£6 \ //-/JL A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING THE GET FY RESEARCH INSTITUTE LIBRARY J. L. E. MEISSONIER LE PORTRAIT DU SERGENT A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING PROM ITS EARLIEST TO ITS LATEST PRACTICE INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF PAINTING, ITS SALONS SCHOOLS OF INSTRUCTION AND REGULATIONS BY C. H. STRAJSTAHAN WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF SIXTEEN REPRESENTATIVE PAINTINGS LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, AND RIVINGTON Limited ' Jbt. IBunatan's feowt Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E.C. 1889 THE GE m RESEARCH INSTITUTE LIBRARY TO MY HUSBAND J. S. T. ST RAN AH AN THIS WORK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED IN RECOGNITION OF THE RARE QUALITIES OF HIS SERVICE TO OTHERS THROUGH HIS READY PERCEPTION OF THE TIES OF KINSHIP, CITIZENSHIP, HUMANITY. I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/historyoffrenchpOOstra PREFACE. THIS book is designed to meet the need, often expressed in the increasing interest in French art, of something more complete than a line and less extended than a volume for each artist. It is not planned to make public recondite facts newly discovered, nor to deal with speculative theories often so full of interest, nor yet to give those generalizations which comprise a conspicuous artist and his works in a period, an art era in a paragraph, and which, often satis- factory to the learned, are but unmeaning terms to those who have not sufficient knowledge of the details upon which the general inductions are based. Crystallization is a beautiful result, but it is a result. I humbly offer the elements, believing that, in the manner and degree aimed at here, there is a demand for them. The book, then, is not mainly for connoisseurs, but especially for students beginning their art course. Influencing events are, therefore, pre- sented in their connections — only, for want of space, less often than desirable. The work gives elementary facts concerning foundations and regulations by the Government ; the effects of its decrees ; its direction, suppression, encouragement ; the establishment, growth, and varying attitude towards art, of the Academy of Painting and its elements of power ; the significance of the various classes of medals, honors, and prizes, a knowledge which students often grope after in vain, and finish by continuing to read of, with but vague notions of their character and importance. This has been done with the aim that no allusion to French painter or painting, the significance of which is legitimately com- prised in a history of French paintiug, may fail to find here either the explanation itself or the clue that leads to the more special or viii PREFACE. larger work affording it. The extended bibliography given will contribute to this, and at the same time furnish in one list author- ities, the quotation of which, in connection with each fact, would crowd out matters of interest and importance, and make a work of mere statistics. Thus, by grasping its sources, principles, and influences, the effort is made to gain a comprehensive and permament hold of all the French school of painting. The results of the careful and extended study required to advance this plan, art-students, direc- tors of art classes or of schools, have requested should be furnished for their service. For the clear comprehension necessary to a retention in memory, the aim has been to give well-defined relations to time, to which end the centuries are kept distinct, so that their passing may be con- stantly perceptible beneath the currents of art influences. A word in defence of lists, in appearance so sterile, in fact so fer- tile of information. A list of an artist's works, with dates, often- times is evidence of his growth in art and life, an account of what he was and is, an implication of what he is not. They, therefore, are a concise method of giving much, especially if well based on prelimi- nary sketches or discriminated classification. Greater space, then, would have led to more and fuller lists. The thinking world is becoming more and more fond of drawing its own inferences from pure facts. An age that strenuously demands details in its art equally requires details of its art. Since it is a well-known fact that many artists of France, who have never won an honor at the Salons, are nevertheless rewarded by an exalted public estimate, the rank is apparent of even the least of those mentioned in the lists under the various classes, all of whom have been medalled, most to the degree of being Hors Concours, some of whom have been members of the Institute, and an occasional one a Minister of the Fine Arts. And not the least service of these statistics is their demonstration of the great wealth of French painting. Living artists, excluded from most histories, are included in this, as commanding in French art a great interest, and a present one ; an PREFACE. ix interest that can usually be gratified only from fugitive articles that present an artist isolated, disconnected with related influences, or else from costly books of illustrations, published only by subscription. If I have succeeded in giving both the comprehensive grasp and the detailed view, the official and the artistic bearings, something of the man as well as of the artist, the reader can afford, even in the hurry of the age, to grant the space required. Descriptions of stand- ard pictures are important that discussion and conclusion may not be made concerning what, in many cases, are to the reader purely unknown quantities. LIST OF AUTHORITIES. Agincourt, Jean "Baptiste Louis Georges Seroux d\ Histoire de l'Art par les Monumens, etc. Paris, 1823. English translation, London, 1847. Araand-Durand and Alfred Sensier. Etudes et Croquis de Th. Rousseau. Paris, 1876. American Art Review, Boston. Anne of Brittany, her illuminated prayer-book. About 1498. Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Appleton's Journal, New York. Archives de l'Art francais. Abecedario, 6 vols.; Documents, 6 vols. Paris, 1851-2. Argenville, Antoine Joseph Dezallier d'. Abrege de la Vie des plus fameux Peintres. Paris, 1762. L'Art, Revue hebdomadaire illustree. Paris. Art and Letters. New York and London. Art Journal. London. L'Art moderne a l'Exposition de 1878 (published under the direction of L. Gonse, Paris). Art Treasures of America. Philadelphia, 1878-1879. Art Union. New York. Atlantic Monthly Magazine. Boston. Bailliere, Henri. Henri Regnault. Paris, 1872. Bandicour, Prosper de. Le Peintre-Graveur, francais [du XVIIIme siecle]. Paris, 1861. Bancel. Jehan Perreal. Paris, 1885. Bellier de la Chavignerie, Emile, continue par Louis Auvray. Dictionnaire general des Artistes de l'Ecole francaise. Paris, 1882. Benjamin, S. G. W. Contemporary Art in Europe. New York, 1877. Berger, Georges. L'Ecole francaise de Peinture. Paris, 1879. Bertholon, J., and Lhote, C. Horace Vernet a Versailles, au Luxembourg, et au Louvre. Paris, 1863. Beule. Ernest. Eloge de Horace Vernet. Paris, 1863. Breton, Jules. Poemes. Les Champs et la Mer. Paris, 1875. Jeanne. Paris, 1882. Ouvrage couronne par l'Academie francaise. Blackwood's Magazine. London. Blanc, Charles. Histoire des Peintres de toutes les Ecoles. Paris, 1865-77. Blanc, Charles. Ingres et son (Euvre. Paris, 1870. Blanc, Charles. Les Artistes de mon Temps. Paris, 1876. Bouchitte, Henri. Le Poussin, sa Vie et son GEuvre. Paris, 1858. xii A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, edited by Robert Edmund Graves. London, 1885-6. Canonge, Jules. Pradier et Ary Scheffer. Paris, 1858. Century Magazine. New York. Chesneau, Ernest. Peinture francaise au XlXrae Siecle. Chefs d'iEcoie. Paris, 1883. Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosite. Supplement a la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Claretie, Jules. Peintres et Sculpteurs contemporains. Paris, 1874. Claretie, Jules. Peintres et Sculpteurs contemporains. Premiere serie. Paris, 1882. Seconde serie. Paris, 1884. Clement, Charles. Prudhon, sa Vie, ses CEuvres et sa Correspondance. Paris, 1872. Clement, Charles. Etudes. Paris, 1865. Courrier de l'Art. Chronique hebdomadaire des Ateliers, etc. Paris and London. Cousin, Jean. Tombeau de Watteau. Paris, 1865. Crozat, Joseph Antoine, Marquis de Tugny. Recueil d'Estampes, etc., and Abrege de la Vie des Peintres, etc. Paris, 1729. Curmer, L. L'CEuvre de Jean Fouquet. Paris, 1865. (Colored reproductions.) Curmer, L. Prayer-book of Anne of Brittany in fac-simile. Paris, 1861. Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings. Charles Scribner's Sons. New York, 1887. Dan, Le pere. Le Tresor de Merveilles de la Maison Royale de Fontainebleau. Paris, 1642. Dayot, Armand. Salon de Paris, 1884. Delaborde, Vicomte Henri. (Euvre de Paul Delaroche. Paris, 1858. Delaborde, Vicomte Henri. Etudes sur les Beaux-Arts en France et en Italic Paris, 1864. Delecluze, fitienne Jean. Notice sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Leopold Robert. Paris, 1838. Delecluze, Etienne Jean. Jacques Louis David, son Ecole et son Temps. Paris, 1855. Descamps, Jean Baptiste. Vies des Peintres flamands et hollandais. Marseilles, 1842. Didot, A. F. ^tude sur Jean Cousin. Paris, 1872. Didot, A. F. Recueil des CEuvres choisies de Jean Cousin. Paris, 1873. Didron, Annales archealogiques. Texier. Du Camp, Maxime. Les Beaux- Arts a TExposition Universelle et aux Salons, 1863-67. Paris, 1867. Dumont, Leon. Antoine Watteau. Paris, 1866. Durande, Joseph. Carle et Horace Vernet. Paris, 1865. Dussieux, L. Nouvelles Recherches sur la Vie de E. Lesueur. Paris, 1852. Dussieux, L. Les Artistes francais a PEtranger. Paris and Lyons, 1876. Eastlake, Charles L. Notes on the Principal Pictures in the Louvre Gallery at Paris and in the Brera Gallery at Milan. London, 1883. Emeric David, Toussaint Bernard. Vies des Artistes aneiens et modernes. Paris, 1863. Emeric David, Toussaint Bernard. Histoire de la Peinture au moyen Age. Paris, 1863. LIST OF AUTHORITIES. xiii Esprit des Statuts et Reglements de l'Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculp- ture. Renou, Peintre du Roi Louis XVI. 1790. Etex, Antoine. Ary Scheffer. Paris, 1859. Felibien, Andre. Entretiens sur la Vie et les Ouvrages des plus excellents Peintres anciens et modernes. Amsterdam, 1706. Feuillet de Conches, Felix Sebastien. Leopold Robert, sa Vie, etc. Paris, 1854. Fine Arts Quarterly Review. London. Fortnightly Review. London. Fouquet, Jean, and his forty miniatures in possession of M. Brentano. Fine Arts Quarterly Review, July to October, 1866. Fouquet, Jean. Illuminations of Boccaccio. Munich Library. Fouquet, Jean. Illuminations of a French Josephus. National Library, Paris. French Legend of St. Denis. Illuminations. Christ Church, Oxford. French Translation of the Bible (illuminated). British Museum. Fromentin, Eugene. Les Maitres d' Autrefois. Paris, 1876. Galerie du Musee de France publiee par Filhol et redigee par Lavallee. Paris, 1814. Galerie de Florence et du Palais Pitti, Tableaux de la. Dessines par Wicar, avec les Explications par Mongez. Paris, 1819. Galerie d'Orleans, lithographiee, des Tableaux du Due d'Orleans. Paris, 1819. Galerie royale de Dresde. Galerie de Versailles. Galerie du Palais-Royal avec un Abrege de la Vie des Peintres, par l'Abbe de Fontenai. Paris, 1786. Galerie imperiale de l'Hermitage. Gautier, Theophile. L'Art moderne. Paris, 1856. Gautier, Theophile. Les Beaux-Arts en Europe. Paris, 1857. Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Paris. Genevay, A. Le Style Louis XIV. Charles Le Brun, 1886. Godde. (Euvre de Paul Delaroche. Paris, 1868. Goncourt, Edmond et Jules de. L'Art du XVIIIme Siecle. Paris, 1883. Gonder. Andelys et Nicolas Poussin. Paris, 1860. Gonse, Louis. Eugene Fromentin. Paris, 1881. Gospels, The illuminated Book of, for Charlemagne and his wife Hildegarde. National Library, Paris. Goupil, Frederic Auguste Antoine. Voyage d'Horace Vernet en Orient. Paris, 1843. Gower, Lord Ronald. Three Hundred French Portraits. Graham, Maria. Memoirs of Nicolas Poussin. London, 1820. Grote, Mrs H. Memoir of Ary Scheifer. London, 1860. Gruyet. Charles IX. et Francois Clouet. Revue des Deux Mondes. December, 1885. Guibal, Nicolas. Eloge de Nicolas Poussin. Paris, 1783. Guiffrey, Jules. CEuvres de Charles Jacque. Paris, 1867. Guiffrey, Jules. La Famille de Jean Cousin. Paris, 1880. Hamerton, Philip Gilbert. Painting in France after the Decline of Classicism. London, 1869. xiv A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Hamcrton, Philip Gilbert. Contemporary French Painters. London, 1868. Harper's Magazine, New York. Head, Sir Samuel. History of Spanish and French Schools of Painting. London, 1848. Hedou. Peintres rouennais. Rouen, 1883. Henriet, Frederic. Charles Daubigny et son CEuvre. Paris, 1874. Jameson, Mrs. Monastic Orders. London, 1850. Keane, A. H. The Early Teutonic, Italian, and French Masters. London, 1880. Laborde, Leon, Comte de. La Renaissance des Arts a la Cour de France. Paris, 1850-55. Laborde, Leon, Le Comte de. Les Dues de Bourgogne. Paris, 1849. Laborde, Leon, Le Comte de. La Peinture. Paris, 1850-5. Laborde, Leon, Le Comte de. Additions au Tome premier. Paris, 1855. Lacroix, Paul. XVIIIme Siecle, Lettres, Sciences, et Arts. 1878. Lagrange, Leon. J. Vernet et la Peinture au XVIIIme siecle. 18G4. Lalaune, Ludovic de. Le Livre de Fortune de Jean Cousin. In L'Art, October and November, 1882. Landon, Charles Paul. Nouvelles des Arts : Peinture, Sculpture, etc. Paris, 1801-2-3. Landon, Charles Paul. Annales du Musee et de l'Ecole moderne des Beaux-Arts. Paris, 1802, seq. Landon, C. P. Vies et GEuvres des Peintres les plus celebres de toutes les Ecoles. Paris, 1803-25. Larousse, Pierre. Dictionnaire universel du XlXme Siecle. Paris, 1864-76. Leclerq, Emile. Caracteres de FEcole francaise moderne de Peinture. Paris, 1881. Lecoy de la Marche. Le Roi Rene. Paris, 1875. Lecoy de la Marche. L'Academie de France a Rome. 1875. Lenoir, Alexandre. Histoire des Arts en France. Paris, 1811. Lenormant, Charles. Ary Scheffer. Paris, 1859. Lenormant, Charles. Beaux- Arts et Voyages. Paris, 1861. Le Roman de la Rose (greatly resembling the prayer-book of Anne of Brittany). British Museum. Lettres et les Arts, Les. Paris and New York. Living Age. Boston. London Times. Liibke, Wilhelm. Outlines of History of Art, translated from the seventh German Edition, edited by Clarence Cook. New York, 1878. Martin, Abbe. Melanges d'Archeologie. Magazine of Art. London and New York. Manhattan Magazine. New York. Mantz, Paul. Francois Boucher. Paris, 1880. Mariette, Pierre Jean. Abecedario. Paris, 1851-60. Maynard, Fred. Twenty years of Arundel Society, 1849-1868 ; also, Five Years of Arundel Society, 1869-1873 [especially for Flemish influences; has valu- able reproductions]. Meissonier, The Complete Works of, with a Biography. New York, J. W. Bou- ton. LIST OF AUIRORITIES. xv Memoires ineditssur les Vies et les Ouvragesdes Membresde 1'Academie Royale de Peinture. Paris, 1854. Memorial Catalogue of French and Dutch Loan Collection. By W. E. Henley, Edinburgh, 1886. Menard, Rene. L'Art en Alsace-Lorraine. Paris, 1878. Menard, Rene. Chapters on Painting, translated by P. G. Hamerton. London, 1875. Merson, Lue-Olivier. Ingres, sa Vie et son (Euvre. Paris, 1807. Michaud, L. G. Biographie Universelle. Paris, 1843. Michiels. Etudes sur l'Art flamand dans Test et le midi de la France. 1877. Mirecourt, Eugene de. Horace Vernet. Paris, 1858. Mirecourt, Eugene de. Ingres. Paris, 1869. Mollet, John W. Meissonier. London, 1883. Moniteur des Arts. Paris. Montrosier, Eugene. Artistes Modernes. Paris, 1884. Moreau, Adolphe. Decamps et son (Euvre. Paris, 1868. Miintz, Eugene. La Renaissance en Italie et en France. Paris, 1885. Miintz, Eugene. Les Precurseurs de la Renaissance. Paris, 1882. Musee de Peinture, etc., par Reveil et Duchesne Aine. Paris, 1830. Musee francais, Recueil complet des Tableaux, etc., par S. C.Croye-Magnan. Paris 1803. Musee royal. Publie par Henri Laurent. Paris, 1816. Nation, The. New York. Nouvelle Biographie generale. Paris, 1852-66. CEuvres completes du Roi Rene avec une Biographie. Angers, 1845. Palustre, Leon. La Renaissance en France. Paris, 1879. Pattison, Mrs. Mark. Claude Lorrain. Paris, 1884. Pattison, Mrs. Mark. Renaissance of Art in France. London, 1879. Perrier, Charles. Etudes sur les Beaux- Arts en France et a 1'iEtranger. Paris. 1863. Personages of the Time of Clouet III. London, 1876. Pinchchart's notes to French Edition of Crowe and Cavalcaselle. Planche, Gustave. Etudes sur PEcole francais. Paris, 1855. Poillon, Louis. Nicolas Poussin. Paris, 1869. Portfolio, The. London. Prayer Book, No. 1885. Imperial Library of Vienna. Psalter of Mother of St Louis. National Library. Paris. Psalter of St. Louis. Paris. Quartrebarbes, Comte de. Les CEuvres completes de Roi Rene, avec un Biographie. Angers, 1835. Quarterly Review. London. Recueil general des anciennes Lois francaises. Rees, J. Kuntz Horace Vernet. London, 1880. Revue Artistique. Paris. Revue de Paris. Revue des Deux Mondes. Pans. Revue Universelle des Arts. Paris. Robaut, Alfred, and Ernest Chesnau. L'QEuvre complete d'Eugene Delacroix. Paris, 1885. xvi A BIS TOBY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Robert-Dumesnil, A. P. F. Le Peintre-Graveur francais [du XVIIme and XVI lime SieclesJ. Paris, 1835. Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. London, 1853-55. Ruskin, John. Art Schools of Christendom. London, 1859. Sauval, Henri. Antiquities of Paris. Paris, 1724. Scott, W. B. Gems of French Art. 1871. Scribner's Magazine. New York. Sensier, Alfred. Souvenirs sur Theodore Rousseau. Paris, 1872. Sensier, Alfred. Vie et (Euvres de J. F. Millet. Paris, 1881. Sensier, Alfred. Life and Works of J. F. Millet. English Edition. Smith, John. Catalogue Raisonne of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, etc. London, 1829-42. Songe du Pastourel, Le. An illustrated poem dedicated to King Rene II. of Lor- raine. Imperial Library, Vienna, No. 2558. Strahan, Edward. Modern French Art. New York, 1881. Stothert, James. French and Spanish Painters. Philadelphia, 1875. Theuriet, Andre. Jules Bastien-Lepage. L'Homme et l'Artiste. Paris, 1885. Vadron, Marius. J. Callot. Paris, 1885. Vapereau, Gustave. Dic-fcionnaire universel des Contemporains. Paris, 1880. Vatout, Jean. Le Palais de Fontainebleau. Paris, 1852. Viardot, Louis. Les Musees de France. Paris, 1860. Viardot, Louis. Merveilles de la Peinture. Paris, 1868. English translation. London, 1870. Viardot, Louis. History of Painters of all Schools. London, 1877. Villot, Frederic. Notice des Tableaux exposes dans les Galeries du Musee National du Louvre. Paris, 1878. Vitet, Ludovic. Essais sur l'Histoire de 1'Art. Waagen, Gustav Friederich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain. London, 1854. Wedmore, Frederick. Masters of Genre Painting. London, 1880. Wolff, Albert, La Capitale de l'Art. Paris, 1886. Woltman and Woerman. History of Painting. London, 1880. Wright, Thomas. Caricature and Grotesque in Art. London, 1865. I CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE To Close of Fifteenth Century : Native Tendencies 1 CHAPTER II. Sixteenth Century : Height of Italian Influence, Characterized by Initiation of Government Connection with Art ; of School of Artists ; of Royal Gallery. Artists: I. Italian Guests of the Monarchs. II. Native Artists. III. Those Greatly Influenced by Italian Art 8 CHAPTER III. Seventeenth Century : Age of Louis XIV. Characterized by Organizations. I. Academy of Painting and Sculpture ; II. ^cole des Beaux-Arts ; III. French Academy at Rome. Spirit of the Time. Collections, etc. Founding of Academy. Its Influences and Schools of Instruction. Artists: Lebrun, Lesueur, etc 16 CHAPTER IV. Eighteenth Century : Characterized by Great License of Representation, and First Stirrings of Liberty in Government Control. Influence of Louis XV. and Regent. Collections. Management of Academy. Exhibitions. First called Salons. First Jury, 1748. Foundation of the Institute. Institution of Medals, 1793. Fashionable Art. Development of Genre. Art of the Revolution. Artists : Watteau and his School ; Boucher, Van Loo, and their followers ; Chardin, Greuze, etc 73 xviii CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE Nineteenth Century : Attaining Individuality of Treatment and Mastery in Presentations of Nature. Influences at Opening of Century. Three Periods of Development. — Period I. Classicism to 1824. Influences and Institutions of Napoleon I., of Louis XVIII., and Charles X. Nature and Sources of Classicism. Its Artists : David and his followers ; Natural- ism of Carl and Horace Vernet ; New Development by Gericault ; Landscape under Classicism and the Transition to Romanticism 126 CHAPTER VI. Nineteenth Century : Period II. Romanticism, from its Definite Recognition, 1824, to Revolt of Artists in 1848. Rise, Causes, and Nature of Roman- ticism. Influences, Institutions, and Collections of Louis Philippe. Art- ists : I. Romanticists, Delacroix and his Followers. II. Classic Roman- ticists, Ary Scheffer, etc. III. Naturalistic Schools : 1. Orientalists, Decamps, Marilhat ; 2. Landscape, Paul Huet, Corot, Rousseau, etc. ; 3. Landscape with Animals, Troyon, etc 190 CHAPTER VII. Nineteenth Century : Period III. Individuality, the Results of Romanticism. From the Salon of 1848 to Present Time. Influences, Institutions, and Collections of the Times of Napoleon III. Grand Reviews of Art of 1855 and 1807. Artists : I. Semi-Classic or Historic, Flandrin, etc. II. Land- scape with Animals, Rosa Bonheur, etc. III. Orientalists, Fromentin, etc. IV. Neo-Grecs, Hamon, etc. V. Genres : 1. Historical Genre, Meis- sonier, etc. ; 2. Rustic Genre or Landscape with Figures, Millet, etc. ; 3. Sympathetic Genre, Edouard Frere, etc. VI. Painters of Figures in Elevated Style, Cabanel, Hebert, etc. VII. Later Painters in Historical Styles, Baudry, Luminals, G. Moreau, etc. VIII. Military Painters, Pro- tais, Yvon, Detaille, etc. IX. Landscape and Marine, Harpignies, etc. X. Still-life, Vollon, Desgoffes, etc. XI. School of Impressionists, Manet, Monet, Bastien-Lepage, etc. Present Condition of French Art. 262 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. J. L. E. ME1SS0NIER, Le Portrait da Sergent,* Frontispiece LE XAIN, Repas de Pay sans, Page i 30 NICHOLAS POUSSIN, Et in Arcadia Ego, 64 CHARLES LEBRUX, Triomphe d' Alexandre, 96 EUSTACHE LESUEUR, Les Tro is Muses, 130 HYACIXTHE RIGAUD, Portrait de Louis XV., 160 AXTOIXE WATTEAU, Fete Champetre, 180 J. L. DAVID, Le Serment des Horaces, 91 (K C. TROYON, Le Que* 246 C F DAUBIGNY Itclu&e dans la Vallee d'Optevoz 276 J. L. GEROME, Une Collaboration, 306 J. F. MILLET, Depart pour le Tra vail, 336 W. A. BOUGUEREAU, Le Premier Chant de Noel, 376 J. J. LEFEBVRE, Le Reve* 416 J. BASTIEX-LEPAGE, La Saison d'Octobre, 440 F. BRACQUEMOXD, La Terrasse, 472 * Reproduced from a line engraving published by Knoedler & Co. ABBREVIATIONS. Acad., Academy. Cat., Catalogue. Chan., Chancellok. Cl., Class. Coll., Collection. Coun., Counsellor. Direct., Director. E. U., Exposition Universelle. Inst., Institute. L. Hon., Legion op Honor. Com. L. Hon., Commander Legion of Honor. Of. L. Hon., Officer Legion of Honor. Gr. Of. L. Hon., Grand Officer Legion of Honor. Med., Medal. Mem., Member. Or., Order. Rect., Rector. When the name only of the town or city where the picture is, is given, its museum is to be understood. In the lists of pictures, the scale of colons, semi-colons, and commas, is used : colons enclose pictures holding the same relation as of date or locality, or both ; semi- colons separate single titles, commas parts of titles. Two lists are exceptions to this method, viz., those of Brascassat's and Meissonier's pictures. In these, semi-colons and commas only are used, with the exception of that of Meissonier's works in London. A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. CHAPTER I. PAINTING IN FRANCE TO THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. r I \HE innate artistic sense of the French people has not been without 1 pictorial expression, maintained by a continuous line of artists, from the earliest times ; and, as a nation, France was among the ear- liest collectors, its court even preceding any secular power of Italy in acquiring works of art and patronizing artists. Charles V. (1364- 1380) placed the vellum illustrations of manuscripts in the Louvre when, as the first occupant of it as a palace, he took the Royal Library there. Early paintings were easily destroyed, but recent discoveries show an early native art to have existed : on garments and tapestries ; in mural decorations ; in miniatures or illumina- tions ; a little later in paintings on glass ; in decorated furniture ; and panels and easel pictures. These follow each other chrono- logically. Towards the end of the fourth century Astenus, Bishop of Amadie, wrote : "Every one is eager to have for himself, his wife, and his children, ornamental vestments. On these are lions, pan- thers, bears, bulls, dogs, flowers, fruits, rocks, hunters, and every- thing which painters can copy from nature ... so that when the rich appear in the street the children point the finger at them, laughing and leaving them hardly a moment of respite." 1 Not only then were walls ornamented, but tunics and mantles, those of the religiously inclined with scriptural scenes, as Christ with his Dis- ciples, and various Miracles. In the fourth and fifth centuries the interiors of buildings were painted in fresco or distemper, or were 1 Cited by the Abbe Martin in Melanges d'Archeologie. 2 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. covered with imitations of the Gallo-Roman mosaics. This continued with an intermitting vigor until 800 a. d., and then it acquired new strength in France, as did art in Germany, under their common sovereign, Charlemagne. This art partook of the Byzantine charac- teristics : emaciated features ; narrow, elongated eyes ; small and numerous folds of the dress ; the use of golden hatchings in the draperies ; and a coloring of pure flat tints. Under Charlemagne it became a law that the interior of churches should be decorated with pictures. This lasted through the shadow that, in the fear that the end of time was then approaching, overhung the world in the tenth century. The eleventh century, freed from this, brought in a new vigor, and art in the twelfth century, driven from the walls of churches by the rise of pointed architecture, found expression in glass painting. The Cathedral of Angers still possesses four windows of the time of Bishop Ulger (1125-1149) ; and the famous Abbot Suger (1081-1151) employed masters of different nations to paint windows for the whole extent of the walls of St. Denis. These gradually disappeared until their entire destruction in the Revolution. The oldest glass paint- ings known in France date from the end of the eleventh century. They are those of the Cathedral of Le Mans, completed in 1093, and the church of Xeuwiller in Alsace. The most flourishing period of this art was during the thirteenth century. Then for the first time was practised the copying of nature in trees, plants, and flowers. The workers in miniature, of which eighth -century examples still exist (as, in Paris, a Book of the Gospels for Charlemagne and his wife, llildegard, 781), took, in the thirteenth century, the French name, " enlumineurs," and the French excellence of this class of art is indicated by Dante's allusions to Parisian illuminators (Purg., Canto XL). Louis IX. (1226-70) founded a large library of books, most of which were newly transcribed for the purpose of illumination, and by the luxury in handsome books of the Knightly Orders this art was still further promoted. In 1292, twelve illuminators paid taxes in Paris. 1 Of these works a Psalter in Paris for the mother of St. Louis, and one for St. Louis himself, are examples. Long practised by the monks for sacred subjects only, illumination, under the influ- ence of nature, now became secularized. Furniture even eventually came to be decorated. Wardrobes, one preserved in the Cathedral of 1 In the Livre d'Or des Metiers (The Golden Book of Trades) a list of " enlumi- neurs" formed for the payment of the villein tax in 1292 is preserved. — Laborde. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 3 Bayeux, and one more beautiful in the Cathedral of Noyon, painted within with figures of angels and without with those of saints, prove this florid exercise of the artistic sense. In the early miniatures and mural paintings qualities of dramatic expression are very evident ; there are fine ideas of composition and, dominant over all, is the aim of making a pleasing picture, the decorative element. In the Dance of Death of the Ohaise-Dieu in Auvergne, a fresco of the fifteenth cen- tury, the skeleton, under which Death is usually represented in pic- tures of this subject, is softened into a figure somewhat clothed with flesh, and partially draped, as the balance of mass in the composition requires ; the bare skull, however, remaining to mark the character. The various ranks and conditions in life are well characterized and expression forcibly rendered. In the fifteenth century, besides the sovereigns, the Due de Berri and Etienne Chevalier were the principal patrons of art. Three years before the birth of Raphael the "bon roi Rene" died in D . r a ■ Provence, a sovereign who both commanded and executed Rene of Anjou > o (1408-1480) many works of art, and made his court at Provence the Angers. centre of an art-school. He was Count of Provence and Anjou, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, and titular King of Naples and Jerusalem. Married at thirteen to the Lady of Lorraine, whom his- tory calls "la douce Isabelle," his biographer records that, under the charm of her love, he cultivated music, painting, and poetry ; studied ancient language, legislation, and feudal customs ; and acquired an education superior to that customary in his age. Dis- putes concerning his inheritance subjected him to a long imprison- ment, in which he had access to the library of Philip of Burgundy, founder of the order of the G-olden Fleece. With this Rene of Anjou, of gentle domestic virtues ; chivalrous, giving tournaments unsur- passed in splendor, and from which the laws and ceremonies for tourneys in France were established ; brave, almost rash in war, hastening to the aid of his sovereign, Charles VII., when needed; religious, suppressing by law blasphemy in his kingdom ; of a gener- ous charity, shown by his j)rotecting the Jews throughout his realm — with this king began the revived art of France of the fifteenth century. A royal hand carrying out the instincts of a simple Chris- tian heart gives a fragrance to this first art blossom of native growth. His works, like those of Fra Angelico, are a tender devotional treat- ment of religious subjects, indicating a full heart seeking expression. His paintings still exist at Villeneuve near Avignon, at the Musee de Cluny in Paris, and at Aix. 4 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Of his school the most famous picture, originally at the Church of the Carmelites, now at the Cathedral at Aix, is a triptych, Moses in the Burning Bush. This scene occupies the centre, Bene himself kneels at an altar at the left, and Jeanne de Laval, his second wife, at the right, both surrounded by saints. 1 Above all is a canopy filled with angels of that charming type — head and wings only. By a strangely bold interpretation of the Scripture, from the burning bush the form of the Virgin with the Child rises, while the head of the Father is represented in the centre of the overhanging canopy. This conception of the burning bush is explained by the inscription below: "Rubrum quern viderat Moyses incombustum, conservatam agnovimus tuam laudabilem virginitatem, Sancta Dei Genitrix." 2 That Rene had felt that poetic and comprehensive conception of life as a drama complete in five acts : the Creation, Fall, Redemption, Judgment, and Retribution, which prevailed in the middle ages, the theme of nursery legend as well as of grand epic, is seen in his own picture entitled The Divina Commedia. The great story of life is there told by groupings of small pictures around a larger centre, in which the Virgin is represented crowned between the Father and Son, but a little lower than they, the Holy Dove resting above her head. Among the smaller pictures, Moses and the Burning Bush has, as a parallel to it, Christ as The Man of Sorrows in the centre of an edifice with praying multitudes around him. The Romance of Les Tres douces Mercys, illuminated by him, is in the Royal Library of Vienna. Rene's art shows the Italian influence, caught while in Italy seeking to substantiate his claim to the crown of Naples (1438-42). His oil paintings, by their hatchings, give evidence of his earlier painting of miniature, 3 and his coloring is of the Flemish tone, for, in his paintings, as also in the artists he employed, he exercised an eclecticism of different nations' styles. His work was a result of the vigor infused into all departments of life in France as well as in Italy in the fifteenth century — a part indeed of the great movement known as the early renaissance. Contemporary with Rene were : not a more important, but a bet- ter artist, Jean Fouquet, painter at the courts of Charles VII. and 1 Until within a few years this has been attributed to Rene himself, but in some archives at Marseilles, Nicholas Froment has recently (1877) been found to have been paid 70 gulden for executing this very picture. 2 " Oh, Holy Mother of God, what Moses had seen burning, yet unconsumed, we acknowledge thy laudable purity preserved." 3 His " petites et secretes occupations," says one of his contemporaries. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 5 Louis XI. ; Jean Bourdichon ; and Jean Pereal. 1 Jean Fouquet, the best known, was the head of a large school of illu- Jean Fouquet 7 < ° (1415-1480), Tours, minators at Tours. Working at about the time of the ("57 ?5°2 U |) d Tours ^ nven ^ on °f printing which swept away manuscripts, jean Pereal he was the last of the great painters that practised ( -1528), Tours, illumination. Appreciated in his time, for "he put into an initial letter power that would have distinguished a can- vas," its writings speak of him as the "good painter of Louis XL, Jean Fouquet." "Fouquet takes so high a wing," says De » Bastard, "that his place is with the great masters." He was the greatest French painter of the fourteenth century, and he stands to the French school as Mantegna to the Italian. He had been the pupil of Antonio Filarete (1440- ) in Italy, where he attracted much attention from his use of oil as a vehicle, then little known there, and painted the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV. His own por- trait as a man of about thirty, dressed in a close cap and a gown with a high collar, is seen in one of the early Limoges enamels in the Louvre. Many manuscripts illuminated by him are extant ; of these an important one is a Boccaccio at the Munich Library. A Josephus in French at the National Library, Paris, gives opportunity for a complete study of his style. But his finest work is a Prayer-Book "pour Maitre ICtienne Chevalier," forty of the miniatures of which, having been dismembered, are owned by M. Louis Brentano at Frank- fort-on-the-Maine. Here he evinces the tenderness and grace of Memling and Fra Angelico without the occasional excessive sweetness of the one or stiffness of the other, his interiors becoming charmingly detailed genre scenes, in which furniture, costumes of great variety, and manners (for every class of life from the king to the beggar is rep- resented) are given with unmistakable truth. He also shows power as a draughtsman and colorist ; no small skill in perspective ; and free- dom of action and individuality in the figures. Of these the types are French, rather short and impressed with the animated French features ; but the painter's grace of composition, taste in costumes, and his frequent attainment of great beauty in the heads — a charac- teristic then foreign to the northern schools — are a result of his Italian travels, the seductions of which, however, never drew him wholly from his independent nationality. His colors, strong but 1 Of Pereal it is recorded that he was sent to England to fashion the wedding robe of Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII., upon her marriage to Louis XII. of France, the Mary Tudor who subsequently marrying her faithful lover, Charles Brandt, gave a fatal royal descent to Lady Jane Grey. 6 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. charming, and his tendency to portraiture are Flemish. He has a facile use of vivid tones, skilfully relieved by more neutral ones, as a soft, deep orange vermilion — which usually forms the key of his color — close to passages of buff and in conjunction with lively tones of gray , for these he finds frequent occasion in gay banners and shields, with soldiers' buff leather tunics and steel accoutrements. He has, too, beside his higher sentiment of art acquired in Italy, an uncompromis- ing realism, an early illustration of the French tendency that still crops out in the subtle studies of nature of the nineteenth century. In the two or three of his paintings still existing his method is shown to be the newly discovered one of the Van Eycks, with oil as the vehicle, which then was attracting the attention of all artists to Bruges. One, The Saviour of the World, is in the National Gallery, London ; one, a leaf of a large diptych in M. Louis Brentano's collec- tion at Frankfort-on-the-Maine and, ordered by that patron, is Eti- enne Chevalier, treasurer of Charles VII. and Louis XL, in the act of adoration, forming really but a reproduction on a large scale of one of the forty illuminations of the same collection the third, the other leaf of this, presents the object of adoration, the Virgin and Child. It is in the Museum of Antwerp. The Virgin is a likeness of Agnes Sorel, the beauty of the Court of Charles VIII., and who was herself an influential patron of Fouquet and made him the execu- tor of her will. Fouquet is associated with the death of Charles VII. in 1461, and the accession of Louis XL, in being employed to color a cast of the dead king's face, and to furnish designs for the celebra- tion planned for the new king's entry into Tours, for which payment is recorded, though the king declined to make the entry. 2 He sub- sequently (1470-75) received moneys from Louis XL for pictures, miniatures, and designs for the tomb of that monarch, proving that he was in every branch i( artist to the King." His two sons and his pupils long existed upon his traditions with little development of them until a fresh contact with Italy was furnished by Jean Pereal and Jean Bourdichon, the latter a painter of portraits and history under Louis XL, who, though visiting Italy, maintained an independence of style, favorably modified by Italian suggestions. Jean Pereal ac- companied the army of Charles VIII. to Italy, painted many of its battles, and bore thence the impressions of Italy's grand period. 1 See finely colored plates in Fine Arts Quarterly Review, 1866, July to October. 2 By dues paid his widow for a house and garden, the site of Fouquet's residence at Tours has been determined by M. de Grand Maison, to be the angle formed by the Rue de Jerusalem with the north side of the Rue de Fouquet. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 7 Besides this one at Tours, there was a school at Paris. Both maintained the native characteristics but under very different influ- ences. Tours, through the open highway maintained to the port of Narbonne, was in more frequent communication with Italy, and its tendencies were thus modified by the Italian characteristics, while the School of Paris, by the work of the Flemish artists in the neighboring Burgundian Court, was drawn towards Flemish tendencies. Both schools started from the same point of native growth, illuminations, bat the style of each is discriminated at a glance. Of the school at Paris the best-known example is a Prayer -Book of Anne of Brittany (Paris), queen of both Charles VIII. and his successor, Louis XII., and, as in it an A and L often occur entwined, it was probably executed after her marriage with Louis XII. (1498). It is inter- esting to trace in this early native work the peculiar tendency of French taste in the character of the coloring. From a narrow gamut of tints, toned in a high, sharp key, there is a production of harmony of color similar to that in the later schools. As influenced by Italian contact in the school of Tours, the general coloring became fainter and lost positive accent, while the forms and separate tints retained the French precision ; as influenced at Paris by the Flemish tendency, the native French lightness and gayety were mingled with the brilliant and varied hues of the northern school ; a Flemish luminous effect, also, and skill in details are shown by the work at Paris in Queen Anne's Prayer-Book, in which blossoms and fruit are drawn in exquisite truth, and, in a Birth of Christ, faces are illumi- nated by a fire in the foreground. Thus when they were combined under Francis I. (1515-1547) each school was mutually corrective of the other. In all the early French art, is apparent, as is still charac- teristic of the French school of the nineteenth century, a marked personality of motive. It seldom rose to the representation of great national thought, but expressed the limited aspirations of an indi- vidual or of a class. A general view shows French art of the fif- teenth century as having a native under-life, which was so overborne by here Italian, and there Flemish influence, as to be well-nigh stifled, though, if left to the kindred tendencies of Flemish art, it might have been collaterally developed with it. CHAPTER II. SIXTEENTH CENTUKY — HEIGHT OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE AND BEGINNING OF OFFICIAL PATRONAGE. POLITICAL, social, and art influences now conspired to give 1 renewed impulse to French art. By the crafty absolutism of Louis XL (1461-1483) the power of the nobles had been subordinated to that of the king, and a centralization of influence began, which, with the increased number of provinces made subject to the royal power, resulted in the sixteenth century in the formation of a royal court that formed the centre of the wealth and culture of the nation. Here artists, who had previously suffered the limitations of isolated residence or that of scant communities, as well as the narrowed activ- ities imposed by the rigid rules of the trade guilds, were brought into contact with the highest intelligence and social grace then existing. Since the close of the twelfth century the guilds for artisans had held a formidable power, and artists could only act within the sphere assigned to them, which was inferior to that of artisans. 1 This thraldom continued in an arbitrary form until the partial relief afforded by the spirit of the sixteenth century, indeed, even until the founding of the Academy of Painting in 1648. Of the sixteenth century the prominent new characteristic was the greater assertion of the individual. Also, the increased intercourse with Italy in the expeditions of Charles VIII. (1494) and Louis XII. (1499) for the recovery of the Milanese had resulted in their armies returning with, not only artists, but ideas and objects of art, which gave impetus and direction to the native tendencies. This was the first real revelation to France of the grand art of Italy. The bril- liant and cultivated court of Milan, where they had found Leonardo da Vinci exercising his wondrous and versatile genius, they left i In the fifteenth century, cooks' scullions might, in formal processions, boldly pre- cede painters and sculptors. — Laborde. Francis Clouet, in great honor with Francis I., was constantly annoyed by being enrolled among the artisans. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 9 almost a ruin. But, by the "life-blood of Italy which they had sucked/' they imparted a new vigor to France. And for the assimi- lation of Italian superiority of artistic culture the French were wholly ready, for they had wealth/ taste for luxury,' 2 and great men- tal attainment. 3 But there was less originality in the sixteenth cen- tury in painting than in other forms of art. Early in the century, Francis I., by removing his court to Paris (Fontainebleau), united the two native schools of Tours and Paris, and a brilliant period of art production followed. This met, however, with an eclipse in the civil strife 4 between Catholics and Protestants during the reigns of the three sons of Catharine de' Medici. The latter part of the century thus records a low condition of native art, injured by Italian imitation. PAINTERS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. It was the work of that splendor-loving sovereign, who delighted in the title of "the first gentleman of France," to found 6 a school, the School of Fontainebleau, but it was of foreign artists. Adroit, 1 Notwithstanding the war of a hundred years preceding the epoch of the Battle of Nancy (1477), the treasures preserved at the Palace of the Luxembourg reached the fabulous figures of 450,000 crowns. (Comynes, liv. v., chap, viii.) In 1489 Mary of Burgundy carried to her husband, Maximilian, in tapestries, furniture, and " joyaux," a valuation of 801,000 ducats (Annuaire des Musees Imperiaux d'Autriche, p. 442), and Louis XL proudly replied when his brother-in-law, Galeas Maria Sforza, offered him a subsidy of 100,000 ducats in cash, " Tell your master I do not wish his money, and that I raise every year three times as much as he." 2 The taste for luxury of costumes, even of war, and of furniture and jewelry, is famous. The description of the uniforms that the band of arbaletriers wore upon the entrance of Charles VIII. into Florence, and the inventory of the goods of Charlotte of Savoy, the wife of Louis XL (Paris, 1565), may be cited. 3 Many of the nobles were learned, as Rene of Anjou, the Due de Berri, and Charles d'Orleans. Under the name of " Etude " the University of Paris had obtained its first privilege from Philippe Augnste in 1200, the first in the world, and becoming a model to other nations in the middle ages, gave to France the superiority in thought. This university was well attended. In 1461 ambassadors from Florence estimated 18,000 as the number of "scholars " of Paris, not comprising those studying civil law. (Archivo Storico Italiano, 1865, pp. 32-38. Jourdain's Chronologicus ... ad historiam Universitatis Parisiensis, Paris, 1862, p. 304.) 4 Eight civil wars, with short intervals of peace, the result of that queen's maxim, " Divide and govern," and of her setting, by her Italian craft, sect against sect, occupied the thirty years following 1562, during the reigns of the last two of Catharine de' Medici's three royal sons. The massacre of St. Bartholomew alone (1572) deprived the kingdom of the flower of its strength. 5 Though there is evidence that in the fourteenth century Giotto had been called to Avignon by Clement V. and Memmi by Petrarch, no school existed there. 10 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. impulsive, chivalrous, by nature keenly appreciative of all the higher forms of intellectual expression, Francis I. (1515-1547) could not traverse the Italian peninsula from Milan to Naples in that golden age of art, without seeking to effect a similar adorn- ment of France. The bitter rivalry between him and Charles V. also gave Francis I. an aspiration to attain to an elegance of taste and patronage of art equal to that monarch's. He invited Leonardo da Vinci (1516) to France and so cherished him there as to give rise to the report that the artist died (1519) in the sovereign's arms. And, if Andrea del Sarto, after painting a few pictures in France (1518), hurried back to Italy and, through the baleful fascina- tions of his wife, proved faithless to the French monarch's liberal patronage, and squandered upon her the money that should have purchased works of high art for France, other Italian artists became permanent workers at the French Court. II Kosso from 1530 to 1541; Primaticcio by over thirty years' residence (1531-1570) in the esteem of the successive sovereigns, Francis I., Henry II., and Fran- cis II. ; Niccold del Abbate (1522); Pellegrine ; II Bagnacavallo, by their works, the pupils they brought with them, and their practical lessons, transplanted the Italian spirit and formed the School of Fon- tainebleau. Brought there for his own gratification, Francis I. hardly foresaw the influence to be wielded by this " little Rome " for the ensu- ing two hundred years. More than thirty painters were constantly studying at Fontainebleau as one studied at Rome, and thence issued many skilful masters. 1 But the Italian colony, guests of the success- ive monarchs, and treated as princes, eclipsed the more obscure native painters, so that they are comparatively lost to history, though Francis I. patriotically gave them no small share of the works ordered upon the new Fontainebleau palace. The brilliancy of the subse- quent Louis Quatorze period also aided in burying them under neglect. Recently discovered documents, however, show that they were numerous and able, and that to them great works were en- trusted, 2 which, however, with the exception of illuminations and some portraits, have perished. They soon began to be called the French School to distinguish them from the Italians. Jean Cousin and the Clouets are the most conspicuous of these native artists, but are of differing tendencies. There were four Clouets, all of Flemish origin and all faithful to 1 Description Historique . . . de Fontainebleau. Par M. l'Abbe Guilbert : Paris, 1731. 2 Laborde's La Renaissance des Arts a la Cour de France (1850). THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 11 Flemish traditions. Jehan, the father, at the age of forty (1460), after the fall of the house of Burgundy in the death of Charles the Bold had caused less demand for artists there, came from Brussels, bring- ing with him experience in the practice of the perfected method of oil painting just discovered by the Van Eycks. The others were his son Jean, his grandson Francois, and the brother of Francois, whose name is unknown but whom, as " the brother of Janet," a note of Margaret of Valois speaks of taking into her service at Navarre. Francois is the most conspicuous, from his both maintaining the skill and inheriting the accumulated honors of the two preceding generations. The talent of the family, in its time, was deservedly valued ; it did much to elevate the artists' position when it was still not above that of the artisan. Their charmingly faithful and expressive portraits aided in this, for, to the value of the individual and his personality then prevailing, was allied a passion for portraits, which is, naturally, after the religious and ascetic forms the first phase of a taste for art. It was then out of all proportion to the demand for other kinds of painting. Jean Clouet had received the honor of appointment as " varlet de chambre " and painter in ordinary to Francis I. (1523), an office created by that monarch, and of which this artist was the first incumbent. He thus leads the distinguished procession of " painters to the king," that under Louis XVI. was lost in Vien, appointed 1789, and that had been rendered illustrious by Poussin, Lebrun, Eigaud, and Mignard. In the daily intercourse of the court, he became Master Jean, Jehan, Jehannot, Jehannet, and Janet, the last becoming fixed upon him and the family after him as their name. What his portraits must have been is known chiefly by writings, as, e.g., in the Chronicles of Brantome it is said : "Marie Stuart now appeared in her national costume of the barbarous fashion of her country, but being a veritable goddess it was necessary that Janet should paint her." Two of his portraits of Francis I. still exist ; one, an equestrian figure, at Florence, where it passes for a Hol- bein ; the other a half length, natural size at Versailles, where it has been attributed to Mabuse. These attributions, which mark their character and rank, were long accepted, but have been corrected by Laborde. Francois Clouet succeeded to his father's office 1 (1545), and 1 As an incumbent of this he was called upon to take a cast of the face and hands of Francis I. at his death (1547), for the effigy to be borne at his funeral and also to render the same service to Henry II. His expenses for this, even for the hair of the effigy, are still extant. They were cut down by the court treasurer. 