than the portrait of the master himself in the Louvre. He appears here grave, almost grim, in all the bitter disenchantment that came into his life of brilliant popular success when the French Academy, estimating at its true value his historical picture, ‘The Emperor Severus Rebuking Caracalla,’ consented to accept him, but only as a “painter of genre.” . , . Let us strive to be just to the once so over-rated and now so often under- rated painter, from whom the truest lovers of art of to-day recoil with a curi- ous kind of aversion, yet whom in fairness they cannot wholly deny, and some of whose pictures are veritable inventions — something added to art. [ 78 ] GREUZE 37 Cf)t 5^orfes of (gmijt DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PLATES ‘THELISTENINGGIRL’ PLATEI “AMONG all the pretty heads painted by this Carlo Dolci of Prance,” xjL writes Mr. M. H. Spielmann, “ ‘The Listening Girl’ holds a leading place. It is well painted and the expression is fresh as well as charming.” This picture, for which the late Marquis of Hertford paid a sum equiva- lent to $6,300, is one of the most popular of the twenty-one examples of Greuze’s work in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House, London. ‘IHEBROKENPITCHER’ PLATEII N O picture by Greuze is so celebrated, nor has any been so often copied, as ‘ The Broken Pitcher ’ (‘ La Cruche Cassee ’), now in the Louvre, Paris. She is familiar to us all, this young girl dressed in w'hite, with a gauze scarf loosely tied about her neck, a violet ribbon and a flower in her chestnut- brown hair, and with an expression so naive and charming as she holds her lapful of flowers and carries over one arm the pitcher that she has just broken that she has captivated the public taste from the time that she was first painted down to the present day. Madame Roland, in a letter written before her marriage, speaks of visiting Greuze in his studio and of seeing ‘The Broken Pitcher’ there. “ It represents a little girl,” she writes, “innocent, fresh, and fair, who has broken her pitcher. She stands near the fountain where the accident has just taken place. Her eyes are not opened too wide, and her lips are still parted as she wonders how the misfortune happened and whether she is to blame. Nothing could be prettier nor more piquant, and the only fault to be found with Alonsicur Greuze is that he has not made the little girl quite sorry enough to prevent her going to the fountain again! I told him this, and he was amused.” ‘The Broken Pitcher’ is a thoroughly characteristic example of Greuze’s favorite theme of Innocence in Distress, and if in this picture Innocence is a trifle theatrical in her pose, if she is, as M. Charles Normand has said, “a flower that has sprung up between the pavements of Paris,” she has never- theless retained sufficient freshness and charm to constitute one of Greuze’s most fascinating creations. < T H E M I L K M A I I) ’ I* I, A E E 1 1 1 ‘ ' I '' H Pv Milkmaid’ (‘La Laitiere’), one of Greuze’s most graceful and J. beautiful works, was sold soon after the painter’s death for 7,210 francs ($ 1 ,442), but when bc(]ucathed to the French nation by Baroness Nathaniel de Rothschild in 1899, its value was estimated at 600,000 francs, or $120,- 000. It is now in the Louvre, Paris, where it hangs as a pendant to ‘ I'he Broken Pitcher’ (plate n). I 7 it] 38 MASTERS IN ART Greuze has here represented a milkmaid holding a measure in one of her pretty hands while she rests the other upon the neck of a brown horse laden with baskets. She wears a white dress and white linen cap. Touches of scarlet and amber produce a frank harmony of color. An idealized milk- maid, certainly, is this young girl of the type so often portrayed by Greuze — not one, as M. Charles Normand has said, whom we should expect to find in the barn-yard milking the cows, but for whose delicate beauty the operatic stage would be a more suitable setting, or the picturesque palace of the Little Trianon at Versailles, where so dainty and aristocratic a milkmaid might well have played at dairy work with Marie Antoinette. ‘THE K.ISS’ ELATE IV T his picture in Mr. Alfred de Rothschild’s London Collection is so ex- quisitely graceful and tender that even those to whom Greuze’s art does not appeal can hardly resist it. It offers “a supreme example of the art of that period of unreflective enjoyment and facile prettiness which this painter represented.” Technically, the painting is somewhat thin in quality and the composi- tion mannered, but these faults are counterbalanced by the grace of the figure of the young girl who stands at a window draped with a green curtain to throw a kiss to her lover. ‘PORTRAITOFTHECOUNTESSMOLLIEN’ PLATEV T here is a story that when Greuze, having painted the portrait of the Dauphin of France to that prince’s satisfaction, was asked by him to paint one of the Dauphiness also, the artist, seeing the enormous quantity of rouge with which the lady’s face was covered, hastily begged to be excused, adding with more sincerity than politeness, “ I can’t paint such heads as that ! ” If, however, Greuze was hampered by the artifices of rouge and powder, he was at his best when he undertook to transfer to his canvas the fresh and delicate colors of youth, as in this portrait of the little Countess Mollien, in which his brush has so well rendered the soft flesh, the curves of the rounded cheeks and exquisitely modeled little chin, and the unconscious expression in the eyes of the child, whose fair skin seems yet fairer by contrast with the black coats of the puppies that she holds in her lap. ‘INNOCENCE’ PLATE VI T his characteristic example of the art of Greuze is one of the most cele- brated of his works in the Wallace Collection at Hertford House, Lon- don. The motive of the picture was a favorite one with the artist, the key- note of whose work was sentiment, and who was fond of placing lambs and doves, emblems of innocence, in the arms of his pretty little girls; and although many of his faults are apparent in the picture — although the lamb is unreal and the little girl, like so many of her sisters, has the head of a child upon the shoulders of a woman, and is somewhat aftected in her pose — there is, nevertheless, so much charm about the conception and beauty in its pre- 0 GREUZE 39 sentment that it is easv to understand the popular ta\ or that has always been accorded to it. ‘THELETTER’ I’LATEVII T his picture in Mr. Alfred de Rothschild’s Collection, London, is one of Greuze’s most charming representations of those young girls whom he painted so frequently that, as Charles Blanc has said, “a whole convent might be peopled with them.” The painting in this celebrated portrayal of his favorite subject is unusuallv delicate, the flesh-tones tender, the white drapery less like marble or plaster than is often the case in the artist’s work, and both the pose and the expression of the face of the young girl, in whose hand is the letter that gives the picture its title, are free from the aft'ectation that so frequently mars his compositions. ‘THE VILLAGE BRIDE’ ^ PLATE VIII T he Village Bride’ (‘L’Accordee de \’illage’) was exhibited at the Salon of 1761. It met with an immediate success and aroused the most en- thusiastic praise from one and all. “At last I have seen this picture by our friend Greuze,” wrote Diderot, “but it was not without some difliculty, for it continues to attract the crowd. ... It is certainly the best thing that he has painted, and does him honor both as a painter skilled in his art and as a man of taste and genius. . . . The composition seems to me to be very good; the subject is full of pathos and appeals to the tenderest emotions.” The De Goncourts, writing a century and more later, when a truer esti- mate had been made of Greuze’s artistic achievement, remark that the public “shut their eyes to the inharmonious colors, the discord of tones, the glit- tering of the lights, and all the faults