12 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. maintaining his own Gothic style among the distinguished Italians Francis ciouet and their imitators, successfully competed with them (1510 .572), Tours. f QY p U ^ii c esteem. From his resemblance to Holbein he is believed to have been a pupil of that master. His works and those of his father are often confounded from both being "varlets of the king" and both favorite portrait painters. But the father left few pictures, and the son many. Many of his works are in England, chiefly at Hampton Court, where they are some- times taken as productions of Holbein. His many portraits of dis- tinguished persons from Francis I. to Charles IX. would form a gallery of great interest. It has been said the Medicean portion might serve for the life of Catharine de' Medici as truly as the pic- tures painted by Rubens a half century later did for that of the Medicean queen of Henry IV. The portrait of Francis I. is in the collection of Lord Dudley, marked " Leonardo," but now considered a Clouet. At the Museum of Antwerp is the Dauphin Francis, eldest son of Francis I., who died early; Francis II., son of Henry II., as a boy, is in Earl Spencer's collection at Althorpe and, because as a boy, suggesting the motherly influence of Catharine de' Medici. At Hampton Court is Mary, Queen of Scots. In the Earl of Carlisle's collection at Castle Howard is Catharine de' Medici herself as a mother, surrounded by her children, four future sovereigns, in full length, life size ; Francis II., Charles IX., Henry III., and Margaret, the future wife of Henry of Navarre. Jean d'Albret, the father of Henry of Navarre, is at Kiltingham, and a portrait of Don John of Austria is in the collection of the King of Holland. Henry II., at the age of thirty-five, is now at the Louvre. In the Belvedere at Vienna, is the full-sized portrait of Charles IX., which his mother sent to the Austrian Court when she was negotiating his marriage with Elizabeth, the daughter of Maximilian II. ; and in the Louvre is a half-length portrait of Elizabeth taken at the time of her marriage. Eighty-eight others in black and red chalk of distin- guished characters of the different courts are at Castle Howard. Five large pictures representing, one a battle and others state ceremonies, in which Henry II. and Catharine de' Medici figured, and of which one was over eighty feet long, were in existence as late as 1793, as shown by an inventory made at that time. They have since disappeared, probably among those burned during the Revolution. At the Louvre, besides the three authentic portraits mentioned, are six- teen portraits classed under the head, "School of Clouet." This representative of the national school at this time shows in his works THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 13 a further development of the tendency of his predecessors. They had laid on their local tints in solid layers, carrying them in mass up to the extreme edge and, after this was dry, modelled the surface by hatching, but with a color so diluted that the touches easily min- gled. In Clouet's period there was greater freedom of manner, and the quaintness and harshness of the preceding time was replaced by an intelligent and courtly refinement. The characteristics of the Clouets are the Flemish ones ; fine finish and a simple, careful imitation of nature, without idealization. Their portraits indicate great power for reading and depicting character. 1 This was charac- teristic of the age, a faithful reproduction of man in the increased respect for bis personality. PAINTERS AFFECTED BY ITALIAN INFLUENCE. By the Italian artists in France the native artists were drawn to the practices of the Italian decadence, for, after the death of Leo- nardo and the withdrawal of Del Sarto, Francis I. and his successors could attract no artists equal to these from Italy. A taste for study in Italy was also acquired. Of this Italianized class the most famous was Jean Cousin, " le Senonais " as he often wrote himself, who was greatly attracted by the Florentine design of II Rosso. (150" -i 589 or H e i g considered the earliest historical painter of the before 1593), French school. He made the transition in his practice from glass painting to oil, being the last of the painters on glass. Several glass windows now in the Louvre from the Chapel of the Chateau d'Anet, the castle of the beautiful Diane de Poictiers, so influential in the reign of Henry II., are attributed to him. Only three authenticated pictures by him remain, as he spent his time chiefly in other pursuits : in glass painting ; in sculpture, in which he gained high rank ; in engraving and architecture ; in giving lectures; and in writing books, two 2 of such value that they alone 1 " The head of Henry III. is expressive of the character of both his father and mother, indeed, it is typical of the whole family of Catherine. ... In the por- trait in the Louvre of the Princess Elizabeth of Austria, the bride of Charles IX., he depicted the eagerness, the frank and simple life of a girl of eighteen covered with jewels, who happily could not foresee her fate. . . . The Vienna portrait of her husband shows beneath the tranquil pose and the dignified quiet, the truth of his characterization by De Thou : ' He was haughty, violent, cruel and dissimulating.' And with all this, Clouet has given expression in the same face to Charles IX. 's love of poetry and the arts." — Mrs. Mark Pattisou, 'Renaissance of Art in France. 2 Livre de la Perspective, Paris, 1560, and La Vraye Science de la Portraiture, Paris, 1571 14 A HIS TOBY OF FRENCH PAINTING. would have kept his name from perishing. The principal one of his three paintings, a Last Judgment (Louvre), from its treatment, in which muscles are conspicuous and the action of great force, has given to him the name of " the Michael Angelo of France." He had a thorough knowledge of anatomy, and he also resembled that artist in the number of his accomplishments. The second is a so-called Eva Prima Pandora at Montard, the Chateau at Sens in which he was born, and which is also still known as " Jean Cousin's House," and where eventually this picture served as a door from the kitchen to the coal closet. 1 It represents his early style and has the same "pate" as the Clouets, obtained by the same means, and the drapery is largely and simply treated. The third is the Descent from the Cross, at Mayence. He married Nicole, the daughter of Lubin Rousseau, the lieu- tenant-general of the bailiwick of Sens, and at his death left one daughter, Marie. His time was spent between Paris and his native place, in the possession of a brilliant reputation during the reigns of Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX. and Henry III. It is generally believed that he was of the Protestant faith, as in his Last Judgment he placed the pope in the Inferno. The Italian influence softened his contours, imparted a grace to his native taste, and these qualities, added to his native ability, make him rank as the greatest painter in France before Poussin. The Italian influence was continued in two others, Toussaint Du Breuil and Martin Freminet (1567-1619), at first the pupils of the Toussaint Du Italians and subsequently their successors in adorning Breuii (1561- ^ e p a i ace 0 f Fontainebleau. Du Breuil belongs to this 1602), Pans, -i 0 chev. st. century ; Freminet's chief work falls into the next, but Michel (,6, 5 ). formg a connec ti n g link to this. These artists followed simply the style of Primaticcio, whom rich gifts from Francis I., Henry II. , Francis II., and Charles IX. had retained so long in France. This readiness to adopt the methods of another school and country stifled the growth of native art, which might have devel- oped the strength to throw off these tendencies, had not the native spirit been weakened by internal dissensions. Under the influence of these, however, towards the close of the century, even the most vigorous minds of the period turned to the schools of Italy where they might find, without necessity of individual initiation, suc- cessful methods of skilled technique ready to hand. " Going to 1 M. Horsiu Deon. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 15 Eome " thus became more and more the custom. Had there been favorable conditions, a teaching that grasped principles rather than servilely imitated, the influence of Italy's higher and differing civili- zation, in giving enlarged views and breaking up local traditions, could not have been less beneficial than that of the French Academy at Eome established by the French Government a little later (1666), and continued until now. Italian teaching was also afforded nearer home, at Fontainebleau, and some of the most Italianized of the French artists never crossed the Alps. Italian influence thus eclipsed that of the contemporary Flemish school, which, being also in its infancy and developing simultaneously with it, evoked the native traits of the French school, rather than, like the Italian, overpowered them. With all its French monarchs victims of misfortune, 1 the six- teenth century furnishes as its summary in art: the establishment by Francis I. of the School of Fontainebleau ; and, paintings in the earlier part of this century beginning, as easel pictures, to be port- able, the commencement of a royal collection by that monarch ; thus he formed the nucleus of a national gallery which was eventually to become the magnificent Museum of the Louvre. Four of the Leo- nardos, among them the wonderful Mona Lisa, and seven of its important Eaphaels were the legacy of Francis I. ; parts of it, like Napoleon's gains, were obtained as trophies of war ; this first royal collection was, however, then, as it remained under many sovereigns, the private property of the king, never open to the people. Other definite points of the century's art history were : the creation of the office of painter (" varlet") to the king; the collateral development of a native school ; the final predominance of Italian influence, pro- moted by the national weakness resulting from the religious dissen- sions brought about by Catharine de' Medici, in which also many valuable works of art were destroyed. 2 In the general revivification of ideas, however, native art gained a firm foothold in France. 1 Charles VIII. and Louis XII. met reverses in Italy, Francis I. was taken prisoner at Pavia, Henry II. was slain in a tilting match after suffering defeat at St. Quentin, Francis II. died young, Charles IX. died suffering remorse for St. Bartholomew, and Henry III. was murdered as was also Henry IV. 2 The first catalogue of the royal art treasures, Tresor des Merveilles de Fontaine- bleau Le Pere Dan, 1642, showed many of the collection of Francis I. to be then missing. OHAPTEE III. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY — THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. — FOUNDING OF 'HE seventeenth century was a period of grandeur for France; of 1 grand victories gained, and grand palaces decorated. But the elfect of the religious dissensions of the late sixteenth century caused a dearth of artistic talent in its early years. Three influences, as in the preceding history, the Italian, the Flemish, and the native — the last always of tendencies somewhat allied to the Flemish, and all with newly enforced powers — affected its art. The Italian queen of Henry IV., Maria de' Medici (married 1600), by her employment of Flemish artists for decorating her new palace of the Luxembourg, as Eubens in the twenty-four scenes of her life — now in the Louvre — Duchesne, and Ohampaigne, did much for national art. But she thus, Italian though she was, and full of predilections for Italian art, which she and her Minister greatly promoted in France, also created a source of Flemish influence, a means of teaching Rubens's methods, of which French artists have since continually availed themselves, the result of which, however, begins to be more fully apparent in the eighteenth century and, in the nineteenth, is still an acknowledged power. The Luxembourg pictures by Rubens were soon to become a nursery, in which the first efforts of French artists took direction, and to unite with the French Academy at Rome in producing a beneficial cosmopolitism for French students. Italian influence, however, now predominated. The prosperity following that charter of religious rights, the Edict of Nantes (1598), the restoration of the finances, the endowing of schools, and the promotion of manufactures under Henry IV. ( 1 589— 1610) by Sully, was followed by the thirty-three years' reign of Louis XIII. and Richelieu, whose avowed purpose to weaken the nobility, by absorbing them in the luxuries of the Parisian Court, had resulted in making the monarchy so absolute that the edicts of the king were registered by the "parlement " without examination. Thus the way was prepared for the absolutism of Louis XIV., which led to designating THE ACADEMY. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 17 even an art period by his name. The autocrat's personal influence was favorable to grandeur and dignity, to an art disciplined, executed by rule, well ordered, and it contributed to art this element of the classical character. The effect was further promoted by the distin- guished influence of Poussin's antiques ; also a prevalence of this disciplined style was caused by the many artists working under the leadership of some one court painter, selected as expressing the king's ideas and taste. The king thoroughly believed in the art he had done so much to develop. He had Lebrun's Family of Darius hung in his own room at the Tuileries and, as its pendant, The Supper at Emmaus by Veronese, and, surrounded by courtiers extolling French art to the skies, he one day took the Papal Nuncio, M. Defini, there to impress him with the superiority of French art. The great event of the seventeenth century to the artistic world of France, to the entire world of art eventually, was the founding of the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture (1648), which, through the liberal scope subsequently given to it by the great Colbert (1662-1683), made the promotion of art an affair of the government, and gave to French art an official foundation on which it is still maintained, and to which is in great part owing its present supremacy. By a retroac- tion of its fame upon the association of artists formed early in the century by Simon Vouet, and which became the nucleus of the Academy, the French school of painting has by some been considered to take its origin at this time and Youet to be its founder. He certainly bequeathed to art a brilliant school of pupils, and to himself, through their celebrity, renown. The seventeenth century thus may he said in its very beginning to take lustre from the reign of Louis XIV., though he was not born till 1638. His egotistical appropriation to himself of things of special value, with his love of grandeur, led him to make valuable collections, and he became a munificent patron of art. The royal collection of pictures, during the vicissitudes of those turbulent times, had been reduced from that of Francis I. to about 100 at the beginning of Louis's reign. He increased it, even during his wars, to 2,403/ an "almost infinite number," contemporary descriptions of that day make it. Colbert, at the king's order, spared no trouble or expense to secure valuable works, and for this, great opportuni- ties offered. Some pictures of the collection of Charles I., 2 as 1 Bailly's Catalogue, 1709-10. 2 Charles had purchased, for £80,000, the collection of the Dukes of Mantua. Having augmented this, his collection numbered 1,387 pictures at his death. 2 18 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Louis had been disinclined to profit by the misfortune of his uncle, were at their sale (1650-53) absorbed by Mazarin and Jabach, a rich banker at Paris, and those of Jabach's which were subsequently acquired by Mazarin passed with Mazarin's 1 at his death (1661) to the king. Others were acquired from a later sale by Jabach a and are some of the most admired of the Louvre of to-day. But Colbert also imported from Italy many of the paintings then in vogue, as those of the Carracci, of Guido, Guercino, and Albano. The pictures of the Crown now received care, and in 1709-10 a catalogue was made by their keeper, Bailly, which, though but a manuscript, is of great historic value. But the sovereign yet had no dream that his gallery was the nation's gallery, that it belonged in any way to the people, or that the people were entitled even to look upon its pictures. Colbert, however, always in advance of his age, effected that for a time in 1681 the king's acquisitions should be arranged in the old Louvre and seen at Paris. They filled seven galleries there besides four in the Hotel. The fashion thus set was followed by the nobles. Mazarin's collection had tripled that of his sovereign. Cardinal Kichelieu earlier had formed the first of the three galleries known in history as of the Palais Royal. In 1624 he purchased the Hotels d'Armagnac and de Rambouiilet, demolished them, and built on their site the Hotel de Richelieu ; in 1629, in his increasing impor- tance, more land was purchased, a portion of the old walls of Paris of the time of Charles V. that ran through the garden demolished, the ditch filled up, the residence remodelled on a larger scale, and in 1634 the new structure became a palace and was called the Palais Cardinal. Its library was from September, 1661, to February, 1692, the place of assembly for the Academy of Painting, and there were held the Academy's first three exhibitions (1667-69-71). The next (1673), become too large for the library, took place in the court. For this first gallery of the Palais Royal Richelieu had gathered, in the left wing of his palace, twenty-five portraits of illustrious men, the twenty-fifth being "by courtesy" that of his sovereign, Louis XIII. ; the twenty-fourth was that of Richelieu himself. That of Maria de' Medici, though he compelled her to die in exile, he allowed to hang there. These portraits were painted by Philippe de Champaigne, 1 Five hundred and forty-six original pictures at a valuation of 224,573 livres tournois, 92 copies, at 257 livres tournois, and 241 portraits of popes from St. Peter to that time, at 733 livres tournois. 2 One hundred and one paintings and 5,512 designs at a cost of 200,000 livres or 3,000.000 francs. Villot estimates a livre at fifteen francs. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 19 Simon Vouet, Juste d'Egmont, and Poerson. 1 Each of the twenty- five portraits was accompanied by two marble busts, many of them antiques, and several small pictures, representing the device of each subject and his most signal deeds. Other galleries were those of Monsieur, of Dubois, of Milor Mel- fort, of the Due de Grammont, the Abbe de Mesainville, Derat, Forest de Naucre, de Noise, de Seignelay, Tamboneau, Paillet, de Launay, de la Ravois, of the Due de Noailles, de Menars, d'Haute- feuille, of the Due de Vendome, Corberon, de Bretonvilliers, du Cher, de Lorraine, the Abbe de Champs, Dorigny, etc., etc. The con- ditions of the time were prolific of genius. In literature the century was eminently the "grand siecle." Artists were demanded for the ornamentation of the numerous buildings now erecting, such as the enlargement of the Louvre, and the conversion of the royal property at Versailles into a palace whose grandeur and magnificence are a true type of the spirit which " Le Grand Monarque" imparted to art. All departments, painting, sculpture, and architecture, were by his encouragement drawn away from truth of spirit to a conven- tional grandeur. By a parade of pomp and dignity and a solemn rule of etiquette, the true native French spirit, as well as the Italian, was stifled, and society entire in France, rejecting such teachings as Teniers's pictures and Shakespeare's scenes of humble truths of human nature, found in the aim for impressive effect, in a fictive majesty, an ideal for art. But the establishment of the Academy has largely atoned for any effects of this false taste of Louis XIV. 2 Vouet had studied in Rome, and after his return an association of artists formed by him, among whom his pupils Lebrun, Lesueur, and Sebastien Bourdon were conspicuous, often conferred together con- cerning the practices of the Academy of Artists there. 3 They com- bined in 1648 to found a similar institution in Paris. These plans were hastened by the annoyance occasioned by the master house- painters and artisans, the Maitrise, who pressed the artists to join their association. Another annoyance arose from the Maitrise of St. 1 They have been engraved by Heince and Bignon, in a work by Vulsion de la Colombiere, 1656. 2 Beule, the permanent secretary of the Academy of Painting, in 1863 said, " The founding of the Academy is for the great king and his Minister Colbert, le titre d'immortalite le plus pur." 3 An interesting contemporaneous account of the founding of the Academie des Beaux-Arts is found in a paper written by Guillet de Saint Georges, historian of the Academy (appointed 1682), read at a sitting of that body July 4, 1693, and published 1844. 20 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Luke. This had been created (1391) by the Prevot of Paris in the need of inspecting and enforcing honest work, and honest supplies of paint and wax from the painters of images employed by the Church. These " jures " or the sworn in, as the members of the Maitrise were called, were at first worthy artists, but, as it became an annoying duty, the higher class of artists declined it, and in the hands of unworthy men the Maitrise had developed into a tyranny, 1 which had continued for centuries. By a regulation of its procuring and having the force of law, dated 1391, renewed 1582, confirmed by the " Cba- telet" (1620), artists were prohibited from assembling pupils around a model and from selling or freely exchanging their works, without proving five years of apprenticeship and four of journeymanship. 2 At the accession of Louis XIV., as for a long time previous, artists consisted of three classes : 1st, The Sworn Masters of the Corporation of St. Luke, i. e. , the Maitrise ; 2d, The Brevetaires of the King ; 3d, others who were of neither of those bodies. The Brevetaires or Privilegies had grown out of the fact that Charles VI., Charles VIII., Henry II., and Charles IX. had exempted certain artists from taxes, subsidies, loans, watch, guard, and any servitude whatever to the State. These privileges had caused the Brevetaires long to be held in hatred by the Maitrise, and, during the minority of Louis XIV., while the spirit of the Fronde still incited to audacities, the Breve- taires were summoned before a session of the Maitrise of St. Luke (Feb. 7, 1646), and the demand made that the number of " painters to the house of the king should be reduced to four, or six at most, and this number should not be exceeded by those called ' painters to the queen."' The Maitrise even proceeded so far as to confiscate the pictures of two, Sevegne and Bulet, and to prohibit their expos- ing pictures for sale. This proved the inciting act, though it had carefully avoided molesting the conspicuous and popular young Le- brun, just returned with high honors from Rome, and whose distin- guished bearing, manners, and talent had in his boyhood won the pro- tection of the Chancellor Seguier. But with a true " esprit de corps," Lebrun, now about twenty-eight years of age, making the general interest his own, assumed the brunt of a revolt against the tyranny, and at once formed plans of organization, to which La Hyre, Sarazin, 1 Pignaniol de la Force, Description of Paris, II., p. 249. 2 There are interesting accounts of how, in avoidance of this law, a company of artists, among whom were Lesueur, Bourdon, and Lebrun, hid themselves in a cellar while drawing from their model, a drinking cobbler. They were pursued by the Mai- trise in every way that the law permitted. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 2J Sebastien Bourdon, and Lesueur hastened to subscribe, remembering that the academies in Italy had begun in similar struggles. The outraged queen-mother, Anne of Austria, as regent, readily lent her favor to the proposed organization, and a decree of the Coun- cil of State (1648, Jan. 20), in the presence of the king, then aged ten, recognized the Koyal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. The artists were not, however, freed from processes begun again and again by the Maitrise. The Maitrise, the richer association, assumed the form of the Academy of St. Luke, thus paying the new organiza- tion the compliment of imitation. Later, Mignard, the jealous com- petitor of Lebrun, was placed at its head under the title of Prince, and it always offered a vantage ground for any disaffected artist to oppose the Eoyal Academy. The Royal Academy in the hope of peace consented to a union of the two in 1651 (August 4), but the incom- patibility of the two bodies soon caused a separation. At the separa- tion the older corporation was much chagrined at the announcement that the king had granted letters patent (June 23, 1655) to the Royal Academy, according to it freedom from letters of Maitrise, a pension of one thousand livres, a lodgment in the College of France, and to thirty of its members the privileges which members of the "Academie Francaise," established by Richelieu in 1635, already enjoyed. Besides this benefit the king also made modifications of the regu- lations. These fixed for the entire duration of the Royal Academy of one hundred and forty-five years, except for the six years already passed and the sixteen years preceding its overthrow, for which Louis XVI. legislated, the significance of the terms used in descriptions of every painter of note. They were in effect : I. As in Rome the Academy of St. Luke had attained renown under the pro- tection of the Cardinal Francesco Barberini, and formerly one of the other Car- dinal nephews of the pope, so the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture might select from men of France, eminent in qualities and character, "a protec- tion and a vice protection." II. The Chief of the Academy for the first six years shall henceforth be called Director : he shall, in the absence of the Protector and Vice-Protector, preside at all assemblies of the Academy, take the oaths of the candidates, control the execu- tion of regulations, and determine the subjects for the reception pieces. III. There shall be four Rectors chosen by a plurality of votes from the most capable of the twelve Professors. They shall be placed above the Professors and shall judge all differences in regard to the " savoir " of art, even be arbiters of the prices of works, whenever any are executed for His Majesty, the King. They shall serve quarterly. IV. The four places of Professors thus made vacant shall be filled by the Acad- emy from its members. 22 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. V. Of the four Rectors, one, by vote of the Academy, may be changed each year or not, as shall seem proper, his place being filled by election from the twelve Professors, of whom the Rector so changed shall take the place. VI. The anciens shall henceforth be called Professors without, however, any change in their prerogatives, duties, or honors. They can be chosen only from the eight adjunct or assistant Professors. VII. Every year two of the Professors shall be changed by lot, the two, still having the honorary rank of Counsellors of the Academy, shall attend and have voice in all deliberative meetings. VIII. The two places thus vacated shall be filled from the Academy or Coun- sellors indifferently. 1 IX. Only the Director, four Rectors, twelve Professors, Counsellors, and Officers shall have voice in deliberative assemblies, but all members may be present. X. The seal of the Academy shall have upon one side the image of the Pro- tector, on the other the escutcheon of the Academy. (The legend of this was " Libertas artibus restituta.) XI. A Chancellor holding rank next to Director shall be chosen from the Rectors, Professors, or Counsellors to have charge of the seal. . . . He may be changed every year or retained indefinitely as the Academy may judge best. XII. There shall be a Secretary whose records shall be signed by the Director, Rectors, and Professors present at the transaction. XIV. A Treasurer shall be chosen who shall have charge of the receipts, expenses, pictures, furniture, and utensils of the Academy ; he shall have the rank of Counsellor. XV. Engravers of great merit shall be admitted to the Academy without becoming painters. XX. The Thirty on whom the same privilege as those of the French Academy will be conferred shall be the Director, four Rectors, twelve Professors, the Secre- tary, Treasurer, and the eleven next occupying these places. These privileges will remain inseparably attached to the persons who occupy these places on the day of the commission issued by His Majesty, afterwards to those who succeed them, in such manner as to keep the number thirty filled, others receiving them only upon the decease of these. Since the new statute took away their deliberative voice the jures declared their presence unnecessary, and in a few months 2 the separa- tion was effected (July 3, 1655). To continue the existence of the organization at the death of Mazarin (1662), owing to the stress of its poverty and the persistence of its rival, the most strenuous efforts of Lebrun were necessary. But Mazarin in bequeathing to Louis XIV. Colbert, that " full requital of all the king's favors," also bequeathed him to the 1 Articles du Roi. . . . Established Dec. 24, 1654. a At the union of the two bodies but five, and one a sculptor, of the jures are enum- erated as joining, but between this and its abolition seven came over to the Royal Academy. Archives de l'Art, Documents, Vol. I. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 23 Academy. The views of that remarkable man, large and in advance of the times, resulted in what is known as the grand restoration of the Academy of 1663. This consisted in an increased annual gift from the State of four thousand livres, and obliging the Brevetaires, who oscillated between the Academy of St. Luke and the Eoyal Academy, to incorporate themselves with the latter; and this resulted in almost a new corporation. The Maitrise, unabashed by the emphatic royal favor shown its rival, opposed the registration of these regulations, and, indeed, did not cease their persecution for a century and a quarter, until 1777. The first membership of the Academy had been twenty-eight, from which twelve, denominated "anciens", were selected to hold each month in turn the office of giving instruction, and by the regulation of 1655, as has been seen, they became professors. The *' twelve anciens" were named from the general membership at the first meeting, February 1, 1848. In the order of the pro- ces-verbal of the Academy they were : Lebrun, Charles ; Errard, Charles ; Bourdon, Sebastien ; La Hyre, Laurent ; Sarrasin, Jacques (sculptor) ; Corneille, Michel (pere) ; Perrier, Francois ; Beaubrun, Henri ; Lesueur, Eustache ; D'Egmont, Juste ; Van Obstal, Gerard (sculptor) ; Guilleim, Simon (sculptor). 1 By the method adopted of casting lots, Lebrun, always fortu- nate, became the first " ancien." Seguier, who had exerted all his influence to promote the success of the enterprise, was made the first Protector, but in the struggle by which the enactments of 1655 were obtained, had resigned in order to secure for that office the influence of Mazarin, and became Vice-Protector. 2 Previous to 1655 its permanent internal officers were only the Director and the " anciens." 1 Louis Testelin, Henri Testeliu, Nicholas Guerin, Louis de Boullogne, Louis de Guernier, Gerard Gosuin, Henri Mauperche, Samuel Bernard, Thomas Pinagier, Gil- bert de Seve, Louis Elie Ferdinand, Mathieu Van Platten Bergh, also called de Platte Montaigne, Philippe de Chainpaigne, Hans Van Der Breughen, and Pierre Van Mol ; the other members at the first session of the Academy are sometimes denominated "the fourteen anciens." Two of the twelve, Van Obstal and Juste D'Egmont, and three of the fourteen, Van Mol, Champagne, and Van Platten Bergh, were from the Nether- lands. Henri Testelin was excluded in 1781 as a Protestant, and, seeking residence in a Protestant country, died at the Hague in 1695, aged eighty. Liste Chronologique, of L. Dussieux, revised from the rec7ierch.es of M. Duvivier, in Les Archives de TArt Franqais, Recueil de Documents inedits. 2 The Protectors for the remainder of the century were : Seguier again upon the death of Mazarin (1661), with Colbert as Vice-Protector ; Colbert, who, really the Pro- tector before, became so in title in 1672, with his son Vice-Protector until 1683 ; then Louvois became Protector ; and a second son of Colbert in 1691. 24 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. The advantages resulting from the formation of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture 1 were almost incalculable, and a scrutiny of its organization indicates an ability on the part of its founders 2 sur- passed only by their loyalty to its highest interest. 3 As apparent in the regulations adopted these advantages were : 1st. A wise system of advancement calculated to spur ambition and induce effort. Those applying for admission were required to exhibit in the hall of the Academy a work on an assigned subject as a test of ability, and a two-thirds vote was required for admission.* By a course, adopted on account of the annoyances of the rival Maitrise, as thus the artists might earlier be gathered under the wing of the Academy, a previous picture had already made them of the grade " agree " or " agrege." 2d. A system of thorough, extended, and well-supervised instruc- tion in art. In this was comprehended a school, in which the nude was taught from nature under the direction of the "anciens." & This service was arduous, consisting in keeping the pupils at work, working in their presence, and posing the model. The designs and models in clay thus produced formed a part of the collection for instruction. Each "ancien" also took in turn for three months, until the modifications of 1655 made this office distinct, the duties of Rector, when he was to direct the opening of the exhibitions, and to give a lecture fortnightly, comparing works. Before many years, this plan of instruction also included the French Academy of Fine Arts at Rome, a valuable supplement to the more elementary instruction in the school of the nude at home. The Academy wisely allowed the greatest freedom of discussion, the pupils even criticising the works of their teachers. 6 From the first, a professor of geometry, of 1 Architecture was not added till 1671. 2 Its articles of organization were closely scrutinized, one by one, before presenta- tion for adoption, by De Charmois, the learned friend of Lebrun, and who became its first chief or Director. 3 A naive assumption perceptible in all decrees that the promotion of the best tendencies should, without question, dominate all action, gives some glimpse of a disciplined appreciation on the part of the artists of the changed position now attained. 4 Being admitted, this work became the property of the Academy and formed a portion of its collection of studies. Though partially scattered, the best part of the remnant now forms the foundation of the French department of the collection of the Louvre. 6 The germ of the present illustrious " Ecole des Beaux-Arts." 6 This discussion included in time the criticisms by the students of this school upon the envois of the pensioners at Rome, either by writing or viva voce, and the written ones were examined by the Academy. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. -16 anatomy, and of perspective, belonged to the corps of instruction, and the lectures as quoted and described were of great ability and comprehensive scope. 3d. The constitution of the Academy was based on a relation to the general body of artists calculated to give it an unlimited influence and an unlimited power of renewing its strength. The number of members was not restricted. Any artist, all artists, of any nation- ality, age, or sex, could aspire to be academicians as soon as ability would warrant, without waiting the coming of death to create a vacancy. Except that in 1770 the number of women was limited by statute to four, this regulation continued through this and in the following century until the Revolution. 1 Thus the restriction of its exhibitions to members was not an oppression to artists in the main ; indeed but sixty-four, out of one hundred and forty members, are found among the exhibitors of this century. 4th. The Academy demanded a hight one of morals. By a rule which both reflects upon and commends the age, blasphemy and speech disrespectful to religion were forbidden and would exclude from its place of assembly. In the earliest statutes it was enacted that the Academy should not assemble for " banquets or festivities, and that evil speaking and discord should exclude members," while all should " freely speak their sentiments upon the works of their confreres." 5th. The earnest and disinterested devotion of the early members of the Academy rendered it a strong, influential organization, con- tinuing for this and the following century, and left, after its abolition by the Convention in 1793, an inheritance of influence for the estab- lishing of its equivalent. 6th. The system of exhibitions was a genuine source of strength. The reorganization of 1663 (Art. 25) arranged for these, and they have now become the magnificent annual Salons. This instituted that " every year in July every officer and academician shall bring some work to decorate the place of the meetings of the Academy. On this day, the election to the prescribed offices shall be held, from which shall be excluded all those who present no work." The first exhibition was held April 9, 1667. After that the plan was to hold 1 The first woman admitted was Madame Giradon (Catherine du Chemin), 1663. Oth- ers followed, and the Dutch painter of flowers, Catherine Havermann, was received in 1722, but the next year was excluded; although highly recommended and exhibiting a picture in the style of Van Huysem, when pressed for her reception picture, she strangely eluded that statute. 26 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. them only biennially, 1 and that was often interrupted. The clear judgment of Colbert foresaw their importance and always gave them the good speed of his presence and influence. This did much to secure to them the fostering care of those in high authority after him, both in this century and in the next. It became the duty of the Director of Buildings, Arts and Manufactures to win the sovereign's approval and then fix the time and order the Salon. The regal Louis XIV. sought, but was often prevented by delays, to make its opening a celebration of his fete day, August 25 — a custom that prevailed with the Louis of the eighteenth century, so that sixteen out of twenty-six under Louis XV. and all under Louis XVI., nine, opened on that day. The Academy suffered some disadvantages : 1st. Want of a suitable place for its sessions and exhibitions. It wandered about Paris ; for a time it met in the atelier of Sarrasin, and the gallery constructed to receive the library of Cardinal Riche- lieu in the Palais Royal was the place occupied by it from Sept., 1661, to Feb., 1692, for obstructions had prevented its lodgement in the College of France, granted in 1655. This proved too small 2 for its exhibitions, and after 1671 the pictures were hung in the open air around its court. 3 2d. Its poverty. The exhibitions of 1677 and 1679 of the bien- nial system were omitted because there was not money in the treasury 1 The one just held, that of 1888, is the 106th from this early statute of these strug- gling artists, counting only those of which there have been catalogues, the earliest being that of 1673. The collection of catalogues from that date to 1800 has been republished : Paris, 1869. But, although this basis of numbering is adopted in the official catalogue of the Salons, M. Saint- Vincent Duvivier, by consulting the entire collection of the Proces-Verbaux of the Academy manuscripts kept in the Archives of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, has established Salons of which no catalogues have been pre- served, for the years 1667, 1669, 1675, 1681, 1683 ; and in the eighteenth century for 1700, 1725, and 1727. This gives eight more exhibitions than the catalogues number, and would make, in 1888, 114, placing the actual 100th in 1874, and making nearly coincident the 200th year and the 100th salon. 2 In the eighteenth century the Louvre proved also insufficient. When Van Loo in his turn arranged the Salon, he ingeniously planned movable partitions "awaiting" until a building could be furnished. That building is still " awaited " in the third century of the Academy, and the Salons are held in the Palais de l'lndustrie. 3 On these walls, in the full glare of day, were exhibited in 1673 Lebrun's famous pictures, The Four Epochs, represented by The Defeat of Porus, The Passing of the Granicus, The Battle of Arbela, and The Triumph of Alexander. The catalogue of this exhibition, the earliest one extant, in its statement that fifty-six exhibited and forty- six abstained from doing so, informs us that the number of academicians had been increased to one hundred and two. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 37 to meet the expense. 1 The income of the Academy was, besides a lodgement, the royal subsidy, which was raised from 1,000 in 1648 to 4,000 livres in 1663 ; 2 the entrance fees of the members, levied in proportion to their means ; the annual assessments of the titularies ; and the modest payment of such pupils as were not received gratui- tously. This was all paid for keeping, heating, and lighting the rooms ; for the models ; and for the prizes of the school of the nude. Of the 4,000 livres, 400 were made a royal prize. 3 When the treasury was empty, appeals were made to the generosity of the richest, and when it was better filled, pensions were given to the indigent pupils. The exhibitions were free, a royal gift to the people. The product of the sale of catalogues finally under Marigny, the Minister of Fine Arts under Louis XV., became a source of income, but for a long time previous this had been given to the janitor. 3d. The oppression exercised by the Academy at times. The authoritative government of Lebrun established a precedent, which, by directors of the same temperament, upon occasion was followed. The favor of the Court led the Academy to appropriate powers almost as extended as those of the ancient Maitrise, and the royal adminis- tration had sometimes to resist, rather than sustain it. In its alleged purpose of maintaining all art instruction on a high level, it was led to great tyranny, as in closing, in 1676, the studios in which models had been installed, even those of students residing too far from the Palais Eoyal to attend the instructions of the Academy. Also, at last in turn it pursued its rival, the Academy of St. Luke, driving it from place to place for exhibitions, which it was sometimes com- pelled to find in the inviolable hotel of some nobleman, and finally by demand of the Royal Academy, that of St. Luke was abolished. 4th. The Academy, like other institutions, as in Florence and in Spain, with its conventional rules, tended to stifle originality, which then, as now and ever, would not submit to dictation. ■ A failure to hold exhibitions in 1677 and 1679 made it difficult to assemble a sufficient number of artists in 1681 and 1683, and, after the exhibitions of those two years, there was but one more in this century, 1 The expenses, too, must have been very small, judging by those of the following century, 1759 and 1783, of which the detailed account makes the cost of the former 222 livres, and the second 758 livres ; the latter, too, was considered one of foolish inno- vation when "gloves were given to the workmen with which to handle the frames." 2 Says Villot, 80,000 livres sterling = 2,000,000 francs, therefore 1 livre = 15 francs, about $3. 3 Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de l'Academie Royale, etc., Paris, 1853. 28 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. that of 1699 (August 20 to September 16). 1 This one was due to the ambitious efforts of Mansard, who had become in that year Superin- tendent of Public Buildings and Arts. Under the difficulties exist- ing, Louis XIV. granted to the artists, as an encouragement, the use of the Grand Gallery of the Louvre, and thus instituted (1699) at the Louvre 3 a succession of exhibitions that continued for a cen- tury and a half until 1849. Far from discouraging the prevailing custom of seeking art influence in Italy, the government through Col- bert and the new authority inherent in the Academy organized it into a system, by instituting, for further study on the part of the laureates of the school of the nude at home, a French Academy at Rome. This, the chief of all the encouragements offered to art students in France, had not leaped forth fully formed from Colbert's brain, even with his grasp of advanced ideas. It was a product of manifold influences. Francis L, in the value he attached to Italian paintings ; Richelieu, in his attempts to create a museum of Italian works in France ; the Superintendent Noyers, whose creation (1640) of a com- mission to bring "to France artists and artistic works ;" Charles Errard, who, with Chantilou, had belonged to this Commission, and had made casts of statues, drawings of marbles, and copies of paint- ings in Italy, had all contributed to this result. Poussin, too, not only had long riveted the attention of France upon the art of Italy, but had, in his own household on the Pincian Hill, bent the twigs to the inclination that Lebrun's later growths were now taking, and nour- ished their development by the aliment his keen purveying dis- covered in their wanderings together amid the art of Rome. These tendencies found their culmination when Colbert was led to adopt the suggestions of Lebrun, submitted in their long and familiar conferences, and procured the issue of the constituting edict by Louis XIV., in 1666. 3 A school resulted that has received and 1 Colbert had died in 1683, and the extensive wars of Louis XIV. had exhausted the state so that the nobles had been commanded to have their plate melted for the royal exchequer. France had also lost, through the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a half million of her best citizens, among them numbers of her most independent artists. 2 Au engraving in the Royal Almanach shows it to have been richly decorated for the occasion with tapestries after Raphael's cartoons. The exhibition was brilliant. Three hundred and six works of painting, statuary, and engravings were exhibited, artists sending six, seven, and eight pictures each ; Francois de Troy even twenty-four portraits and Largilliere eleven, besides two other large pictures. The success of this exhibition carried a brilliancy into the first exhibitions of the next century. 3 Before this, however, Louis XIV. had allowed an occasional pension to the laure- ates of the French Academy to study at Rome at such times as that body judged best. In 1664 (Sept. 10) Colbert had ordered such a pension in the name of the king. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 39 instructed at the focus and centre of the Italian renaissance, in the first half of the nineteenth century alone, over two hundred and twenty laureates of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts at Paris. 1 It was required that these pensioners at Eome should send back pictures, "envois," each year, in a progressive series to the Academy at Paris. Thus was established the famous Prix de Rome, which has certainly been one great source of the eminence of the French School of art. Its influence has not been wholly salutary perhaps. Study at Rome has led young artists to content themselves with a superficial effect ending in mere imitatiou ; but the thorough grasp of the principles underlying the works of the great masters, and which may thus be made to serve native tendencies and special tal- ents, has been of inestimable advantage to the pupils of the Villa i These were its statutes : 1st. Twelve young Frenchmen, Catholics, six painters, four sculptors, and two architects, under a Painter of the King as Rector, shall be sent to Rome for the benefit of instruction in art for five years, the expense to be paid by the State. 3rd. The school being dedicated to virtue, any one blaspheming or deriding religion shall be expelled from its privileges. 4th. Discord, envy, and slander shall be likewise prohibited, and, if not corrected upon reprimand, the one guilty shall be expelled. 6th. All shall eat with the Rector, who shall appoint one for the day or week for reading or relating history at each meal, as it is very important that they shall be well instructed. 7th. They shall rise at five in summer and six in winter, and retire at ten : they shall observe prayer, morning and evening, with the requisite attention and modesty. 8th. Two hours each day shall be given to arithmetic, geometry, and perspective. The remainder of the day shall be under the direction of the Rector. 9th. A knowledge of anatomy being necessary for the understanding of the position and movement of muscles, the Rector shall dissect one body every winter. . . . 10th. They shall copy or execute nothing without the advice and consent of the Rector, on pain of expulsion. 11th. They shall work entirely for the king, copying pictures of great masters and statues of antiques, and making drawings of buildings. . . . 12th. The Rector shall visit the students every day, assigning work and considering the results. . . . 13th. One holiday each week shall be allowed the students for diversion, or for work- ing as they will. 14th. The day that a model poses all may attend who shall obtain permission of the Rector, and promise good behavior, French and foreigners alike. 16th. The Rector shall account to the Superintendent of Buildings, Arts, and Indus- tries, of each pupil's advancement with reference to his return to the service of the king and to the examinations of those meriting to be sent to Rome in his place. Signed February 11, 1666. 30 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Medici. The Prix de Home has been attacked, and its abolition urged (1863); but that, with its system 'of supervision by a Rector at Rome, and through its " envois " to the highest art authorities at home, and with the length of time given, it must on the whole be advantageous seems almost self-evident. Errard was most suitably named the first Rector of the Academy at Rome. Of the twenty-nine terms of this office from 1666 to 1888, the six of the seventeenth century were filled by Charles Errard, 1666 ; Noel Coypel, 1672 ; Charles Errard, 1675 ; be la Thuiliere, 1685 ; no rector, 1689-99 ; Rene Antoine Houasse, 1699. But as early as 1680 the royal privilege of a capricious execution of its decrees was exercised, for then the Prix de Rome " awaited that the king should award it/' and in 1701 Mansard boldly announced that there would be none. It is worth noting that, in the prizes of the schools, and in admission to the Academy, the value set upon merit to the exclu- sion of rank, birth, or wealth, together with the untrammelled discus- sion which was practised, was one source of the democratic influence and the high estimate of intellect which became a distinctive charac- teristic of the next century, and which made the eighteenth century in France almost a parallel to the sixteenth century in Italy. 1 PAINTERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Simon Vouet is the earliest conspicuous artist of the seventeenth century, and, for its entire duration, holds a brilliant position. But till 1627, while he was yet a student in Italy, and during the studies of Poussin and the school of brilliant artists that render illustrious the last three-fourths of the century, Freminet was, at home, the sole standard-bearer in art, and himself represents its poverty. He had been taught by his father, a respectable painter of his period, and also by Jean Cousin. But he hastened to Italy at Martin Fremi- J J net (1567-1619), the age of twenty-four and, remaining there fifteen years, Paris returned, first to Savoy, where he executed works for the Duke, and then, by the invitation of Henry IV., to the court of that monarch, where he was named, in the place and by the death of Dumoustier (1603), first painter to the king. 2 His chief work was the ceiling of the chapel at Fontainebleau (begun 1608), where he 1 Religious intolerance, however, procured the expulsion from the Royal Academy, in 1682, of Heude Nicholas, admitted in 1673, and D'Agard, admitted in 1675, "for being Protestants." 2 This, long uncertain, was proved by an extract from records of the time by La- borde (1850). LE NAIN REPAS DE PAYSANS THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 31 executed thirty-six pictures, twenty-two representing the chief char- acters of the Old Testament, and fourteen, scenes in the life of Christ. 1 They occupied him till the death of Henry IV., through the regency of Maria de' Medici, from whom they won for the painter his decoration, and into the reign of Louis XIII. He had allied himself in Italy with influences antagonistic to Caravaggio, yet his use of dark shadows has caused him to be called a follower of that artist. But Freminet never, like Caravaggio, studied nature ; be simply studied Michael Angelo, absorbed something of his manner, and by its grand lines, and the sentiment of style thus caught, his method is alone redeemed. An idea of it may be formed by recall- ing that his studies in Italy immediately preceded the time of the Carracci, when art in Italy was under the influence of the imitators of Michael Angelo and Raphael, and wonders of anatomy, exagger- ated drawing, and "tours de force" prevailed. But the nineteen years of Freminet's life in the seventeenth century were to him, as first painter to the kings, Henry IV. and Louis XIII., full of honor. He was commissioned to paint the Chapel of Fontainebleau ; was alluded to by the recognized poets of the time as " the Apelles of the age ; " and made by Maria de' Medici Chevalier of the Order of St. Michel, but he had dropped out of repute as a painter by the end of the century. He was interred, at his request, at Fontaine- bleau, near his work. Vouet was taught by his father, Laurent, and showed such pre- cocity of talent as to be made the pet of noblemen, and, at the age of Simon vouet fourteen, to be employed in the responsible position of (15901649), following, for the purpose of painting her portrait, a lady of rank who had fled to England. By this he won reputation, both in London, where Charles I. sought to retain him, and in Paris. He was subsequently (1611) taken by M. de Harlay, the Baron de Sancy, on his embassy to Constantinople. In a single audience given to the ambassador and his suite by the sultan, Achmet I., who was too much of a Mussulman to sit for a likeness, Vouet closely studied his features, and reproduced them from memory in a portrait that won for him fame that was reflected back to Paris. Returning thence as far as Venice (1612), he was greatly impressed by the wonders in color of the Venetian school, and devoted himself to the study of Paolo Veronese. This artist's heads and grand con- 1 A grandee of Spain passing through France, on being shown the neglected chapel of Fontainebleau, said, " I will look at nothing more in a place where God is not so well lodged as the king." This led Henry IV. to order the decorations by Freminet. 32 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. tours he incorporated in his works, but his coloring was always crude and harsh, and his expression unelevated. Continuing his travels, at Rome (1613), where his talent commanded great attention, his own tendencies to naturalism led him to the study of Caravaggio, whose style, somewhat modified by a later study of the grace of Guido, is impressed upon his works. The Duke of Braciano sent him to Genoa expressly to paint the portrait of the Princess of Piombino, that nobleman's affianced bride. There the Dorias availed themselves of his talents ; he decorated their palaces, made a portrait of the Doge's son, Jean Charles, and executed a Christ on the Cross, still in the Church of St. Ambrose there. He returned to Rome in time to see his patron, Cardinal Barberini, crowned as Pope Urban VIII. The pope ordered his portrait and those of his nephews, the Cardinals Barberini, and, borne on the top wave of artistic favor, Vouet was given the highest artistic authority, and named Prince of the Academy of St. Luke at Rome (1624). Louis XIII. had accorded to him a pension of 4,000 livres for his support in Italy, where he had remained fifteen years. By that king he was now summoned back to France (1627) to become court painter, when his pension was increased, and he was assigned a dwelling in the Louvre. 1 He brought with him a wife but a few years married, Virginia di Vezzo, who, for the character of her beauty, has been described as "an antique statue that walked," and who also in Rome, as a painter of portraits in pastel, had been much in demand. The brilliant fortune that attended Vouet caused him now to be petted by the king and loaded with honors. "His vogue at Paris was immense," says Villot. Louis himself was pleased to take portraits in pastel, and received lessons of Vouet. Nobles, following this fashion, made teaching a lucrative occupation for his wife, Mme. Virginia, to whom his pupils were relegated, for the famous painter was overcrowded with commissions. They came from all sources : from the religious orders ; from Richelieu, who employed him to paint the chapel of his Chateau de Reuil, and an altar-piece for the Church of St. Eustache in Paris ; 2 from the Court, for as its painter his duties were to furnish designs for the royal manufactories of tapestry and to decorate the palaces and public buildings ; even the King of England desired to have him in his service. 1 This custom, begun by Henry IV., continued till we find Horace Vernet born during the lodgement there of his father, Carl. 2 In 1855, after one hundred and fifty years' serving the church, this was found in the collection of the Cardinal Fesch. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 33 These numerous orders were accepted, and he organized a "regi- ment " of artists to work under him. After the manner of the Carracci, he established a school, and became the founder in France of academic instruction by a French teacher. He imparted to his pupils a skill in massing draperies, and in light and shade, but little else. This company formed a most brilliant gathering of artistic talent, which he directed for twenty years, and in which originated the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Thus assisted, works multi- plied, and his fame extended until the critic of to-day wonders at its contemporary brilliancy. Galleries, ceilings, chapels, altar pieces, panels, entire apartments, even to the wainscoting, by him are very numerous, while engravings are not rare. A medal, with Vouet and his wife "en face " and his two sons and two daughters " en revers," was engraved by Boutheme. But, like the Carracci, he was greater in his scholars than in his works. From his studio issued Lesueur, Lebrun, Pierre Mignard, Le Notre, Perrier, and Michel Corneille. It, indeed, supplied all the distinguished artists of the second half of the seventeenth century. His daughters, both marrying distinguished engravers, the younger Michel Dorigny, and the elder Francois Tortebat,who alone left twenty- nine children, some of them artists, served to increase his artistic influence. Eight of his works are in the Louvre, four religious sub- jects, among them his chef d'oeuvre, The Presentation in the Temple. His Reunion of Artists, in which there are portraits of himself and Corneille, is also there. Twenty-eight others are in the museums of Nancy, Nantes, Nimes, Rennes, Orleans, Strasbourg, Troves, Tou- louse, Rouen, Valenciennes, Munich, Berlin, and Dresden. His son- in-law, Dorigny, engraved more than one hundred of his works, and his son-in-law, Tortebat, with others, more than one hundred more. Besides in Rome and Genoa, he painted ceilings and walls in most of the churches and palaces of Paris : in Notre Dame, The Travels of St. Peter and St. Paul and St. Peter Delivered by the Angel ; in St. Ger- main-le-vieux, The Washing of Feet ; in l'Oratoire, The Adoration of the Magi ; in les Feuillants, a Nativity and St. Michael Overthrowing the Demons ; in Saint-Merry, The Bishop of Autun Seeking that Saint in his Retreat ; in the Carmelites of the Rue Chapon, a Nativity ; in St. Nicholas of the Field, an Assumption in two pictures ; in St. Louis, four subjects from the life of that king ; in the Genovefains, The Apotheosis of St. Louis ; in the Minimes, St. Vincent de Paul Resuscitating a Child, one of the best compositions of the master. 3 34 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. His son and pupil, Jacques, was received into the Academy, 16G4, but as he did not meet the charges of his reception his name was Jacques Vouet, erased. He was at the French Academy at Rome under 1664. Errard (1666-1672), and there is record of his aiding in the decorations of the Audience Hall of the Tuileries. Simon Vouet dying just as Lebrun returned from Rome and Lesueur's talent began to be esteemed, his supremacy in Paris, with the exception of the favor shown Poussin there, and which embittered Vouet's last years, was approached by no rival except Prof. Jacques Blanchard, and he was removed by an early death. Blanchard was . Ql the first French artist to imitate the Venetian color, and Jacques blan- 7 chard (1600- was called "the French Titian." He shared commissions .638), Paris. wit]l Youet M. de Bullion, Superintendent of Finance, gave them, in competition, two galleries to decorate. In the upper, Vouet executed scenes from The Odyssey ; Blanchard began on the lower with allegories drawn from fable, but he died before they were finished. Other members of this early association, which be- came the French Academy, Aubin and Claude Vouet, brothers of Simon, and Francois Perrier (II Borgognone), who repeated Vouet's Francois Perrier cra & e color and whose manner was wholly superficial, may (1598-1650), st.- be passed over. A pupil of Vouet, Laurent de la Hyre, one jean-de-Losne. of the « anc i en s," fell under the influences of the "smaller Italy of Fontainebleau," and followed Primaticcio's manner. This , . proved attractive to both Richelieu and Seguier, and he Laurent de la - 1 o ' Hyre(i566-i6 5 6), was largely patronized by both Cardinal and Chancellor. Paris. jj e ma y k e gtudied a t the Louvre in his greatest work, painted for the Capuchins, Pope Nicholas V. at the Tomb of St. Francis. It has something of the charm of Lesueur. Quentin Varin, a worthy painter of Dutch extraction, is most . .. . worthy of remembrance as the teacher of Poussin, who Quentin Varin J 7 (1580-1645), would be placed here, except that a precedence of two Amiens. years claims first consideration for Jacques Callot, whose naturalistic tendencies also class him with Vouet. Callot came from „ „ . ancestors who, for two centuries, had held responsible Jacques Callot > 7 / (1592-1635), positions under the Dukes of Burgundy, and his grand- Lorraine. mother was related to the Maid of Orleans. He was far removed from the influence of conventional rules, and from his inex- haustible imagination worked out ragamuffins, Bohemians, nobles, and demons, with a talent so completely his own that it could be imparted no more than it was derived, and he thus, in his subjects, stands disconnected from any class of artists. With Le Valentin and THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 35 the three brothers Le Nam, contemporary with Poussin, he com- pletes the number at this time in a department of French art that continues through its history — the naturalistic. In 1608, at the age of sixteen, he was allowed by his father to proceed to Italy under the charge of an envoy to Pope Paul V. from D.uke Henry II. of Lorraine, having previously been brought back when run- ning away thither. In his first escape he had wandered over the country with gypsies, whose life furnished him fruitful suggestions for his later designs. His pictures, many of which he engraved him- self, were highly prized, so much so that for them imitations were often sold. His rendering of The Temptation of St. Anthony is a most remarkable conception of demons. 1 He left but few paintings, most of his works being in crayon and etching. Le Valentin was one of the French colony at Eome that centred about Poussin, but his realistic tastes, fortified by the example of Le Valentin jean C arava ggi°> led ^ m to paint with a rough earnestness, de Bouiiogne and in that artist's black hues, nature as it appeared (1591-1632)^ to his unidealizing view. From this all the power of his friendship for Poussin, and great effort on Poussin's part, could not withdraw him. His native tendency and his numer- ous companions in low life, gamesters and drunkards, overpowered that refined influence, and gave to the characters of even his sacred pictures a wholly unelevated expression. A "Le Nam " has come to be the term applied indiscriminately to the works, as they cannot be distinguished, of Louis, Antoine and Matthieu Le Nain. They excelled in scenes of humble Louis " ie Rorrain" life, but also painted historical subjects, landscapes, (1588-1648) Laon; an( j ^he realistic Antoine, miniature and portraits. iier°' n o593-l648) Va A- sober coloring, united with a gravity of expression Laon; Matthieu and sturdy and simple character, distinguishes their ( -1677) Laon. wor k from Callot's different vein and also from Le Valentin's. They were all excellent painters, and have four pictures in the Louvre. Nicholas Poussin was at once a distinguished painter of history and of landscape, in the latter indeed reaching such eminence as to ... , . B be the founder of a style — the style still known as the N Icnolas Rous- J •' sin (1593-1665), Poussinesque. He occupies a large place in the French Andeiys. school, but more by his works and their influence than by any time passed in France, for his residence there was but an inter- 1 See Caricature and Grotesque in Art, by Wright, London, 1865. 36 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. val. However, during a life chiefly spent in Rome, lie remained, in the clearness and predominance of thought in his work, in his coldness of imagination, want of religious fervor, fine conception of incident, and the race characteristic of clearly rendering the story to be told, strongly typical of the French school. Born in Nor- mandy, of a family, noble, but impoverished in the service of royaltv during the civil wars, after being carefully instructed in literature and language, from which, however, his love of sketching constantly distracted him, he won consent from his father to devote himself to painting, and received instruction from Quentin Varin, who was tem- porarily at Andelys, and who had noticed the lad's drawings. But at nineteen years of age he went to Paris to study art. The art influ- ences which at this date (1612) the ardent youth met there were in the low condition just preceding Vouet's school, while Freminet, with the false taste he had acquired in Italy, was working at Fon- tainebleau. The pictures commissioned by Queen Maria de' Medici of Rubens had not until 1023-25 been placed at the Luxembourg ; but Duchesne 1 was developing the talent, always mediocre, which made him, soon after, the chief artist of the Court ; and Vouet was in Italy, so that Poussin found at Paris no instructors save Ferdinand Elle, who had come from Malines to paint portraits ; Georges Lallemont, chiefly employed in making hasty sketches for tapestry ; and Noel Jouvenet, the head of that large family of artists. Fortunately, he met with a friend, an amateur artist from Poitou, of a name now lost, who opened his purse and the houses of his friends to the young aspirant. Among these, that of Courtois, the mathematician, furnished engravings of Marc Antonio and original designs of Raphael and Giulio Romano, all of which Poussin eagerly copied, and which then formed his best instruction. He accom- panied his friend to Poitou, but as the mother treated him as a domestic, he quitted the chateau and worked his way back to Paris. He experienced many embarrassments of poverty, and returned once (1623) to his native Andelys to recruit from the ravages of a fever, after which he went to Paris the third time, and then worked with Champaigne, who had been his fellow pupil under Lallemont, for Duchesne, at the Luxembourg. That he already commanded esteem is evident from the fact of his engagement to paint the " May Picture " which the Guild of Goldsmiths annually presented to the Church of Notre Dame for the Virgin, and which was painted only by artists Died 1628. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 37 of note. Owing to this he was compelled to delay for a year the acceptance of an urgent invitation to go to Italy with the Italian poet, Marino, whose acquaintance he had formed in Lyons, where, for want of means in his second attempt to go to Eome, he had stop- ped to earn money to return to Paris. He then painted in a week, at the College of the Jesuits, six pictures, which attracted the atten- tion of Marino, who gave him lodging in his palace, whose poem of Adonis he illustrated, and the intimacy with whom served to develop in the young artist a love of poetry and allegory. At last at the age of thirty-one he went to Italy. There, after being obliged to sell his works for a pittance 1 that he might have bread during a succes- sion of privations caused by the death of Marino and the absence, as legate to Spain and France, of a patron, the Cardinal Barberini, to whom that friend had presented him, he, "by neglecting nothing, " to use his own words, acquired a great reputation. He assisted the French sculptor, Du Quesnoy, in modelling figures, and thus, besides pecuniary profit, gained valuable knowledge of the human form. His chief study was, however, in copying the antiques that sur- rounded him and among which he wandered absorbed. From the Greek Hermes in the Vatican he especially derived inspiration. Barberini soon returned and commissioned the young artist to paint the death of Germanicus, which became one of his most famous pic- tures and is still in the Barberini Palace. For him Poussin also painted The Capture of Jerusalem by Titus (Imperial Gallery at Vienna). The Cardinal introduced him to the Cavaliere del Pozzo, for whom he painted the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus for St. Peter's at Rome (Dresden Gallery), and also the first series of The Seven Sacra- ments, in which the baptism, one of the finest motifs, is taken from Michael Angelo's cartoon of the Pisans Summoned to Battle while Bathing. This series made him famous. His reputation reached France. Cardinal Richelieu prevailed upon Louis XIII. " to adorn himself with the talent of the absent artist." He was (January 13, 1639) urged to return and promised to do so, but, happily married and surrounded by objects of his veneration, the antique sculptures and the works of Raphael, he delayed. Finally he received a letter enclosing one from the king, but still he did not go, until Chantilou, the Chamberlain to the King of France, with whom he had corre- i A Battle for fourteen crowns ; A Prophet for less than two, and The Plague of the Philistines for sixty, to Matteo. This afterwards sold for one thousand crowns and is now in the National Gallery, London, to which it was presented in 1838 by the Duke of Northumberland. 38 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. spondecl for nearly twenty-eight years, for whom he later, (1G48), painted a second series of The Seven Sacraments, and who had brought account of him to the French Court, went to Rome for him. In 1640, then, he returned to France, having been offered a pension of one thousand crowns, a lodgement in the Louvre, and the walls of the grand galleries of France to decorate. In a letter to the Cavaliere del Pozzo, Poussin thus describes his reception : "I was conducted by his [M. de Noyers', the Superintendent of Buildings,] order to the place he had destined for my lodgement. It is a little palace, for it can be so called, which is in the midst of the garden of the Tuileries, containing nine rooms in three stories. ... I have an extended view and, I believe, in sum- mer this asylum is a true paradise. I found the apartments nobly furnished with all the necessary provisions, even to wood and a tun of old wine. The fourth day M. de Noyers presented me at the house of the Cardinal. This prelate took me in his arms, embraced me, and received me with extraordinary goodness. Some days after, I was conducted to St. Germain. I was to be presented to the king by M. de Noyers but, he being ill, I was introduced the next day by M. Le Grand [i. e., Le Grand Ecuyer, who was then Cinq-Mars J, one of the favorites of the Court. The prince, good and kind, deigned to embrace me, and asked many ques- tions during the half hour that he retained me with him ; then, having turned towards his courtiers, he said, ' Eh bien ! Vouet is well entrapped,' and imme- diately ordered me to paint the large pictures of his Chapel of Fontainebleau and of St. Germain. Upon my return home, two thousand crowns of gold were brought to me in a beautiful purse of blue velvet, besides all my expenses." He was named first painter to the king by a decree of March 20, 1641, and all designs for decorations of public buildings were ordered to be submitted to him. Thus he was placed in competition with Vouet. A tempest immediately arose, and for the remaining eight years of his life, Vouet's career of previous brilliant success was troubled. Vouet ; LeMercier, the architect ; and Fouquiere, a Flemish painter, who had been made director of public works and baron, and whose vanity led him to paint with his sword always at his side, united in abusive criticism of Poussin's pictures, two of which painted at that time are now in the Louvre, The Triumph of Truth and St. Francis Xavier, painted for the Jesuits. And, indeed, the calm of life induced by his elevation and gentleness of spirit was so dis- turbed by the court intrigues that, September, 1642, leaving alike friends and enemies, ostensibly to bring back his much loved wife, Anne Marie Dughet, whom he had married in 1635, he escaped to Home. His marriage had resulted from his finding refuge in the Du- ghet family, after being attacked and wounded one night in the street THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 39 by soldiers ; it was during the hostility towards French residents occasioned by the failure of Cardinal Barberini's legation to France. There he fell in love with, and married the daughter, who was also his cousin, and eventually adopted the two sons. Besides the charms of his domestic ties, his social and artistic life at Eome were most envi- able. He had a recognized influence and warm friendship among art- ists; with his wife's dowry he had bought a house adjoining that of Claude Lorrain, who, with Stella and Le Valentin, was much attracted by the earnest, studious artist. His pension of one thousand crowns being continued, he was able to exercise his brush in the direction of his tastes, 1 and all his works were received with applause. Both Riche- lieu and the king dying soon after (1643), he remained in Rome work- ing with such unremitting industry during the twenty- three years till his death, that three hundred and forty-two pictures are enumerated as by his hand, 2 and he was enabled to leave in his will, to his wife's relations in Rome and his own in Normandy, the sum of fifty thou- sand francs. From the prevalence of thought in his pictures he has been called " le peintre des gens d'esprit " (the painter of intellectual people). He defined painting to be "an image of things incorporeal, presented to the senses through the imitation of their forms." To present ideas by visual forms then was his aim, and expression became his chief characteristic. He was one of the most learned artists of his own or any other age. 3 He studied all the art that Rome afforded, 4 but to the antique he subordinated all else. To his scriptural subjects his classic treatment gave simplicity and grandeur, as Manna in the Desert ; Eleazar and Rebecca (Louvre). But though for his material he drew largely upon the antique, by maintaining an originality of combination and invention he made his work his own. Having that innate love of form, which sometimes seems to exclude a keen sense of color, all the splendor of the Venetian palette could not draw him to its study, lest it should impair his drawing. " I fear the 1 With his friend, the sculptor Du Quesnoy, he made measurements of the antique statues about Rome. These original measurements are now in the Massini Library at Rome. 2 Smith's Catalogue of Poussin's works. 3 He studied all subjects that could have a bearing upon his art. " Architecture," says Viardot, " in Vitruvius and Palladio ; anatomy in Andrea Versale and the schools of dissection ; style in the Bible, Homer, Plutarch and Camillo ; philosophy in Plato and Descartes ; and in nature, all objects which it offered for imitation." 4 He awarded to the Last Communion of St. Jerome by Domenichino the highest rank among pictures. 40 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. charms of the one will make me forget the necessity of the other," said he. The lapse of time has now allowed the darker priming to appear through his thin colors, not originally good, his draperies being of too pronounced a blue and red. In some of the works of his middle and later life his impasto is better, and there are a few instances in which he has been touched to a really poetic feeling for color. But it is in purity rather than in poetry of feeling that he excels. His delicate drawing is always a delight, his outline bold and clear, his heads painted in " basso relievo " (Fuseli), his figures " cut in marble," his composition always skilful and often superb. Poussin's historical works are considered to represent three periods. The first comprises his early residence at Rome, and has (although Germanicus, an example of his finest composition, is of that period ) something of hardness of outline, thin coloring, and less perfect composition, but is of a clear, rapid touch ; the second, beginning with his visit to France, is distinguished by excellence of composition and expressive heads, and after his return to Rome is the period of his finest work ; and the third, that of his old age, in which, with a weaker hand but an emboldened genius, he became more poetic, still, however, practising an imitation of the antique, which finally became monotonous and led to the saying by Sir Joshua Reynolds, that Poussin " was better acquainted with the ancients than with those by whom he was surrounded." In this period his handling acquired a rich impasto while, at the same time, his design maintained all its classic rectitude and severity. He was never aided in his works, nor even were others allowed to reproduce those of which he desired repetitions for patrons. Hence, there are two copies by his own hand of Moses Striking the Rock. One is at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the other in the Bridgewater Collection in London. Together with Claude Lorrain he maintained the formal dignity of classical land- scape : landscape without human association seemed to him unsatis- factory. Says Hazlitt : "The Poussinesque landscape is characterized by something of the pedantry, the same stiffness, the same elevation, the same grandeur, the same mixture of art and nature, as Milton's poetry. In it Poussin, too, turned backward, away from the richness of coloring, the charming effects of light and air, the characteristics of vegetation as given in the contemporaneous Flemish school, notably by Rubens, to ' heroic ' landscape or classical scenes fit for the abode of a race of heroes. The primitive methods of pasturing sheep form the chief traces of nature. There are no fields ; the houses are of the simplest form, as those of pastoral life, or he gives a classical pile in the centre of his composition. The figures are those of fable or history, but always producing an effect of tranquil repose." THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 41 His I too Lived in Arcadia, from its execution, from the charm of the poetic conception, and the comprehensive lesson of the inevi- tability of death conveyed by it, is one of his finest examples. Of two copies of this, one is in the Louvre, and one in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. It is a pastoral scene of great impressiveness. A shepherd kneels before a tomb and reads, tracing with his finger the inscription, " Et in Arcadia ego," which imparts a serious sad- ness to his countenance and also to that of two shepherds and a shep- herdess, with the magnificent head and Greek features of a Juno, standing near. There is great harmony and excellence in the entire execution. It is a fine illustration of the ever prevailing thought in Poussin's work, imparting a lesson even through landscape. The same reflective undercurrent is seen in his Seasons, painted for the Cardinal Richelieu (Louvre). These are represented under scriptural subjects : Spring, as Paradise ; Summer, as Ruth in the field of Boaz ; Autumn, as the spies returning with the grapes of Eschol, and Winter, as the Deluge. Once, in Phineus and his Fol- lowers turned to Stone by Perseus presenting to them the Head of the Gorgon (National Gallery, London), there is no principal light, no principal figure, no one of the rules of composition observed, but a complete dispersion and confusion of all things — light, thought, figures, lines. It is undoubtedly true, as Sir Joshua Reynolds says, that the artist planned this that the first effect might correspond to the great bustle and tumult of the subject ; whence, of course, it becomes, if not fine composition, at least expressive design. Absent in Rome during the founding and growth of the Academy, he seems to have had no connection with it. Of his 342 works, besides 3 portraits ; 44 are subjects from the Old, and 117 from the New Testament ; 20 of history ; 93 of mythology ; 10 allegory ; 6 classical romance ; 5 fancy ; and 47 landscape. His most celebrated works in England are the two sets of the Seven Sacraments, the earlier one at Belvoir Castle, and the second in the Bridgewater Collection. His Plague at Athens, an excellent picture, is at Leigh Court. Besides pictures scattered in the galleries of amateurs in England, there are eight in the National Gallery. The Venus Asleep Surprised by a Satyr, one of these, has been rarely surpassed in perfection of drawing and qualities of refinement. Twenty are at Madrid, twenty- two at the Hermitage, but the Louvre, as is its due, possesses the largest number, forty. Gaspar (Dughet) Poussin, also known as Le Guaspre, at first adopted the style, as well as the name, of his brother-in-law, varying 42 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. it, however, by an equally thorough study of Claude, whom, it Gaspar Poussin ma y De sa ^> ne dramatized, breathing a tempest into his (1613-1675), serenity. He also had something of the careful study of nature of the Netherlander, which gave to every tree and flower the characteristic of its species. Later, he worked oat his own individuality and became somewhat like Salvator Eosa, who was also one of the colony of artists centring about Poussin. He is very grand in a large landscape in the Louvre, a river scene, and his works are scattered broadcast in Europe, for, having great rapidity of execution, he could with ease paint a large landscape — with figures — in a day. Those in the Corsini Palace, as well as walls by him in the Villa Borghese and friezes and eleven water-color landscapes in the Colonna Palace, all ab Rome, are of great interest. Jaques Stella, for his own tendencies were in the same direc- tion, yielded more readily than Le Valentin to the influence of Pous- jaques steiia s * n > w *th whom, after some years' study in Florence, (1596-1667), he formed an intimacy at Kome in 1624, and contin- Lyons ued a correspondence after his return to Paris. He is among the few French artists of that time who followed the lead- ing of Poussin. His grandfather (1525-1601, Antwerp) and father (1565-1605, Lyons) had given him an inheritance of artistic tend- encies towards the realism of the Flemish school. But he showed himself a painter of graceful and sweet qualities, and made agree- able pictures that were feeble presentations of Poussin's classicism. He was made painter to Louis XIII. in 1634, with a lodging in the Louvre and a pension of one thousand livres. He has at the Louvre two pictures, Christ Receiving the Virgin into Heaven and Venus Coming to Visit the Muses, and about forty in other museums in France. Woman's hand, in engravings by his three nieces, Claudine, Francoise, and Antoinette Bouzonnet, perpetuated his work. These, with their brother, took the name, Stella, from the uncle, who had promoted their art education and left them means. Contemporaneously with Poussin's imagined idyls of the past, in which he sought the sublimities of nature, " the prince and poet of ciaude Lorrain landscape painters," Claude Gellee, was reproducing the (1600-1682), charming scenery which his love of nature enabled him champagne. tQ g n( ^ an( j wn j cn was so interpreted by him that his landscape seems aglow, — illuminated — in the play of light almost as truly as is the reality. He knew all of nature's serener phases as no painter perhaps has ever known them. He studied them with untir- ing devotion ; he would sit all day and lovingly watch one scene, \ THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 43 and so absorb it that from memory he could recreate the essence of all its aspects. Even Ruskin, who will not be accused of undue par- tiality for Claude, says that he "effected a revolution iu art by simply setting the sun in heaven. Till his time no one had thought of painting the sun except conventionally. He made the sun his sub- ject, painted the effects of misty shadows . . . and other delicate aerial transitions as no one had ever done before, and, in some re- spects, as no one has ever done in oil color since." Claude sought the conventional elegance of the classic landscape, and refined upon his studies of nature, until his works sometimes in no wise resemble the natural reality, as Goethe noted in eulogy of them. Like Pous- sin, he had the feeling, caught indeed from Poussin's advice, that the dignity of classic structure was necessary to his scene. At the same time, study led him, more profoundly than all other masters, to penetrate the secrets of nature. 1 His three great charms are: The unlimited space expressed in his pictures, effected by the use of soft vapor to define separate distances, and equalled, perhaps, only by Corot ; the effects of air, shown in veiling and subduing outlines and tints, as well as in causing the foliage to quiver, light clouds to sweep across the sky, and water to ripple ; and the brilliant effects of light on a charming coloring. But far as the eye may wander away into space in Claude's pictures, it is always able to retrace its wander- ings to a definite and beautiful foreground, where all is repose and serenity, crowned with some one of the varied mysteries of light ; the ethereal drapery of aerial perspective or the more tangible, though still dreamy, mist of sunrise or sunset. He painted nature's worship, the morning and evening hymn of praise rising to heaven, unperceived of unanointed eyes. Claude Gellee became de Lorraine, and hence Claude Lorraine, and now Claude Lorrain, 2 from the province in which his native town, Champagne, was situated. A doubtful tradition relates that he was apprenticed to a pastry cook, and travelled to Rome in the service of some young men, and there became cook and color-mixer to the artist, Agostini Tassi. It is authentic history 1 His thorough study of nature is abundantly attested by his sketches in the British Museum. Reynolds said there would be another Raphael before there would be another Claude. 2 Hamerton maintains that this should be Lorrain, considering Lorrain as the mas- culine form of the adjective. On the back of the first sketch of Claude's Libro di Verita he wrote himself " Claudio Gellee, dit Le Lorraine " as Charles Blanc asserts it to be written on the Duke of Devonshire's copy, while singularly enough Laborde gives it as "Le Lorane " upon the same authority. 44 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. that an orphan at twelve, the third of five sons, he proceeded to Fri- bourg to seek his oldest brother, a wood engraver, as all the older members of the family were. He remained there a year, when he went to Rome with a friend of his brother, where, carefully husband- ing his slender resources, he remained three or four years perfecting himself in the principles of his brothers art. In the difficulties of communicating with other countries during the Thirty Years' War, which now broke out, he was received into the house of Godfrey Wals at Naples, where he learned architecture and perspective, a knowledge subsequently put to profit in his pictures. After two years he returned to Rome, when his connection with Agostini Tassi began. His relation to this patron was less that of a pupil than of an assistant in social, domestic, and artistic affairs, but this proved a means of valuable instruction, for Tassi had been the pupil of Paul Bril, an eminent Flemish landscape painter, and was an artist of fine qualities, the demands upon whom made necessary Claude's work as supplementary to his own. When about twenty-five he revisited his native country, and while there painted under Charles Derwent, painter to the Duke Henri of Lorraine, the architecture in his pic- tures in the Chapel of Carmes. But no land save Italy now held suffi- cient charm for him. Thither he returned at the age of twenty-seven, joining at Marseilles Charles Errard on his way to Italy as member of a commission to purchase works of art for France, and there he re- mained without further travel, content with the beauty he could find in the environs of Rome : the Campagna and its ruins ; the Tiber ; and, above all, the skies of Italy. He lived in a house adjoining Poussin's, 1 and formed one of the group of admiring artists that sur- rounded that friendly counsellor of young workers, one of whom, Sandrart, became Claude's biographer. The Cardinal Bentivoglio having shown to Urban VIII. some works purchased from Claude, that Pope ordered of him four landscapes, among them, The Village Fete and A Seaport at Sunset, both now in the Louvre, and Claude's earliest known works (1639), though by 1634 he had become a celeb- rity. Philip IV. of Spain followed with orders for four landscapes and four marines. Claude's works now had become of such value that they were extensively imitated. " While working upon one of these, a copy of it was sold before his own was finished, for artists would 1 Vouet left Rome (1527) the year of Claude's return. 2 Another mark of their value is the fact that an offer of as much gold as would cover its surface was made by Pope Clement XI. for his picture of the little grove of the Villa Madama near Rome. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 45 bring sketches to his studio, ostensibly to profit by his instruction, but really to copy the picture he was painting. To prevent this sale of copies, he kept sketches of all his works by which they might be verified, and he be fortified against the combined effects of pla- giarism and the impossibility of his remembering the multiplicity of his designs. Thus while working for the King of Spain, the exact date of which is not ascertained, he began his Liber Veritatis or Inventium. 1 As Corot did later, this prince of landscape painters rose before the sun to study the landscape. He assisted at the toilet of Aurora, learned how she arranged her fleecy draperies, her golden arrows and halos of light, but sunsets were his favorite scenes. He never mar- ried. Although of great gravity of expression, he had much warmth of manner. His deep purity of character and the penetrating tender- ness of his feeling, no doubt, served him as a medium through which to look at nature, much as the well-known invention, the Claude- glass, does the common eye for the common landscape. In figure painting Claude had no ability, and was accustomed to say " he sold his landscape and gave away his figures." But he often employed others to paint the figures of his pictures. He lovingly worked with unflagging industry to the end, and the Queen of England has a work by him bearing the date of the year of his death, 1682. More than four hundred landscapes are described in the catalogue of his works, a large number of which are found in the public and private galleries of England. Two are in the National Gallery, London, the Embark- ation of St. Ursula and the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, which he never surpassed, but which are equalled by four charming pictures by him, Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night, in the Hermit- age, where are eight other landscapes by him. 2 Those ordered by Philip IV. of Spain still grace the Museo del Prado at Madrid, and sixteen are in the Louvre, most of which are verified in his Liber Veritatis. • Claude's long life, his untiring industry, and the many highly valued pictures he painted, did not enable him to acquire wealth, as 1 This volume, containing two hundred drawings, now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, has been published. By Claude's will it was never to pass from the family, and was kept through the generation of grandnephews, notwithstanding large prices offered by the Cardinal d'Estrees, but later, was sold for two hundred crowns to a jeweller, who resold it in Holland. 2 These once adorned the residence of the Empress Josephine, Malmaison, taken from the Gallery of Cassel by Napoleon. In 1814 the Czar Alexander bore them off as his prize. 46 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. he bestowed so much upon his relations. He had but one pupil, Giovanni Domenico Romano, whom he took at first as a domestic, but who, after a residence of twenty-five years with Claude, from whom he received the treatment of a son, brought suit against him for wages for all that time. Without contest Claude paid the demand, but after took no pupil into his house. But the style of all painters who went to Italy — Germans, Spanish, and Dutch — was affected by his works. His " heroic " style of landscape was followed by two Frenchmen of the name Jean Francois Millet, a father (1642-1680), commonly called Francisque, and a son (1666-1723), the father greatly superior to the son. Claude's influence, united with Poussin's, was very great. No one preceding the nineteenth century has more deeply felt or better expressed the ideal of art than these two artists, of whom Claude was, if the more limited, also the less formal, the more sympathetic. Landscape alone, as he saw it, sufficed to place his life in an age of gold, and it is an age of gold that he painted. The essence of the best modern landscape consists in the movement — the drama — of atmosphere and sky. Poussin and Claude selected a moment of clear and tranquil beauty, and gave distinct outlines, in well-balanced composition and harmonious lines, and Claude with marked effects of light. Both carried their work to the perfection of their scheme. The year after Vouet's recall to France in 1627, a young Brabant painter, Philippe de Champaigne, took up his permanent residence Philippe de in Paris, and becoming one of the members of the Acad- telZTeZ) 6 emy (one of the "fourteen anciens"), and rising to be Brussels. professor (1655) and director of it, must be considered of the French school. His presentation picture was a portrait of its first protector, Seguier. He had been drawn to Paris at the age of nineteen, and then, though deeply imbued with the religious ten- dencies of the Jansenists, formed an intimacy with that artist so full of the pagan idea, Poussin. It was just before Poussin went to Kome, and while both were working under the direction of Duchesne, who had entire charge of the royal work on the Luxembourg, the new Palace of Maria de' Medici. But the excellent achievement of the Flemish artist, who had brought transparency of color and a very positive feeling for nature with him, so aroused the jealousy of Duchesne that Champaigne prudently withdrew to Brussels until that artist's death (1628). He was then recalled, given Duchesne's position with its emoluments, a residence in the Luxembourg, and a pension of twelve hundred livres ; he married Duchesne's THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 47 daughter, and resumed his decoration of the palace. There, his former pupil and nephew, Jean Baptiste Champaigne (1631-1681), joined him, and, after the death of his son and wife, was adopted by him. This nephew's subsequent prominence gave to his uncle the title, " Champaigne, l'Oncle." " L'Oncle's " works were full of truth, and, though he worked with great rapidity, preserved the conscien- tious finish of his countrymen. He was among the first portrait paint- ers of his time. The portrait of Eichelieu in the National Gallery, London, represents the bust of that cardinal in the full face and both profiles ; the clearly-cut features and cold eye of steel are finely ren- dered and the work of the great minister is made apparent in the face. From it a statue was to be made. But a still finer one is in the Salon Carre, of the Louvre. The Louvre also contains his portraits of Mansard and Perrault, as well as twenty-two other portraits by him. In his works are found an expression of that earnest side of the life of the period that produced Pascal and the Port Royalists, or Jansenists, those resolute and deeply religious, though finally vanquished, oppo- nents of the Jesuits. He was in full sympathy with their liberalism, which was one of the broader tendencies of the times, for Cham- paigne was by nature earnest and devout, and early became a convert of their leader, his countryman and friend, Jansenius, with whom he was on most intimate terms, as well as with De Saci and the Arnaulds. Kobert Arnauld, St. Cyran de Saci and Jansenius sat to him. For the Port Royalists, too, he painted a Last Supper (Louvre) and his masterpiece, Les Religieuses (Louvre). These nuns are the Mother Agnes and the artist's daughter, painted with most touching feeling. The whole picture represents the gravity and depth of character that made the artist the congenial friend of the Port Royalists, and its inspiration was gratitude for his daughter's recovery from illness. The prevailing style of historical art of the time of Louis XIV. is admirably illustrated by a comparison of the works and positions of the two artists, Charles Lebrun and Eustache Lesueur (1617-55). Lebrun basked in the sunlight of court favor. Introduced to Louis's attention by Mazarin and sustained in his position by Colbert, he exercised a dictatorship in all art matters and enforced the following Charles Lebrun °^ ^is style upon all artists at the Court. But, with a (1619-1690), precocity and fecundity of ideas, Lebrun possessed, also, a tact, an equilibrium of mind, a wise judgment, that aided greatly in his advancement. While yet a boy of thirteen, he had made a sketch of Louis XIV. on the battlefield, into which there entered the flattering representation of that sovereign directing the 48 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. forces to victory. This falling into Siguier's hands, who had before noticed the lad with his father, a sculptor, while working on a figure in the gardens of the Hotel Seguier, the Chancellor declared himself the lad's protector and gave him lodgings in his palace. Lebrun, at fifteen, also designed an allegory of Richelieu's life and success, in which, as a play upon the cardinal's name, he gave to the scene a magnificent locale, or riche lieu, and, by it won a commission for three works in Richelieu's palace, the Palais Cardinal, later the Palais Royal. They were the Rape of Proserpine, Hercules Causing Diomedes to be Devoured by his own Horses, and the Death of Hercules. These paintings of the lad were much admired by Poussin when he came to Paris, six years later. He was employed to paint a dream of Anne of Austria, Christ on the Cross Surrounded by Angels, which won popu- larity for him on his return from Rome (1647). He was entrusted, at a salary of twelve thousand livres per annum, with the works upon the chateau of Fouquet, the famous Vaux le Vicomte, afterwards Vaux Villars, and still later Praslin, upon which the peculating Fou- quet expended fifteen millions, and there he first met Mazarin. He decorated for Colbert the chateau and the pavilions of Sceaux ; and he was employed at the royal residence, Fontainebleau, where he painted The Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander (1660), by many considered his masterpiece. It won the honor of a daily visit of two hours from Louis XIV. to see him work, and at its completion he was made, with appointments worth twelve thousand livres per annum, first painter to the king, was granted a patent of nobility (1662), and was presented with a likeness of the king enriched with diamonds ; also a sonnet upon the picture was dedicated to him by the poet, Carreau. He received the commission for adorning the new and favorite Ver- sailles on which many years (1664-81) of his prime were spent, and when the jaded king built Marly for times of seclusion, it was Lebrun who put into its structure and decorations (1676-1683) an expense that led Madame de Maintenon to exclaim, ' ' I pity the kingdom." He was made director of the Gobelins manufactory, where were not only the workshops for the royal tapestries, but for the royal furniture, jewelry, mosaics, marqueterie, and bronzes, for all of which Lebrun furnished designs. Thus all that is now known as Louis Quatorze work may approximately be called the art of Charles Lebrun. To the Royal Academy of Painting he held the relation of founder, "ancien," professor, rector, chancellor for life, and director. Lesueur on the contrary from obscurity sent forth a sigh for ap- preciation. " If I live," said he, " I have twenty pictures conceived, THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 49 which I hope will surpass those which I have done, and will pro- cure for me, perhaps, the reputation I desire." Such was the differ- ence of their positions : yet, for a charming naturalness untouched of convention, even in those times of conventional standards ; im- pressive nobleness of heads ; grace ; simplicity ; sweetness of expres- sion ; excellence of composition ; and an intelligent chiaroscuro, all of which combined have won for him the title of " The French Ra- phael," Lesueur is excelled by no Trench artist, and in his religious fervor he stands alone in French art until the nineteenth century. Lebrun had little feeling ; his work was full of attempts for effect and executed chiefly on a gigantic scale. He was chief of the theat- rical school of the time : he has been called, for both his operatic taste and his absolutism, " The Louis XIV. of Art." His design was heavy, his execution summary, his coloring sombre, and his light poorly managed, but his composition was fine, his fecundity inex- haustible, and his conception large and grandiose, if not in the exact- est sense noble. The influences upon both these artists had been nearly the same, their differences arose from their natures. They had been comrades in the school of Vouet ; both had stolen away secretly to the same cellar to work from the same model ; both had attracted the notice of the great Poussin, when he was sum- moned to Paris from Eome (1640) ; and both had received instruc- tion from him. But while Lesueur continued this only by the study of Poussin's works in France rather than, as has been asserted, through letters, and drawings of works at Rome 1 furnished by the generosity of Poussin, Lebrun, born to good fortune, was now allowed by Seguier a pension of two hundred crowns for his expenses at Rome with Poussin (1642). This was the point of their separation. Lesueur married and became encumbered with care and struggles ; Lebrun remained in Rome about five years in a warm friendship with Poussin, under whose roof he resided, amid the circle of artists that grouped themselves around him on the Pincian Hill, and by him was initiated into the classic style founded on the antique. He executed some pictures there in Poussin's manner, as Mutius Scaevola (Louvre) and Horatius Codes Defending the Bridge (Dulwich Gallery). The former at its first exhibition being taken for a work of Poussin's, attracted general attention to Lebrun, and gave him rank as an artist. He painted immediately upon his return from Rome, as the " May Picture " of the goldsmiths for Notre Dame, the Martyrdom of 1 Archives de l'Art Francais, Documents, where it is urged that all absence of col- lateral allusion to such letters argues their non-existence. 4 50 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. St. Andrew (1647), and in 1651 was again chosen for that service, making the "May Picture " now a Martyrdom of St. Stephen (Louvre). All his characteristics may be seen in the series of The History of Alexander (Louvre) which, as a parallel to the career of Louis XIV., was intended for a glorification of that monarch, and was by the king's orders reproduced in tapestry. 