of the picture, and were charmed, fas- cinated, captivated by the idea — in a word, bv the sentiment which breathed from every portion of the canvas.” The scene of this celebrated picture is the interior of a cottage. A wed- ding has just taken place, and the notary, in a black coat and colored breeches, is seated at a table to the right holding the marriage contract in his hand. In the center the pretty young bride, dressed in white and with a rose in her bosom, bends gently towards her mother and sister, linking her arm the while within that of her husband. The father of the bride has given his son-in-law a bag containing his daughter’s marriage portion, and with arms outstretched seems to address the young couple in heartfelt words. Another sister of the bride leans upon her father’s chair, and several younger children, one of whom is engaged in feeding some chickens in the foreground, serve to en- liven the scene. The picture is now in the Louvre, Paris. ‘ T H E P U N I S H E D S O N ’ P I. A r E I X S tudies for “I hc Punished Son’ (‘J>e Eils Puni’) and its companion picture, ‘The Father’s Curse’ (‘La Malediction Paternelle ’), of which it is the sequel, were exhibited at the Salon of 1765 and produced a profound impression. Diderot, enraptured, praised them in extravagant terms. “7'his (81 I 40 MASTERS IN ART is your painter and mine,” he wrote, “the first who has attempted to intro- duce morality into art.” -His opinion reflected and expressed the general feel- ing of all who saw these two domestic dramas which attained so great a celeb- rity and added so much to the reputation of the painter, but which to our changed views and tastes seem theatrical, over-strained, and sensational. Both the pictures painted from these studies are now in the Louvre, Paris. I'he first, ‘The F'ather’s Curse,’ represents a father pronouncing a maledic- tion upon his degenerate son in the presence of various members of the family, who, horror-stricken, are grouped about him in melodramatic attitudes. In the second picture, the one reproduced in plate ix, the son, who we are led to suppose from his wounded condition has been to the war, has returned to the paternal roof only to find his father lying dead, and his mother, sisters, and brothers distracted with grief. Overwhelmed with remorse, he bows his head in tears, realizing that his repentance has come too late. Apart from the exaggerated sentiment of this picture, it is technically in- ferior to many of the painter’s less ambitious and less famous works. The colors are dull and opaque and are rendered more so by the greenish-black, heavy background; the draperies, noticeably the coverlet of the bed, are solid and metallic in their folds, and the pose of many of the figures is strained and aftected. But even when these and other faults are taken into consider- ation there is something striking in the composition — in the attitude and gesture of the mother as she shows her repentant son the dead body of his father, and in the calm face of the dead, contrasted with the agitated move- ment of the figures about the bedside. No wonder that in painting such scenes of domestic life, Greuze should have found favor with a public weary of the cold and ceremonious pictures of the court painters, and satiated as well with the countless heathen deities which adorned the canvases of Boucher and his followers; and that this painter of the life of the people, however artificial his portrayal of that life may now seem to be, should mark an epoch in the history of h'rench art of the eighteenth century. ‘PORTRAITOFMLLE.SOPHIEARNOULD’ PLATEX ALTHOUGH Greuze established his reputation and won his immense popularity by his portrayal of moral and sentimental scenes, and has retained it by his pictures of pretty young girls, it is nevertheless in portrai- ture that he is often at his best. There no insincerity nor aftectation mars his work; indeed we are told that so faithfully did his brush transcribe the fea- tures and characteristics of a face that his portraits often failed to please his sitters. One of the most charming that he ever painted is the one in the Wallace Collection, London, reproduced in plate x, representing Mile. Sophie Arnould, the celebrated P'rench actress and singer, in which there is just a touch of the poseuse — “the affectation of the pretty woman who, with all her consummate wit and self-command, could not quite lose her self-con- sciousness when standing before the easel of the painter.” It has been stated that Sophie Arnould was not really beautiful — that her mouth was too large and her skin too dark; but all admit that her figure was [ 82 ] GREUZE 41 perfect, her presence graceful, and her fascination irresistible. In his portrait of this famous queen of the stage Greuze shows her to us with her broad hat tilted to one side, her air of easy confidence, and her attitude graceful, careless, and yet half-studied — all characteristic of the gifted actress and opera-singer who by her genius and her keen and subtle wit dazzled and dominated the brilliant world of P rance in the eighteenth century. A LIST OF THE TRINCIPAL PAINTINGS BY GREUZE IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS O F the vast number of pictures painted by Greuze, many are in private collections, among the most notable of which are, in England, the Royal Collection at Bucking- ham Palace, London, the Duke of Wellington’s Collection at Apsley House, London, those of the Earl of Dudley, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Lord Rosebery, Lord Normanton, Lord Yarborough, Mr. Allred de Rothschild, who owns ‘The Kiss’ and ‘The Letter’ (plates IV and vii). Captain G. L. Holtord, Mr. H. L. Bischoftsheim, Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, Mr. Beit, and Mr. Reginald Vaile; in Paris, the collections of the Due de la Tremoille, of Count Greffiihle, the Collection of Baron de Schlichting, of the Marquis de Laborde, the Marquis de Pange, the Countess de Goyon, M. Pradelle, M. Edouard Andre, M. Leon Say, and different members of the Rothschild family; in Germany, the Collection of Count Axel Wachtmeister at Wanas; in St. Petersburg, that of Prince Youssoupoff, who owns at least a dozen pictures by Greuze; and examples are to be found in private pos- session in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities of the United States. The following list includes the chief works by Greuze contained in collec- tions that are accessible to the public. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. Budapest Gallery; Head ofa Girl — Vienna, Imperial Gallery: Three Heads of Young Girls; Head of a Young Man — Vienna, Czermn Gallery: A Magdalene — ENGLAND. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum; Beggar- boy; Beggar-girl — London, National Gallery: Girl with an Apple; Girl witli a Lamb; Two Heads ol Girls — London, Wallace Colleci ion; Innocence (Plate vi); Sorrow; Roguishness; Fidelity; The Listening Girl (Plate l); A Bacchante; Girl with a Scarf; Boy with a Dog; Portrait of Mile. Sophie Arnould (Plate x); Ariadne; Girl in a Blue Dress; Girl in a White Dress; Portrait of a Lady; Girl witli Doves; Stiuly of Grief; The Offering to Cupid; The Broken Mirror; Girl Leaning on her Hand; Cupid with a Torch; Filial Piety; The Letter-writer — FRANCE. Aix Museum: Triumph ot Galatea; Studyol a Child — Angers Museum: Portrait of Madame de Porcin — Besan(;’ON Museu.m: Paul Strogonoff as a Child; Head of a Girl — Chantilly, Conde Museum; ‘Teiulre Desir’; Tlie Sur- prise; Two Heads of Girls — Cherbourg Museum: Portrait of Baron Denon — Dijon Museum: Study of a Head — Lille Museum: Psyche Crowning Cupid — -Lyons Mu- seum: Portrait of Greuze; The Kind Mother; Tlie Artist’s llaugliter — Marseilles Museum: Portrait of a Man — Montpellier Museum: Morning Prayer; ‘ Le Gateau des Rois’; The Little Mathematician; Girl with a Basket; Girl with Eolded Hanils; Study of Old Man’s Head; Portrait of a Young Girl; Study