1 Lebrun's duties were many and responsible, his work onerous. After the fire of 1661 he furnished designs restoring the gallery of the Louvre, and as he painted that god there, it has since been known as the Gallery of Apollo, a title afterwards confirmed by Delacroix's superb ceiling there of Apollo Slaying the Python. But this gallery was left unfinished that he might carry out the projects for Versailles which now absorbed the king. There he decorated (1679) the grand staircase of the Museum, and, in the large gallery, eighty metres long and twelve wide, he made, in twenty-one pictures and six gri- sailles, an apotheosis of his royal master continued from the Peace of the Pyrenees (1659) through the war of Flanders (1667-8) and that of Holland (1672-1679), through the campaigns of which he accompanied the king (1677), to the Peace of Nimwegen. In the salons of War and Peace at either end of this gallery he painted, in that of War, five glorifications of France over Holland and Spain ; and in that of Peace, the blessings that these countries enjoyed at the cessation of war. In 1675 the Academy of St. Luke at Eome chose him as Director, although he was absent, and the proceeding was contrary to their rules. He never lost the favor of the king, who, when selecting from all his pictures works by Veronese, Guido, Poussin, and Lebrun, to be taken to his favorite Versailles in 1681, looked long at the last, comparing them with the others, and turn- ing kindly to the painter, said : " They sustain themselves well among the works of the great masters ; they only require the death of their author to make them as much valued. But we hope they will not soon have that advantage, as we have need of him." 2 Lebrun's practical nature, though, by leading hitn to adapt himself to the spirit of his time, it won him success, injured his art. When, by an unpretending subject released from the necessity of retaining the highly artificial manner which the fashion of the day required, his style was more simple. Thus his portraits of the family of the rich banker, Jabach, now at Berlin, show a real feeling for nature. Some 1 These were the pictures that in the exhihition of the Academy of 1673 were hung in the open Court. 2 Le Mercure Galant de France, December, 1681. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 51 of his religious subjects, which were his earliest important works after his return from Rome, are less labored, but still unnatural, as The Blessing, in which the youth asking it looks aside while the mother and father look at him. When Louvois succeeded Colbert (1683) his jealousy of that minister led him to depreciate and dis- place Lebrun, and honor his rival, Mignard. Lebrun felt humiliated, but could not resist his authority : he ceased to be seen at Court, grew languid, retired to the Gobelins, and there died. The almost unresisting recognition by other artists of Lebrun's influence — Pierre Mignard and Vouet being the only ones who with- held it — is an unusual subordination in the history of artists, and is explained by his two relations : that of chief among the founders of the Academy, into which he, the brilliant young man just from Rome, the pet of the Court, whom the Maitrise dare not molest, had generously entered with the motive and the result of the good of all ; and that of a dispenser, in his extended works for the Court and the nobility, of almost unlimited patronage for artists of all kinds. It is true, that all were absolutely subordinated to the style he dictated, and thus the art of the period was made of great uniformity, but in Lebrun's absolutism, frequent records of disinterested kindness more than counterbalance the petty acts of jealousy of which he is accused ; these are also refuted by the height of the position he held removing all motive for them. Of his works, fourteen scriptural subjects, ten classic subjects, a por- trait of himself in his youth, and one of Dufresnoy, are in the Louvre. One of these is a Holy Family, originally ordered by the Carpenters of the Brotherhood of St. Joseph for a chapel erected by them in the Church of St. Paul. In the Historical Museum of Ver- sailles there are twenty-five pictures by him, twelve of which are scenes of the king's private life, as hunts and promenades. Sixteen other galleries of France possess works by him, and the National Library has seven hundred and ninety engravings after him, executed by more than twelve different engravers. He also himself practised engraving and sculpture. He left three books upon art : A Book of Painting for Beginners ; The Expression of the Passions ; and Physiognomy Common to Man and Animals. His brother and pupil, Nicholas (1615-1660), and his brother Gabriel were also artists, Nicholas, a painter of landscape. But in quite a different way and in far greater degree than is true of Lebrun, both the personality and the painting of Lesueur are extremely sympathetic. His father was a wood-carver from Picardy, 52 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. and from the humble station which this implies his own genius raised him to the eminence indicated in the title given him of " The Raphael of France." The resemblance of his character to that of Raphael is more striking, it need not be said, than that between their works, which differ as much in spiritual force, in sweep, and grandeur, and imagination, as they are alike in a certain sweet- ness and suavity, which was the most of Lesueur, and is only a small part of his so-called prototype. It is at least certain that, in this quality, Lesueur of all French artists approaches Raphael most nearly and best deserves the title which patriotic feeling rather than exact- ness of aesthetic appreciation has given him. There is 06i7- a | C 65 e 5 ) Le p S arls. r ^he same gentleness of air and manner in the likeness of Raphael in the School of Athens, and the portrait of Lesueur also painted by himself ; 1 the same modesty and geniality characterized both men ; Lesueur absorbs his personages in their occu- pation, sometimes with a naivete that would render his figures a little common but for their elevated feeling, their breathings of a higher air ; but he is truly Raphaelesque in his sentiment and simplicity, his graceful arrangement of draperies, and his fondness for the an- tique upon which both modelled their careful studies of nature. He took infinite pains. In his designs are still seen the tracings of the perspective scale by which to place each figure in its due relation to its fellows. By constant study of nature he guarded against mannerisms, and his innate sense of grace, never overpowered by study in Italy, taught him better than most masters how to use, without risk of los- ing personal quality, both contemporary works and the antique which he assiduously copied. He was in contact with both Italian studies and esteem for Italian masters in the studio of Vouet, and while under Vouet his style is influenced by that master's. But above all his acquisitions, which were chiefly in technique, his own sentiment and pathos form his charm, not highly appreciated in a time not responsive to the expression of simple truth of feeling. Thus he stood alone, original — uninfluenced by the art of his period. But, though it never approximated that shown to Lebrun, he was not without consideration from royalty, and executed eight pictures for the apartment of the queen at the Louvre, which were still there when the royal collection was catalogued in 1709-10 by the keeper, Bailly. Attending more to expression and feeling than to aught else, he became naturally a painter of religious subjects, in which he ex- i Reproduced in Laudoii's Vies et (Euvres des Peintres, etc. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 53 hibited the feeling of the great Italians and a talent inferior to only a few of the best masters of Italy. With many traits unlike Poussin, as a tenderness that appealed to the heart, while Poussin addressed the intellect, and a Christian fervor instead of a calm classicism, he had many in common with him. Dignified sincerity, excellent composi- tion, fertile invention, and a feeble coloring, a common characteristic of the French school of that period, but which the many sad and aus- tere scenes of Lesueur's works chiefly required, belonged to both. Also, like Poussin at Rome standing outside of the conspicuous influences of the time, Lesueur at home, from his want of sympathy with its art, was isolated from the Court. To support his wife, Genevieve Gousse, the sister of one of his fellow painters under Vouet, and his family, which eventually num- bered one son and five daughters, he accepted whatever work offered : took commissions for illustrations of the lives of the saints, frontis- pieces for books, banners for brotherhoods ; designed medals ; and became one of Vouet's "regiment" of assistants. He aided him in the decoration of the Hotel Bullion, Rue Platriere, and through the interest of his chief received a commission from Richelieu for eight designs for tapestry from the Gobelins illustrating The Dream of Polyphilius (1G42 or 4). Through a new edition of this work of the fifteenth century by the Dominican monk, Francesco Colonna, great interest had been awakened, and artists, among them even Poussin, found subjects in it, though not of great delicacy. Lesueur's repre- sentations from it were given with an elegant discrimination that did not compromise the dignity of the pencil that so worthily depicted religious themes. But Vouet found in them a reproach of his own style and Lesueur was dismissed from his service. Associating with him his three brothers, Pierre, Philippe, and Antoine, and his brother- in-law, Thomas Gousse, he continued such work as he obtained. Vouet's influence had developed in him skill in the massing of draperies and in the management of light and shade, and he had now only to free himself from a mannered design and follow his own ten- dency to elevated expression. After leaving Vouet, during a period for which his history is obscure, he was appointed by Richelieu's favor, says a disputed account, as Inspector of Receipts at the Barri- ere d'Ourcieres, an entrance of Paris, where his legal authority being one day disputed, a duel ensued in which he killed his adversary. To avoid the consequences he hid away in the Chartreuse at Paris, 1 1 A chapter of that austere, unambitious, but most interesting order, the Carthu- sians, founded by St. Bruno in 1084. 54 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. or, according to other authorities, went on invitation to work there. The fact is clear that in these cloisters, between 1645 and 1648, he painted twenty-two pictures representing the life of the founder of the order, St. Bruno. From them the height of his repu- tation dates, although parts of his earliest work upon them show his style still influenced by Vouet's. Like the Spanish painter Zurburan, associated with the monks, he caught the true spirit of their unpre- tending life, and by the shaven head, not partial tonsure ; the simple, white robe and hood ; the sandalled feet ; the quietude of manner ; the faces emaciated but full of expression, impresses us with both the self-imposed severity of the order, and " the unassuming industry that in the middle ages filled the libraries of their monasteries with transcribed manuscripts, and called forth from their barren sites the bloom of a richer soil." Voltaire called them " the learned paintings of the Zeuxis of France," and of them C. Blanc writes : " With Raphael religious sentiment has something grand and imposing which con- founds impurity ; with Lesueur this sentiment is associated with a naivete which moves the incredulous. It is in the fervor of his own humble beliefs that he finds the secret of a religious painting that would be impossible to a sceptic." 1 1 They replaced in the spaces between the pilasters of the cloister pictures on can- vas, painted in 1568 and nearly destroyed by time, which had replaced pictures painted in 1350. They are 6 ft. 4 in. high by 4 ft. 3 in. wide. 1. St. Bruno as a youth intently listens to Raymond, a celebrated preacher and teacher of a theological school of Paris. Bruno, of a wealthy and noble family of Cologne, had been sent to him for further education of powers of which his parents were already proud. 2. St. Bruno is seen, one of two young students, behind the priest, who holds the crucifix to the dying Raymond. 3. The Resurrection of Raymond. The legend is : "Now Raymond being greatly ven- erated for his apparent sanctity was carried to the grave attended by a great concourse of people, and as they were chanting that part of the service for the dead, 1 Responde mihi quantas habes iniquitates,' the dead man half raised himself from the bier and cried with a lamenting voice, 'By the justice of God I am accused,' whereupon the priests laid down the bier and deferred the interment till the next day. Then as they again chanted the same words, again the dead man rose up and cried out with a more dreadful voice, ' By the justice of God I am judged.' In great consternation the obse- quies were deferred till the third day, when at the same verse, the dead man again rose up crying with a terrible voice and look, ' By the justice of God I am condemued.' Upon this, the body was flung into a field as unworthy of Christian burial." Bruno here attends the officiating priest, and is so horrified that in 4 we see him in humble prayer, while in the distance is seen the unhallowed burial of Doctor Raymond. 5. With earnest, noble mien St. Bruno at Rheims teaches theology to most devout listen- ers. 6. St. Bruno with six followers takes leave of his friends to retire to a monastery. 7. They distribute their goods to the poor. 8. A vision of three angels directs St. Bruno to go to St. Hugo, Bishop of Grenoble. 9. St. Bruno and his six followers ask for ground for a retreat. 10. They pass up a mountain to the barren heights of the village of Chartreux. 11. They build the " retreat from the world " which, called " La Grande THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 55 The year of their completion (1648), in the founding of the Academy of Painting, he again met Lebrun, who then fresh from his honors at Rome had found at its first session, February 1, a continuance of his brilliant fortune, and w^s by lot made the first instructor in the new organization. Almost immediately, too (1649), Lesueur was com- missioned to paint the " May Picture " for Notre Dame, an honor in which Lebrun, though his junior, had preceded him by two years. This, St. Paul Preaching at Ephesus (Louvre), is his masterpiece. The apostle, with earnest, noble mien, preaches from a platform, and his hearers, while he yet speaks, set fire to their heathen books — by an anachronism of universal practice in religious painting. Lesueur painted nineteen pictures from the life of Christ, some of which are of most noble rendering. He also represented mythological subjects, among them the decorations of the Hotel Lambert de Thorigny. These were done by him and Lebrun conjointly, Lesueur's work being the three apartments : the Salon de 1' Amour, the Cabinet des Muses, and the Salle des Bains. He appropriately represented in the first the power of Cupid; in the second, Phaeton desiring of Apollo per- mission to guide the chariot of the sun ; and in the third, two scenes of Diana and one of Neptune and Amphitrite. These also are by some called his greatest works, showing that his later works compete for that estimate. They were his last, The Muses being scarcely finished at his death. He died at thirty-eight, not at the Carthusian Monastery, where he has been said to have withdrawn after the loss of his wife, but in his home, attended by his wife, and but a short time after the birth of his youngest daughter. Lebrun visited his death-bed, and ac- knowledged him a worthy rival, " une epine au pied." Simonneau, an engraver, relates that Lebrun, upon visiting the Chartreuse one day, and thinking himself alone, exclaimed, looking more closely at Lesueur's pictures, " Oh, how beautiful that is ! How well that is Chartreuse," has given name to all affiliated foundations. 12. They are invested with the habit of his order by St. Hugo. 13. St. Bruno reads for approval to Pope Victor III. the Rules drawn up for his order. 14. St. Bruno as abbot invests others with the habit of the order. 15. St. Bruno receives a message from Urban II. to come and aid him in administering the affairs of the Church. Urban II. had been a pupil of St. Bruno at Rheims. 16. He is received by Pope Urban II. 17. While still kneeling before the Pope he refuses with extended arms the mitre of Archbishop. 18. He is praying in his cell, while monks break up the ground for a convent of his order. 19. Count Roger of Sicily and Calabria, lost in hunting, entreats his blessing. 20. St. Bruno appears in a vision and warns Count Roger of the treachery of an officer. 21. His death. 22. His apotheosis. 56 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. done ! How admirable ! How admirable ! " 1 Lesueur died too early to be granted the privileges of the exhibitions, having only dis- tant glimpses of the higher levels promised by the Academy he had helped to found. In 1776 the pictures of St. Bruno were removed to Versailles by Louis XVI., who paid the monks for them 132,000 livres, with the promise to return copies at a cost of 2,000 livres, but the monastery was suppressed too soon after for the fulfilment of this engagement. Thus a hundred years after his death, Lesueur was permitted to adorn that splendid palace, and the wish sighed forth from obscurity was granted. They were taken to the Luxembourg when that was made a National Gallery (1802), and to the Louvre, where they now occupy a room, after that gallery was stripped by the owners reclaiming the pictures of Napoleon's spoils of war (1818). But no one of these places affords so favorable a framework for them as their appropriate sur- roundings among the Carthusian monks, with whose religious customs and subdued life they harmonized so felicitously. More than two hun- dred years after Lesueur's death students of art of the nineteenth cen- tury, those of the ficole des Beaux-Arts, have (1872) erected in their grounds a statue to him. It is by Husson, in white marble. With the exception of the Hermitage, which has seven, one of great worth, Moses on the Banks of the Nile, Lesueur's works are not largely found in public galleries outside of France. Three are in the private galleries of London — Devonshire House, Corsham Court, and Leigh Court ; one each at Berlin, Brussels, Stuttgart, and the Lichtenstein Gallery at Vienna ; six are at the Belvidere, Vienna ; and two at the old Pina- cothek, Munich. At the Louvre are fifty-one in all : the twenty-two of St. Bruno ; six of the Scenes of Cupid's Life ; The Muses, a frag- ment of the Hotel Lambert ; Paul Preaching at Ephesus ; Three Scenes of the Life of Christ ; A Reunion of Artists ; and many studies and drawings, among them fifty of the History of St. Bruno. Twelve pictures are scattered in eight other cities in France, — Bor- deaux, Grenoble, Lyons, Marseilles, Montauban, Montpellier, Nantes, and Rouen. Most of his pictures have been engraved. 2 The number of pictures left by Jean Jouvenet — most of them in 1 The report that Lebrun and Vouet in jealousy mutilated some of these pictures, though undoubtedly untrue of Lebrun, who was aiming wholly at a different style and enjoyed a much more brilliant success, prevailed to such an extent that Voltaire in the next century alludes to it in his Discours de l'Envie. 2 They can be studied in this country at the Astor Library and the Brooklyn Mercan- tile Library. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 57 Paris, twelve at the Louvre — give importance to that follower of Le- brim. That great chief, won by his Moses Striking the Eock, after Poussin, at once presented him to the Academy, having already, when at the age of seventeen Jouvenet came to him to learn art, installed him his assistant in decorating the Palace of Versailles, and retained him there ten years. His pictures won the admiration of Louis XIV. , and were popular among the Academicians, and from these circumstances his characteristics may be readily inferred. But jean jouvenet his style was tempered by his tendencies to follow Pous- (1644-1717), Rouen. S [ B ? -with something also of the natural treatment of Le- Prof " l69 , . sueur, and he was among the least theatrical of thefol- Rec. 1705; Direc. -07. lowers of Lebrun. His father, Laurent, was a painter at Rouen. His grandfather, Noel (the progenitor through his three sons of many family branches of artists, including, through a granddaugh- ter, the two Eestouts, who became members of the French Academy in the eighteenth century) had given to Poussin his first lessons. Like Lesueur, Jouvenet formed his style without visiting Italy, giving close study, however, to that of Poussin, but still maintaining his own originality. His figures have great vivacity of expression, which a severe critic has called " grimace, " and great animation of motion, calculated to satisfy a distant and cursory glance. One marked merit, however, characterizes all his works, best understood by his own com- parison, that " a picture should by color, sentiment, and action all agreeing, with no sharp prominences, present that accord to the eye which a concert in full harmony does to the ear." Louis XIV. bestowed on him a pension of 1,200 livres at his completion of the ceiling of the Parlement Chamber at Rennes (1696), which was increased by 500 after the completion of his decorations of the Cha- pel at Versailles (1709). In 1683, when he was called by the death of a relative to his native city, that monarch had recalled him and given him apartments in the Palace of the Four Nations. Like Lesueur, he increased his reputation — which must, however, have been con- siderable previously though he was only twenty-four years of age — by painting the " May Picture " for the church of Notre Dame, The Heal- ing of the Paralytic (1668). Four pictures painted for the church St. Martin-des-Champs (1700) : The Expulsion of the Money Changers ; The Feast at the House of the Pharisee ; The Miraculous Draught of Fishes ; and The Raising of Lazarus are adequately representative. The first two were bestowed in 1811 upon the Museum of Lyons, but there are still at the Louvre replicas executed for the Gobelins, for they so pleased Louis XIV. that he ordered them to be taken to the Tri- 58 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. anon, and also to be repeated for execution in tapestry. Jouvenet varied the copies, but not to their injury. When Peter the Great visited the Gobelins in 1717 he was asked to accept what pleased him most, and selected these. A replica of the first is also at Schwerin. In The Raising of Lazarus Jouvenet placed himself and two daughters among the on-looking crowd. Of other artists not wholly dominated by the style practised by Lebrim, Bourdon is shown by his Halt of the Gypsies which he painted in several forms, two of which are in the Louvre, to be free from the formalities of the times. He was, indeed, of that facile and varied execution that is preventive even of constant excellence, and having breathed an artistic atmosphere in the house of his father, . „ who was a painter on glass, he is found under Sebastien Bourdon 1 ° (1616-71) Montpellier. the instruction of Barthelemy at Paris at seven Ancien, Acad. 1648. Rec. '55. y earg 0 f a ge. From that time he received his Paint. to Queen of Sweden, '52. J 0 lessons on the highways over which his wander- ing life bore him, and his restlessness found expression in a con- stantly changing style that portrayed what had last impressed him. In 1630, at fourteen, he decorated in fresco under an unknown mas- ter the salon of a chateau in the environs of Bordeaux, and soon after, having failed to find further employment, enlisted at Toulouse. Feeling deeply his loss of liberty, friends soon obtained his discharge (1634), and his artistic impulses having acquired greater energy from their temporary abeyance, he went at eighteen to Rome. But he painted there anything by which to win bread at once — what his life had familiarized him with, military scenes, interiors of guard-houses and inns — and copied, or rather counterfeited, Poussin, Claude, and others for dealers. He was succeeding financially and learning much at the same time, when in a quarrel with a French painter, Rieux, the latter threatened to deliver him to the Inquisition, for he was a Protestant. In fear of this he left the papal city, revisited Venice and other cities of Italy, and returned to France after an absence of only three years. His observance of the rapid manner of Andrew Sacchi, together with his own working in accordance with the im- pulses of youth, unrestrained by any master, had confirmed his natural tendency to haste, but it gave a boldness to his touch that was an important element of his success. His violent coloring was similar to Vouet's, whose acquaintance he now made, when at the height of his popularity in Paris. Soon after his return he spent three months at Montpellier, where he was commissioned to paint, by the Chapter of the Cathedral, The Fall of the Magician Simon, a vast THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 59 work of more than thirty figures. At its exhibition Bourdon struck a painter, Samuel Boissiere, who criticised it too severely, and to avoid further difficulties fled to Paris. There he painted (1643), as the " May Picture," for the Corporation of Goldsmiths, The Martyrdom of St. Peter, won high appreciation, and in 1648 became one of the little band of "anciens." He married in 1641 Susanne de Guernier, sister of a miniature painter. But though full of honors at home, he accepted in 1652, influenced by the dangers he incurred as a Protestant in the civil wars, the invitation of the Protestant queen of Sweden to become her court painter. Upon her abdication and renunciation of Protes- tantism (1654) he set out for Paris, being given charge of an eques- trian likeness of the queen, which she commissioned him to present to the King of Spain. He left the ship and proceeded to Paris by land, fortunately, for the ship and picture were lost at sea. He had painted in Sweden chiefly portraits, among them one of Charles Augus- tus, the queen's cousin and successor ; but the most important one was the official portrait of the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus herself. 1 In her capriciousness to all, and temporary favor to him, she was about to bestow upon him the forty pictures that her father had taken at the reduction of Prague, among them many Correggios, but he convinced her that their value was too great for a gift. At Paris he had a more distinguished career even than during the fifteen years there preceding his departure for Stockholm. He painted many important pictures, one for which, by his striking, rapid thought and powerful manner, he was particularly fitted — the decora- tion of the Hotel de Bretonviliers (1663), which now only remains in engravings and descriptions. Here he introduced The Virtues and The Arts, and by a charming conception, instead of using the sym- bolical figures, represented them each by some incident. For Music he represented the fall of Arion, who, being precipitated into the sea, gains permission once more to touch his lyre, the music of which attracts a dolphin that bears him away to safety. He finally attained to the dignity of giving four lectures (1667-68-69-71) in the course of instruction afforded in the Academy. They were of great value, notably one, The Six Parts of the Day for the Distribution of Light in a Picture, and one on Poussin's Picture of the Blind Men of Jericho. Of Bourdon's works there are : At the Louvre twenty-nine designs and seventeen paintings : The Sacrifice of Noah ; The Going Forth from the Ark ; Solomon Sacrificing to Idols ; The 1 Engraved by Nanteuil, also by Michel Lasue. 60 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Adoration of the Shepherds ; Repose of the Holy Family ; The Virgin, Infant Jesus, and St. John ; Christ and the Children ; Descent from the Cross ; Behead- ing of St. Protais; Martyrdom of St. Peter ; Julius Caesar at the Tomb of Alexander; Halt of Bohemians ; Mendicants ; Portrait of Rene Descartes ; Portrait of Sebas- tien Bourdon ; Portrait of S. Bourdon, with Draperies by Rigaud ; Portrait, sup- posed to be of Michel de Chamillart, le Marquis de Carny. In the Galleries of Versailles are A Portrait of Bourdon, Father of the Artist, painted on glass, and his own Portrait: at Montpellier, Halt of Bohemians ; Halt of Soldiers ; Portrait of a General ; Landscape of large composition ; Landscape traversed by a River ; Finding of the Body of St. Theresa ; Portrait of a Spaniard : in the Cathedral at Montpellier, Fall of Simon the Magician: in the Museum of Bayeux, Portrait of Queen Christina of Sweden: at Aix, St. Sebastian; Soldiers Playing Cards : Lille, Christ Surrounded by Angels ; Repose of Colporteurs : Rennes, Soldiers Playing Cards in a Ruin ; Elias in a Chariot of Fire : Grenoble, The Temperance of Scipio ; The Charity of Joseph : Lyons, St. John the Baptist in the Desert ; Portrait of a Cuirassier ; and in the various galleries of Spain, Italy, Denmark, England, Russia, and Germany, about thirty others of similar subjects. One of his finest works, The Return of the Ark, is in the National Gallery, London. Noel Coy pel was the second rector of the French Academy at Kome, and through his efforts obtained for it the Palace Caprianica, Noei coy pel which it occupied till nearly the close of the eighteenth (1628-1707) Paris, century. He struggled for a high ideal, and in ReT i69o d 'oh7ct ' elegance of taste resembles Mignard, whom he suc- '95. Mem. Acad. st. ceeded as director of the Academy. He aided Errard Luke at Rome. - n decorations of the LouYrc. He was the first and ablest of a family of four artists, who extended their art into the middle of the next century. The others were his two sons, Antoine (1661-1722) and Noel Nicholas (1692-1734), and a grandson, Charles Antoine (1694-1752). Antoine's work belongs in style to the art of Louis XIV. 's period, but was rather a corruption of it. He exaggerated the theatrical style of Lebrun, but he was rector and director of the Academy, court painter during the minority of Louis XV. (1716), and received a patent of nobility (1717). The chief portrait painters of the period of Louis XIV. were Mig- nard, who was also a distinguished painter of fresco, Rigaud, Largil- liere, and Francois de Troy. The name of Mignard, 1 rendered famous by Lebrun's rival and successor, Pierre, is also illustrated by an older brother, Nicholas, called " the elder," or often " D'Avig- 1 The family name in the generation preceding was More, but when Henry IV. saw the father, Pierre More, of English origin, with six brothers, all officers in the royal army, and noticed them as being of good figure and pleasing face, he exclaimed, " Those are not Mores (Moors), but Mignards " (exquisites). Thence it became the name of the entire family.— L' Abbe de Monville. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 61 non," where he chiefly lived and worked, and by two sons of the J latter, Pierre (1671-1705) and Paul (1691- ). The Nicholas Mignard, v \ , v ' (i6o 5 -i668),Troyes. older pair of brothers, Nicholas and Pierre, were born Mem. Acad. 1663. a ^ Troves, whence both went to study the works of the Prof. '64; Rec. '90. J J Italian masters at Fontainebleau, Nicholas for several, and Pierre for two years ; and both subsequently joined the current then flowing to Rome of those seeking culture in art, Pierre at the age of twenty-five (1635), but Nicholas not till nine years later. Nicholas went in the suite of a brother of Cardinal Richelieu, the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons, who had been attracted to him by a gallery painted by him for a Lyons amateur. Pierre remained in Italy twenty-two years ; Nicholas but two, when he returned to wed a maiden who had been waiting at Avignon for her lover to acquire skill of pencil and brush at Rome. In that city, in 1660, when the young Louis XIV. passed through, seeking his bride, Maria Theresa, the Infanta of Spain, Mazarin ordered of this artist a portrait of himself. At the same time he painted others of the king's retinue, and the portrait of the king himself. This was so satisfactory that he was called by royal command, upon the young queen's arrival there (1660), to the palace of Fontainebleau, to paint her and the king. Of this Pierre was jealous, 1 but the proud Nicholas produced a replica for his home at Avignon which, however, met the fate of works pertain- ing to kings during the Terror in 1794, in being burned by its owner, Madame de Prilly, the grand-niece of the artist. Nicholas aspired also to historical painting, and upon the reconstruction of that palace (1660-65) by Louis XIV., worked on the decorations of the Tuileries. He became a member of the Royal Academy, while Pierre still refused to do so, because it involved submission to Lebrun. Though we meet Pierre Mignard with some prejudice perhaps, engendered by his obstinate opposition to the Academy of Painting, we must accept history, which assigns to him a distinguished talent, as well as the abundant evidence of the works he has left. He was born a painter, and though, since his brother became an artist, intended for a physician, at the age of twelve sketched, with so strik- pierre Mignard, ing a resemblance as to determine his profession, the (i6io-i6 9 5),Troyes. patients that he visited with his instructor, and their Prin. Acad. St. Luke. . m. Rec. and Direct, attendants. He is one of the large number of conspic- Acad. Men. 4, 1690. uous artists from the studio of Vouet. After his return from studying the Italian works at Fontainebleau to Troyes, he 1 Letter of N. Mignard, dated May 5, 1661, reproduced in L'Art. 62 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. painted there a chapel for the Marechal de Vitry so satisfactorily that that patron conducted him to Vouet's studio at Paris. He so delighted Vouet as to receive from him the offer of one of his two daughters in marriage. But Rome attracted the young artist with charms of a greater force, charms that held him to an assiduous wooing of many years, with the aspiration of winning the artistic power which the great masters of Rome held up to his admiration. There, too, he married (1656) Anna Avolara, the daughter of a Roman architect, and, from his long residence in that city (1635-58), became known as " Le Romain." He derived the benefit of having a com- mission to copy all the frescoes of the Farnese Palace transferred to him by his brother's patron, the Cardinal de Lyon, when his brother left it to hasten to his betrothed at Avignon. In the eight months spent in executing this he so thoroughly acquired the man- ner of the painter of them (Annibale Oarracci) that he never wholly lost it. To this, by study in Venice (1654) he added an improved coloring, and his style became thoroughly modified from a docile imitation of Vouet. At Rome he devoted himself to a mastery of the methods of fresco. But, judging that thus he could best attain to the fortune which was his ambition, he also planned to become a portrait painter. His faculty of seizing a likeness with a flattering pencil recommended him in this role. The portrait of the family of the French plenipotentiary at Rome, M. Hugues de Lionne, won for him the honor of painting Pope Urban VIII. He aimed to paint his successor, Innocent X., and attained his object step by step. He first produced the likeness of the Cardinal de' Medici ; next that of the Cardinal d'Este ; then of Prince Pamphile, nephew of the Pope ; and, a nearer step, the Signora Olympia, the Pope's powerful sister-in-law. At last he painted Innocent X. It was in the pontiff's ripe old age. Velasquez had painted him about 1651, and his superb portrait, which now decorates the Doria Gallery, had been borne in proces- sion through the streets of Rome. But, in spite of such difficult competition, Mignard's won him reputation. He proceeded to other cities of Italy, was welcomed with honors by artists and rulers and, returning to Rome, painted Pope Alexander VII. But, like Vouet, he was recalled to France by the king, at the instigation of Mazarin, and, leaving his wife and newly-born son at Rome, he set out October 10, 1657. He was received in the prominent towns of France with great honor : at Marseilles by the First Consul of the city, at Aix by the President of the Parlement, and at Avignon everybody aided Mignard " d'Avignon " to do honor to Mignard " Le Romain." THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 63 Here, though eagerly awaited at Fontainebleau, he was detained by illness for several months. Opportunely, Moliere's troupe had just been playing at Lyons, and the comedian and artist were there thrown together, a meeting from which a life-long friendship ensued. While convalescing and painting an occasional portrait, he was again press- ingly ordered to Fontainebleau to paint a portrait of the young king of twenty, by which to effect his betrothal with Maria Theresa, and establish peace for the nation. Mignard painted a portrait in three hours which was immediately sent to Spain, and with which the Infanta is said to have been charmed. Upon his arrival at Fontaine- bleau (1658) a bitter rivalry with Lebrun commenced, though, or perhaps because, the two had been fellow-pupils in Vouet's studio. Now Mignard, late from Rome, became the fashion, while Lebrun was still official court painter. Mignard was well fitted to shine in court life, and it alone satisfied his ambition. Says Charles Blanc : "At this time a noble physiognomy, mild and serious, remained from the beauty of his youth. Of tall figure, his manners did not lack distinction. Amia- ble and circumspect, of elevated discourse, happy 'repartee,' cultivated mind, his character a mingling of dignity and suppleness, he could be the fine courtier with- out seeming so. He was welcomed by the queen-mother and Mazarin ; he pleased the Cardinal by his intelligence, the queen by the delicacy with which he painted her hands." (These were considered the " most beautiful in the world.") Mignard decorated (1665) for the queen-mother the dome of Val- de-Grace, the church erected by her in gratitude for the birth of Louis XIV., a copy of which, in chiaroscuro, was his entrance picture to the Academy. He represented Paradise on the cupola as the sky, the Persons of the Trinity forming a centre, surrounded by two hun- dred figures of the heavenly life, of the very heroic proportions of more than three times the natural size. The work won additional eclat from Moliere's celebrating it by a poem when finished. Just at that time Lebrun had been made by Colbert court painter, and had control of all public decorations. But noblemen employed Mignard for decorating their palaces, and public estimate made him the first artist in fresco of the time. The rivalry waxed warm. Mig- nard espoused the quarrel of the Maitrise abased by the Academy, accepted the presidency of it (1664), and, for a time, fought against the stars in their courses, by opposing, because Lebrun was its head, the organized progress of art. The king and Colbert supported Lebrun, but Mignard held the favor of the queen and that of the many beauties of the court, to whom he stood in the pleasing relation of the flattering portrait painter. It had become a fashion for ladies of distinguished 64 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. rank, beauty, or intelligence to resort to the studio of Mignard. Madame de Sevigne in one of her letters writes : " I haye been to the house of Mignard to see the portrait of Louvigny ; it is speaking. But I have not seen Mignard ; he is painting Madame de Fontevrault, whom I looked at through a hole in the door. . . . Les Villais was at this hole with me; we were jocose." 1 But his "own five fingers " were his greatest strength. To Colbert's threatenings upon Mignard and his friend Dufresnoy's rejection of his overtures pro- posing that they should join the Academy, Mignard replied : " Mon- sieur, the king is master, and if he orders me to quit the kingdom I am ready to go. But remember that with these five fingers there is no country in Europe where I shall not be more considered and cannot make a greater fortune than in France." 2 On Colbert's death Mignard triumphed. He had received a pateut of nobility in 1687, and through the aid of Louvois he superseded Lebrun as painter to the king, March 1, 1690, which is said to have shortened Lebrun's life. He was made a member of the Academy by royal decree, and as soon as he presented himself, passed through all the grades at one sit- ting (March 4, 1690,) to the great offence of the old members. One of his i^ortraits of Louis XIV. is at Hampton Court, but though he painted that monarch often, none of the portraits is at the Louvre. His principal works are as follows : At the Louvre, portraits of the Dauphin ; of the Dauphin's wife, Marie Anne Christine Victoire of Bavaria ; of their three sons, aged five years, three years, and eighteen months, the eldest of whom, the Due de Bourgogne, became the father of Louis XV. ; of Madame de Maintenon (1635-1719), that wily politician, as Sainte Francoise, one of his best works ; and of Mignard himself in full length. Twelve in all by him there, are — besides these — Faith; Hope; St. Cecilia singing; St. Luke painting the Virgin (Mignard holding a brush in the background) ; Jesus on His Way to Calvary ; The Virgin and Grapes ; Neptune offering his 1 While Mignard was painting the Abbess de Fontevrault no one was admitted except those of the religious orders. 2 During this rivalry, it is related that Mignard informed the Chevalier de Clair- ville that he had a Magdalen from Rome, he having painted one on a canvas from Italy. High authorities, among them Lebrun, having pronounced it by Guido, De Clair- ville paid Mignard 2,000 livres for it. Hearing afterwards that it was painted by Mig- nard he complained to that artist of the deception. " Ah," replied Mignard, "do not all, even Lebrun, pronounce it to be Guido's ?" An appointment was made for Mignard and Lebrun to dine with De Clairville, when Lebrun again, upon close inspection, pronounced the picture to be by Guido " I will wager a large sum it is not by Guido," said Mignard. Lebrun accepted the bet, when Mignard declared himself the painter, and proved it by saying it was painted over a picture of a cardinal, whose red hat he revealed by remov- ing one of the hairs of the Magdalen. But De Clairville decided that he would be satis- fied with a picture that had deceived Lebrun. NICHOLAS POUSSIN ET IN ARCADIA EGO THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 65 Wealth to France, an allegorical allusion to Louis XIV. ; an Ecce Homo ; Virgin in Tears ; and Portrait of Mignard. At Versailles is the Portrait of Louis XIV. (equestrian); of Anne of Austria, and of Mignard's only daughter, Catherine, the beautiful and witty Marquise de Feuquieres; at the Musee d'Orleans, one of the same at her marriage ; and one at the Hermitage. He also painted Largil- liere ; Ninon de l'Enclos (Marseilles) ; Madame de Montespan ; Madame Sevigne (Angers) ; Brissac ; Bossuet ; Turenne ; the Cardinal de Retz ; Mazarin ; Colbert ; La Fontaine; Racine; Boileau, and his own warm friend, Moliere. Descartes is at Castle Howard in England ; and at Windsor Castle is a full-length portrait of Henrietta Anne, the daughter of Charles I. of England, who became the Duchess of Orleans; and the Virgin aux Raisins, which is a charming Mignardise, as his virgins, for whom his wife usually served as model, were called. His style is thus summarized by Viardot : "In all his works, his- tory or portrait, he shows the same cold correctness, the same art of flattery and embellishment, the same attention to the graceful and the smooth, to an affectation which has been called by his name, formerly as praise, now as blame." 1 But he also had a delicacy, a lightness, an animation of touch, and a feeling for color which rendered him the first colorist of his age. Although best known by his portraits, he left other distinguished works. The Val-de-Grace before described; a room of the Hotel de Longueville for the Due d'Epernon (for 40,000 livres, 1658), whose portrait he also painted (for 1,000 crowns). In 1677 he painted at St. Cloud for the Due d'Orleans, the only brother of Louis XIV., the grand salon, and for the chapel, a Descent from the Cross, as well as at Versailles frescoes, destroyed 1728 and 1736. At eighty-one years of age he sent to Louyois plans for the D6me des Invalides, but died before commencing the work. No account of Pierre Mignard would be complete without reference to his friend, Charles Dufresnoy, whose acquaintance he 06M-?668-" f plris y f° rm ed in Vouet's studio and continued in Eome, where the two shared room, thought, artistic aspirations, and good and evil fortune, for those were times of poverty for both. Dufresnoy was a follower of Titian in color, and in design of Annibale Carracci, whose pictures in the Farnese Palace he copied with Mig- nard. But though he painted many pictures, his fame rests more upon his theory of painting as found in his Latin treatise, "De Arte Graphica," a poem that he devoted his life to writing, and the manuscript of which Mignard gave to the publisher after Dufres- noy's death. It has been translated into many languages ; into Eng- lish by Dryden. Dufresnoy would theorize and Mignard put into 1 A French writer of that time speaks of the curving of a balustrade as being charmingly " mignardised." 66 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. practice, and while Mignard was at the easel, Dufresnoy would recite to him some poem, often an original one. Dufresnoy joined his force with Mignard's in the Academy of St. Luke. The note refusing to join the Koyal Academy of Painting, signed "Mignard," "Dufres- noy," contains the phrase " We will resume our work at the Val-de- Grace," and thus Dufresnoy is recorded as participant in that famous achievement. He died before Mignard's official positions were granted by Louvois, and so never consented to join the Academy. The death of Mignard removed an overshadowing figure from the path of three portrait painters, who thenceforth became conspicu- ous in both this and the following century, two of them living over fourscore years, Kigaud (1659-1743), Largilliere (1656-1746), and Francois de Troy (1645-1730). But they had deserved renown if they had not attained it during Mignard's lifetime. Competition as portrait painters did not prevent a life-long friendship from exist- ing among them. The feeling between Rigaud and Largilliere was especially warm, but their field was hardly the same. Largilliere had a special talent for painting women. He could, while retaining impressive likeness, bring out graces unseen of others, a something peculiar to his perceptions, and he thus became the charming and popular painter of the sex. Rigaud painted women unwillingly ; he used to say : "If I make a true likeness of a woman it often is un- satisfactory to the sitter, because not beautiful, and if beautiful, it is not satisfactory to me, because not true." Equally with Largilliere, he imparted something of himself to his sitter ; it was a certain air of dignity, in which no one of his likenesses fails, and which, while in the later days of realism it seems pompous, was appropriate to the age, and made him the characteristic portrait painter of its men, who thus march down the ages to us with the impress of the period of Louis Quatorze. De Troy found his field under the auspices of Madame de Montespan, by whom he was introduced to her associates at court. Of these he left many pictures in the form of goddesses, a manner of treatment which he practised in common with Largilliere. Madame . de Montespan planned that he should make designs (i645-°73o)^Toriouse. for tapestries illustrating the history of Louis XIV., Mem. Acad. i6 74 ; anc [ s i ie an( j Madame de Maintenon both embroidered ro . 93, irec. 170 . | rom d raw j n g S . He was also a painter of history, and was received into the Academy as an historical painter for the picture, Mercury Decapitating Argus. But the Academy immediately demanded of him a portrait, that of Mansard. Both he and Largilliere THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 67 made votive pictures of portrait figures. To this the dress of the day in its amplitude and elaborateness of coiffure was exceedingly appro- priate as giving great dignity. Dido's Feast to iEneas by De Troy contains likenesses of personages of the court. His draperies were less ornate than those of Rigaud, more mannered than those of Lar- gilliere. He was not as good a colorist as Largilliere, nor had he as agreeable a treatment, nor was his drawing as fine and learned as that of Rigaud ; but he ranks only below them. Largilliere, though best known for his portrait paintings, was eminent in landscape, history, flowers, fruit, and animals. By his father, whose mercantile interests carried the family there, he was taken to Flanders before he was a year old. At nine he went to England and spent twenty months by the invitation (1656-1746)! Parts. of a friend, when his taste for artistic pursuits became Mem. Acad. 1686; so decided that his father abandoned his plan of giv- Rec. 1722, Direc. 1738. a commercial training and placed him in the studio of Goubau, a Flemish artist of rank. He remained there until he was eighteen, when that master said he could teach him nothing more. He had long been working on pictures for Goubau and had acquired the Flemish charm of color and careful finish, and his own specialties became freshness and truth of tone and deftness of touch. He now went to his countryman, Lely, in England, and was intro- duced by him to the Director of Public Buildings, who employed him in restorations, and by means of one of the young painter's " Cupids" commended him to the favor of Charles II. But in 1678, when all foreign Catholics were ordered to leave England, Largilliere went to France, visited at the Gobelins the Flemish painter, Van der Meulen, who was a painter distinguished by Louis XIV. 's favor, and painted his portrait. Lebrun seeing this, the young artist's fortune was made. He was urgently invited to return to England by the Superintendent of Public Buildings there, and did go for a while and painted James II. in 1684. But Lebrun urged, "Why carry your talents away when your native land appreciates your skill ? " He returned and became a member of the Academy by a portrait of Lebrun seated paint- ing (Louvre). Conspicuous among his historical works is " The Con- valescence of Louis XIV.," a feast given by the city of Paris upon the recovery of that monarch from an illness (1687). In this the munici- pal authorities were present in portrait. In another, " The Marriage of Louis XIV. 's Son, the Duke of Burgundy, to Marie Adelaide of Savoy," he, by allegorical figures in the skies above, as that of Abun- dantia emptying a horn of plenty, modified the realistic effect of in- 68 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. troducing twenty magistrates, who must appear. These pictures were in the Hotel de Ville, but were destroyed in the Revolution and exist now only in sketches in the Louvre. A picture by him at Versailles represents himself, his mother, wife, three daughters, and two broth- ers. At the Exhibition of 1699 1 he had five portraits, three of them being M. and Madame Lambert and their son. He afterwards painted the daughter, Madame de Motteville, which is one of his famous por- traits. At the next Exhibition, not occurring until 1704, he exhibited twenty-four pictures, all portraits but one, and that a head of Saint Peter. Eight of them were of women, among them Madame la Mar- quise de la Fayette. The galleries of eighteen cities of France con- tain thirty-four pictures by him, thirty-two being portraits, thirteen of them women. At Nantes is one of his pictures of fruit and birds — some peaches, a peasant, and partridges. The galleries of ten cities of Germany, Italy, and Russia possess pictures by his hand. Mignard had been dead a year when Rigaud was pronounced (1696) by Saint Simon the greatest living artist in France. At this time Rigaud was thirty-seven years old, and his pencil had acquired a skill commensurate with a natural talent for portraiture so great that, al- Hyadnthe Rigaud though he had taken the Prix de Rome in 1685, (1659-1743), Perpignan. h e ~ ave up s tudy i n Italy upon the advice of Prix de Rome, 1685. -p i ? J -i * T_ J * ' * 11 m. Acad. 1700 ; Prof. '10. Lebrun, whose counsel, in his dominion 01 all Rec. '33 Or. st. Michel, '37. art matters, had become at once both a favor and a command. 3 Rigaud has been called the Vandyke of France, and he did indeed make that artist his model upon the suggestions of his master, Ranc of Montpellier, whither he was sent by his mother when fourteen years of age, his father having died when he was but nine. He painted at Bordeaux for a while. At the age of thirty-two (1681) he went to Paris, and during his residence there of sixty-two years constantly confirmed Lebrun's estimate of his talent. Before being allowed to paint the Court of France, how- ever, the young artist painted the people, the litterateurs, and most of the artists of France, beginning with Lebrun and Mignard ap- proaching each other in the same picture ; Bossuet, La Fontaine, Boileau, and Saintine. The court furnished him, besides many princes of the blood, five kings ; first in 1697 the Prince de Conti, 1 The Exhibition effected by Mansard after a long cessation of Exhibitions. 2 Historians have said that Rigaud was made, by the jealous advice of Lebrun, a portrait painter, after his first essays at historical painting. As this was but five years before the death of Lebrun, at the age of seventy-one, and after a life of success, he could hardly have been actuated by jealousy. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 69 then chosen king of Poland; in 1700 Louis XIV. 's grandson, the Due d' Anjou, when he was leaving France at seventeen years of age to be- come Philip V. of Spain (Louvre). At last from a sitting of the great Louis, won by his success in this, he made a picture that is a page of history, the history of the man, the artist, and the period; and, although the king had been painted by Jacques Stella, Beaubrun, Francois de Troy, Lebrun, and Mignard, it is considered the official historical portrait of the Grand Monarch. The character is expressed in the face, figure, attitude, and costume of full coiffure of curled wig and brocade drapery, of which the ermine lining is conspicuous, and, though of great amplitude, is so thrown over the shoulders and extended into the picture that it leaves the figure exposed, daintily dressed in close-fitting hose to the knee, with limbs bare above to the small clothes. Rigaud painted (1695) a portrait of his mother of such merit that he had it engraved by Pierre Decret and cut in marble by Coysevox, and at his death bequeathed it to the Academy. He also, though he disliked to paint women, produced a beautiful portrait of his wife, Elizabeth de Gosey, which was engraved by Wille. His marriage was a happy one. He went one day to execute an order to paint a lady at her residence, when he found that the order as delivered to the messenger was for painting the parquet, The modest apologies and charming embarrassment of the lady led to the gallant artist's offering to paint her portrait, and this resulted in their marriage. Upon her death (1742) he shut himself in his room, exclaiming, "I will soon follow you, my wife ! my wife !" He failed from that time and died in a year. He was made " agree " by a Crucifixion (1684), and Acad- emician (1700) by the portrait of Desjardin and a Saint Andre, and finally in 1742 a full Academician as a painter of history, which had always been his ambition. To the Exhibition of 1704 he sent twenty- seven portraits ; three, that of the king with that of the Dauphin on its right and that of the Due de Bourgogne on its left, occupied a platform. His orders, although his prices were high, were so abun- dant that they could not be filled. He painted Louis XV. as a child, and again in 1727 when seventeen years of age, but already for four years king in full power. Then that monarch confirmed for the second time, the first being in 1723, the letters of nobility which his native city had conferred upon the artist. Rigaud had no children, and having once while painting Louis XV. remarked, " All that I have earned by my brush has become the inheritance of the king," investigation revealed that he referred to his having become a victim 70 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. of Law's scheme, and restitution was made to him. His engraved works comprise more than 200 portraits. Of other less conspicuous painters of the seventeenth century, seven of them women, ninety-five had become members of the Academy and sixty-four had appeared at the Exhibitions. The following should be mentioned : A pupil of both Lesueur and Lebrun, a painter of great seriousness, in which he resembled Champaigne, but who gave all his power to the heads of his pictures, was Claude Le Fevre (1633-1675). His portraits were very fashionable in his time, being held in England next to Vandyke's. — Two followers of the serious, dignified style of La Fevre and Champaigne were Nicholas Columbel (1646-1717) and Thomas Blanchet (1617-1689); Mem. Acad. 1676 by a Cadmus and Minerva (Louvre). Blanchet founded an Academy at Lyons. — Etienne Allegrain (1644-1736), Paris ; followed Poussin and Francisque Millet in landscape ; Court painter to Louis XIV.; Mem. Acad. 1677.— Claude Audran (1639-1684) was of the stilted style of Lebrun. — Antoine Berthelemy (1636-1669) Fontainebleau ; Mem. Acad. 1663 by a Marriage of St. Catherine.— Bon de Boullonge (1649-1717), Paris ; Mem. Acad. 1677, by Hercules and Centaurs (Louvre). — Louis de Boullonge (1655- 1733), Paris ; younger son of one of the " anciens ; " Mem. Acad. 1681 by Closing the Temple of Janus (Amiens). — Pierre Bourguinon (1632-1698), Nantes; Mem. Acad. 1671 by Portrait of Mile, de Montpensier, as Minerva, holding that of her father, Gaston de Foix, in her hands (Louvre). — Andre Bouys (1657-1740), Pro- vence ; Mem. Acad. 1688 by Portrait of De la Fosse (Versailles). — Jacques Carre ( -1694), Paris ; Mem. Acad. 1682 by Portrait, of Champaigne and Marsy (Ver- sailles).— Henri Cascar, Mem. Acad. 1680.— Michel Corneille (1642-1708), a fol- lower of Lebrun. He was the elder son of one of the twelve "anciens" (1603- 1664) of the same name, and a painter in Vouet's style. He is sometimes called, from his residence and death at that manufactory, " Corneille des Gobe- lins." He is also known as "the elder" to distinguish him from his brother, Jean Baptiste, called " the younger" (1646-1695). Both were of the approved style of their day, and. as well as their father, who was rector (1656), won honors from the Academy, of which both were advanced to professor. All three etched some of their own work. — Jean Baptist Forest (1636-1712), Paris; landscape painter; Mem. Acad. 1674. — Jacques Friquet de Vaurose (1648-1716), Paris; pupil of S. Bourdon, whom he assisted in the Hotel of M. Bretonvilliers ; Mem. Acad. 1670 ; Prof. 1672.— Daniel H. Halle (1631-75), and his son, Claude Guy Halle (1652-1736), Paris; Mem. Acad. 1682, painted pictures, of better compo- sition than drawing, in the French churches and palaces. — Rene Antoine Houasse (1645-1710) was of an operatic style.— Michael Ange Houasse (1680-1730), Paris ; son and pupil of R. A. Houasse ; Mem. Acad. 1707 ; painted in Spain, whither he was called by Philip V., many landscapes, historical works, and portraits. — Charles de La Fosse (1636-1716), Paris ; Mem. Acad. 1673 ; Prof. 1674; Director 1699 ; went to England to decorate (1689-90) the country house of Lord Montagu ; returned and painted in the cupola of the Church of the Invalides (1692-1707).— Philippe Lallemand (1636-1716), Rheims ; Mem. Acad. 1677 by Portrait now at Ver- sailles. — Martin Lambert (1630-99), Paris ; Mem. Acad. 1675 by double Portrait of THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 71 the Beaubrun brothers (Versailles). — Jean Lemaire-Poussin (1597-1659), Dammar- tin near Paris ; was called Poussin from his intimacy with that artist, whom he accompanied to Rome in 1642 ; first painter to the king 1647 ; was lodged in the Tuileries. — Francois Marot (1666-1719), Paris ; pupil of Lafosse ; Mem. Acad. 1702.— Jean B. Martin (1659-1735;, Paris ; pupil of Van der Meulen and La Hyre; represented the battles of Louis XIV., whom he accompanied on his military expe- ditions, and is called "Martin des Batailles." — Barthelemy Parrocel (1600-1660), Paris ; gave up the priesthood for sacred art, but after going to Rome and on his way being a prisoner of an Algerian corsair, is known by a Descent from the Cross in the Church of the Saviour at Brignolles ; but he left a family of eight painters ; his two sons Joseph and Louis ; their three sons Joseph, Ignace, and Pierre ; and Pierre's three sons Joseph, Ignace, and Francois (1704-81). — Pierre Patel (1605-76), died in Paris, son of a landscape painter, pupil of Vouet. He painted landscapes resembling Claude's. — Francois Tortebat, Mem. Acad. 1683 by Portrait of his father-in-law, Vouet. — Jean Tortebat, one of the twenty-nine children of Francois ; Mem. Acad. 1699 by Portrait of Jouvenet (Versailles). — Francois Verdier (1652- 1730), a follower of Lebrun. — Guy Louis Vernansal (1648-1729), Fontainebleau ; pupil of Lebrun ; painted at Padua, where still are many works by him ; Mem. Acad. 1687 by Extinction of Heresy in France (Versailles). — Arnould de Vuez (1642-1719), St. Omer ; assistant of Lebrun; Mem. Acad. 1681. The school of art characteristic of the time and dominated by Lebrun's style continued into the next century, the art of which for a short time differed from it only in degree. The chief points attained in French art in the seventeenth century are, the revolution effected in revealing to the artistic world idealized landscape, chiefly by Claude Lorrain ; the recognition and organization of the authority of artists upon art by the Academy of Painting, Sculpture (1648), and Archi- tecture (1671) ; the commencement of art instruction under this organized authority in the school of the nude (the present Ecole des Beaux- Arts), and in the French Academy at Rome, which now both manifested and developed the remnant of that tendency of French artists to go to Italy which had prevailed under Charles VIII. and Francis I., and had been continued under the two Medicean queens that Florence had furnished to France, but which had decreased after the death of Richelieu and Mazarin, through the preference of Louis XIV. for French art ; the founding of a provincial Academy of Painting at Lyons (before 1689) ; the enlargement of the royal collec- tion by Louis XIV., which furnished the Italian pictures in the pres- ent Louvre, of artists fashionable in his time, the Carraccis, Guidos, Guercinos, and Albanos. The collection still, however, remained the private gallery of the king, unopened to the nation, and kept, indeed, remote from Paris at Versailles. The enlargement of the Louvre and the withdrawal to it from Versailles of the royal collections, for a 72 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. brief period in 1681, by Colbert, may be mentioned as a faint antici- patory breath of the feeling that was to prompt the rulers rising from the people to found during the Kevolution the present magnificent Gallery of the Louvre. A feature of the century was the imposing of an art, personal to the monarch, on the period, equalled only by the influence of Napoleon I., who, while hardly more occupied by wars than Louis XIV., yet never attained, like him, to being held up in art chiefly as the bestower of the blessings of peace on the nation, and allegorized as " The Dieudonne." CHAPTER IV. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY — EMANCIPATION OP ARTISTIC EXECUTION. T^HE eighteenth century, comprising fifteen years of the old age of 1 Louis XIV. with the exhaustion his wars had caused, — so great that gold plate modelled by Benvenuto Cellini was melted ; the long minority, aggravating as by an interregnum the ensuing "easy joy- ance" of the sixty years' reign of Louis XV, with its apathy, its extravagance, its debaucheries, its rebound from the hypocrisy and piety under Madame de Maintenon, its oppressions, its philosophical scepticism that became the test of the " bon ton" of its fashionable society; the temporal transfer of the impending ruin by Law's scheme from the government to the people ; the slow but sure rise of the crushed masses ; the reaction from trivialities and extravagant show to an appreciation of the simplicity and patriotism of the ancients ; the nineteen years of the mild but inadequate measures of the well- intentioned Louis XVI.; and in the end, the harvest of them all, the horrors of the French Revolution, foreseen, but feebly comprehended by the gay king, Louis XV., as expressed in his saying, "After me the deluge," has an art that represents successively all its social and political phases. The seventeenth century became extinct only with Louis XIV., and the characteristic traits of the eighteenth century date from 1715. Then the great gala day, which the eighteenth century made of life in the upper classes, began. The grandiose of the seventeenth century became the pretty, the purely " spirituel," and coquettish of the eighteenth. The talented but riotous Regent during Louis XV. 's minority, Philip II., Duke of Orleans, was pleased to play with the lyre and the palette, and seek applause for his feeble performance, thereby making light achievement fashionable. Other influences affecting the art of the time were the freedom, or license, which, under an impatience of all rule, as a reaction from the discipline of the seventeenth century, was accorded to all mental power during the regency, and which became a liberty to enjoy, "a liberty to sin," thus making life one grand revel ; and a liberal patronage of art due to the 74 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. making of large collections by the nobles — a practice bequeathed from Louis Quatorze to the members of his court, and which indi- cated an appreciation, if not of art, at least of the elegant life which adorned itself with objects of art. The Royal Collection, which at the beginning of this century had been catalogued at the order of the Due d'Antiu, Superintendent of Buildings, by Bailly, was greatly increased by Louis XV. He acquired three hundred pictures, includ- ing large portions of the Carignan Gallery (1743). He also, to make them more accessible, at the suggestion of Madame de Pompadour, removed one hundred and thirteen of the best pictures from Versailles to the Luxembourg (1752), and there these were, two days in the week through the remaining twenty-four years of his reign, opened to a limited public, the first time in history that the royal collection was accessible to the people, whose property it really was. This inno- vation was in response to a demand of the increased perception of rights, rising during the greatest abuse of them, and indicates, not only by recognizing the accountability of the sovereign to the nation, but by a cognizance of its art, a higher level of popular thought. It took form in the imaginary address to the shade of Colbert : You doubtless remember, oh, Great Minister! the immense and precious pict- ures which you acquired for Louis XV. at great expense from Italy and other foreign countries. Do you not know, oh, Great Colbert ! that these do not see the light, but are perishing these fifty years in an obscure prison in Versailles ? 1 The same writer proposed that the pictures of the cabinet of the king should be formed into a permanent museum at the Louvre. The works exhibited at the Luxembourg comprised : Eubens's Life of Maria de' Medici ; works of Eaphael, Correggio, Del Sarto, Titian, Paul Veronese, Caravaggio, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Vandyke, Rem- brandt, and a large number of designs by Poussin and Raphael. They remained there into the reign of Louis XVI., until the Luxembourg in 1779 passed " en apanage'' to that monarch's brother, the Comte de Provence. Then the necessity of repairs removed them (1785), even Rubens's Life of Maria de' Medici, to the depot de la surintend- ance at Versailles, and from this depot was drawn up the last catalogue of the Royal Collection. It was by Durameaux, and con- sisted of two parts : first, the choice pictures of the cabinet of the king, 369 in number, disposed in the apartments ; and second, those stored ; in all together, 1228. Next to the Royal Collection, even rivalling it, was the gallery belonging to the Regent, the nephew of Louis XIV., a collection of 1 Pamphlet by M. de la Font de St. Yenn, 1746. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 75 great interest, not only for its works of art, but for the building they occupied. Richelieu's Gallery of the Palais Royal was taken down after the Regent died (1727), and its twenty-five portraits scat- tered to places now unknown. The second gallery of the Palais Royal was built in 1701 by Philippe I., Duke of Orleans, from plans by Mansard, and, from Coypel's decoration (1702-5) of scenes from the ^Eneid, was known as the Gallery of ^Eneas. The third gallery of the Palais Royal, known also as the Orleans Gallery, was the most famous gallery of France up to the time of its loss at the end of the eighteenth century. Its excellence was known through all lands, and it is still famous judged by modern standards. Its pictures, which the Regent spent twenty years of the most assiduous pains in collect- ing ("485 of the choicest and best preserved" was his boast), and which were valued at four millions ("monnaie de France"), are even now the gems of the collections to which they belong. He acquired the Royal collection of Queen Christina 1 of Sweden (1722), consisting of forty-seven pictures of great value obtained by her father at the reduction of Prague, among them ten Correggios ; the greater part of the princely collections of Richelieu and Mazarin ; and many pict- ures from those of the Dues de Grammont, Dubois, and other nobles. It was chiefly composed of works of the old masters. 2 The fanatical son of the Regent, Louis of Orleans (1703-1752), who at the death of his much-loved wife became a monk, destroyed and burned many of its pictures ; some he was satisfied only to mutilate. Correggio's 1 She had had this transferred to Rome, which she made her residence upon her abdication in favor of her cousin, Charles Gustavus. 2 There were The Seven Sacraments by Poussin, the one of the two replicas that was painted for De Chantilou, his friend, and which at the death of De Chantilou had passed into Holland, whence the Regent bought it at the price of 120,000 livres ; Raphael's St. John in the Desert, costing 20,000 livres ; for the Resurrection of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo he paid to the chanoines of Narbonne 24,000 livres. This gallery contained also three pictures by Leonardo da Vinci, of which The Columbine was of most exqui- site detail and exactness of representation ; two by Michael Angelo ; one by Vasari ; two by Andrea del Sarto ; one by Volterra ; eleven pictures by Raphael, six of his most charming Madonnas, as that of the Palm, and the Portrait of Julius II. ; twelve by Poussin; one Claude; one Watteau ; one Rigaud, the portrait of Charlotte Eliza- beth of Bavaria, the second wife of Philippe I., Duke of Orleans ; four by Sebastiano del Piombo; by Giulio Romano, three easel pictures, six friezes and five cartoons, all of classical subjects ; the Danae of Correggio ; thirty-three by the three Carracci brothers, twenty-five of them by Annibale ; two by Caravaggio ; nine by Albano, one a Holy Family, in which the Virgin washes the family linen, which angels hang to dry upon the trees ; fifteen by Guido Reni ; eight by Domenichino ; twenty-one Titians ; nineteen Veroneses ; nine by Teniers, those " magots " of Louis XIV. ; ten Vandykes; seven paintings and twelve sketches by Rubens ; six by Rembrandt ; two by Paul Potter ; and four by Wonverman. 76 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Jupiter and Io, to which he attributed immoral influence upon his father, he cut in four parts ; but, rescued by Ooypel, the director of the gallery, secreted and subsequently restored by Doyen, and after being sold for 16,000 livres to Pasquier, it was in 1755 bought at the Pasquier sale at 21,060 livres for the King of Prussia and placed in the gallery of Sans Souci. Taken from that prince by Napoleon, it belonged to the Museum of the Louvre until the restoration, when it was returned to Berlin, where it now is. In 1727 Louis also sold part of the Flemish pictures. His son and successor in 1752, Louis Philippe, carefully preserved the pictures, and under him for the first time they were open to artists who wished to study, to foreigners, and amateurs. He ceded it (1780), upon the marriage of that prince, to his son, the Due de Chartres, afterwards Philippe Joseph of Orleans (figalite). In 1790 the latter sold it. 1 His son, however, was to establish another but less famous one in its place. But while the attention was aroused to collections, it is also true that during the regency the choicest works of art failed of care, and some of the pictures catalogued as of the Royal Collection of 1709-10 disappeared without clue. The freedom allowed to mental action gave also another direc- tion to art. An art of the people arose. While the pictures of Vanloo, Boucher, and their followers, formed in the reign of Louis XV. the representative art of the period — being the expression of the feeling of the court and nobility, that is, idealized sen- suality — simple realistic genre was also seeking recognition. It i A banker of Brussels, Walkuers, bought the French and Italian pictures for 750,000 livres and a few days after sold them to Laborde de Mereville for 900,000 livres. The Flemish, Dutch, and German schools, having been sold for 500,000 livres, were scattered among the private galleries of Europe. Thus to that Duke of Orleans the gallery brought but 1,250,000 livres. Laborde de Mereville patriotically intended to retain the French and Italian pictures in France, and ordered a gallery to be constructed for thetn in his hotel, rue d'Artois, Paris. But the Revolution obliging him to fly to England, his pictures became his only resources, and were sold to Lord Gower, Lord Carlisle, and the Earl of Bridgewater for 41,000 pounds sterling (a million of " monnaie de France"). After exhibiting them for six months, they reserved some and sold the others at a price that reimbursed them. It was seized with avidity in England, as in a measure compen- sating to the country the loss of the valuable collection of Charles I. To its presence there a great change in the taste of English collectors from a fashion for the Dutch masters is attributed. Confiscated during the Revolution, portions of the building were sold, and the rest, under the name of Palais Egalite, was made the property of the state. Fortunately the pictures were engraved (1785-1790) by Couehe, engraver to the Duke of Orleans, to the number of 355 and offered for sale by subscription. Though interrupted by the Revolution, this work was accomplished in 1806 and 59 copies of it sold, and in this form the great gallery still exists. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 77 became conspicuous in the middle of this century in the works of Chardin (1699-1799), Greuze (1725-1805), and their followers. Painting, also, in Watteau's work took the form of society-genre. Both forms resulted from the really novel views of life and the world, and the part to be played in them by the individual, which philosophical discussions, extended habits of reading, and freedom of thought had popularized. In the one case, it first challenged, and then set aside all authority of church or state, and having thus destroyed all moral criteria, led, as the same cause had in Italy in the sixteenth century, to license and the free play of the passions. In the other, it raised the lower classes to a higher esti- mate of themselves, and made, as in the Netherlands of the seventeenth century, the worth of man even in lowly conditions so felt that its expression in art followed naturally. The rise to influence of the Third Estate in this century is a collateral result, and thus an evidence of this cause. The Academy of Fine Arts was, as well as the Academy of Letters, a power in producing this, not only in the democratic nature of its exhibitions, but in its promotions ignoring rank and depending solely on merit. 1 Three years after Louis XV. ended the grand revel of his life, the year 1777 may be considered the date when the pendulum had reached the extreme of its arc in the direction of license, as then a request was made by the Director of Arts and Buildings that there should be more regard to " decency " in the pictures of the Salon. The purer and juster if more commonplace Louis XVI. continued the chain of art acquisitions for France, to that grandest one of all time, made by Napoleon a few years later. He bought for Versailles, from the Chartreuse, Lesueur's twenty-two pictures of Saint Bruno ; he acquired the first Murillo, five of whose works in the Louvre are due to his collection ; he gathered the best of the Dutch and Flemish pictures, the " magots " of Louis XIV., among them six Rembrandts. 2 The effort was made in his reign, by the commending of heroic sub- jects by D'Angiviler, as works of encouragement, between 1775 and 1 Said Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1777 of the French Salon: "This mingling of all orders of the state, of all ranks, of all sexes, of all ages ... is for an Englishman an admirable sight. It is, perhaps, the only public place where he can find in France that precious liberty which is everywhere seen in London. At the Salon, the Savoyard elbows with impunity the ' cordon bleu ; ' the fishwoman exchanges her odors of brandy with the perfumes of the woman of rank, who is often obliged to hold her nose ; here scholars give lessons to their masters, etc." 2 The Good Samaritan ; Pilgrims at Emmaus ; Philosopher Meditating ; Same in another form : The (1637) Portrait of Rembrandt ; Portrait of Rembrandt when Old, 78 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. 1791, to check the rapid disappearance of such works from the art of the time. But another influence of Louis XVI. 's reign on art is to be sought in its public events. The burdening the kingdom with debt, partially incurred in rendering aid to the American colonies in their revolutionary struggle, and the enthusiasm for liberty of the French soldiers, returning from battling for the American republic, which attracted the thought of the aroused lower classes to republican ideas and republican hopes, and, under the weakened conditions of royalty, strengthened the revolutionary spirit — all these influences were such as effectually to end the "fetes galantes " of art. It is easy to see how through all these phases, penetrated as they were by the maturing encyclopaedism of the last days of the mon- archy, the third phase of the art of the eighteenth century, the art of the Revolution, was developed. In this the military spirit, awakened by the achievements of Napoleon, such as the wonder- ful campaigns in Italy (1796-97) and Egypt (1798-9) found expres- sion. Besides the revolutionary scenes of contemporary history, the triumphs of the people, of which the art of the period is full, art was constantly seeking classical subjects. But classicism was closely allied to, was, indeed, a part of the revolutionary spirit, had been developed by it, and now reacted in developing it. One element, however, comprehended in this phase of art, was a demand for a chaster spirit. Thus was advancing during the Revolution the great modern movement known as classical art, a repudiation of Vanloo and Boucher, a legitimate offspring of the intellectual age, a cold, unimpassioned, but learned art, which was, however, to find its place by the side of the simpler development of Chardin and Greuze. Its definite initiation is marked by the exhibition at the Salon of 1785 of Louis David's picture of Andromache Weeping over the Body of Hector. Poussin, it is true, had presented these classic principles and practices a century before, but they then met with no such response as now, because the people had not then had the training of the eighteenth century. Now the questions of forms of government, the study of the ancient republics as well as that of America, had occu- pied the mind of the nation, and classicism in art was welcomed as in accord with the prevailing thought. In it, too, could be found sub- jects of an intense patriotism like that which so moved the French people, and so inundated France that even the nobles were carried away by it, and had themselves made the first protests against THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 79 royalty. 1 It was by the long triumphal processions of the ancient Romans that Napoleon poured his accumulation of the works of art of conquered cities into elated Paris. 2 Throughout the revolutionary period Paris was but a little Home, and during the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century classicism attained the power of controlling the entire tendencies of French art. It influenced, indeed, the art of all Europe. But this century had, even while, during the old age of Louis XIV., France was too exhausted for energetic work, and during the Regency was too trifling for great undertakings, inherited that great attainment of the seventeenth century, the Academy, and con- tinued the close alliance, begun by Francis I., of the government with national art. Following Colbert's example of interest, it became the prerogative of the Director of Buildings to control the exhibitions, and, during the eighteenth century, the Due d'Antin, MM. Orry, De Tournehem, and De Marigny, l'Abbe Terray, and D'Angiviller succeeded each other in this charge. After the exhibition of 1704, which, like that of 1699, and while the invigorating influence of that still remained, was brilliantly assembled by Mansard's efforts, the exhibitions were neglected, none occurring till 1725. That year they passed from the galleries of the Louvre to the Grand Salon, now called the Salon Carre, where, in connection with the galleries, they continued to be held for more than a century, and from which they soon after acquired the name " Salons." A more vigorous condition of art was indicated in 1737 by the Salons then becoming annual, and continuing so, with the excep- tion of 1744, till 1751, though this was the very time that marked the beginning of the profligacy of that most profligate monarch, Louis XV. Following that, they occurred biennially until 1771, giving twenty- six exhibitions daring Louis XV.'s reign ; two of them, however (1725 and '27), not being of the number of which catalogues were left, have no part in the accepted series of Salons. JSTor was that of 1727 a regular exhibition, being only a convening of the Academy 1 The customs of countries of liberal ideas had won admiration from the highest classes of fashion. It led to the adoption of the dress, harness, horse racing, and gigs of the English, because of the liberalism of the English Constitution as shown by Montesquieu. " These frock coats predict an outbreak for liberty," said a writer of the time on seeing that form of coat in France. So strong was the reaction in favor of simplicity that men buttoned their coats to conceal the stars and other decorations which they had formerly been proud to exhibit. — MacKenzie. 2 The Moniteur of June 6, 1796, in an " Eloge " on Napoleon, observed, "It is thus that the Greeks conquered at Salamis and Marathon. It is thus, animated with the same sentiment, that our triumphant cohorts advance escorted by the Genius of the arts." 80 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. to decree the prize which the Due d' An tin had then offered of 5,000 livres for the two best works. 1 Complaint was made, however, in 1747 by the public, of the great number and the mediocrity of the pictures. Tournehem offered a prize to effect greater excellence, but it resulted only in accusations of unfair decisions. He also submitted this com- plaint to the king, who at once directed that a jury should be selected to decide upon the admission of works. In 1747, also, Tournehem 2 fixed the duties of the honorary and amateur associates who for various causes, such as being a distinguished connoisseur (as Jean B. de Julienne, the friend of Watteau, in 1740), or having some function to discharge near royalty (as the engineer and promoter of the king's pleasures, M. Philippe le Febvre, in 1727), or being a learned amateur (as the Comte de Caylus, that " connaisseur pro- fond,'' 1707), had been allowed to become of a quasi membership of the Academy of Painting, the number being elastic instead of rigidly fixed at forty, as in the Academie Franchise. It was determined that the amateur and not the honorary associates should have a voice in deliberations. That year also the king assumed the protectorate of the Academy, acting through his superintendents — Tournehem till 1751, and subsequently Marigny. Louis XVI. continued this, becom- ing protector in 1774 with the Comte d'Angiviller representing him. In 1748, then, the first Jury of Admission to the Salons served. Until then, all works offered by academicians, and those only, had been received. The jury consisted of the director, the four rectors of the Academy and twelve others chosen by election of the academicians from the professors and counsellors. Thus some were members by the claims of office, others by election, and by the election of the artists exhibiting, for such the academicians really were. It was so constituted until the Academy was abolished in 1793, on a principle that has been considered, perhaps, the best of all ever adopted until the present one of a fully elected jury. The fealty of the early mem- bers of the Academy declined somewhat in this century as the Salons became more frequent. Dissatisfaction and bickerings arose, then as now, on account of complaints of the hanging of the exhibitions. This dissatisfaction was so great that each director in his turn sought to evade the duty of arranging the Salon. 3 Also an audacious and 1 This was divided between the Return of Diana from the Chase by Jean Francois de Troy, son of Franqois, and the Temperance of Scipio by Le Moine. 2 Archives de l'Art francais ; Documents, Paris, 1851-2, Vol. I. 3 In 1738 the director complained that his confreres all escaped, and when Vanloo finally consented in his turn, he was deluged with letters and remonstrances which, however, he set aside, and firmly adopted a well-defined course. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 81 impertinent criticism found expression in a multitude of brochures, that, to the great annoyance of the artists, came to be issued at every Salon. 1 Such was the pertinacity of the authors of these at times, that once (1783), when it was certain that no authorization for print- ing a brochure severely attacking the character of the three acad- emicians, Mesdames Guyard, Valleyer-Coster, and Lebrun could be obtained from the inspectors, it was engraved entire. It was at once bought up, however, and destroyed. The affairs of the Academy in the laxity of the times came to be loosely administered. The regulation that an agree should present ' his reception picture in three years had been so negligently enforced that, in 1790, out of forty-four agrees, seven only had presented their works, and some had for twenty-eight years been promising theirs. 2 During this century fifty agrees failed to become full academicians, some (among them Carl Vernet), no doubt cut off by the fall of the Academy in 1793. In the seventeenth century but thirteen agrees failed of full membership, among them Jacques Vouet and Catharine Havermans. But Louis XVI. , amid the strain of financial and polit- ical pressure, maintained the biennial Salons to the end of his reign — nine in all, from that of 1775 to 1791. The third year after ascend- ing the throne (1777) the young king, then but twenty-three years of age, sought by regulations to strengthen the Academy, and 1777, in art matters, became the marked year of this century before the Revolution. Leaving the internal arrangements much the same, he modified the administration of the Academy, and therefore altered the significance of terms descriptive of artists for the sixteen years ensuing until its abolition. A director, a chancellor, four rectors, two adjunct rectors, sixteen associates (eight honorary and eight amateur), twelve professors, six adjunct professors, and eight coun- sellors were to constitute the administrative body, and, with the omission of the eight honorary associates, to hold the entire right of voting on admissions. Only painters of history could rise to be pro- fessors ; painters of genre could not pass beyond counsellors. An agree was to forfeit his privileges, mainly those of the Salons, if he failed to present his reception picture in three years. 3 The Academy 1 The correspondence still extant of the artists with the government officials who superintended art, shows how pen points stabbed even men of great talent, mature and disciplined, who knew their own worth. A writer, believed to be Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the Courrier de 1 'Europe of 1777, expresses himself astonished at the sensitive- ness of the French artists in this respect. 2 Esprit des btatuts et reglemens de l'Academie Roj'ale de Peinture ; Renou, Peintre de Louis XVI. : Paris, 1790. a Statutes of 1777 ; Article 27. 6 82 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. was also now established at the Louvre. That year, as the jury proceeded to its work, it received a request from Louis XVI. 's Director-General of Arts and Buildings that it should exercise more severity of judgment in the admission of works, and, above all, with regard to their propriety. The king then also formally freed, for previous sovereigns had only protected, the Academy from the per- secutions of the Maitrise of Saint Luke. He abolished the Maitrise and its exhibitions, and entirely separated artists from those exer- cising trades, ranking them beside savants and men of letters. Itself a result of the feeling of the age, this act was greatly aided by the rising spirit of liberty. Article 24 of this edict, moreover, declared that " every member of the Academy who shall make commerce of pictures and designs for mechanical matters, or fur- niture, or shall join himself with dealers, shall be excluded from the Academy." But both Louis XV. and Louis XVI. had, at their sovereign will, withheld the Prix de Rome. Marigny, the Minister of the former, withheld the prize in architecture from 1767 to 1772, and a year after, Angiviller formally declared that the king reserved to himself the award of the Prix de Rome, but that mere talent would not suffice to win it. But the regularity of the Salons now furnished regular accountings of the artists with the public, in accordance with which reputation might rise or fall, as it accorded with, or, at times, even aroused a public taste, or determined a tendency. To artists excluded by the new jury, the exhibitions of the Academy of Saint Luke had offered recourse, until abolished. Their places were supplied by the enterprising M. Palien de La Blancherie, who established the Salon de la Correspondance for the exhibitions of artists not admitted to the Salons ; but through the opposition of the Academy he was finally obliged to abandon it. Government officials in the fine arts department were always to be members of the Academy, such as the Director of the Gobelins, the Superintendent of the Sevres porcelain manufac- tory, the Conservator of the pictures at Versailles, and of the Royal Museums, and the Painter to the King. Academies of fine arts were rapidly rising in the provincial cities during the latter half of this century, possibly to supply the vacancies caused by the fall of corporations. At Nancy as early as 1710 a society of artists under the protection of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, had been formed. One had risen in Toulouse in 1750 ; one at Rouen the same year for painting, sculpture, and architecture ; one at Mar- seilles, 1753, under the auspices of the Duke of Villars ; at Bordeaux THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 83 in 1763, founded by Douat, avocat-general at the court ; and at Dijon in 1767, under Desvoges. Others were at Rheims, Pau, Metz, Clermont- Ferrand, and Amiens. One had been founded at Lyons in the seven- teenth century. The period following 1789, of such transcendent activity in politics, was hardly of less energy in art. It is difficult to convey an idea of the raj)id or far-reaching measures then taken in the artistic world. The outcome was that art, as one form of the national pro- duction, was to have a voice in political affairs, like agriculture or manufactures. Art in France took the position of an interest ; in other countries it was a luxury. With great audacity the artistic element of power, by means of the National Convention (September, 1792 — October, 1795), of which David was a member, influenced by his attacks and under the tremendous impulse the proclamation of the Republic at that moment gave against established institutions, abolished the Royal Academy (July 18, 1793). 1 This act included all academies, and with it fell those in the provinces, but the results of its fostering of art remained. Though its largest membership had been but from one hundred and twenty to one hundred and thirty, one hundred and eighty-three painters had become members in the eighteenth century. While the shadow of the Academy still existed, the decree had already been made (1791) that all artists, native or foreign, members or not, should be admitted to the exhibitions. Previously, of the academicians and agrees, who alone had the privi- lege, two hundred and fourteen painters had appeared in the different Salons of the eighteenth century ; one hundred and eighteen who had never exhibited before appeared in this. 2 The academicians resisted, but the newly privileged artists fought their way, and, among other pictures, hung upon the walls a portrait of Robespierre with compli- mentary verses attached. The academicians sought to obtain the aid of David's influence. He replied, "I formerly belonged to the Academy. David, Member of the Convention." There was no exhibition in 1792. The Commune Generale des Arts, open to all artists indiscriminately, was substituted in 1793 for the Academy, and though France was besieged by the coalition of Europe, the newly constituted government opened a Salon of 888 works of art, 3 1 Its secretaries and historiographers had for the 145 years of its existence been but eight, and some, as Guillet de Saint Georges (1683-1714), had become high authorities in art history. 2 Archives de l'Art francais ; 12 vols., Documents, Paris : 1851-2, Vol. 1. 3 It was not "Inter arma silent artes," but rather the heroic indifference to war of the ancients (e.g., Archimedes considering bis problem during the sack of Syracuse), 84 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. and the Salons were continued annually through the Bepublic, Directory, and Consulate until 1802. At the close of the Salon of 1793, a jury of unrestricted power for dispensing the awards was chosen by the exhibitors. 1 Of these rewards thirty medals of seven grades were accorded by the Minister of the Interior to the department of painting alone. These, though there had been prizes in the school of the Academy, were the first awards at the exhibitions ever men- tioned, except the prize of the Due d'Antin in 1727, and that of Tour- nehem in 1747, and the various commands for works of encouragement by the sovereign. However, amid the turbulent activities of the times, the Commune Generale des Arts was soon dissolved by the Convention that formed it, and the Societe Eepublicaine et Populaire substituted. Fortunately the idea of organized supervision of art, inherited from the Academy, required some form of association. How permeated this Societe was with the revolutionary spirit is shown by its discussions, renewed from sitting to sitting, upon the question, " Should the works of traitors be destroyed ? " Detournelle, the Secretary, argued that the pictures, which had done nothing, should be preserved, and their authors guillotined. 2 This Societe Republicaine et Populaire, con- stituted through hatred of corporations, soon became a most arbitrary one itself in the conditions with which it surrounded its elections. Though exceedingly patriotic, it was not allowed by the Convention to direct the Salons or the competitions of the pupils. The Convention appropriated to itself the naming of the jury. 3 But by one of the whom the French then much affected. Artists seem to have been the least disturbed of any class of people by the Revolution. Indeed, their hope of benefiting by arms was great. To a proposition at one of their meetings that an appropriation of 60,000 livres should be made to obtain important works from Rome, the response was made, " It will be useless thus to burden the state, for in our next campaign we shall be masters of Rome." (Proc. Verb, de la Soc. Rep. et Pop.) In the Council of Five Hundred, Hertant Lammerville, in the name of the Commissioner of Public Instruction, pro- posed, " For the sake of the reforming influence of art," the establishment of museums in, at least, five important cities. 1 This jury consisted of Vien, his famous pupil, Louis David; David's pupil, Gerard ; Bienaime, Giraud, Berthellemy, Redoute, Thibault, Meynier, Carl Vernet, Vincent, Naigeon, Fragonard, and Morel-Darlieu. These artists, upon the invitation of the Minister of the Interior, continued in office four years. 2 Proc. Ver. from November 21 to May 21 in the Journal aux Armes et aux Arts, of An II. 3 " Artists are now going to be judged otherwise than by the Academy," said the president, Dufresnoy. The Convention named only twenty-five from the society of artists, and joined to them an equal number, some litterateurs, some savants, some actors, one agriculturist, and one shoemaker. Poussin, commander-general of the revolutionary army ; Hebert, substitute of the attorney of the commune ; and Henriot, substitute for the public accuser, were added, " to remind artists what principles THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 85 last of the 10,000 laws promulgated by it in three years, all these tem- porary societies were superseded, and the four pre-existing organiza- tions, each known under the name Academy, were reorganized "for the general utility and glory of the Eepublic " under the title, "The National Institute of France " (October 25, 1795). Of this, literature and the fine arts together formed one section, which was divided into eight classes, the fifth, sixth, and seventh being painting, sculpture, and architecture. The Institute was one of the most complete among many valuable growths of the Revolution. It was the fulfilment of Colbert's idea of a combination of all the literatures of France in one Academy rather than in several. A central organization in which all forms of art, science, and letters had a common connection in a com- mon supervision, common regulations, and an annual general meeting, while each had its distinct existence in its special section or class, was to the former academies as the fasces or bundle to separate rods. It is even now the glory of the more advanced ideas and experience of the French nation. Connected with the old Academy by rising in its place as its natural development, having the same aim, viz., the pro- motion of the national arts and sciences, it was not shorn of the prestige of ancientry. Unlike the Academies that had held their seances in the Palais Eoyal and later in the Louvre, it at once appro- priated (October 26, 1795) for its bureau the College Mazarin, or Quatre Nations, which is still the Palais de l'lnstitut, where its meetings are held and its archives kept. The fine arts department of the Institute was to consist of forty- eight resident members, that is, living in Paris ; forty-eight associate members chosen from the provinces ; and twenty-four correspondents composed of learned foreigners. Of these members six resident and six associate fell to the section of painting. For the formation of the Institute the Executive Government (then the Directory) was to ap- point forty-eight members of the entire number of residents form- ought to control them." The question now was to be whether the Revolution had given to art a distinguishing character, whether it was truly " revolutionary," and some of the jury declared that the awards should be given to those who, above all others, had the revolutionary spirit. When the jury of distinguished painters, headed by Vien, differed with Francois de Neufchateau, who consulted them about reorganiz- ing the service of letters, science, and arts, lie told them that " the arts ought to be directed in such a manner as to diffuse the principles and institutions of the govern- ment that supports and honors them," and inquired, " What have the artists done for the Revolution which has done everything for them?" After this that minister managed the Salons alone. The jury of admission was, however, found to be necessary, and was restored for 1798 and '99, as the republican principle of admitting all had rendered the Salons immediately preceding of such mediocrity. 86 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. ing the Institute (one hundred and forty-four); these forty-eight were to choose ninety-six, and these one hundred and forty-four together to choose the associates. Once formed, the vacancies in all classes were to be filled by nominations, by the section of the Institute in which the vacancy occurred, of five candidates, and this list presented to the Institute for election. The associates were to correspond with the class to which they belonged, giving information, expressing opinions, and were qualified to attend the meetings, though without the privilege of voting. The Institute was to designate the artists who were to be sent to the Academy at Rome. Each member was to have an indemnity of 1,500 francs annually in place of the 1,200 paid to the old academicians. According to this now limited number of six members for the section of painting of the Institute, or revised Academy (two hundred and forty painters had become academicians in the eighteenth century), Jean Louis David and Gerard Van Spaendonck were chosen by the Directory, David first in order (December, 1795); and by them Vien and Vincent were named. All of these had been members of the old Academy. Regnault and Taunay were chosen by these four combined (December 16, 1795). Thus David and his teacher, Vien, and in them the classical influence, were the recognized powers in the reorganization of government authority in painting. The French Academy at Rome was accepted with little variation as constituted, and thus became the only offspring of royalty that survived the Revolution with its consent. The recipients of its privileges were to be designated by the Institute and appointed by the Directory. A law was passed (1795) limiting the term of office of its directors to six years. This has continued in force since. The pupils were to be allowed by the State their travelling expenses and 2,400 francs per year for five years. No pro- vision was made, however, to meet this expense, and the Prix de Rome was an empty honor until 1801, 1 not from caprice as at times under the kings, but from poverty. To preserve the absolute liberty proclaimed by the republic, the government was obliged to hold the Salons open to all. 2 But in 1796 the complaint of the mediocrity of the exhibition was such that the minister (Benezech) advocated its being 1 The School at Rome was mobbed in the Holy City ; the Secretary of the French Embassy there, to the charge of whom it was temporarily committed, was murdered in the Corso (January, 1793), and Menageot, the ex-Director, with its pensioners fled to Naples for security during the hostile feeling towards France. 2 The preamble of the Catalogue of 1795 was : "Truly useful competition is that from which none are excluded and which is public." THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 87 made biennial, and in 1798, his successor, Neufchateau, established a jury of admission, which he again abolished in 1799, asking, how- ever, the artists upon their consciences to carry such of their works as they themselves thought worthy to compete for the awards to a special hall. During the activities in art matters of the last decade of the eighteenth century the National Convention made every effort to im- prove the institutions by which art was regulated ; to promote art, it even pensioned young artists who had given evidence of talent. 