of a Child; Head ot a Girl — Nantes Museum: Portraits of M. de Saint-Morys and Ids Son — NiMES Museum: Study of Old Woman’s Head — Paris, Louvre: Tlie Em|)emr Severus Rebuking Caracalla; The Village Bride (Plate viii); The Father’s Curse; The Punislied Son (Plate ix); The Broken Pitcher (Plate ii); The Milk-maid (Plate iii); Portrait of I’.tienne Jeaurat; Por- trait of a Man; Portrait of Duval; Head ofa Girl; Danae; Portrait of Gensonne; I’ortrait of Fabre d’Eglantine; Portrait of Greuze (Page 64); I’ortrait of Greuze (sketch); Head ot a Boy; Two Studies of Young Girls — Troyes Museum: Portrait of Haculard tl’Arnaud — Versailles, Palace: Portrait of Bernard le Bovier tie Fontenelle — GERMANY. Ber- lin Gallery: Head of a Girl — Go tha Gallery: The Emperor Caracalla — Leipsic Museu.m: Study of a Woman — Metz Museum: Danae; Head of Bacchus; Heatlofa Boy; Portrait of Count d’ Angevilliers — Munich Gallery: Heatl ot a Young Girl — [s:>.] 42 MASTERS IN ART HOLLAND. Rotterdam, Boymans’ Museum: The Happy Mother — ITALY. Rome, Academy of St. Luke: Contemplation — RUSSIA. St. Petersburg, Hermi- tage Gallery: Death of a Paralytic; Head of a Girl; Head of a Young Man; Head of a Boy — SCOTLAND. Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland: Girl with Dead Canary; Girl with Broken Pitcher (study for ‘The Broken Pitcher’ in the Louvre); Girl with Folded Hands; Boy with Lesson-book; Cottage Interior — Glasgow, Corpo- ration Galleries: The Sulky Boy; Head of a Child — UNITED STATES. Boston, Art Museum: ‘Le Chapeau blanc’ (loaned) — New York, Gallery of Art of the New York Historical Society: A Nymph of Diana; Replica of ‘L’Avengle trompe’; Portrait of the Duke de Choiseul; Head of a Young Girl; Virginie (a study); Sketch of a Female Head. (greujt BStljUograpfip A LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL BOOKS DEALING WITH GREUZE T he most complete studies of the life and works of Greuze are the biography of the artist contained in ‘L’Art du XVIIInie siecle’ by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt (Paris, 1881-82), and M. Charles Normand’s monograph ‘Greuze’ (Paris, 1885). The ‘Notice sur Greuze’ by Madame C. de Valori, published in the Revue Universelle des Arts, i860; and a special number oi L' Artiste, 1868, form valuable additions. A lexandre, a. Histoire populaire de la peinture: ecole fran9aise. Paris [1893] — . Archives de Part fran^ais. Paris, i 85 1-60 — Armitage, H. Greuze. London, 1902 — Becker, A.W., and Gorling, A. Kunstund Kiinstler des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Leipsic, 1865 — Blanc, C. Histoire des peintres de toutes les ecoles: ecole frangaise. Paris, 1865 — Brownell, W. C. French Art. NewYork,i9oi — Burger, W. Tresors d’art en Angleterre. Paris, 1882 — Diderot, D. Salons (in CEuvres completes). Paris, 1821 — Dilke, E. F. S. French Painters of the XVIIP^ Century. London, 1899 — Dohme, R. Jean Greuze (in Dohme’s Kunst tind Kiinstler, etc.). Leipsic, 1880 — Gautier, T. Guide de I’amateur au Musee du Louvre. Paris, 1882 — Goncourt, E. and J. de. L’Art du XVIIIroe siecle. Paris, 1881-82 — Gonse, L. Les chefs-d’ceuvre des Musees de France. Paris, 1900 — Head, Sir E. A hand-book of the History of the Spanish and French Schools of Painting. London, 1848 — Houssaye, A. Gallerie du XVIII"'^ siecle. Paris, 1858 — Lalaing, E. de. Watteau et Greuze. Lille, 1888 — Lecarpentier, C. J. F. Notice sur Greuze. Rouen, 1805 — Lejeune, T. Guide the- orique et pratique de I’amateur de tableaux. Paris, 1864 — Mariette, P. J. Abecedario. Paris, 1853-54 — Martha, C. La Delicatesse dans Part. Paris, 1884 — Merson, O. La Peinture fran^aise au XVII"''= siecle et au XVIIIn'*^' Paris [1900] — Muther, R. History of Modern Painting. New York, 1896 — Normand, C. J. B. Greuze. Paris [1885] — PiLLET, F. (in Michaud’s Biographic universelle). Paris, i843-[i865] — Renouvier, j. Histoire de Part pendant la Revolution. Paris, 1873 — Smith, J. Cat- alogue Raisonne. London, 1837 — Spielmann, M. H. The Wallace Collection in Hertford House. London, 1900 — StraNahan, C. H. A History of French Painting. New York, 1895 — Temple, A. G. The Wallace Collection. Paris, 1902 — Viardot, L. Les Musees de France, i860 — Wille, J. G. Memoires et journal. Paris, 1857 — Wyzewa, T. de, and Perreau, X. Les Grands peintres de la France. Paris, 1890. [ 84 ] MASTERS IN ART j CralJEltr’s art Club \ PRACTICAL and J~\_ successful method lor the Study of Art at your home, or in clubs, devised and arranged by Mrs. Adeliza Brainerd Chaffee, after years of experience in Lecturing, Study, and Foreign Travel. ^^optes Fu// details upon application COLORGRAPHS new pictures, the “ Colorgraphs,” are, as the title suggests, reproductions in color. subjects have been carefully selected from the most famous works of both ancient and modern masters. The “Colorgraphs ” will at once be recognized as gems of art, for their faithfulness to the originals in the depth and beauty of coloring brings them close to the possible limits of reproductive art. Hi0t of .i^ubicct# J^oto deabiB ♦MADONNA DEL GRAN DUCA By Raphael ♦MADONNA OF THE CHAIR By Raphael ♦CORONATION OF THE VIRGIN By Botticelli ♦ ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA By Murillo ST. CECILIA By Raphael ♦MARY’S VISIT TO ELIZABETH By Albertinelli HOLY FAMILY By Andrea del Sarto MADONNA AND CHILD By Murillo ♦ CHRIST THE CONSOLER By Plockhorst ♦THE GOOD SHEPHERD By Plockhorst « REPOSE IN EGYPT By Plockhorst ♦HEAD OF CHRIST. From “Christ and the Rich Young Ruler ’ ’ By Hofmann gI_T'he “Colorgraphs” are 8 x I o inches in size, and each is enclosed in a neat deckle-edged portfolio. Price, 35 cents each We also offer these “ Colorgraphs ” marked with an asterisk above in gilt frames of superior workmanship and appropriate styles. The price of each, enclosed in a strong box, is $i .25, postpaid. ^Rare and Beautiful Platinums and Carbons. ^Reproductions from famous Masterpieces and Original Views in Venice, Rome, and Florence in Water-color. ^The Raphel Prints in Platinums, five sizes, 3,000 subjects, new and beautiful. Order by mail. 2Tfjt Sttttrto I Hancock St., Worcester, Mass. W. A. WILDE COMPANY BOSTON CHICAGO 120 Boylston Street 192 Michigan Avenue picture-Xiobtincj Is in Itself an Art. Fine p:\intings are often spoiled by ineffective or poor lighting. c famous f rink is being used in a large number of the finest galleries in the country, and by a great many prominent collectors. Covers the pictures with a strong, even light ; no glare in the eyes, or ‘ spots on the [licture space. , Sin 13 Deal Xiglu. We have made a siiecial study of jiieture-light- ing, and are pre|>ared to give you the best re- sidts attainable. (lalleries, individual collections or paintings succcs.sfnlly lighted. Investigation invited. c I. P. FRINK, 551 Pearl Street, New York City. gibsoIT pyro^graphy B« ooQtrmct jujiC elowl with Lirt. we h»te Maiilr«l tli« KXCIX'HI VK richt to KRPRO- DUCB01B80N DKMION8 for PVRO(iR.\ PHY. LWltw DenatilbMm la not onij the moat fenoaa brlntt pcti-»Q>l*lnli ertUt, iiU worka •olhnx for fabutoui ■uina. but bla iinra arc ail* mlrabl; abio rrimaiuctlou. It. & C. OUTFIT NO. 95 $1.80 ShowB abere, faiue U temporarily offrrrO for 1>ila le a hlcii*ffTa(to lne W’orbl 1 In aiiswiTiiijf :ulviTli>fnifMts, jilcasc mention Masiiks in Ak i' MASTERS IN ART JSiMJi iSiit’/jii W E call special attention Xo \\\t basic metal used in World Brand Silverware. All of our goods are plated on the highest grade nickel silver base (cutlery excepted, which is of a high grade steel). The most perfect basic metal known to improved science is used in all of our products and is produced in our rolling mills, under our own supervision, before passing through the plating process. Inside and out, World Brand Silverware stands for tlie best. Our beautiful catalogue explains things about table silverware that cost you nothing to know, and are worth much to remember. Send postal for it THE AMERICAN SILVER CO. 15 Main Street, Bristol, Conn. A beautiful sugar shell free. Write us about particulars. IteSltiliinjart K'gerifsjffllustrateti-iftpnoflrap^s A partial list of the artists to be considered in '• Masters in Art’ during the tbrihcoming., 19041 Volume will be found on another page of this issue. The numbers which have already appeared in 1904 are : Part 49, JANUARY . . FRA BARTOLOMMEO PART 51, THE ISSUE FOR iWarcl) WILL 'LREAT OF Bilrer’s Cngralitngs NUMBERS ISSUED IN PREVIOUS VOLUMES OF ‘MASTERS IN ART ’ VOL. 1. VOL. 2. Part i.