1 And, when as yet among old governments there were only three National Museums, those of Dresden, Amsterdam, and the Uffizzi of Florence, this newly-fledged power decreed the opening for August 10 (effected November 8), 1793, as a National Art Museum, of the Louvre, the neglected old palace, known in 1204 as the fortress of Philippe Au- guste, or the prison for rebellious nobles ; the occasional residence of the sovereigns ; continually, under the changing ideas of changing monarchs, in an unfinished state of reconstruction ; abandoned long since for Versailles ; and assigned for lodgings to favorite hangers-on of the court. La Font de St. Yenn's earnest demand of 1740 at last was executed. To it tf< should be carried all pictures, statues, vases and precious furniture from the late royal residences." A sum of 100,000 livres per annum was put at the disposition of the Minister of the Interior to purchase for it at private sales such works as the Republic ought not to lose to foreign countries. It was to be named the Central Museum of the Arts, and thus provincial museums were im- plied. They followed early in the next century, after being more definitely proposed, indeed demanded, in the name of the Commission of Public Instruction in 1799 when, in a session of the Council of the Five Hundred, a complete plan for schools of art in the provinces with collections of objects of art near them was proposed. From the vast number of precious objects that were accumulated, a special Museum of the French School at Versailles, 2 to which two hundred and forty French pictures by artists from Cousin till then were sent, was established (1797) and continued until the Empire (1804). But two influences, too dominant with the people to be controlled 1 By this means, for example, Pierre and Joseph Franque, twin-brothers from the Jura, were enabled to study in David's studio. 2 The pictures taken from the Luxembourg when that palace passed to the Comte de Provence "en apanage" (1779) were stored here and in the two Trianons; and because of the outcry of the people that if the loss of its pictures should be added to the loss of the court they would be ruined, Versailles was excepted from the grand gath- ering from the royal residences. 88 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. by any more conservative influence of the official government, namely, the hatred for royalty and the condemnation of the art of the eigh- teenth century involved in the new classicism, effected that, in the forced relinquishment of these pictures of the king and nobles, other countries, such as England, Germany, and Russia, became richer in French art of the eighteenth century than France itself. By a decree of the Convention in 1795, was also opened in the old Convent of the Petits Augustins, founded by Margaret of Valois, the Museum of French Monuments whose preservation would be useful to the fine arts and history. More than 1,200 objects were collected here and arranged chronologically in six halls, and a descriptive catalogue of great value prepared. Previous to this (1790-95) Alexander Lenoir, an art critic, historian, and member of the " Commission pour les Monumens," in order to save all objects of art possible from the destruction threatening every souvenir of royalty, had persuaded the government to have this building assigned as a depot, and to have gathered here large numbers of valuable works ; from the search for leaden coffins for bullets, five hundred historical works of kings and noble families, and from the pillaging of the abbeys, 2,600 pict- ures were thus rescued. But as the hatred of royalty exceeded even the love of art on the part of the people, receipts to Lenoir are still extant for six hundred pictures that were claimed by revolutionary committees and, as reminders of hated kings, publicly burned. After its first exhibition, the Louvre was closed for adjustments and repairs until April 7, 1799. In the mean time the works gathered there, of which at the opening exhibition there were five hundred and thirty-seven pictures of all the schools, had been greatly increased, rendered indeed prodigious by the acquisitions of Napoleon in treaties with conquered cities. These really were, however, terms dictated to those powerless to refuse, 1 in accordance with his studied imita- tion of ancient appropriations of trophies of war, of which he held up Hannibal's as inducements to his soldiers. From the victory of Lodi (1796) to that of Jena (1806), he was pouring the art treasures of Italy, indeed of the European world, into Paris by quickly succeed- ing transfers. 2 The one composed of those conquered in the early Italian wars entered Paris with triumphal ceremony, on the ninth J Cardinal Mattei, Archbishop of rrara, in a despatch to the Pope said, "I have signed the treaty, as I was forced to do, but it was more like signing the capitulation of an encompassed town." — Moniteur, March 23, 1797. 2 In 1796, in a proclamation to the Army of Italy, Napoleon enumerated among its achievements, " You have enriched the museums of your country by three hundred works of art." THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 89 Thermidor, in the sixth year of the Republic (1798). Its entry is thus described in Si Le Louvre" by Bayle St. John : "The procession of enormous cars, drawn by richly caparisoned horses, was divided into four sections. First came trunks tilled with books, manu- scripts, . . . including the antiquities of Josephus on papyrus, with works in the handwriting of Galileo. . . . Then followed collections of mineral prod- ucts. . . . For the occasion were added wagons laden with iron cages containing Hons, tigers, panthers, over which waved enormous palm branches and all kinds of exotic shrubs. Afterwards rolled along chariots bearing pictures care- fully packed, but with the names of the most important inscribed in large letters on the outside, as, The Transfiguration by Raphael ; The Christ by Titian. The number was great ; the value greater. When these trophies had passed amid the applause of an excited crowd, a heavy rumbling announced the approach of massive carts bearing statues and marble groups, the Apollo Belvidere ; the Nine Muses ; the Laocoon : . . . The Venus de' Medici was eventually added, decked with bouquets, crowns of flowers, flags taken from the enemy, and French, Italian, and Greek inscriptions. Detachments of cavalry and infantry, colors flying, drums beating, music playing, marched at intervals ; the members of the newly- established Institute fell into line ; artists and savants, and the singers of the theatres made the air ring with national hymns. This procession marched through all Paris, and at the Champ de Mars defiled before the five members of the Directory, surrounded by their subordinate officers. " These "bonnes recoltes," as Napoleon reported them to the Direc- tory at Paris, continued, until at the Louvre twenty-five Raphaels gave every phase of that master's art ; twenty-three Titians shone in harmonious charm of tints ; fifty-three pictures of Rubens's warm coloring graced its walls ; Vandyke was represented in thirty-three high-bred works ; and Rembrandt in thirty-one pieces of his magic light and shade, alone a princely fortune. 1 With such wealth only the best from the old royal collections of France was accepted with which to complete the Louvre. This museum was then, by the first law that granted continuous popular access to the works of art owned by the nation, permanently opened every Satur- day and Sunday to the people. 1 PAINTERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. This century opened with Rigaud, Largilliere, Francois de Troy, Jouvenet, and the Coypels, Noel and Antoine, at the height of their power, and through them glided into its own special characteris- tics. Even in the portraits of Rigaud and Largilliere the change 1 General Pommereul's Appendix to Milizzia's " Art of Seeing the Fine Arts " con- tains a list of all Napoleon's acquisitions up to the sixth year of the Revolution. 90 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. can be traced from the grandiose of the Louis XIV. period to the pretty of this, the smile of pompous ceremony of their earlier, becom- ing that of light complacency in their later works. The pompous works of Lebrun were now replaced by the pastoral graces of Wat- teau, who in the early art of the eighteenth century obtained a con- spicuousness that has given his name an enduring association with the fashions then prevailing, for by copying these he perpetuated, if he did not originate them, though it is but fair to assume that their charming grace, as seen in his pictures, led to their adoption. The beau monde dressed itself " a la Watteau" ; the salons and boudoirs Antoine watteau were appointed " a la Watteau," and beaux and (1684-1720 Valenciennes, belles adopted a carriage and pose " a la Watteau." 1 Watteau was the leading painter of the holiday merriment and full-dress flirtation of the age ; the caprices and costumes of its society-scenes were his subjects, love his theme, and he, the lover's poet. He is the chief of the school known as painters of " fetes galantes," which often were also "fetes champe- tres," and in which even nature assumed an air of frolic, "a sort of French Arcadian pastoral which never existed," but to which his graceful touch gave value. 2 He had a grace wholly his own ; it was not that of the antique, plastic and material ; it was the airy nothing which gives to woman her coquetry and attraction, a charm far above that of physical beauty. That was left to Boucher, while Watteau gave expression to the poetry and dreams of the age. He also, but rarely, if the slender Flemish spire seen in the distance of many of his works is there for artistic effect only, produced some memory of the humble reality of his early life, as in " L'Occupation selon l'Age." Time has made of him a historical painter, for, though he illustrated no great national events, he left on record the national manners of his period. He was, indeed, their journalist. He is the first truly national French painter portraying from thoroughly French prompt- ing — for he never went to Rome — the French life around him. Through the same race-feeling his graceful treatment of trivial nothings is again and again repeated in the history of French art. As the painter of the incidents of life around him, he was a painter of genre, of the gay society-genre of which he soon became the recognized master, while the workaday world, though soon to 1 Louise d'Orl^ans gave " fetes galantes" modelled after those of this painter. 2 "His shepherdesses, nay, even his sheep, are coquettes," says VValpole. Another said : " A simple ribbon on the grass under Watteau sings of love. His pictures are a perpetual conjugation of the verb ' aimer.' " THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 91 be admitted, was still excluded from the art of the eighteenth century. The characteristics of no artist's work can be more clearly traced to their causes than those of Watteau. The conditions of the times were conducive to genre. The recognition of gay, graceful frolic as an essential part of the life of his environment, furnished to him that necessity of the painter, as well as of the author, a public in accordance with whose standards his work has value, and with whose dreams of happiness he is in accord. The French vivac- ity of character and manner and picturesque and varied gesture, ren- der possible the making of the current scenes and incidents of French life into pictures. Though the Holland of the seventeenth century first definitely evolved and gave rank to genre, it finds a true nativity in France, where native grace makes pleasing the incident of the passing moment. The son of a roof-tiler of Valenciennes (born on the same day as Voltaire), Watteau was often found drawing from the streets comic scenes improvised by strolling mountebanks. His father, who had found his habit of poring over the book, " The Lives of the Saints," was to use its broad margins for these pictures, allowed him to go to Paris (1702) with a Flemish decorator of scenes for the opera, who, how- ever, in the old age of Louis XIV., found little demand for stage paraphernalia. Penniless, the youth accepted employment for fifteen francs a week and " soup every day," in the workshop of one Metayer, the employer of a number of youths, who, at his command, painted, in whole or in part, flowers, landscapes, Holy Infants, Virgins, monks, angels, saints, and demons. Watteau became the painter of St. Nicholases, until, as he subsequently related to Gersaint, he could produce them with his eyes closed, and finally, " fearing that saint would madden him," he took to flight. He was received with open arms by Gillot (1673-1722), who had charge of the decorations and costumes of the opera, soon re-openeo^ after being shut for a season, and who had heard from a dancing-girl, La Montague, how a graceful portrait of her by Watteau had won for him many sitters from the ballet. Here Watteau received an extraordinary lesson in costume, which forms an important part of his work. . "Then each role at the established theatre, the Italian," says Charles Blanc, " had its accepted form of dress, and this had become a traditional type, corresponding to one phase of humanity and remaining continuously the same. This experience, added to the character of his age, in which reality, in its powder and its patches, its splendid dress, its vermilion on cheek and nails, was so near being imagi- 92 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. nary, formed a basis for his pictures of gay masquerade." 1 From supervising the performance on the stage he acquired a tact in repre- senting the performance of life. His style became "a marriage of nature with the opera/' a nature embellished, and Watteau a con- tinual but charming presenter of make-believes. Thus his theatrical presentation of a subject was legitimately derived. But Gillot and Watteau too nearly resembled each other to agree, and the young adventurer soon found employment with Claude Audran, a decorator of ceilings and the keeper of the Luxembourg. At the Luxembourg he found a rich mine ; there he feasted his love of color on Rubens's Life of Maria de' Medici, and from him caught, besides the glow of color that characterizes his works, the ideas of his charming arabesques, the sense of " rhythm," the use of line for line's own sake; he repeated in every form the combination of foliage and lawn that the beautiful gardens offered, and caught their lesson of finished landscape. One day he showed to Audran a little picture of his own, The Departure of Troops. Audran disparaged it. But Watteau felt his power, and, having opportunely sold it for sixty livres, set out for Valenciennes to visit his parents. He there painted and returned a pendant to it, The Halt of the Army, eagerly ordered by the purchaser of the first, for two hundred livres. 2 But when at the age of twenty-five he failed to gain the Prix de Rome, win- ning only the second prize, with the aim of obtaining a means of going to Rome, and especially to Venice, whose art he admired, he hung these two pictures in the passage-way to the Academy. Charles de La Fosse, the director, saw them, sent for Watteau and advised him : " Your way is not that of the Alps, but of the Academy. By standing for it you will confer honor upon it, for you know as much as we." Watteau did so, and was received as " agree " (1712). Thus it was for work which, though a planned departure from all precedent in his teachings, eventually became secondary to that truly charac- teristic of the artist, and not by the discovery of his true path, that he 1 " Nothing is more amusing than to be present at the toilette of the Duchess of Burgundy. I was there the other day ; she awoke at half past twelve, put on her robe de chambre, began to dress her hair and to eat a meringue. She curled her own hair and powdered herself, taking into her fingers alternately the comb and the meringue. Thus she eats of her powder and greases her hair. The tout ensemble makes a very good breakfast and a charming coiffure." — Madame de Grignan to her daughter, Madame de Simiane. 2 Both of these pictures are known in engravings by Cochin. The purchaser was Sirois, the father-in-law of Gersaint. Gersaint was an extensive picture dealer of Paris, also a writer, and subsequently the constant friend of Watteau. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 93 entered the Academy. But his presentation picture, which he took five years longer to produce, was a truly characteristic subject, and represents his special traits at their best. It was the famous Embark- ation for Cythera, the Isle of Love (Louvre), than which no work of more graceful vivacity exists. Of rosy, golden hue, its faces, ges- tures, and attitudes express the holiday setting forth for the enchanted isle. Groups of couples, having all charmingly fallen into a satisfied companionship of one woman and one man, afford a community of joy that enhances the pleasure and hope of each. In the varied lov- ers the artist has exhibited his accuracy of observation, that could detect distinctive differences in allied types. Here is also illustrated what runs through the artist's work, that for the full beauty of his grace of action each figure of Watteau must have relation to some other ; the vivacity of life he expresses could not be predicated of one alone. 1 The lack of high character of which his art is accused, depends on his choice of subjects, as compared with great epics of history, rather than upon his execution. His excellence consists in a delicate, light, fresh, and flowing touch ; sprightly imagination ; a charm of color, acquired from the study of Rubens ; a perception and clear expression of shades of character, evincing a knowledge of the precise truth of each gesture ; a wide and varied range, to which he added the charm of elegance and grace learned from every-day French life. He is, indeed, a portrayer of character, especially successful with women rather than men, and usually making use of the draped figure. Though pursuing something more than he succeeded in expressing, so that he often erased his paintings and often finished one inferior to the first, his work is a graceful treatment of ideals of gayety, human, but of no great sweep of feeling, nor influenced by any stirring current of life, yet having, nevertheless, the true touch of nature that makes it superior to that of his contemporaries. All phases of girlhood he painted with a prompt and striking truth, and lie was a graceful painter of decorations. But this depictor of gay life was a misanthrope himself. Sombre, depressed, with a delicacy of health that made him sensitive and rest- less, he died of consumption at thirty-seven, "the poets' age." He has been called II Penseroso of the Eegency. The only affiliation between the man and his art is a certain capriciousness. He was the 1 Madame de Pompadour was accustomed to relate that her mother, on her wedding night, became absorbed to forgetful ness in examining by her night light a new picture toy Watteau, The Isle of Cythera. 94 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. eloquent painter of the happiness of love, but it was the ideal happi- ness of a disappointed affection. He had a passionate attachment for the celebrated danseuse, La Montague, whose portrait had won for him his first fame, but who rejected him in his youth, and finally accepted his love shortly before his death, only to separate from him because of disagreements, in which the pair even came to blows. 1 Loving friends during the vicissitudes of his life often gave him a home as long as he would stay ; De Crozart, the great collector and amateur, first gave him asylum ; then another patron of art, Sirois ; and at times he found for himself a habitation with Wleughels, who be- came in 1724 the Rector of the Academy at Rome. Though unreasonable and querulous as well as restless, friends did not fail him. The Comte de Oaylus gave him friendly though hardly discriminating criticism, and in his paper to the Academy furnishes our chief knowl- edge of the artist ; the connoisseur, M. de Julienne, a patron, exer- cised a continued regard for him ; for several years they were intimately associated and, after Watteau's death this friendship of a pleasing faithfulness, Julienne having " as much in view the satisfac- tion of collectors as the reputation of Watteau, who was his friend," was completed by arrangements with skilled engravers to perpetuate his works. Lefevre, the intendant of the royal " fetes," lent him a coun- try house at Nogent-sur-Marne, to which he withdrew upon return- ing from a journey for medical treatment into England (1719), whose climate, however, his lungs could ill bear, and where he painted but two pictures, and these for his physician, Dr. Meade. There the happy and unhappy days of his untoward affection were spent, for there he unfortunately found the object of his early pas- sion, and she now offered her heart to him. There, too, after she had left him, he remained to die, remarking, " it was hard to be buried from a society of which he did not know a soul," and involuntarily complaining of the ugliness of the crucifix presented to his lips by the Abbe Harrenger, the cure of Nogent, for whom his last work, a Christ upon the Cross, so much more beautiful, had been painted. The abbe, in whose house he also for a time had resided, was his long-time friend, and his jovial face was the one which, as often as that type was needed, he introduced into his pictures ; indeed, earlier and later, he had many times made use of him as a model for buf- foons. This " sin " he confessed at his death ; also that, in prevent- ing by neglect their due advancement, he had impatiently done injus- 1 Madame de Lambert, as quoted by Arsene Houssaye in Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 95 tice to the natural talents which he had perceived in his pupil, Pater. Descriptions of Watteau by his personal friends represent him as of medium size, feeble constitution, impatient, timid, yet caustic ; of a cold and embarrassed address ; discreet and reserved with strangers ; a faithful but exacting friend ; a bitter and even malign critic ; always discontented with himself and others ; forgiving with diffi- culty ; and, though he could scarcely write, fond of reading, which was the only diversion of his leisure (Gersaint). He spoke little, but well, and meditated continually (Julienne). During the Kevolution, when the Church of Nbgent-sur-Marne was subjected to the decree of the Convention, that excavations should be made for leaden cof- fins to be melted into bullets, his tomb there disappeared. Its place has, however, been ascertained, and, like his pictures, restored to favor. In 1865, a monument, the work of M. Louis Auvray, was erected there to his memory. A nephew, Louis Joseph (1731-1798), and this nephew's son, Francois Louis Joseph (1758-1823), both receiving several medals and both being professors of design in the Academy of Lille, jointly for awhile, and the son then succeeding the father, would continue the name of Watteau in art, did not Antoine bear it to the eclipsing of all others. Watteau's engraved works comprise five hundred and sixty-three plates, and their reproduction employed more than fifty engravers, chief of whom were Thomassin, Cochin, and Cardon. Watteau him- self made eight etchings. Many of his paintings have perished. Of those which remain, the chief are distributed as follows : The Louvre had but one, his masterpiece, however, The Embarkation for Cythera, until the housing there of the La Caze coJ lection, which contains nine : Assembly in a Park, Juggler, Jupiter and Antiope, Gilles of the Italian Comedy, L'Indifferent, The Cunning Woman, and three others. Thirty-eight are scattered in various galleries : in the Royal Gallery of Madrid two ; Marriage Contract at a Fete Champetre, and an Assembly in the Park of St. Cloud : in the Hermitage five ; Minuet, Savoyard, Serenade, Fatigues of War, Alleviations of War : nine are in London ; Lovers Surprised and Concert Champetre at Buckingham Palace ; Rendezvous, The Chase, and Village Fete in Sir Richard Wallace's Collection ; Village Fete, owned by Sir T. Baring : Dresden Museum two. Company on a Lawn, Conversation on a Terrace : Konigsberg Museum, Tender Conversation, etc., etc. In the varying estimate of passing periods, Watteau's works have greatly varied in value. In 1776, at the Blondel Sale, his Elysian Fields brought 6,505 livres ; in 1809, under the sway of classicism, at the painter, Hubert Eobert's sale, four characters of Italian Comedy sold for 77 francs ! and in 1857, at the Patereau Sale, The 96 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Two Cousins, a composition of a wood, brought 55,000 francs. In the academic period of the early nineteenth century, his Embarkation for Cythera hung neglected in its inherited place, the workroom of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, and the pupils of David pelted it with bread- balls ; no one cared to possess his works or acknowledge his merit. But after 1830 a coterie of Parisian criticism, from a sympathy with its treatment and aims, that of mirroring contemporaneous life, brought his school into the repute which now, owing to the cosmo- politanism of aesthetic taste, and a more thorough development of the true principles of criticism, it everywhere enjoys. Watteau, with his pupil and fellow-townsman, the son of a sculp- tor of Valenciennes, Jean Baptiste Pater (1695-1736), and the pupil of Gillot, Nicholas Lancret (1690-1743), are known as the school of Watteau. They were painters in the same vein, that of the lightness of the age — of gallantries, but gallantries within the limits of decorum ; the pleasures of music, comedy, dance, dress in all its decoration, delicate refreshments ; all light elegancies, with no suggestions of an aftermath of suffering, or even regret. Their art was a limited art ; it did not appeal by its subjects, like a sacred theme, to universal sym- pathies, but simply to a class, and, restricted to portraying the aims of this class, it was satisfying to it and demanded by it, and thus became the fashion. Lancret and Pater rendered only with less power the unstudied grace and easy gesture of the master of the school, never quite equalling his faculty of recording the character of an entire life in one representative moment. However, two of four pictures by Pater at Buckingham Palace have by Waagen been ascribed to Watteau. In the works of these, the more elevated artists of the time, it will be seen that sensuous and refined execution, without grandeur or even importance of subject, gave a picture value. This obtained more and more as time advanced, and is evidence of a Flemish influence succeeding that of the great Italian masters. The examples of Rubens at the Luxembourg and the spirit of the nation were taking effect. The times were in sympathy with Flemish art ; Watteau and Van Loo were of Northern origin, and though the Prix de Rome still carried artists to Italy, they seemed to have lost the power or else the wish to catch the spirit of the grand style. Nevertheless a number of artists continued, though in an essen- tially commonplace way, the grandiose traditions of Louis XIV. 's time. Francois Le Moine (1688-1737), a pupil of Louis Galloche (1670- 1761), who trammelled the young aspirant with his own academic CHARLES LEBRUN TRIOMPHE D' ALEX AN ORE / THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 97 style, as shown in his Hercules and Alcestis (Louvre, 1688-1737), most fully represents the art of this transition. His indisputable power of clear and harmonious coloring, and of arranging masses with effects suggestive of his fire and energy, gave impressiveness to his aca- demic treatment, of which his expression, mannered into weakness or exaggeration, his incorrect drawing, and his unelevated ideals always remained. His Apotheosis of Hercules, painted in heroic size on a ceiling at Versailles, won him a pension from Louis XV. ; but dissatis- fied, and considering that he was not honored as Lebrun had been, and weakened, moreover, by over-exertion, he put an end to his life. His pupil, Charles Natoire (1700-1777), possessed his qualities modified and softened, and thus rendered somewhat superficial and insipid, but by their lightness and brilliant coloring adapted to decoration. The appreciation of the age made him Rector of the pupils at the French Academy at Rome (1751-1774). Antoine Rivalz (1677-1735), another of this class, on returning from Rome, founded a "school for the model " at his native town, Toulouse, which was raised by Louis XV. (1750) into an Academy of Painting and Sculpture. His pupil, Pierre Subleyras (1699-1749), the son of a mediocre painter at TJzes, Matthieu Subleyras, trusted to his facile touch and a reputation easily acquired by his power of composition and a coloring not a little charming in its golden tones. His native talent was superior to that of his contemporaries, but he was content not to develop ; his first works are uniformly equal to his last, and all partake of the theatri- cal style of the age. He, too, by The Brazen Serpent, won the Prix de Rome (1727), and there he married and spent most of his life, becoming (1740) a member of the Academy of St. Luke. The Pope conferred the rare honor upon him of ordering from him works to be copied in mosaic in St. Peter's, for which he produced The Emperor Valentinian at the Mass of St. Basil. Of this, besides the mosaic, three replicas exist ; at the Carthusian Church, Termini, Sicily; the Hermitage; and at the Louvre, where he is otherwise well represented. One work of this period, The Plague of Marseilles, now in the Chateau of Borely, in affording precedent for vigorous action and strong coloring, influenced, in its great leader, Delacroix, the Roman- tic School of the nineteenth century. It was painted by the son and pupil of Francois de Troy, Jean Francois de Troy (1679-1752), who, however, in other works showed the defects of pomp without true expression. He multiplied pictures so rapidly as to destroy in their varying merit most of his claims to later fame, though of such esteem 7 98 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. in his own time, that, failing of the Prix de Rome in 1702, he was pensioned by the king to study in Italy. But he divided his time there for four years between work and amusement, and then was compelled to return. Two years subsequently he was received into the Academy, and, after passing through the grades of assistant pro- fessor (1716) and professor (1719) was made Prince of the rival Academy of St. Luke, Decorator to the King (1737), and the next year was appointed to the rectorship of the French Academy at Rome ( 1738-1751). He died in that city just after the expiration of his term of office (Jan., 1752). The prize of the Due d'Antin (1727), one of the only two mentioned in history as offered to exhibitors at the Salons anterior to the institution of medals at the close of the eighteenth century, was shared by him and Le Moine. This competition affords a view of the art and artists held in esteem by the highest official authority in art of the eighteenth cen- tury in its transition from that of the seventeenth to its own dis- tinctive characteristics. As must always be expected of such official recognition, it turned wholly to the art savoring of the long-estab- lished, the traditional. Therefore in it are exhibited the period's mannerisms ; and, although Watteau had then been dead seven years, it affords almost no evidence of the tendencies which made his art popular. The complete list of the twelve painters who took part in it, with their works, gives : Jean Francois de Troy, Diana's Return from the Chase ; Pierre J. Cazes (1676- 1754), The Birth of Venus from the Foam of the Sea, surrounded by cupids ; Charles Antoine Coypel, the nephew (1694-1752), Andromeda Chained to a Rock ; Henri de Favannes, The Filial Love of Herod, who seeks death at the overturning of his mother's chariot ; Francois Le Moine, The Continence of Scipio, who returns a beautiful slave to her lover ; Jean Restout (1692-1768), The Parting of Hector and Andromache ; M. Colin, Antiochus 111 of Love for his Father's Wife ; " Noel Coypel, the uncle (1692-1734), The Rape of Europa ; Masse, Juno's Jeal- ousy of iEneas, the Son of Venus, causing JEolus to create a Storm ; Courtin, The Nymph Syrinx Changed to a Reed when Pursued by Pan ; Dieu, Horatius Codes at the Bridge ; Louis Galloche (1670-1761), Hippomenes Conquering Ata- lanta in a Foot Race by dropping the golden apples, which she stops to pick up ; and Pierre Parrocel (1670-1739), The Audience of the Turkish Ambassador at the Tuileries, March 21, 1723. De Troy and Le Moine sharing the prize, the king purchased the work of Charles Coypel. Artists just at this time had the advantages of public appreciation and of study, arising from the regularity of the Salons following 1737 (p. 79). Galloche exhibited ten times — in the Salons of every year between 1637 and 1651 — unlike many artists THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 99 immediately preceding, to whom only the exhibitions of 1699 and 1704 were offered for the forty-two years between 1683 and 1725. Of the more erotic side of the art of the eighteenth century, Van Loo and Boucher, both possessing native talent, but easily lending themselves to the frivolous taste of the age, became the representa- tives. Charles Andre, known as Carle Van Loo, was one of a numer- ous family of artists taking rise in the Netherlands and, during the first carie Van Loo seventy years of the eighteenth century, winning repu- (1705-1765), Nice. tation throughout Europe as portrait painters. Carle's rd em prof C '36. ,7 prof. ' 37 . father, Louis Van Loo (1641-1713), had been in turn Rec. '54. Direc. '63. the pupil of his father, who was also a painter, Jakob chev. st. Michel, ' 5 .. y an Loo (1614-1670), of Sluvs, Flanders, who had been in turn the pupil of his father, the first known artist of the name, Jan Van Loo (1585, died after 1661). He had come to Paris, won membership in the Academy by a portrait of Corneille (1663), and on account of a duel had been obliged to withdraw to Nice, but finally settled at Aix, where he died. Carle's older brother, Jean Bap- tiste (1684-1745), with three sons, Louis Michel (1707-1771), Fran- cois (1711-1735), and Charles Amedee (1716, died after 1790), were, except Francois, who was killed very young by an accident at Turin, members of the Academy, and made six of that family who became members of the French Academy of Painting, five of them in the eighteenth century. His own reputation won an invitation from Frederick the Great to become painter to his court at Berlin at a salary of three thousand thalers, besides payment for each picture. He declined, sending (1751) Charles Amedee Van Loo in his stead. His nephew, Louis Michel, was painter to the King of Spain. In 1706, when he was a year old, the house occupied by the family in Nice was struck by a bomb during the bombardment of that city by Marshal Berwick, and the infant Carle's cradle, in which he was lying, was completely shivered, but the child was found unhurt in the ruins. To this infantile adventure Carle always attributed his hatred of sol- diers, arms, and war. Being early left an orphan, he studied under his brother, Jean Baptiste, a historical painter of recognized merit, and went with him to Rome upon that artist's being sent there by the Prince de Carignan (about 1717). He also returned with him (1719) to France, and aided him in restoring the works of Primaticcio at Fon- tainebleau. Outside of his art he had scanty education. Diderot accuses him of being unable to read or write, and ridicules his attempts at expressing opinions on other subjects than painting. His youth, controlled only by his own caprice, baffled the aims of 100 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. his brother, who at Rome found him at one time in the studio of the sculj)tor, Le Gros, having decided that sculpture was his true field ; at another, under a contract with a travelling theatre, which fraternal solicitude with difficulty prevented his carrying out. Carle subse- quently returned to Italy as winner of the Prix de Rome (1724), tak- ing his two nephews with him, and in 1727 he was made member of the Academy of St. Luke. His studies there injured the excellences of his Dutch style, for which such Italian qualities as he engrafted upon it did not compensate. He executed an Apotheosis of St. Isidore for the church of that saint ; a St. Martha and a St. Francis followed, and were immediately bought for a church at Tarascon. They attracted the attention of connoisseurs, and won him a pension from France and knighthood from the Pope (1731) ; and the Pope's favor con- verted him from the wilful vagaries of his youth to an almost rigid attendance upon the papal services. The English Government through its ambassador bought, by covering it with pieces of gold, his picture of a nude figure, An Oriental Woman, now more generally known as the The Woman with the Bracelet, as she wears that ornament clasped above the knee. On his return Van Loo stopped at Turin, and executed pictures ordered by the King of Sardinia, one a Jerusalem Delivered. He met there the beautiful cantatrice, known as La Philomene of Italy, Christine Somers, whom he married. Thereupon, full of ambi- tion, he returned to France, and immediately presented, for admit- tance to the Academy, Apollo Flaying Marsyas. He was accepted, and established his home with a magnificence that enabled him to entertain kings and princes. He succeeded to the heritage in public estimate made vacant by the death of Le Moine (1737). Into his home came two sons and a daughter, Caroline, of a rare beauty, an element of which was a brilliancy and spirituality which made her, in her father's eyes, an embodiment of Raphael's ideals, but which proved a presage of early death. To an incredible facility of execution Van Loo joined an equal industry, and undertook every class of subject and every method of painting. Thus his treatment became hasty, his style exaggerated and mannered to the last degree. This and the indecorousness and affectations caught from his surroundings were partially compen- sated in his style by a warm, transparent, Flemish coloring. Dide- rot's estimate of him is of one born a painter, but of one who regarded painting as a trade rather than an art; an artist, like many second- class artists, having sallies of genius, in which he created figures worthy of the great masters ; at times a follower, but afar off, of the THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 101 several eminent schools ; sometimes having the coloring and touch of Guido ; sometimes the manner of Correggio ; in landscape the style of Salvator Eosa ; in animals that of Snyders or Desportes. But his best works were the result of seeing nature with his own eyes and reproducing it in his own uninfluenced style, and in this, by its com- position, simplicity, and approximation to truth, he served to correct French art of the theatrical treatment of De Troy and Coypel. His heads were pleasing, having more distinction than character, more grace than beauty. He greatly affected flying draperies. His quali- ties fitted him for a genre painter rather than a painter of historical or sacred themes, and, though classed as a historical painter, he left many genre pictures : as, in the Salon of 1757, Woman Making Coffee, Woman Reading, and Woman Sleeping. Madame de Pom- padour, in reply to the objection that the stiff coats of the age afforded no picturesque drapery, made when she suggested to her friends among artists that in the wearying surfeit of Alexanders, Sci- pios, and other Greek and Roman heroes, European costumes would be pleasing, commanded of Van Loo the picture, A Spanish Con- versation (1755). In this, a charming rendering of color and a picturesque composition, Van Loo stepped upon the ground of Wat- teau, though with a carriage very different from that artist's, and gave expression to an increasing tendency of the age, exemplified in this wish of Madame de Pompadour's, to insist on the representation in art of contemporaneous events. The classicism of the painting most characteristic of this time was, however, mythological rather than historical. In 1749 Van Loo was entrusted with the management of the £cole Royale des Beaux-Arts, and in 1763 became painter to the Court of Louis XV., and had not only his studio but his residence in the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre. To this he clung with such te- nacity as not to allow himself to be removed when a renovation of the Louvre was attempted by Marigny. Such was his popularity with the masses that, appearing once at the theatre after an illness, he was received by the entire pit's rising with a storm of applause. He had just been commissioned to decorate the Chapel of St. Gregoire aux Invalides when he was struck down by apoplexy and died. Van Loo's works appeared in the Salons from 1737 to 1765, the year of his death ; besides sketches, sixty-six pictures of scriptural, historical, mythological and genre scenes ; two portraits, one a full- length of the Queen Maria Leczinski (1747), the other of himself (1753). In the museums of France are six portraits by Van Loo of 102 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Louis XV. at Versailles ; a full-length at Dijon; an equestrian one at Marseilles ; two, one as a youth, at Nancy ; one at Orleans and one at Berlin ; two of Maria Leczinski, his queen, at Orleans and the Louvre. The verb " vanlooter " was coined to express working in his style of hasty mannerism. His son, Jules Cesar Denis Van Loo (1743-1821), was a painter of landscapes, who, by the picture, Tem- pest and Moonlight, won membership in the Academy in 1784, and exhibited in the Salons until 1817. He was the eighth artist of repu- tation in four generations of the family of Van Loo. Van Loo had many pupils and followers, of whom Gabriel Francois Doyen (1726- 1806), who executed at the Invalides the works in which Van Loo was arrested by death, and Jean Francois Lagrenee (1724-1805), were artists of merit, but of contrasted styles. Doyen by careful study attained picturesque effect, and his pictures were vigorous and warm in color, while Lagrenee and a younger brother, Jean Jacques (1740-1821), whom he instructed, had a pretty and delicate style, without strength or individuality. Both in their later works attempted to follow David. But in the works of Boucher and his school, the license of subject and the false art of the age culminated. Boucher was self-taught, ex- , _ , cept for three months at the age of seventeen Francois Boucher A ° (1703-1770), Paris. passed in Le Moine's studio, but his genius Prix de^ Rome 1723. was g0 mucn j n accord with Le Moine's, that Adj. Prof. "35, Prof. '37. but the simplest impulse was required to ad- Adj. Rec '52, Rec. '61. vance him far along in Le Moine's method. Direc. 65, amterto mg 5. ^ f ac t ? two of Boucher's early pictures, The Birth and The Death of Adonis, painted before the strength of his own style was developed, can be with difficulty distinguished from Le Moine's. He supported the gay life of pleasure that he pursued while Le Moine's pupil by the sale of drawings of Virgins, and of an army of saints; he executed the engravings of a " Breviary of Paris," in which he placed the virtues above little views of the city, as Hope with the Louvre ; Keligion with Notre Dame ; Charity with the Pont-Neuf ; Faith with the Invalides. From this he was led to contract with Cars, an engraver, to draw for him, receiving in payment board, lodging, and sixty livres per month. He became a skilful etcher, and was made popular not less by his drawings than by his paintings. " He was the first," says Goncourt, "to make drawings a matter of commerce and profit for the artist. * * He was one of those men who embody the taste of a century. The French taste of the eighteenth century is mani- THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 103 fested in him in every specialty of its character, and Boucher will remain not only the painter, but witness, representative, and type of it." He won high appreciation from his contemporaries ; the Prix de Rome was awarded him at twenty years of age ; his pictures were bought at high prices ; he was made inspector of the Gobelins (1755), with a highly laudatory note returned to Marigny for the appointment ; and was named first painter to the king upon the death of Van Loo, with whom he had again travelled to Rome after his pensionate there. He was the favorite in that circle of artists, Oudry, Van Loo, Claude Joseph Vernet, Boulanger, and Vien, whom Madame de Pompadour employed to adorn her country-houses, and carry out her designs for amusing the jaded spirit of the king. He seemed to have been constituted to meet her ideas and supply her needs. His work becomes, after her rise to power (1644), allied with her history and thought. She was herself no mean artist ; she drew with her own hand plans for a gallery, in which she placed her easel pictures by Boucher and surrounded each with a wreath of flowers carved by Verbruch and colored by Dinant and Le Fort. Boucher with Vien designed illustrations of contemporary events aggrandizing Louis XV., which, assisted by Jacques Guay, she engraved on gems for her cabinet ; and she left a volume of etchings. She began to study this art under Boucher's instruction (1751), and some of this volume seems to indicate his more skilful touch. Accomplished in every way, besides her graphic power, she had the gift of song, ability in the histrionic art, and, not least for her purposes, in dressing well. Her adroitness waited only for the requisite instruction before assum- ing the lead in art matters, and in 1749, after four years of power, she gave her first commission to Boucher. It was a Nativity for a chapel in her Chateau Bellevue. But this sufficed for sacred sub- jects. A number of pastorals succeeded, a form of painting so often repeated by Boucher that no catalogue of Salon or gallery of the time fails to enumerate at least several by him. As the only compensa- tion for his instruction, she commended Boucher to her brother, who had become the Marquis de Marigny and Louis XV. 's Direc- tor of the Fine Arts in 1751. Marigny ordered works "for the king," and Boucher's mythological scenes followed, but in accord- ance with Ovid's descriptions rather than those of Virgil and Homer. In these, his pictures mirrored his own character as well as that of the times. His great want was elevation of treatment, and with his looseness of morals he also lacked truth of artistic execution. "What colors ! what variety ! what wealth of objects and ideas ! 104 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. This man has all but truth ! " writes the caustic pen of Diderot, of the Salon of 1761. " His figures do not belong to each other or to the painting." Diderot is the one Frenchman of the age who did not give to Boucher a false valuation. He wrote critiques of the Salons from 1761 to 1769, inclusive, in familiar letters to his friend Grimm in Germany. These are considered the beginning of mod- ern art criticism. A letter on the Salon of 1765 thus represents Boucher : "The degradation of taste, of color, of composition, of character, of expression has followed step by step the debasement of morals. He knows not what grace is ; he has never known truth. Delicacy, honesty, innocence, and simplicity have become strangers to him. He has never seen nature for an instant ; at least, not the nature which interests my soul, yours, that of any well-born child, that of any woman who has feeling. 1 He is without taste. Of all his men and women, I defy you to find one proper for a bas-relief, still less for a statue. 2 There are so many airs, so many affectations ; of all his great family of children, you will not find one employed in a real act of life. His Virgins are mere pretty gypsies; his angels, satyrs, libertines. Cupids wreathe the trees in garlands where his lovers meet. Nothing is real. And, it is at this moment, forsooth, when Boucher ceases to be an artist, that he is made first artist to the king. For fifty years past there have been no painters who painted from models." 3 Never following truth very closely, Boucher was found by Sir Joshua Eeynolds working from memory, inserting figures without models ; and when Eeynolds reproved him, he replied : " Ah, when I was young I needed models, but I do not now." 4 Nevertheless, by such works as Psyche Conducted by Zephyrus to the Palace of Cupid, The Birth of Venus, The Bath of Diana, The Forge of Vulcan, he won in his time the first rank as a painter, was kept in vogue, and controlled all art. Being reproached with painting small pictures only, he produced (1753) the large paintings (9 x 11 ft.) Sunrise and Sunset, represent- Apollo issuing from the humid and misty palace of Thetis in the morning and entering it in the evening. Purchased by Madame de Pompadour, they were sold at her death for 9,800 francs, and now belong to Sir Richard Wallace. Boucher furnished designs for the Beauvais tapestries, the patronage of which Madame de Pompadour made fashionable. He was her counsellor in all her extended art 1 Boucher had averred that nature failed in harmony and attractiveness. 2 A criticism savoring of the classical art that was to assert itself ten years later. 3 Boucher probably never saw Diderot's severe condemnation of his pictures, written as they were to Germany. * Reynolds's Literary Works, 1855, II., p. 58. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 105 patronage, and thus was associated with the progress of all the indus- tries of luxury of that luxurious time. As a portraitist he had no gift, probably because of his inability to follow a model, but he painted la Marquise de Pompadour several times. The portrait of 1747, now at Versailles, in costume, manner, and physiognomy, explains her long influence. Boucher did paint several pictures of the homely genre of Greuze ; Maternal Cares (1765) is a family group of the honest bourgeois life of the period. Besides execut- ing more than ten thousand drawings, he left over one thousand pictures and sketches. He worked with great industry, sometimes day and night, for the theatre, the court, and the church, often making an income of 100,000 francs per year. He expended one year's income on one entertainment, The Feast of the Gods, and thus supplied one act of the grand revel then enacting as the life of the period. All of Olympus was personated ; the artist represent- ing Jupiter, and his partner, as Hebe, clothed in nebulous, cloud- like garments, serving nectar and ambrosia to the gods for the entire night. After his return from Italy (1736) he left his country only to make a short journey to Holland (1766), to judge of some works that a friend, M. Randon, thought of acquiring. He ended his life alone ; he was found dead in his studio in the Louvre before a picture of Venus at her Toilet, which he had directed his wife to present to his physician, Poissonnier. He had suffered for a year with an asthma that had left him but a skeleton. The severest critics allow to Boucher a wonderful power of com- position : however slight the drawing, however mean the figures, they fell together in a grouping that at once made them pictures. This together with a fertile and pleasing imagination, and a free execution, were the excellences which he devoted to the license of his age. Some of his figures, Diderot to the contrary notwithstanding, have a rare beauty both of form and face, the beauty of nonchalant joyance and easy elegance, though here he was vastly inferior to Watteau in poetry of thought and distinction of style. Although a dissolute man, Boucher was a just one. When, for example, Vien, whose severe style of reform was offensive to the affectations and frivolity then the fashion, presented his work as a candidate for the Academy, the cabals against him did him great injustice. But Boucher insisted that the merit of the work should be acknowledged, and he even appreciated Vien's differing style so highly as to recommend his instruction to pupils. He exhibited in most of the Salons from 1737 to 1769. His chief works are distributed as follows : 106 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. In the Louvre, four Pastoral Scenes and twelve of other subjects : A Goal; Venus demanding Arras of Vulcan (1732); Rinaldo and Armida (1734); Diana leaving the Bath (1742); Vulcan giving Arras to Venus (1757); Verturanus and Pomona (1763); Cephalus and Aurora (1768); Jupiter and Calisto; Rape of Europa ; Venus asking Vulcan for Arms ; Neptune and Amymone ; Anynthus freeing Silvia : Angers Museum, Reunion of the Arts : Museum of Nancy, Aurora and Cephalus : Lille Museum, Painting; Silenus Drunk: Caen Museum, Mercury entrusting the Infant Bacchus to the Nymphs of Mt. Nyssa : Nismes Museum, Amorous Gardener; Edu- cation of a Dog : Toulon Museum, Cupids and Flowers ; Nude Woman Reclining : Bordeaux Museum, Shepherd and Shepherdess: Nat. Gal. London, Pan and Syrinx: Barker Coll., Venus and Adonis : Due d'Auraale's Coll., Young Mother Resting : Nat. Gal., Edinburgh, Madonna: M. Hollond, Madonna: Stevens Coll., three mytho- logical subjects: Narvaez Coll., Woman Reclining and several mythological sub- jects: Chevalier Coll., Paris, Woman with Straw Hat: Sir Richard Wallace's Coll., Sunrise; Sunset: Egmont Masse Coll., The Kiss: Stockholm Museum, Toilet of Venus (1746) ; The Toilet (1746); Are they thinking of Grapes ? (1747); Leda and the Swan ; Venus and Graces; Triumph of Galatea, or Birth of Venus (1740): Berlin Museum, Venus and Cupid. Boucher maintained that he could give no principles and could teach only with brush in hand, but among his scholars three do credit to his instruction, Jean Honore Fragonard, who indeed far surpasses him in interest for our own time, Deshays ; and Baudouin, the two pupils who married at the same wedding their master's daughters, April 8th, 1758. Deshays who had derived from an earlier teacher, Eestout, a nephew of Jouvenet, something of that artist's vigor, had a different taste from his popular father-in- Jean Baptiste Henri Deshays (1729—1769), Rouen. law, but taking certain accents of color and a Pnx de Rome 175'. bold, but well-considered handling from him, with a genius of his own, full of fancy yet with the defects of the age, he aimed at tragedy and the heroic. The year after his marriage he won admission to the Academy. His works in the Salon of 1761 were religious subjects from the lives of St. Andrew, St. Peter, St. Benedict and St. Victor. The Martyrdom of St. Andrew, in the Cathedral of Rouen, is one of his best. Baudouin and his father-in-law greatly admired and loved each other. The son exceeded the father in license of Pierre Antoine Baudouin (1723-1769), Paris. subjects and treatment. His reception picture to Mem. Acad. 1763. ^ e Academy was a large miniature, Phryne Accused before the Areopagus, a subject which elevated conception and high ideal of the nude alone could render acceptably. Diderot said of him, " Neither he nor his compositions shall approach my daughters," and the Archbishop of Paris caused his Confessional to be excluded from the Salon of 1765 on account of its irreverent treatment, THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 107 though in the same Salon the Archbishop allowed the Gathering of Cherries, Rising in the Morning, and the Young Girl Reprimanded by her Mother. Baudouin's works were highly popular in Paris. His entire life was within the reign of Louis XV. and his subjects, chiefly of an erotic character, were worthy of the time. These, as most suitable to the piquancy of the incidents, were often painted in water color, of which he was a master. But in the last years of his life he executed eight scenes from the life of the Virgin (1767), and to him were entrusted the designs for the Epistles and Evangelists (1769) commanded for the chapel of the king. His principal works were : Rising in the Morning ; Petite Idylle Galante; Gathering Cherries; Confessional (1865) ; La Fille Econduite ; Force du Sang (1767) ; Retiring of the Bride ; Senti- ment of Love ; Diana and Actacon ; eight miniatures of the Life of the Virgin ; The Indiscreet Wife ; The Sentinel in Default ; The Gallant Gardener ; The Rape ; Road of Fortune ; Rose and Colas (1769). All Boucher's household in fact caught the spirit of art. His wife, Marie Jeanne Buzeau, whom he married in 1733 and who is the model of many of his pictures, exhibited portraits and miniatures in the Salon de la Correspondance (1779). In 1770, in consideration of the service rendered to art by her husband, she was decreed by Louis XV. a pension of 1,200 livres, and in 1785 it was doubled by Louis XVI. His son, Juste Boucher (d. 1781), to the secret chagrin of his father that he did not continue his reputation, chose the profession of architect, fearing to be borne down in painting by the greater estimate of his father. He lived, however, to hear his father condemned on all sides as the destroyer of the French School. Boucher's third conspicuous pupil, Fragonard, was the master of an art so graceful and charming that, though allied with that of his master on its frivolous side, it has suggested such Jean Honore Fragonard . 00 (1732— 1806), Grasse. sayings of him, as that he was born "m and of the Prix de Rome 1752. laughing land of Provence," — in Grasse," the land of the sweet perfumes of earth's rich growths : " that he was "baptized of the fairies;" that his art was a dream, "the dream of one sleeping on at the opera" after even its seeming realities had disappeared, and floating back only in a half remember- ing somnolence; that he and Watteau are "the only poets of the eighteenth century ;" and that he had "a delirium of the imagina- tion." He was first a pupil of Chardin, but the charm imparted to simple, lowly life in that master's studio, was not nourishment that his spirit could assimilate, and he resorted to the studio of Boucher. Owing to that master's urging that as "a pupil of Boucher" if not 108 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. on his own merit lie would be successful, two years after his arrival at Paris, with the Jeroboam now in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the youth of twenty won the Prix de Rome. His insufficiency of acquire- ments becoming apparent, however, in Rome, Natoire, the director of the French Academy there, was about to reject him, when he promised an application that won his retention. He became agree of the Academy by a tragic picture, Coresus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirrhoe, a result of his study in Rome, but of a class of paintings that his native tendencies never allowed him to develop or even repeat. He assimilated Venetian rather than Roman art, mak- ing Tiepolo his study in Italy. He became the painter of a passing but charming grace and, though of a nonchalant indolence that made him one of the "agrees" of the eighteenth century who never completed their reception pictures for the Academy, 1 a vehement painter of that of which the moment enamored him, the vividness of a temporary impression. To this trait many of his qualities may be traced. Thus he is distinguished for no great master-pieces, but his value is found in an impulse and charm personal to himself, thrown off in many slight works, and consisting more in grace of suggestion than in any actual performance. His is the pleasing effect of the absence of all effort. He painted on his canvases the momentary grace of the light life that loses its charm if elaborated and too long clung to, and the emotion to which his nature was sus- ceptible. They became reproductions of the immoralities of his time, given with great license and a surprising realism, which he may have caught from Chardin's innocent works, and may have derived from his own thoughtless, easy copying of life, for he was eminently a painter of unsophisticated life and grace. Girl child-life made special appeal to his brush, and in its characteristic of simple ingenuousness illustrates one class of his qualities of style. His quick impressionability caught all the grace and significance of dress, and, in the nude, by a want of precision of contours, by a vagueness of outline, suggested a play and movement whose truth consisted in their suggestion. This is demonstrated in his drawings, for often, when finished in paintings in losing the vagueness they lost their expression of truth. Susceptible to divers influences and responsive to all, he executed all classes of subjects within his range — which was a wide one, — and with various methods of treatment, sometimes even repro- ducing memories of the beautiful Provence landscapes. He often i Archives de l'Art Francais : Documents, Vol. I., p. 399. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 109 painted that form of gallantry, hardly beyond the limits of decorum, the kiss, with so graceful a treatment that once, when by the oval framing the figures are cut off, leaving little more than the heads, the picture seems like a delicate etherialization, and the heads, incorpo- realized, suggest the winged heads of the angels of early art. Thirty-four of his works are scattered among the galleries of Europe. Eleven are in the Louvre : Callirrhoe ; Fancy Piece of Man, Woman and Child ; Landscape ; Music Lesson ; Nymphs at Bath ; Shepherd's Hour ; Bacchante Asleep ; Young. Woman and Cupid ; Guitar Player ; Study ; Inspiration. He ex- hibited but twice at the Salon (1765 and '67), and six times at the Salon of M. La Blancherie (1771, '79, '81, '82, '83, '86). He engraved twenty-six plates, twelve of them after his own compositions. His life illustrates the history of the times. In the last of this and first of the next century the severely classical art of David left the previously petted artist without commissions, and his means hav- ing melted away during the Revolution, David, under whose instruc- tion he had placed his son, Evariste (1780-1850), obtained for him the position of keeper of the National Museum. But this was soon taken from him, and towards the end of his life, like Greuze, with whom he always maintained the warm friendship formed while they were together at Rome, he was without occupation and support. 1 Between the school of Boucher and Van Loo, and the more earn- est one of Greuze and Chardin, which would be impressively placed in contrast, chronology inserts one of the great marine painters of Erance, Claude Joseph Vernet, who neither influenced nor was influ- enced by the corrupt taste of his age, and, as a precursor of the mod- ern natural treatment, holds a place in style between the fashion of Boucher and conventional classicism. He is the first conspicuous one of a family of four generations of artists, forming a line of nearly two hundred years (1689-1863) ; five generations it Claude Joseph Vernet J v / ' ° (1712-1789), Avignon, may be called by continuing it through Delaroche, Mem. Acad , ,753. the son-in-law of Horace Vernet. Antoine (1689- Chan. Acad., 1766. . v 1753), the father of Claude Joseph, was a painter at Avignon, though only of the highly decorative work of his day. He was the father of twenty-two children, of whom five sons were paint- ers, and one daughter married the sculptor Honore Guibert, who 1 His wife, whose sister, Marguerite Gerard (born 1751), having been instructed in the studio of Fragonard, whom she called "her good brother," was the Mile. Gerard often mentioned in art-records, and Mesdames David, Lagrenee the younger, Suvee, Vien, and Morette were of the number of artists' wives who went, September 7, 1789, to the National Assembly and offered their jewels to their country. 110 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. aided in decorating the salons at Versailles. A work by him, Birds and Flowers, is in the Museum of Avignon. He gave to his son Joseph his first lessons in art, and then a number of friends com- bined to bear the young man's expenses at Rome (1732). On his way there, being caught in a storm, he caused himself to be lashed to the mast, to study the sea in all its aspects. There at first he met with no demand for his work and was obliged to exchange for a suit of clothes a View of Tivoli, of such merit that after his death it sold for 3,000 francs. But soon he sent pictures to the exhibitions that won high praise from the critics, and at Eome it became the desire of all amateurs to own a marine by Vernet. He was drawn back to Paris by Madame de Pompadour through her brother, the Marquis de Ma- rigny, who, after being appointed General Director of the Fine Arts, went to Rome (1750) to fit himself for his new position, where he met Vernet, who had for nearly twenty years chiefly spent his time there. In Rome, too, Vernet was happily married (1745) to the daughter of the commander of the Papal fleet, an Irish refugee, named Parker, 1 and was surrounded by warm friends, among them Pergolese, who composed his Stabat Mater in Vernet's studio. 2 Before leaving Italy definitely he made three tentative visits to France, and on the last brought his presentation picture and was received into the Academy. A room in the Louvre is devoted to his pictures, nearly fifty in number, gathered around a marble bust of him- self. These comprise the fifteen views of the chief seaports of France, which, by reason of failing funds, alone were executed of the series planned by Madame de Pompadour as an aggrandizement of Louis XV., to execute which he had returned to France, and which were engraved as soon as they appeared. They were at that time placed at Versailles, and thence carried to the Luxembourg (1802). Marigny had stipulated that while these works should possess pictorial beauty, they should be actual reproductions of the scenes ; and though not technically as real as those of the great Dutch marine painters, Van der Velde and Backhuysen, contemporaneous criticism gave them high rank. They won from Diderot the exclamation : " They are nature itself for truth." They represent the sea under every form, at every hour, under every influence ; mist, rain, sunshine, 1 Her insanity (1774) made it necessary to place her in an asylum, where she remained till after the death of her husband. The talent of his son Carle and the marriage of his daughter to the architect, Chalgrin (1776), softened this trouble to the artist. 2 From a circle gathered there by Vernet to judge of Paul et Virginie, after he had heard it, that famous work of Bernardin de St. Pierre also was launched on its suc- cessful career. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Ill fire, calm and tempest ; the sea of the North, the sea of the South ; of day, of night, of morning, and of evening. But brought together, the similarity of the subjects, treated in the style of one artist, gives a monotony that injures their effect. Of himself Vernet said, that he might be surpassed in many things, but none could excel him in mak- ing a picture. Composition was, indeed, his excellence. He was ten years (1753-1763) in painting these marines, at a pension of 240 francs a year. While executing them, he took his family with him from port to port, and at Bordeaux his son Carle was born (August 14, 1758). He was also one of the few painters of landscape of this period. He was assigned, after the death of that artist, the apartments in the Louvre of Galloche, at one time Rector of the Academy at Rome. 1 While Watteau's society-genre, deprived of Watteau's poetical ren- derings, became the frivolous art of Boucher, with a change of its other element — society costumes and customs — it became in the second phase of the art of Chardin's domestic scenes a charming poetry of humble life. It followed by about ten years Watteau's work. The influence that developed this artist had long been working in the lower classes, whose practical life of narrow means left little room for affectation. Born within two months of the birth of the century (November 2, 1699), and only reaching maturity at the death of the Regent, he recognized in his art, for a moment only, the reigning voluptuous- ness, and quickly turned with an earnest love to the simple scenes of jean Baptiste lowly life, and thenceforth consecrated himself, as it Simeon chardin. were, to the service of the third estate. He treated the (1699-1779). Pans. even j n g m eal, the housewife in the kitchen, the chil- Mem. Acad., 1728. ° ' ? dren at play, with something of the manner of Teniers and Brouwer, though he had for his pencil to delineate none of the wealth and conscious dignity of the Dutch commoners who had equalled kings in their history. Neither had he the Dutch phleg- matic type, but instead, the vivacity of the French middle classes, the mental alertness begotten of straitened means and the grace seldom wanting to French maiden or matron. He differed from the Dutch painters, too, in a refined sincerity and sympathetic simplicity that remove him far from all boisterousness and vulgarity, and give his work a distinction nothing short of poetic. His first exhibition at the Salon was in 1737 side by side with Van 1 His son Carle and his grandson Horace make three generations of worthy artists of the Vernet family, all born in the eighteenth century. But the most important works of Carle and his son were produced in the nineteenth century, and, being military works, are intimately connected with its history during the First Empire. 112 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Loo and Boucher, a bas-relief painting and eight genre pictures ; one, A Little Girl at Breakfast. These are, however, of the second phase of his art, but in it centres his chief interest. His most famous picture, from the Salon of 1740, is a young mother just about to serve soup to two little children, but who with an earnest piety stays the ladle for the youngest child to say grace : from this it is called Le Benedicite (Louvre). Chardin's was at this time almost the only art of the common people : he was the first artist after the Le Nain brothers to devote himself to scenes from humble life. It was at once multiplied by the engravers of the time, so that the bourgeoisie whose life and character it represented were enabled to hang it on their walls at two sous the engraving. Chardin was the son of a skilled cabinet-maker of large family and had early worked at his father's trade, but was soon, though not with- out opposition, allowed to enter the studio of the mediocre painter, Cazes. It was, however, upon a demand of Noel Nicholas Coypel, who employed him in the accessories of his pictures, that in a portrait of a chasseur he should exactly reproduce a gun, that he became con- scious of that rare power of eye and hand which was afterwards to dis- tinguish him. Surprised at the care Coypel took in placing and lighting the gun, he worked with a deep sense of its importance. To eye and hand he was ever after a faithful servitor. Through them he became, although by far Desgoffes' superior in the sentiment that he imparted to all he touched, the true ancestor of that artist in the lesser quality of an exquisite detail and accuracy of reproduction of still life, that all the gain of a century in methods and ideas has never surpassed. This is shown by his Silver Goblet (Louvre), in its subtle interchange of reflections with surrounding objects. Charmed with the discovery of his power, he delighted in its exercise, and for a long time timidly confined himself to still life, exhibiting at the Place Dauphine, in 1728 and 1734. In this, the first of the three phases of his art, he acquired, besides a power of eye and certainty of hand, a feeling for light that rendered him, without imitating them in anything but in the same following out of nature's leading, just such a disciple of light as the great Dutch masters. Diderot pronounced him "the best colorist of the Salons, probably of all painting." Says another critic, "In his pictures the light plays everywhere, hangs itself in reflections on the angles, and penetrates to the heart of objects with a surety that this artist alone possesses ; and the brilliancy of his art is only equalled by its sincerity." He was the artist of observation, not of imagination. Yet he was THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 113 a poet painter, a minor poet after Watteau and Fragonard : his was the poetry of faith in the virtues of his class and a love of its traits that gave a fond and faithful reproduction of them and renders him a true historian of his time and race. He had the painter's rather than the artist's imagination, it may perhaps be asserted, so that what- ever was under his eye seemed always to be rendered so beautiful by the lights upon it and within it as to be a charming subject for him ; and dreaming of nothing beyond, he was wholly satisfied with this earliest phase of his art, that is, still life, He rendered fruit, flowers, animals, vases, furniture, stuffs, with an extraordinary fulness, but was always governed by the principle that to exaggerate effects weakens them. Nothing was so humble but the brush could give it charm through his rare perception of a beauty in material things of humblest service : these without pretension or artifice he groups in endless variety, and by tender and loving touches gives to mere mat- ter a recognized dignity and awakens in others a similar perception of the charm of the simple. This is his distinguishing trait. Under his hand an old kettle, a wooden mortar, the frugal provisions for a humble meal, eggs and a saucepan simply, two onions and a tumbler of water, become priceless in the eyes of the most fastidious of con- noisseurs. For he has put into the picture of them a light that fairly flows in its liquidity and a penetrating beauty of tone and color. More- over his humble subjects always carry the interest that attaches to household objects, to the human needs of the family life. With such a picture (La Raie, a half-opened fish, 1728, Louvre), exhibited at the Place Dauphine, he won to his nai'f surprise solicitations from the Acad- emy, as Watteau had done, to become a candidate for membership. In his sincerity and earnestness he j)assed naturally from still life to the incidents around him — from the materials that derived interest from association with the family, to the family itself. He one day remonstrated with the companion of his studio, Avert, for refusing a portrait at 400 livres, urging that 400 livres were always good to gain, when Avert replied, " Yes, if a portrait were as easily painted as a sausage," for Chardin was then working on the furnishings of a table. Forthwith Chardin resolved to take up animate life. A picture of two monkeys in 1726 served as a transition to man. In turning to the life around him, in a single picture he was caught by the luxuriousness of the time, exhibiting in 1734 a young woman impatiently awaiting a light for sealing a letter, in which all is soft elegance, but he returned directly to his humble genre as his real subjects. He at first attracted popular notice by a sign painted 8 114 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. for a surgeon -barber, depicting with great accuracy of detail on a panel 14 feet long and 2 feet 3 inches high a surgeon-barber attend- ing a man wounded in a duel. It was an actual scene from life as he treated it : in it real dogs bark ; the surgeon's instruments are real ; the wound is real ; the emotion of the frightened woman, per- haps the cause of the duel, bending over the man, is real ; and it won a real and not a conventional admiration. A crowd enthusias- tically gathered about it the morning it appeared over the surgeon's door, when the surgeon himself, unadvised of its being placed, appeared demanding what the tumult was. 1 Chardin's third form of art is that of pastel portraits which, led by the success of Quentin de La Tour in a neighboring studio in the Louvre, he took up in his old age, in the fear that for want of novelty his works would lose notice. Only one oil portrait by him is known (1773). His chief works are : Louvre, La Raie (1728); Kitchen Interior (1738); Fruit and Animals (1728); Kitchen Utensils (1731); Industrious Mother (1740); Benedicite (1740); Dead Rabbit (1757), (acquired 1846 for 500 francs); Monkey Antiquarian ; and Art At- tributes (1765): Hermitage, The Blessing ; Washerwoman; Boy's Portrait; Woman at Market (L'^conome) ; and The Governess. Of the pastel portraits, his later work, those of himself in a nightcap, and his wife, are at the Louvre. He left more than one hundred and thirteen signed pictures; forty-one of genre and twenty- three of still life. Finally he was appointed to decorate a room of the Louvre, when the completion of that building, freshly begun under almost every sovereign since Francis I., was again attempted in the 18th century by Marigny (1754). His son Pierre John Chardin (1731) took the Prix de Rome (1754) and died soon after his return from Italy, leaving his father childless in his old age. His one picture, An Italian Interior, is at Nantes. Chardin's style of art was followed by Etienne Jeaurat (1699-1739) but in a less impressive maimer than his own, also by Jean Baptiste Le Prince (1733-1781), Nicolas Bernard Lepicie (1735-1784), and Jean Louis Demarne (1744-1829). The simple genre which Chardin introduced became, a little later, a more sentimental genre in the treatment of Jean Baptiste Greuze, of D 4 „ whose work sentiment is the kev-note. In 1755, when Jean Baptiste Greuze ♦ " (1725-1805), Toumus. the brother of Madame de Pompadour, the Marquis Mem. Acad. . 7 6 9 . de Marigny ^ was gtm directing the art of France, and Boucher and Van Loo were in full favor, Van Loo exhibiting The 1 This panel is found iu 1783 passing at auction at the Le Bas sale for 100 livres to Chardiu, the sculptor and nephew of the painter, who valued it as containing portraits of the principal members of his family. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 115 Amours of the Gods as late as 1757, but also when the under-current of national thought had proved its existence by that "Danton of the literary revolution," Diderot, issuing a book, demanding that upon the stage gods, goddesses, and kings should give place to the people, this change found its accomplishing stroke in art in the work of this artist, who had only that year been made " agree " of the Academy, and thus obtained the right to exhibit at the Salons. His picture, A Peasant Explaining the Scriptures to his Family, 1 surprised the public. It was applauded and immediately purchased by a wealthy collector, Delalive de Jully. The work of Ohardin and Greuze was to the art of the eighteenth century what the simple story of Euth and Boaz, as read from the Bible by Franklin, was to the selections of literature made by the courtiers of that period, and it found appreciation for the same reason, its unfamiliar simplicity. The finished scholar of high rank and the young man of the people who had never seen any- thing outside of France met in their ideas. Diderot adopted Greuze into his favor, and henceforth sounded his praise in his criticisms of the Salons. That of 1765 began by saying to the people when he touched upon Greuze's picture: "Here is your artist and mine." Henceforth Greuze was the artist of the people. With the grace which always fills his compositions he represented the people of the middle class as he saw them and knew them, as in The Son's Punishment, The Paralytic with his Children, The Child with his Pet Dog lov- ingly clasped, and the Children's Welcome to the Keturning Nurse. He follows in his works the daughter of the people from childhood up " through the dream of sweet sixteen to the Mother of the Family, caring for her children and grave with the austere duties of life." The appreciation given to his early works of that class determined not only that his pictures should be scenes from the life of the common people, but that they should depict their virtues. Yet the genre of Greuze differed from that of Chardin both in its lack of simple sin- cerity and in being tainted with the worldliness of the age. The truth, the fact, was bat a point of departure for Greuze ; he arranged his subject ; he "contributed to the heart from the mind." In painting apologues, giving to his pictures a moral, he became the founder in France of the school that moralizes. Though while in Italy Greuze gave evidence of a high standard of honor and thought, the atmosphere of his life was inevitably poisoned by the gross immoralities of a wife, Gabrielle Babuty, by whose scheming added to her personal charms 1 Now in the Dresden Gallery. This was four years before the birth of Burns, who celebrated the same scene in his The Cotter's Saturday Night. 116 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. he had been entrapped into a reluctant marriage (1759). She removed her two daughters to a convent, that they might not cause her care, appropriated the income from her husband's engravings, and, with great effrontery, tore up the records, that the amount might not be discovered. Her misconduct finally forced him to a separation (before 1789). Subjected to this influence it was, of course, impossible that he should have continued to produce a simple purity of conception like Chardin's : his wife's beauty, which he often painted, 1 would naturally and inevitably give him a tendency to her falser tone. Greuze had a graceful manner of compliment in his every-day in- tercourse, and was fond of painting women, both young and old. He is especially the painter of infancy. To most of the women of his pictures he gives the matronly air of embonpoint, of ruddy color, and of responsibility. They are " the thoughtful Flemish women." In his pictures of young girls he usually introduced some cause for the pensiveness of regret, as in The Dead Bird ; The Broken Mirror. These are single figures, but often very charming. His famous Vil- lage Bride (1761) is a large group (Louvre). This was pronounced by Cochin the most beautiful picture of its class, worthy of belonging to the Royal Collection, and was bought for it by Marigny for 3,000 livres. It was sold by the king (1782) for 16,650 livres, and, as it epitomizes Greuze, is worth describing in detail : It represents on the right a peasant father as having just paid the dowry (which the bridegroom carelessly holds in a bag, to him simply a " dot," while in the presence of his bride), and now with tender solicitude consigning his greater treasure, the daughter, to the new son's keeping. It is exquisitely rendered. The bride and the bridegroom are made, by that skill that seems mere chance, the highest figures in the centre of the group, she with her left arm slipped through his right and her fingers instinctively, evidently unconsciously to herself, resting on his hand and thus claiming him, while the sister next younger than herself turns to weep on her shoulder. Sitting on the left, her mother clasps the bride's right wrist and arm itself with her right hand as if to hold her and yet lightly, as if recognizing that she must go. The groom listens with respectful attention to the counsel of the father, who holds both arms outstretched with a tender earnestness. The bride is a sweet conception of simple peasant life, " enraptured at being young, embarrassed at being beautiful, moved at being loved," but at the time totally unconscious of herself or her lover, in grief at leaving her family. The notary drawing up the marriage settlements in the background is a real notary. On the other side of the mother is the youngest child, unconscious of partings, absorbed, to the exclusion of all due appreciation of a marriage in the family, in throwing bread, which she has crumbed in her apron, to a hen and chickens that scramble 1 The Well-loved Mother, and Philosophy Sleeping ; Portrait of Madame Greuze as a Vestal. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 117 for it in the foreground, and thus form as an accessory a repetition of the family- relations. The figures are fine representations of the peasant, the woman having a stronger face than would be required in a housemother, and suggestive of a broader field of labor. The composition is very graceful, each filling his place naturally, and yet receding from the standing groom and bride in the centre to the sides in most artistic arrangement. The gradation of interest is also well managed from the bride on one side through the sister and mother to the uncon- scious child ; from the groom on the other, through the father and a half -inter- ested child to the notary. Grandon, a portrait painter, had rescued Greuze from his father's prohibition to his becoming a painter and the severe punishments which followed his infantile decorations of any blank space in his surroundings, conducted him to Lyons, given him lessons, and finally taken him to Paris. From his instruction Greuze acquired a superi- ority in painting heads, which is especially apparent in his old men and little children. At Paris he studied in the School of the Academy (1755). That same year his Blind Man Deceived made him " agree " of the Academy, and his masters were surprised by his Bible Reading, executed in secret, and for a time suspected of not being wholly his. Becoming famous by this, he won means to go in a limited way to Italy. He remained there but two years, and was too thoroughly French to acquire anything of the Italian manner. While giving lessons there to Letitia, the daughter of a nobleman, the two became greatly enamored of each other; but, though tauntingly called by his companions — among them Fragonard — the " Amorous Cherub," to which nickname his light, curling hair lent countenance, he, rec- ognizing his obligation to her father, absented himself, and finally fled from her solicitation to an elopement. For this in maturer life she, as the Countess of Este, thanked him. He, however, bore away her portrait, and it later inspired his picture, The Embarrassments of a Crown. His Young Girl's Prayer to Cupid (1769) is also a memory of this incident. After his return, through his sudden and unfortunate marriage, when he began housekeeping on twenty-three livres, through yielding to the second woman of great beauty who solicited his hand, 1 his pre- sentation picture to the Academy was delayed, and, still not having responded to the urgings of its officers, they, in 1767, prohibited his exhibiting at the Salons. The officers of the Academy above coun- sellors being chosen only from the historical painters, in order to enter the Academy as one of that class, Greuze presented the picture 1 Greuze's Memorial to Cheuu, 1785. 118 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. (1769) Septimius Severus Reproaching his son Caracalla with Attempt- ing to Murder Him (Louvre). In it he hardly attained mediocrity, a result attributed to the unelevating influences of his wife. The judges decided that he be admitted, not on the merits of the picture pre- sented, but because of his excellence as a painter of genre. The indignant artist immediately withdrew from the exhibitions of the Academy, and did not re-appear until 1800, when, owing to the changes of the Revolution, all artists, whether members or not, had been admitted for nine years. In the meantime his pictures were found in the Salon de la Correspon dance. But though it was only the domestic and rural scenes of real life that could inspire his touch, his pictures sold, and from the large number engraved he acquired a fortune — a fortune lost, however, in the bankruptcies caused by the Revolution. As well as obliterating a taste for the fantasticalities of the Court school of art, the prevalence of the classic style of David also lost to Greuze his occupation of painting humble genre, and his last years were spent in poverty and the misery of an extreme old age, in a lodging at the Louvre : his two daughters survived him. 1 Among his portraits, the interesting chain and contrast is formed of those of Madame de Pompadour, Louis XVI. and Napoleon as First Consul (Versailles). 2 He is represented at the Louvre by nine works, of which five are portraits ; Baron Rothschild of Paris owns several by him ; twenty-five are in the galleries of Great Britain; fourteen in St. Petersburg. Thirty-six out of over one hundred and twenty-five pictures scattered throughout the galleries of Europe, and eight in New York, are of young girls. Thirty-five are portraits. Nearly all his works have been engraved. Vien represents another line of reform both in his own aspiration Joseph Marie vien and work and as the master of David. In him (1716-1809) Montpeiiier. ^he t wo tendencies, a feeling for the actualities Acad.'JT Adj 3 Prof. ' 54 . of nature, and the aim for an ideal style met, Prof. 59 Rec. '81. Chan. 88. h e was hardly equal to their harmonious Rec. Acad, at Rome 1774. , . . . tt 1 • 1 PaintertoKing'sg, M.inst. 95. combination. He became conspicuous, how- or. st. Michel '75- l. Hon. com. ever, as an advocate of improved art, and, as if appreciating his own difficulties, was accustomed to say that " he 1 At the funeral of the long neglected old man, a young woman deeply veiled and overcome with emotion plainly visible through her veil, laid upon the coffin, just before its removal, ;i bouquet of immortelles and withdrew to her devotions. Around the stem was a paper inscribed : " These flowers offered by the most grateful of his pupils are the emblems of his glory." It was Mile. Mayer, later the friend of Prudhon. 2 After the fall of the classical school his talent was again recognized, his Young Girl with a Dove selling in 1874 for $7,000. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 119 could only point the way for reform, but David would throw wide open the door." Disappointing his father's hope to make him a lawyer, he learned his first art in coloring faience at a porce- lain factory, then took a few lessons in oil painting in his native city, and is found at Paris in 1741, supporting himself by sketches while studying for the prizes of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He took the Prix de Eome in 1743, and fell under Francois de Troy's director- ship of the school there, but amid all teachings and even the reproaches of others he followed his own love of nature. Natoire upon his return from Rome said to him, " Why copy nature ? There is nothing of art in that." He had, indeed, the world, the fashion, and the Academy against him, and his admission to the Academy was strongly opposed ; but through the kindly influence of Boucher, he was made a member, his presentation painting being Daedalus and Icarus. He became Rector of the School at Rome in 1774, and while there sought to supplant the affected and trivial by the serious and dignified : he gave assidu- ous care to the interests of the Academy, instituting annual exhibi- tions of the "envois" of the students. Having returned to Paris (1781) he opened a school, which became famous for its illustrious scholars, among whom were, besides David ; Regnault, Vincent, and Menageot. In his life of almost a century he passed through the pettiness, affec- tation, and license of the art of the Louis XV. period ; through the humble genre made the fashion by Greuze ; suffered the disturbances of the Revolution ; became a senator under Napoleon ; and was among the first to be made a Chevalier, and soon after Commander of the new order, the Legion of Honor. While in Rome (1775) he had re- ceived, by a messenger from Louis XVI., with permission to wear it without taking the oath, the insignia of Chevalier of the Order of St. Michel, and forty one years subsequently to being made a member of the old Royal Academy he was one of the six painters who con- stituted the first membership of the Institute. He executed about two hundred important works, which France now retains in her various galleries. In these, truth to nature is infused into the antique simplicity of form for which he constantly aimed. St. Denis Preaching the Faith in France (1767) is his masterpiece : The Apostle to the Gauls occupies a platform in front of an ancient temple, upon the steps of which the listeners form various groups ; women are absorbed to the forgetfulness of their children ; others lightly point to their friends among the followers of the apostle ; men are discussing ; others listening ; above them all rises the figure of the preacher, simple, gentle, noble, his long beard and white drapery solemn, majestic, and very beautiful, and, by forming the chief 120 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. lights of the picture, claiming the first attention for the principal object. A figure behind St. Denis has the earnest grace of Raphael's touch. The whole picture is highly colored. It is in the Church of St. Roch, Paris, for decorating which Vien shared a commission with Doyen. His reputation for reforming tendencies and for real ability caused him to be sought by foreign sovereigns ; the Czarina Elizabeth invited him to Russia, and the King of Denmark to Copenhagen with an annual allowance of 200,000 livres, but he declined all, being greatly attached to his pupils and his country. David acknowledged indebtedness also to a follower of Vien, Pierre Payson (1744-1820), now forgotten with other classicists, but who has pictures in the Louvre. As at the birth of a princess into the kingdom of art, Charles Blanc represents all the fairies gathering at the Elizabeth Louise Vig4e-Lebrun ^ f EHzabeth y ig £ e (1755 1842), Paris, M. Acad. 1783. ° ' ' One gave her beauty, one intellect, and one offered her a pencil and a palette. The fairy of marriages, whom she had not called, said, ' It is true, you will unfortunately marry M. Lebrun, the expert in pictures,' but the fairy of travel to console her promised that she should carry from Court to Court, from Academy to Academy, from Paris to St. Petersburg, and from Rome to London, her gayety, her talent, and her easel, before which were to pose all the sovereigns of Europe and all the heads crowned by genius." This is the history of Madame Vigee-Lebrun thrown into proph- ecy. Early encouraged by her father, a mediocre painter of por- traits who left her an orphan at twelve, she received lessons of Doyen, Greuze, and Joseph Vernet. Vernet said to her, " Nature is the best master : if you study her with care you will never have mannerisms/' She painted excellent portraits at fifteen, and at twenty-eight by the picture, Peace Creating Abundance, was received into full member- ship of the Koyal Academy. When the Eevolution broke out she left France, resided three years in Italy, went thence to Austria, and in 1795, to St. Petersburg where she established herself until 1801, when she returned to Paris, receiving an enthusiastic welcome. She early married Jean Baptiste Pierre Lebrun (1748-1813), grand ne- phew of the famous founder of the Academy, a painter, chiefly of portraits, and a large dealer in pictures. The latter circumstance enabled his wife to study various masters. He was a man of large fortune but dissolute, and before many years she obtained a separation and passed her life with her daughter. She exhibited in the Salons of the late eighteenth century forty-eight pictures, many of them portraits. Of these a most charming one is Queen Marie Antoinette and her Children (Versailles). The little dauphin is standing by his brother's THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 121 cradle. The child -like innocence of the little prince, in its contrast with the suffering before him, his death at the age of ten in prison of a persecution so petty as to leave his bed linen unchanged for a year, or his passing his life among the savages of America, enlists a deep sympathy. 1 Two pictures of herself are there, one in a large hat sug- gesting the famous Chapeau de Poil of Eubens, and the familiar one, in which she presses her little daughter to her bosom. Towards the last of her life she visited England for three years, then Holland and Switzerland, but died in Paris. In all countries some special atten- tion was shown to the charming woman and artist. At the Academy at Kome she was invited to exchange her brush for that of Drouais, the talented pupil of David, who had died young. Her feeling and her art were in sympathy with the eighteenth century for, though she lived till 1842 she could never be reconciled to the overthrow of the old nobility, with whom her wit had kept her soirees long the ton. Little attention was paid to landscape painting in the eighteenth century. Want of appreciation of, or even attention to nature, pre- cluded original work and neglect of the traditions of Claude and Poussin prevented a continuance of the old school. An old family of landscape artists, that of Francisque, now again became conspicuous in the one of the third generation, Joseph Francois Millet (1697-1777). Fragonard was an occasional painter of landscape, but not as a realistic lover of nature, not even so much so as is evinced in some of Boucher's incidental landscapes, as a village street or a house yard. But pure landscape was represented only by a few : Simon Mathurin Lantara (1727-1778) and Lazare Bruandet (1755-1803) treated subjects in the environs of Paris, somewhat in Claude's treatment of sun- light and air. — Pierre Charles Lemattay (1726-1760) Fecamp ; (d. in Paris) a pupil of Boucher, won the Prix de Rome, membership of the Academy, and became painter to the Court of Louis XV. as a painter of landscape and marines, in which his work resembled that of J. Vernet. — Another landscape painter was Pierre Denis Martin (1673-1742), Paris; he also painted battles.— Jean Jillement (1727-1808), Lyons, painted landscape and marine as Court painter of Marie Antoinette ; was for a time designer for the Gobelin tapestries. Hubert Robert (1733-1808), Paris, took twelve years study at Rome ; pupil of Pannini : member of Academy 1766 ; custodian of Louvre under the Directory; he treated Italian scenes with some imagination, and became known as " Robert des Ruines." 1 Missing an appointed sitting of the queen, and hastening to atone the next morning, she found the queen ready for driving : but finally Her Majesty laid aside her hat, saying that " it was too much for Madame Lebrun to lose the trouble of coming." The artist overcome with gratitude, in her embarrassment overturned her color-box and brush, and all were scattered upon the floor. The queen bent and picked them up, say- ing that in her ill health Madame Lebrun should not be allowed to stoop. 122 A BIS TORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Animal painting shared with landscape the fashionable neglect of all nature and the general aesthetic preoccupation with the artificial ; Jean Jacques Bachelier, however, (1724—1806) Paris, attained an excel- lence in animals and flowers, that eclipsed his few historical pictures. Other painters of the eighteenth century deserving mention are : Hyacinthe Collin de Vermont (1693-1761), Versailles, a pupil of Jouvenet, had rank as a historical painter ; member of Academy (1725) by Birth of Bacchus ; Prof. (1733); adjunct Rector (1754). He painted in 1550 the History of Cyrus in 33 pictures. — Jean Baptiste Descamps (1706-1791, Rome), the author of Lives of Flemish, German, and Dutch Painters ; a historical painter, a pupil of his maternal uncle, Louis Coy pel, and of Largilliere. — Alexander Francois Desportes (1661-1743), Champigneul (died at Paris) returned from Poland where he acquired fame and favor from King Sobieski, and, becoming a member of the Academy (169!)), was made Chancellor (1704) by Louis XIV., whose hunting expeditions he both shared and painted: he enjoyed court favor until his death. — Hubert Drouais (1699-1767), La Roque; pupil of De Troy : and his son and pupil, Hubert Francois Drouais, the father and grandfather of the famous young Drouais of David's school, were portrait painters, receiving patronage and emolument from the Court : the father painted Madame de Pompadour many times, and the son, Louis XVI., Charles X. as the Comte d'Artois, and Madame Du Barry. — Louis Galloche (1670-1751), Paris ; spent at Rome two years of the Prix de Rome won in 1695, returned, opened a school at Paris, was received into the Academy (1711) and advanced through all the grades to Chancellor (1754); he had a pension from the king, and was lodged in the Louvre, in the room in which H. Vernet subsequently was born. C. Gaufiier competed with Drouais for the grand prize in 1783, the subject being The Canaanite Woman : the prize was duplicated for them and both were also crowned the same day; both, also, shared a triumph and were borne through the streets on the shoulders of their comrades by the light of torches. Gauffier also died young, at the age of 37, in Rome.— Louis Gauffier (1761-1801), La Rochelle, his- torical painter, and his wife, Pauline Chatillon, a pupil of Drouais, whom while serving out the Prix de Rome which he won in 1784 he married in Rome. — Claude Guy Halle (1652-1736), Paris, pupil of his father, Daniel Halle, a historical painter of the seventeenth century (1631-'75), with his son, Noel Halle (1711-'81), Paris; won the Prix de Rome and passed through the grades of the Academy up to Rector as historical painters : the former was superintendent of the Gobelins ; di- rector of French Academy at Rome (1775-77) and member of Order of St. Michel (1777). — Jean B. Leprince (1733-'81), Paris, a mannerist. Jean Marc Nattier (1685 — 1766), Paris, a historical and portrait painter; took the Prixde Rome (1700); entered the Academy (1718) and advanced to the grade of Professor (1752): he painted many portraits of the royal family of Russia as well as of that of France. — Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755), Paris, pupil of his father, Jacques Oudry, painted, first history and then animals, particularly dogs. — Jean Baptiste M. Pierre (1713-'89), Paris; pupil of Natoire and De Troy at Rome; after taking the Prix de Rome (1734) and most of the grades of the Academy, became painter to the Due d' Orleans and succeeded Coypel as painter to the king. — Jean Ranc (1675-1735), Montpellier, pupil of his father, Antoine Jean, and of H. Rigaud; a historical and portrait painter of such renown as to be called to the Spanish Court. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 123 — Three of the name of Restout ; Jean Baptiste Restout ' ' the younger " (1692-1 738), Rouen, son of Jean Restout of the seventeenth century "the elder" (1663-1702), and pupil of his uncle, Jean Jouvenet; and the grandson, Jean Bernard Restout (1732-1797).— Louis de Silvestre (1676-1760), Paris, the most conspicuous of three generations of painters, of whom the first was his grandfather, Giles Silvestre, (1590 — ), who came from Scotland and settled in Lorraine in the early seventeenth century; and the second, his father, Israel, 1621-91. Louis was a pupil of his father and of Charles Lebrun.— Hugues Taraval (1728-'85), son of T. R.Taraval, the portrait painter to king of Sweden: Prix de Rome 1756, member of Academy 1759, Prof. 1785.— Nicolas Wleughels (1668-1737), born at Antwerp, died at Paris: pupil of Pierre Mignard and warm friend of Watteau ; member Academy 1716 ; direc- tor of French Academy at Rome (1724 — ) Chevalier of Order St. Michel. Of the portrait painters are Louis Tocque (1096-1772), Paris ; a distinguished portrait painter: member of Academy 1734.— Joseph Vivien (1657-1735) Lyons; member of Academy 1701; Court painter to Elector of Cologne: his portraits, of exact likeness and fine technique, gave him such fame that very many persons of eminence desired to be painted by him. He excelled in pastel, but in this de- partment of art, Maurice-Quentin de Latour (1704-1788) has never been surpassed. Of the genre painters are Charles Hutin (1715-1776), Paris, Prix de Rome, mem- ber of Academy 1747, became Court painter at Dresden. — Carle Van Loo's pupil, Simon Julien (1735-1800), Toulon, became a pupil of Natoire and subsequently was nicknamed " Julien l'Apostat," but the Duke of Parma becoming his patron he called himself " Julien de Parme." — Jean Raoux (1677-1734), Montpellier; there a pupil of Ranc: Prix de Rome 1704 ; member of Academy 1717. — Gabriel J. Saint Aubin (1724-'80). Paris; pupil of Collin de Vermont, Boucher, and Jeurat: the Boy reciting Lessons to his Mother (1774) illustrates his genre subjects. — Robert Levrac Tournieres (1668-1752), Caen ; entered the Academy 1702, as portrait painter of the Dutch treatment of detail, and charm of light and shade, and though a painter of genre, in the rank of history painter, 1716. — Pierre Charles Tremoliere (1753-39) Paris; pupil of J. B. Van Loo. The Rectors of the French Academy at Rome during the century were eleven in number, as follows : 1699 Rene Antoine Houasse. 1774 Joseph Vien. 1704 Poerson. 1781 Louis J. F. Lagrenee " the elder." 1724 Nicolas Wleughels. 1787 F. G. Menageot. 1738 Jean Francois de Troy. 1792 in charge of French agent at Rome. 1751 Charles Natoire. 1796 Suvee, nominated, but prevented by im- 1774 Noel Halle, per interim. prisonment from taking the place till 1801. A retrospective glance of the art of the eighteenth century shows that in the reign of Louis XV. an art wholly the mirror of its life arose ; between 1715 and 1785 it matured and decayed and, as the first fifteen years of this century are in spirit a part of the seventeenth century so the last fifteen years belong to the nineteenth century. The remaining seventy give essentially the art of the eighteenth century, its qualities crystallizing, as it were, in them, and the first and last fifteen years cleaving from them. Its significant points are : the estab- 124 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. lishment of the jury for the admission of works to the exhibitions of the of the Academy (1748) ; the first practice of modern criticism (1761); the adoption of the name Salons for the exhibitions (after 1725); the addition by Louis XV. of 300 pictures to the royal collection ; his opening in a limited manner of the royal collections to the people (1752); the withdrawal of this privilege (1777); the ardent pursuance of engraving which served to popularize paintings and extend art influence, and made this century "the golden age of engraving," the art being practised even by many women under Madame de Pompadour's leading; the abolition of the Academy (1793); the organization of the Institute (1795); the institution of medals as awards at the Salons (1791) ; the opening of the Salons to the pictures of others than Academicians (1791); the establishment of a National Museum open to all visitors (the Louvre, 1793) ; the vast acquisitions of art treasures by Napoleon (1 796 to 1806), as well as the loss from France to England (1792) of the grand Orleans Collection. 