— VaN DYCK pAur z. — 1 niAN Par r Par r Part Part Par r Par 1 Par r B. — VELASQUEZ 4. — HOLBEIN 5. — BOT riCELLI 6. — REMBRANDT 7. — REYNOLDS 8. — MILLET — GIO. BELLINI PakI' 10. — MURILLO Part 1 1 . — HALS Pare 12. — RAPHAEL ^ Sculpture Part ij.— RUBENS Part 14.— DA VINCI Part 15.— DURER Part 16.— MICHELANGELO* Part 17.— MlCHELANGELOf Part iS.— COROT Part 19.— BURNE-JONES Part zo.— TER BORCH Part zi.— DELLA ROBBIA Part zz.— DEL SARTO Part zj.— GAINSBOROUGH Part Z4.— CO R R EGGIO t Painting VOL. 3. Pak r 25.— PHIDIAS Part 31.— PAUL POT'I'ER Part 26.-PERUGINO Part 32.— GIOTTO Part 27. — HOLBEIN \ Part 33.— PRAXITELES Part z8.— TINTORETTO Part 34.— HOGARTH Part 29.— PIETER de HOOCH Part 35.— TURNER Part 30. — NATTIER Part 36. — LUINI ^ Drawings VOL. 4. Part 37, JANUARY Part 38, FEBRUARY . Part 39, MARCH Pare 40, APRIL Part 41., MAY Part 42, JUNE Part 43, JULY Part 44, AUGUST Part 45, SEPTEMBER . Part 46, OCTOBER Part 47, NOVEMBER . Part 48, DECEMBER . ROMNEY FRA ANGELICO . WATTEAU HAEL’S FRESCOS DONATELLO GERARD DOU CARPACCIO ROSA BONHEUR GUIDO RENl DE CHAVANNES GIORGIONE ROSSETTI 9111 tl)c abobe namcb ibbucb arc conbtantlp kept in btock PRICES ON AND AFTER JANUARY i, 1904 SINGLE NUMBERS OF BACK VOLUMES, 20 CENTS EACH. SINGLE NUMBERS OF THE CURRENT 1904 VOLUME,!.') CENTS EACH. BOUND VOLUMES 1 , 2 , 3 , AND 4 , CONTAINING THE PARTS LISTED ABOVE, BOUND IN BROWN BUCKRAM, WITH GILT STAMPS AND GILT TOP, $ 3.75 EACH; IN GREEN HALF- MOROCCO, GILT STAMPS AND GILT TOP, $ 4.25 EACH. 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It will be found of the greatest value to every one building, remodelling, or refurnishing a country or suburban It contains articles by prominent architects, exterior and interior views of about fifty houses, the best work of lead- ing American architects, illustrations showing various treat- ments of porches, verandas, staircases, fireplaces, etc., plans, and many suggestions for the color treatment of Interiors. An Illustrated Circular fully describing the number will be sent on request. BATES & GUILD COMPANY, Publishers 42 Chauncy Street, Boston Artistic Interiors ARE AN IMPORTANT FEATURE OF THE LARGE SPECIAL NUMBER OF ThE ARCHITECTURAL ReVIEW ON American Country Houses In answering advertisements, please mention Masters in Art MASTERS IN ART ANT ONE INTERESTED IN ART or Artistic Shading, may do well to write for circulars for the latest and the best. Address AIR BRUSH MFC. CO. No. 42 Nassau St., Rockford, 111., U.S.A. AIR BRJUSH FOR ■ l^etD iorh ,f»cf)ool of 3lct (chase school) INSTRUCTORS William M. Chase Robert Henri Susan F. Bissell F. Luis Mora Clifford Carlton Kenneth Hayes Miller Douglas John Consah Elisa A. Sargent Howard Chandler Christy Theodora W. Thayer Drawing, Painting, Composition. ITustration, Decorative and Applied Art. Special Classes for Advanced Work in Por- traiture, Miniature, Illustration, and in Normal Art Work No requirements foradmission to any of the classes. Refer- ences required of all students. For further particulars in reference to the School, apply to DOUGLASJOHN CONNAH, Director. 57 West 57th Street, New York SMITH & PORTER PRESS BOOKPLATES, BOSTON EUROPE AS A LABORATORY some, Europe is a gay casino ; to others, a circus of one fast- w moving ring. University Travel considers it a Laboratory for studying the development of art and general culture. Every detail is adapted to making the study profitable and enjoyable. 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