1 The Academy at Rome was also at the last of this century (1795), in the absence of royal power, consigned entirely to the direction of the Institute. The importance of the lower ranks of the people, the centring of man's thoughts on himself and his surroundings have been seen to be irrepressibly finding expression, only to become stronger still in the keen and active nine- teenth century. David appearing just at this time when politics, society, and art were ready for a great upheaval, became the leader, and what is known as David's reform in art is the conspicuous fact in the last fifteen years of the century. The vote of the National Convention ( L793) gave a firm basis to the Prix de Rome, by which an important influence was secured for the nineteenth century. In this century too (1789) was founded the Society of the Friends of Art with the plan of aiding painting by the annual purchase of a number of pic- tures, which were to be drawn by lot by the members. It still exists in an exclusive way on account of the large initiation fee required, one hundred francs, and has done a good work through the nine- teenth century. 2 Another outgrowth of the national artistic sense was the establish- ment by Jean Jacques Bachelier, a painter of Louis XV. 's court, of the first public school in Paris for gratuitous teaching of drawing to 1 Gen. Pommereul, in his notice of Napoleon's acquisitions, mentioned that the superb Gallerie d'Orleans was temporarily out of the way iu London, and added : " The conqueror of Italy will no doubt fetch it thence and restore it to the museum of the great nation." 2 It bought the first picture exhibited by Meissonier (1834). THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 125 the working- classes. This school still teaches annually oyer a thousand pupils, and to it is largely due the superiority of the French trades in elegance of taste. After a test of its workings for nearly two years, Louis XV., in order to give to it the splendor which royal sanction could alone bestow, issued to it letters patent (October 20, 1767), and it became the Royal Free School of Drawing. Later, through the per- severance of Bachelier aided by the protection of Madame Du Barry, Louis XV. granted it an annual subsidy and a gift of 60,000 francs for the purchase of medals. Also each of the six trade guilds into which the tradesmen of the period were formed established a scholar- ship in it. The suppression of these by the National Assembly destroyed this source of revenue, but upon a petition from the courageous Bachelier a provisional subsidy of 15,600 francs was granted to it, and its existence was tided over to the nineteenth century. The most influential part of David's career, the last twenty-five years, are of the nineteenth century, upon the art of which the great force of his tendencies, entirely severed from the art of the immedi- ate past, and with an influence rapidly accumulating through the last years of the eighteenth century, is centred. CHAPTEE V. BEGINNING OF THE KIKETEEKTH CENTUKY — GENEEAL VIEW AND FIRST PERIOD, CLASSICISM. 'HE nineteenth century opened in France with a contempt for all 1 things of the eighteenth century antecedent to the Revolution. Under the vigorous conduct of affairs by Napoleon as First Consul and Emperor (1799-1814), the progress of national art, like that of the government, became almost his personal history. He extended a liberal patronage to art and, creating conditions favorable to its development, enabled it rapidly to free itself from the characteristics of the eighteenth century. Art treasures from Italy, from the entire European world, in fact, continued for the first six years of this century to flow into Paris. 1 The feasibility of moving Raphael's frescoes of the Vatican "Stanze" was even considered. Denon was now Napoleon's Superintendent of Art Museums. He had been of great assistance in determining the artistic spoil to be demanded of the conquered countries, and in obscure places, before unvisited, he had indeed " an infallible scent for the right thing." He had had various and extended missions to the courts of different sovereigns, and had been the connoisseur and one of the most eminent savants of the Egyptian expedition. He was, probably, better acquainted with the character and value of the distinguished works of Europe than were their owners themselves. Under the consulate the artists who had studios in that long neglected "old palace of the kings," the Louvre, were removed to the Sorbonne, and the decree of the National Convention (1793) that the Louvre should be entirely appropriated to a museum of the arts was now effected, the Convention having at that time only cleared it of all the various hangers-on, except the artists. Eleven hundred and seventy-four of the best of its precious acquisitions, under a chronological arrangement by Denon into schools, now offered 1 In 1800 the Pitti Palace delivered up Rubens's Four Philosophers, Giorgione's Con- cert, Raphael's Madonna della Seggiola, etc. In 1801 was poured in a supply that included Domenichino's Last Communion of St. Jerome. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 127 a permanent exhibition, opened Saturdays and Sundays to the people. Napoleon made the inaugural visit in 1803, when Denon ceremoni- ously presented to him a medal with the First Consul on one side and the Venus de' Medici on the other. No equal privilege of access to pictures had ever been known in France or the world ; none has been known since. The gauge of its influence can be furnished only by the imagination. As soon as the military situation permitted, intelligent foreigners came to Paris to gaze in wonder at the riches of the Louvre. Reconstructions to adapt the Louvre to its new uses were begun in 1805. Continued under the Restoration and Louis Philippe, they were fully completed under Napoleon III., who, after many unsuccessful efforts, finally succeeded in obtaining a satis- factory plan to overcome the architectural difficulties of connecting the Louvre and the Tuileries. The Luxembourg, too, by a decree of the Senate (1802), again became a public gallery. After the withdrawal of the pictures placed there by Louis XV. and the flight of the nobles, it fell (1791) into the hands of the Revolutionists, and under the Directory had served first as a prison and then as the seat of government. Nargeon now assembled in its museum all he could abstract from the collection of the most celebrated amateurs of the old nobles ; he took from Ver- sailles Lesueur's twenty-two pictures of the Life of St. Bruno painted for the cloisters of the Chartreuse, and the twenty landscapes painted upon the wings designed to cover these pictures, two wings and three panels being lost ; he also appropriated the series of the Harbors of France by Joseph Vernet and by Hue. To Rubens's Life of Maria de' Medici, originally painted in the palace, and now brought back from Versailles, he gave the first place, with five pictures of Philippe de Champaigne, whose professional life had been chiefly spent there. Thus the early years of this century saw in two forms, at least, the expression of the idea of supplying galleries, of which germs had appeared in Colbert's taking pictures to the Louvre in 1687, and in Madame de Pompadour's plan for the Luxembourg in 1752. This large number of works of art, native and foreign, were finally divided, chiefly among the Louvre, Luxembourg, the special gallery of French artists at Versailles, and the Museum of the Petits Augus- tins at Paris. Early in the century (1803-4-5) twenty-two provin- cial museums were created by instalments from the mass of pictures at the Louvre, and thus to Napoleon's executive ability was due the establishment of the museums planned by the Convention in 1793. These were at Nancy, Lille, Toulouse, Nantes, Rouen, Lyons, Stras- 128 A E IS TORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. bourg, Dijon, Mayence, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Geneva, Caen, Rennes, Brussels, Montpellier, Tours, Grenoble, Angers, Le Mans, Autun and Amiens. With more pictures ordered in 1811 by the Emperor to six of these cities — Lyons, Brussels, Caen, Dijon, Toulouse and Gre- noble — nine hundred and fifty were so disposed of, and two hundred and fifty scattered among the churches of Paris and its suburbs. And now, when it was no longer necessary to go to Eome to study the great masters, it became possible — for Napoleon's control supplied the requisite funds, which the Convention and Directory had been powerless to more than vote to artistic purposes, and the Prix de Kome again became practicable. From the first of this century a system of annual and consecutive work succeeded to the capricious execution in previous centuries of the enactments for the establish- ment of the Academy at Rome. It received marked impulsion under Napoleon. He supplied its first finances after the Revolution ; he exempted the second Prix de Rome, as well as the first, from con- scription (January 28, 1804). This, for the first general of his age, in whose need and greed for soldiers, men, or rather youths, were fighting at the close of his wars who were not born at the beginning of them, was a great concession to art. It was also a great privilege to artists, as otherwise, those winning the second Prix de Rome might fall entirely out of route for the first. With the opening of the century Suvee was allowed by the improved condition of affairs to take (1801) the place as rector, to which he had been appointed (1796), but had been prevented from assuming by political causes ; one, his own im- prisonment. The term of six years' rectorship has been continued for the nineteenth century. Suvee secured, in 1804, an increased pension for the pupils — a definite 2,400 francs per annum for five years, in- cluding expenses of travel. He also effected the exchange by France with Florence of the Palace de Nevers, or Mancini for the Villa de' Medici, a place full of artistic associations, but, what was more important, in sanitary condition far superior to the Palace de Nevers, which had been the location of the school at Rome from 1795. Pre- viously it had been located in the Palace Caprianica, obtained for it by Coypel pere, its second rector. Napoleon's strong personality, besides promoting art, deflected the practice of artists, even that of David, from the dominating art — classicism — and created an art personal to himself, whose subjects consisted of his battles, his imperial acts, himself, and his family. This Napoleonic art (" pictures of buttons and cocked hats" David contemptuously called it at first) with classicism and genre, just THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 129 before raised to eminence by Chardin and Greuze, constituted the art of the early nineteenth century. The first two, in the estimate of the time, cast the last into such obscurity that the names of its artists, though of large numbers, and their works in many of the large galleries of France, are seldom met, except in comprehensive dictionaries of painters. The honors and positions of emolument in the gift of government were bestowed chiefly upon the first two classes. It was not until 1816, and then temporarily, by Napoleon, during the Hundred Days, that it was ordered that two painters of genre should be appointed to the Institute in every twelve members. Genre then, too, was used in a more extended sense than now, as including all subjects but the classic and historical ; " the genres," and, as it were, the gentiles of art. This decree, of a few days' au- thority only, was the first stirring of the official waters in influence for genre or romanticism, towards which all Napoleon's own feelings unconsciously tended. 1 David's classicism prevailed in the very presence of the distinguished works at the Louvre. The English visitors in 1814 found artists copying, instead of any others, David's pictures. But during the little more than three-fourths of a century since, French art has compassed the extended gamut from the generali- zations of that style to the most detailed individualities of a genre aboundingly practised in every form : genre of humble life, society genre, rustic genre, historical genre, oriental genre, genre of the imagination, and even classic genre. Though in these departments it has produced works fully equal to the best of the Dutch masters of two centuries earlier, this century's art seems to have taken its rise where Dutch eminence ended — in the principles of imitation of classic works enthusiastically urged by Raphael Mengs (1728-'79). French art of the nineteenth century forms itself then into three Periods : first, the Period of Classicism continuing from David's Oath of the Horatii (1785) to the Massacre of Scio by Eugene Delacroix (1824); second, that of Eomanticism, from 1824 until the free Salon of 1848, when the third period, the school of the Second Empire and the Third Eepublic, may be considered to begin and it may be designated as the Period of Individuality. This classifica- tion cannot of course be rigidly maintained, for besides the versatility i As illustrative of the feeling of this period towards the eighteenth century's art and the classicism of this, A. Lenoir said : " The decadence of the art of the last cen- tury is due to the organizations established by Colbert, but, fortunately, a genius has fallen from heaven (David) into the midst of us to tear away the veil that has hereto- fore hidden the forms of the antique."— Histoire de l'Art par les Monumens, 1811. 9 * 130 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. of French artists, leading their individuality to overleap the barrriers of schools within which their predilection would seem first to place them, these three main orders of French art, Classicism, Romanticism, and its offspring Realism in its many forms, modify each other, and form classes that can be more correctly described in view of their com- pound elements as the classic-romantic and the naturalistic-classic. These periods coincide so nearly with the changes of government that the official administration of the Institute ; Salons ; recom- penses ; and of the two established schools of instruction, the Ecole des Beaux -Arts and the French Academy at Rome, is easily divided into corresponding periods. The rule of Napoleon I. and of the Restoration covers the period of Classicism ; the reign of Louis Philippe furnishes the official control throughout Romanticism ; and the government of Napoleon III. and that of the present Republic, furnish the official influence of the Third Period. Period L, Classicism. The art of France is no less closely allied to the government in the nineteeenth century than it was in the eighteenth and seventeenth. The Institute with its Salons, has been in the nineteenth century as its predecessor, the Academy, was earlier, the recognized authority in art ; the seal of its approval has been sought by artists of all nations, and the annual Salons early became almost international exhibitions. The responsibility which the government assumed in art during the Revolution, and the first Republic, becomes, as we shall see, an indefi- nite relation, slipping back and forth from greater to less degrees of authority. The regulations of the Salons have varied with the chang- ing governments. The old Academy was a hierarchy with a base which sustained it and was sustained by it. The new Institute is that hier- archy without its base. It is not, as was the old Academy, in contact with the whole body of artists so as to have them constantly en route towards, and certain of, a share in its honors, and having always a place for all talent worthy of admission. The Academy was limited only in the higher ranks, and for attainment of these there was always hope; the Fine Arts Academy of the Institute is an honorary body, strictly limited, official, and offering little hope of membership, va- cancies occurring only by death. The Institute entered upon this century with a power of member- ship of only six painters out of its number of one hundred and forty-four. It was reorganized in 1803 by Napoleon, who changed EUSTACHE LESUEUR LES TROIS MUSES THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 131 its title from the National to the Imperial Institute of France, increased its membership and, with the definiteness of military training, assigned its functions ; among these was the exclusive right of admitting and recompensing works of the Salons, now become exhibitions unlimited to membership of the Institute. This power was thus lodged in a small body, of which the constitu- ency changed only by individuals and at long intervals : thus fixed in official position, it became a little later a tyranny to all growth of originality in art. During the First Empire, though Napoleon's action and energy tended inevitably to Romanticism, David's leadership and authority were so fully acknowledged, classical art was so universally accepted, that no rebellious spirit arose. The oppression of the In- stitute was felt only when the freedom to differ from it was asserted. Napoleon established a new power of recompense, his new order of knighthood, which in the field bared of all pre-existing orders, he es- tablished in 1802, the Legion of Honor. 1 He immediately (1803) gave to it the prestige of a local establishment by appropriating the palace built for the Prince de Salm (1786), a victim of the revolution, and just left vacant by Madame de Stael, for the Palace of the Legion of Honor, in which its Chancellerie and Bureau, still are installed. The power of conferring its grades was reserved to himself and has always remained a prerogative of the executive. He also in 1803 promulgated a decree for decennial prizes, which, as modified in 1809, granted nineteen prizes of 100,000 francs each and sixteen of 5,000, a medal struck for the occasion accompanying each ; the works competing were to be examined by the perpetual secretaries and the presidents of the four classes of the Institute, but the prizes were to be decreed by the Emperor. Ten of these were for the class of painting. Disapproving of the freedom of the election since 1795 to membership of the Institute, Napoleon decreed that the elections should be subject to the approval of the First Consul. The Beaux-Arts section of the Institute he made to consist of five classes : painting having ten members, sculpture six, architec- ture six, engraving three, and composition in music, three. Thus 1 With Napoleonic wisdom, avoiding all terms that should recall the order of the period of royalty, he took those used in the army. Its five grades were Chevalier, unlimited in numbers ; Officer, limited to 2,000 ; Commander, to 400 ; Grand Officer, 160 ; and Grand Cross, 80. Even thus it met with great opposition, as it was urged that, like the old orders of St. Michel, St. Louis &c, suppressed in the Revolution, it would tend to an aristocracy, but before Napoleon's fall (1814) there had been 48,000 nominations to it, 1,400 of them civilians. 132 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the section of painting acquired four 1 additional members of the first rank. 2 In order that continuity of record might be effected, each section, under the approval of the First Consul, was to electa perpetual secretar} T , who would be a member of the Institute ; 3 twenty-six cor- respondents were to be chosen from the French provinces or from foreign nations. These had a voice in questions of art or science, but not in the administration of the Institute. Regulations giving pomp at the funerals of the members were added by Napoleon, and also by his order each member had a grand and petit costume : the grand consisted of a coat, waistcoat, and trousers of black, embroidered in full with a branch of olive in dark green, and a silk hat a la francaise : the petit was the same, with embroidery only on the collar and cuffs. Every member, even the foreign correspond- ents, was to receive a medal on which his name was engraved. Salons were held annually for the first two years of the century, and after that during the administration of Napoleon, biennially, the first one under the Eestoration being in 1814. For awarding the Grand Prix de Rome it was decreed (1803) that the Institute should select the subject and direct and judge the competitions : sketches of the subject were to be made in one day, and according to the ability shown in these a selection was made of artists for a second competi- tion, in which an academic figure was to be painted, also in one day. From the two competitions were chosen eight or more competi- tors for the definite contest. To these, assembled at six o'clock in the morning, a subject was to be given, of which a sketch was to be completed in that day. The competitors were then to go for sixty days into loge, or absolute seclusion, to finish the pictures. These regulations remained till 1863 substantially unchanged. The manner of presenting the Prix de Rome was by calling the names of the win- ners three times in a loud voice before the assembled Institute and its invited guests. The successful painters were then sought in the 1 These four chairs were filled, two by Visconti and Denon, Napoleon's Director of the Fine Arts, and two for the time by Monvel and Grandmenil, that they, by the reduced number in the department of music, might not lose their membership of the Institute. 2 For its support Napoleon decreed that " the Institute shall receive annually from the public treasury fifteen hundred francs for each of its members, six thousand francs for each of its permanent secretaries, and for expenses, a sum which shall be determined annually, in the budget of the Ministry of the Interior." (Art. XL. of Decrees.) 3 The learned Quatremere de Quincey was made perpetual secretary in 1816 and served twenty-three years, during which time he confirmed in France the narrow prin- ciple advanced by Winekelmanu of having a type for all things. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 133 audience, led to a conspicuous place facing the treasurer, who placed on their heads a crown of laurel and congratulated them on their suc- cess. For the second Prix de Kome a medal was awarded. Under the Restoration the title of the Imperial Institute of France was changed to the Institute of France, and an ordinance (Mar. 21, 1816) decreed that to preserve connection with the distinguished his- tory of the past, the title Academy should be appropriated to the vari- ous sections. 1 Two new members were assigned to each of the classes of the Academy of the Beaux-Arts and forty correspondents allowed in place of twenty-six. A class of ten Honorary ("Libres ") 2 Academi- cians was also formed of men distinguished for rank, taste, theoretic knowledge, or practice in the fine arts. The duties of the Fine Arts Academy of the Institute now became : to direct the comj)etition for prizes awarded in that section, to consider the report made by the Director of the Academy at Rome, and to reply to it (this reply is also sent to the Minister of the Interior), to present the candidate for that position every six years or upon the death of the incumbent, to act with others as jury of admission and of recompense in the Salons, and to manage the foundations, that is, the funds appropriated to the benefit of artists either as prizes or donations. 3 A modification of Fine Arts Section of the Institute arose in 1815. Immediately after the restoration of the Bourbons, a request that the number in the section of Painting should be increased had been made (July 6, 1814). It was the second demand for this, the first having been made to Napoleon's minister. To both no reply had been received. But during the " hundred days" of Napoleon's regained power, he increased the number of painters from ten to twelve. This really allowed five new members, for Denon, Visconti, and Grand- menil now left the chairs they still occupied in the section of Painting, Denon and Visconti being passed to the section of the History and Theory of the Arts, and Grandmenil to that of Music, as was now allowed by the number for that also being now in- 1 The Institute was composed of four Academies. The Academy of the Fine Arts of The Institute of France then became, as it now is, the accurate full title of that section. 2 Among the ten " Libres " chosen there were six Comtes ; one Vicomte ; one Duke, Castellan ; and Gois, pere. The Baron Alphonse de Rothschild was recently elected a " Libre " (Dec. 1885). 3 It is now (1887) busy in the discussion of a General Dictionary of the Fine Arts, which, with its memoirs and transactions, furnishes a high historical authority. The chairs have been filled as represented in the accompanying table, each incumbent except David continuing until death. 134 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. creased. The section of Painting was then completed with painters. The five added were Girodet-Troison (May 20, 1815) ; Gros and Guerin (May 27), Meynier and Carl Vernet (June 3). It was also decreed that the twelve painters should be ten of history and at least two of genre. But Waterloo changed all ; Louis XVIII. being restored, announced (Aug. 2) that economy required that the Insti- tute should resume its former conditions. Eight months later, however (March 21, 1816), he issued an ordinance assigning to the entire Academy of the Fine Arts the old, charmed number of the Academie Francaise, forty, making the number of painters fourteen which, with the chair of Grand menil again vacated and the expul- sion of David, then condemned to exile, gave places for six new mem- bers without changing Denon and Visconti. Those named in 1815 were again chosen and Le Barbier added. 1 Louis XVIII. modified the jury by adding to those of the Insti- tute elected to act some government officials and some amateurs, but secured the majority to the Institute. This modified authority of the Institute continued under Charles X. Six Salons occurred during the Restoration, five under Louis XVIII. : 1814, '17, 19, '22, and '24; one under Charles X.: 1827. With the return of the monarchy, the decoration 2 of the old order of St. Michel, established in 1469 by Louis XI. and abolished by the Revolution in 1791, began again to be conferred, Louis XVIII. claim- ing its continued existence 3 on the ground that the power that abol- ished it was usurped. Regulations, more or less recognized under Napoleon, approved by Louis XVIII., August 4, 1819, and continuing unchanged until 1863, constituted the Management of Instruction in the Ecole des 1 Eight each to Sculpture and Architecture, four to Engraving, and six to Music, which still continue. Authorities differ in the chair assigned to Le Barbier : The table in this volume follows Bellier de la Chavignerie who gives him David's chair, No. 1, as the election of Guerin, who is placed there by other authorities, is by those same authorities made to date from May 27, 1815, when David's chair was not vacant. The reader can please himself by changing the names in chair No. 1 after 1816 for those in chair No. 10, which is the difference mooted. 2 It is an evidence of the Bourbon concession to the Bonapartism of the community that the Legion of Honor, established by the " Corsican Usurper," was not then abol- ished by Louis XVIII., but was even confirmed (1814) and conferred by both Louis XVIII. and Charles X. It was, however, degraded below the other orders now re- newed, and shorn of all emoluments. Louis Napoleon, in 1852, restored it to prece- dence, renewed its emoluments, which, however, pertained only to the army, and made the numbers: eighty grand crosses, two hundred grand officers, one thousand command- ers, four thousand officers, and chevaliers still unlimited. 3 It was abrogated again after the Revolution of 1848. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 135 Beaux-Arts a self-regulating power, subject only to the approval of the Minister of Public Instruction. But by giving to the Academy of Fine Arts the control of the competitions for the Prix de Eome and the management of the French Academy at Rome, that section of the Institute had, as shown by Count Nieuwerkerke in opposing it in 1863, the entire direction of the tendencies and character of French art. These regulations in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts were such that to Painting and Sculpture, forming one division, seven painters and five sculptors were assigned for daily lessons in the study of the human body, from the antique, and from the living model. Three other professors were charged with special courses of anatomy, per- spective, history, and antiquity. For filling a vacancy in a professorship a candidate was named by ballot at a general meeting, subject to confirmation by the Minister of Public Instruction. The perpetual secretary was named in the same manner. The daily professors could not be appointed when younger than thirty or older than sixty. At seventy they received the title of professor-rector, and their duties were lessened ; they might at sixty, upon proposition from the school, be made rector, and, in case of infirmities, at seventy a rector could— and at eighty, even if not infirm, he must— discontinue his habitual work and become rector emeritus. But there could be but four rectors at a time. The annual payment of the professors was to be 2,400, and of the perpetual secretary 3,000 francs. A president administrator and a vice-president administrator, chosen for one year from and by the professors, presided at the meetings. The administration of the school was confided to a Council composed of the president, vice-president, the president just going out of office, and the perpetual secretary. For admission to the school a competition of those under thirty years of age in drawing or modelling a figure after nature, to be executed in six sittings of two hours each in the halls of the school, took place every six months, March and September. In painting, the authors of one hundred and twenty of the best of these designs became the chosen pupils. Of pupils already admitted, only those who had taken a medal of emulation could absent themselves from these semestral competitions. Every year a competition for the Prix de Rome was to take place. The Academy of Fine Arts of the Institute was to take charge of these competitions, assign the sub- jects, fix the regulations, judge the results, and give a report of it to the Minister of Instruction. The Academy also was to consider the report sent by the Director of the French Academy at Rome to the 136 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Minister of Instruction, and by the " envois " sent each year by the pensioners, judge what progress was made and what changes were desirable. The Academy also was to nominate three candidates for the directorship of the School at Rome, from whom the Minister was to choose. The " envois" for the first three years were to be " etudes," the fourth year a copy after some old master, and the fifth year a subject of several figures of the size of life. Louis XVIII. supplied a building to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1816, on the theory that those " monumens " should be returned to the places from which they had been taken, he abolished the Museum of French Monuments useful to the Fine Arts and History, established in the Convent of the Petits Augustins. As their restoration was impossible in many instances, many of them were granted to the muse- ums of the Louvre and Versailles, and to the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, or placed in the store-rooms of the Church of St. Denis. Of the building thus vacated he commenced a reconstruction (1822, finished under Louis Philippe, 1833), to be appropriated to the use of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. Nothing of the old convent was left but the conventual chapel and the smaller chapel of Margaret of Valois. Around these, other structures arose, which, with further additions (1851-6), now form the Palace des Beaux- Arts. Under this sovereign was added the sixth Prix de Rome, that of classical landscape (1817). 1 In collections Louis XVIII. 's government for eleven months pre- sented Paris as the art Mecca of civilized nations ; indeed, no Maho- metan conception of rewards of the faithful ever equalled the surpass- ing glories of the Louvre. When made accessible in 1814 to other nations, by the peace following Waterloo, the learned and cultured from all over Europe availed themselves of this beatific moment of art exhibition. 2 But after the hundred days of Napoleon's regained power, Louis XVIII. 's French nature was wrung in its very fibre by the decision of his allies that the treasures of the Louvre must be returned to their original owners. 3 Both the artistic and military 1 Napoleon had added (1804-5) to the three previously existing for painting, archi- tecture, and sculpture, those for engraving and music. 2 Passavant; Waagen, a soldier in the Prussian army at the time ; and Sir Charles Eastlake, since of reputation as critics and connoisseurs, profited by it ; Hay don's French Journal derives interest from its descriptions of this Louvre ; and Sir Walter Scott availed himself of the rare and limited opportunity; Wilkie's travels also led him thither. 3 Wellington urged (Letter, September 23, 1815): "Because they are the trophies of military concessions . . . their removal is desirable, that Frenchmen may be made to feel that Europe is too strong for them." It may be noted that England had no art interest in their restoration. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 137 spirit of the Frenchman were aroused to oppose this wresting from him of his masterpieces of art, his trophies of war. Denon, who since 1806 had discreetly obscured in the catalogues the origin of the various acquisitions, now closed the gates of the Museum, and only opened them, on repeated threats of being sent to a Prussian fortress, to the soldiers of Wellington's command who had been delegated to remove and pack the treasures taken from the King of Holland. He even then disputed their way step by step. The traditional love of sculpture of the French race, now in full exercise under the influence of the Davidian school of painting, gave rise to scenes described by Sir Walter Scott as an eye-witness, in which " the people knelt to the Venus de' Medici and the Apollo Belvidere, talked to them and wept as they were dethroned." 1 "But even in misery French vivacity still retained its wit, as in view of the broken frames strewing the floor, it prompted the exclamation : 'we would not have left to them even the frames.' " 2 With little pity for the orig- inal despoilers' grief, most of great value were removed. Veronese's Marriage of Cana was left, as being too dilapidated for another removal, and Austria, " the careless step- mother of Venice," accepted in return for it a Lebrun. Bliicher early appropriated a Rembrandt, now in Berlin, and portraits of Napoleon by Gerard, David, and Lefebvre, and one of Hortense holding by the hand Napoleon III., as a child, seven in all of the family from the walls of St. Cloud. These were surely no part of Napoleon's spoils. A suit within thirty years between Bliicher's direct and collateral heirs for possession of all but two of these, resulting in their sale at auction, proves that he made them his private property. Only three hundred and forty-seven pictures, of which all but two hundred and three, chiefly by conspicuous artists, were of French execution, remained of the grand Musee Napoleon. 3 The desolate walls of the Louvre now called back their old-time friends that they had repudiated in the distinguished presence of these guests of the nation. Closer gleaning from the royal palaces supplied others ; ancient churches, others. The Maria de' Medici series of twenty-four, origin- ally in the Luxembourg, was transferred thither. Most of the Luxem- bourg Gallery as formed under Nargeon from works of deceased 1 This, however, was but an inverted image of the fetes with which many were received back into the cities which had been despoiled of them, and were welcomed by a generation that now saw them for the first time. 2 Paris Revisited in 1815. John Scott. London, 1816. 3 Fortunately for France, the instalments sent to the Department Museums were almost entirely overlooked in this restoration. 138 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. French artists, was brought to the Louvre (April, 1818), and from 1821 onward the Luxembourg became the Gallery of Living French Artists. By a custom seldom disregarded, and becoming a decree in 1863, the works of an artist when he has been deceased ten years are removed from it to the Louvre. Thus constituted, a collection of no fewer than one thousand one hundred and thirteen pictures formed the Louvre, as left to Louis XVIII. To these he wearily, in view of its losses, added one hundred and eleven works, at a cost of 668,265 francs, twelve of them of the contemporary classical school, such as David's Leonidas and Les Sabines, for 100,000 francs. He had in the beginning of his reign distributed three hundred pictures and one hundred and twenty objects of classic art among the churches of Paris and its suburbs. Charles X. acquired for the Louvre twenty-four pictures, twelve of them at a cost of 62,970 francs, one of them, The Medusa. Classicism, of which the fundamental principle is ideality of form, rigidly practised involves much else ; it disdains to notice expression of shades of feeling ; it ignores many of the phenomena of light, such as reflected colors ; and, when it sanctions any departure from the nude, does not admit clothing in which textures are distinguished, as silk or woollen or other material, but drapery simply. Comprehensively, classicism rejects the incidental, the transient ; it accepts only gener- alizations. In the early nineteenth century it held in an iron grasp all art efforts, and what of differing tendencies it did not stifle was chiefly lost sight of in its vast preponderance of influence. It was able then to maintain the claim of being art itself, instead of one form of art. As practised by David and his immediate school, modern classicism was the attempt to introduce into art the practice and ideas of the ancients. " To do as the ancients did," was an expres- sion often used by David. But he imitated them in their weakness as well as in their perfection, and, applying no critical standard to their works, was often as much hurt as helped by their example, even as regards purely classic qualities. In classic art the selection of a classical subject, though generally practised, was not necessary. Any subject, except familiar scenes of every-day life, if it was presented in classical outlines, by classical feat- ures, in classical attitudes, and if it was of a certain prescribed composi- tion was held as canonical. It will be seen that outline, drawing and composition, must be the chief characteristics of the school. David was accustomed to say that once a good outline obtained, his pupils THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 139 might put within it whatever they chose. Color, indeed, was not a necessary or a usual excellence, was often of neutral tint and little more than light and shade. Classical painting must almost exclusively be figure painting. There could be no classic form of landscape itself ; landscape must belong to realism in the broader sense of that word. 1 David painted but one landscape f Ingres, none but backgrounds: there seems, indeed, to have been a conventional background established for classicists. 3 Hence the human form becomes the chief point of the modern classical school as it had been that of the antique and, emotion being ignored, moral beauty has no part in its pictures, nor that ele- vated spiritual feeling which by ennobling them often gives to the ugli- est features the greatest beauty : it is the body without action, the human frame, simply clothed with flesh contours, in majestic lines. Ideality of form, however, impresses us at every point, and certainly is not without charm. Classicism, then, was wholly conventional. Its power was that of culture — undoubtedly a great power when appreciated ; but, never appealing to the masses, it held the few with the strength of exclusiveness, the sense of a higher taste. Not based on nature, altogether an art of academic rules, it must exclude all individuality, all development, all novelty ; for, if the " beau absolu " be once found, it must not be departed from or modified by any individual concep- tion. It was an art of an aim so definite and limited that perfection was less unattainable in it than elsewhere; it was, also, easily com- municable by teaching and could be excelled in without genius. David, though a man of commanding influence, lacked that, and of Ingres all agree, that his "nature droite," was inflexible and narrow of intellect. Yet he commanded an admiration throughout Europe, as did David. Under the complacent feeling of superiority derived from the classic culture, characteristic of classicists in literature as 1 Its chief classical features in Poussin's works were the temples aud classic figures. Taine in his Origines de la France Contemporaine alludes to this (Book III., Chap. II.) in saying that special words, such as " tomahawk," were forbidden in polite society ; "hache de guerre " must be used instead, and he illustrates from The Optimist of Co- lin d'Harville (1788) by a description of a scene as filled with odoriferous trees instead of lilacs and others specifically named ; so in painting, trees must be of no known species. 2 This was the same that Watteau painted, the trees of the garden seen through the windows of the Luxembourg when nature had an enhanced value to David in his im- prisonment. 3 The advocates of classicism claimed that a better imitation of nature iu leaf and cloud and rock in Ingres' La Source, would render the picture less artistic, and Fro- ment suppressed all imitation of nature for backgrounds, and detached the figures by flat tints, as in antique vases. (Hamertou in Contemporary Painting in France). 140 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. well as in painting, classicists when appealed to for judgment on other forms of art could not admit even their existence. " A classicist," says Hamerton, " became incapable of abroad and true criticism." Un- reasoning, unseeing classicism became a blind worship and in its limita- tions made the history of art in France during its authority that of a cruel tyranny. Its claim that there was no art outside of its rules could not be true, for, a priori, that would exclude from art the domains of passion and nature, which have constantly in the history of art found expression, and finally breaking forth from its iron rule, have established schools of great popularity — passion giving rise to romanticism and the dramatic school, and nature to realism and land- scape. That classicism was a tyrannical system ; that it ignored all the wealth of emotion of the Christian era, all those teachings derived from the new spiritual importance that Christ had conferred upon humanity ; that it was the adoption of the forms of expression of one civilization for an expression of the needs, aspirations, and ideas of another, different and loftier; that it did not even seek the highest models of the antique ; all these open challenges to condemnation formed no barrier against its sway. It was the controlling influence in the art of Europe for fifty years. The classic infatuation of the last years of the eighteenth century and the early part of this seemed far to exceed the usual effects of so small a cause — namely, the advocacy of a few learned men inspired by the excavations at Pompeii. But in France an additional source of inspiration for the antique 1 and the one most worthy of consideration, was patriotism. In the ideals of the ancient republics, in Brutus, the Horatii, Mutius Scaavola, the excited and intense feeling of the times could find its truest analogies, its most stirring models. Classicism in art was, however, but a first and temporary fruit of the feeling that caused the Revolution, for that was inevitably developing romanticism already gathering in an undercurrent early apparent in literature, and of which Napoleon's nature constituted him almost the incarnation. 2 The services of clas- sicism are apparent ; it imposed study and culture with a definite pur- pose ; by its contempt for the opinions of the uneducated it brought art only under the judgment of the cultivated and placed it on a plane of high independence, but, what is of far more moment, it sup- 1 This infatuation is illustrated by Maurice Quai, who adopted, not in buffoonery but in sincerity, the blue mantle, white tunic, and sandals of the Greeks, while a companion, Perrie, both pupils in David's studio, copied from the statue of Paris in the Louvre the Phrygian dress. They were known to each other and their friends, as Paris and Agamemnon. 2 So in the Genie du Christianisme (1802) and Atala (1801) of Chateaubriand. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 141 pressed the immoral art that preceded it, " cured the age of Boucher and Van Loo/' and instituted a severity and accuracy of design; it gave examples of reticence of sentiment and sobriety of method ; its generalizations excluded the personal qualities that form mannerisms. The great high priest of classicism was David. Of the six that con- stituted the painters of the Institute at the beginning of the nineteenth century, David is the most famous — as he is indeed of the many positive, intense characters that, developed during the eighteenth century, were at its close precipitated upon the nineteenth and greatly influenced its first three decades. He exercised a power throughout Europe ; its art was dominated by his practice. He was conspicuous in politics as well as in art, and was thoroughly imbued with the Louis David (1748-1825), Paris, spirit of the Revolution. In 1800 he had Prix de Rome, 1775. reached the middle point of a career comprised Mem. fnTt, 1795 3 between his taking the Prix de Rome and his Paint, to Louis xvi. death, and was practising the third of the Pamt. to Nap. i., 1804. ^ ui> g ^| eg a( j 0 ptecl by him at different peri- ods, viz., the representation of contemporary events. In adapting himself to the demand of public sentiment for a chaster style, he had achieved what was recognized as the great reformation in art and during the First Empire he led, "tambours battant," all art and artists. But he had had a chequered career in attaining this position. Four time she failed to win the prize of Rome. The first was 1771. Upon the fourth (1774), being penniless he locked himself up to starve. The poet, Sedaine, whose apartment adjoined his own in the Louvre and who had cherished him as a son, missed him, sought him, and saved him. Once before, David had found himself without bread, but his despondency was observed by the celebrated Madame Guimard, whose retreat, known as the Temple of Terpsichore, he was decorating after her disagreements with Fragonard had dis- placed that artist, and she generously added "a handful of money" to his price, which she said was " so little." David had been taught by Vien, whom David's grand-uncle, Bou- cher, "the greatest sinner of them all" in the art which David over- threw, had disinterestedly recommended to the lad as a better master than himself, feeling that he had himself been led away by fashion from true art. When David finally won the Prix de Rome, he and Vien, who had just been appointed Rector of the Academy, then journeyed together to that city and he was again under the instruction of his old master. Meeting the enthusiam which then prevailed there for the antique, it is said that David wept, as, charmed with its beauty, 142 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. he also felt that he must recommence his art. 1 He did so, abandon- ing forever what had formed his first style. In this he had shown a tendency to nature, even realistic nature, and had for his first work in Borne been drawn to copy a work of the realistic Valentin. As he subsequently wrote : " Kaphael was too delicate a nourishment for my first rations ; I took grosser food from Valentin." After five years of faithful study he returned to Paris with his St. Roch Interceding for Victims of the Plague (1779), 3 in which are perceived the first de- cided traits of his classicism, the second of his styles. He also brought Belisarius Asking Alms (1789), 3 by which he became " agree " of the Academy. He now advocated with great force and determination classicism as a reform. All the tendencies 4 of his nature predisposed him to its practice and, in its teachings of patriotism, these tenden- cies found confirmation. He soon came to "see all things through an Olympian apotheosis." As the nation from its civilization, so he from his art rejected Christianity. That he did not lack sensitiveness to the emotions of others, like the refined pagan of the best period of the Eoman Empire, is evident in some of his pictures of contemporaneous subjects, as his classicism also had a struggle with tendencies towards nature. But his study of nature came to be only with the aim of remaking it, of forming it into a type, the woman type, the man type, and even the landscape type. With these predilections united to an iron will, an intense personality, and an admirable accomplishment, he entered upon the great drama of French history, the Revolution; became first painter to the Court of the unfortunate Louis XVI. ; a member of, indeed for a time, the president of the Convention that de- creed that monarch's death ; was the popular artist of the Revolution, of the Republic, and of the Empire ; the bosom friend of Dan ton and Robespierre ; the worshipper of Napoleon ; the first member in the section of Painting of the Institute of France and the first painter to receive the decoration of the Legion of Honor ; the husband of an heiress, Mademoiselle Pecoul, the daughter of the Inspector of Build- ings under Louis XV. ; a power in art sufficient to win from the Re- publican Convention a suppression of the time-honored Royal Acad- emy and, by his conference with Talma, to change entirely the 1 Canova's reform in sculpture was among these influences ; Wincklemann and Less- ing by their writings were urging antiques as models, and the excavations of Pompeii (1755) had won attention to classic art. 2 In the Marseilles Hospital. 3 Original in the Lille Museum, a replica in the Louvre. 4 He replied to Madame Nouilles' expostulations upon a Christ he had painted for her after repeated protests based upon consciousness of his inability to conceive the charac- ter, " I told you so, . . . Raphael found inspirations in Christianity. I do not." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 143 method of clothing classic action upon the stage and, in his more intimate relations to hold such a rod over his pupil Gros as to set him, even after having the dignity of a baron and membership of the Institute conferred upon him, and with a heart quiveringly alive to romanticism, to conning Plutarch for a classical subject ; finally, the exile of the Restoration, he was forbidden sepulture in his native land. In the shifting authority of the time he was also twice imprisoned ; once, after the fall of Robespierre, for three months, when he escaped the guillotine only through the exertions of his pupils, and again five months after, in the Luxembourg for three months. He was this time freed by the amnesty of Aug. 21, 1795. 1 While in power he had saved Denon from exile, although opposed to him politically, and aided him to employment in engraving the Republican costumes then under consideration. In 1783 he had presented to the Academy Andromache Weeping over the Dead Body of Hector, and was made an academician in full. But it was the Oath of the Horatii (1784) commissioned by Louis XVI. , but for no specified place, and which he had returned to Rome to paint that, exhibited in Paris in 1785 and now in the Louvre, estab- lished his atelier as the centre of the new influence and constituted him the founder of the classic movement in art. By this picture the patriotic zeal of the Republican heart was greatly stirred. Foresee- ing too late its political influence, objection was made by the Inten- dant of the Maison du Roi to receiving this picture, "because it measured thirteen feet instead of ten." "Take the knife to.it," grimly replied David. The learned Seroux d'Agincourt put his eru- dition in opposition to it, and pronounced the background an anach- ronism. But David had been too faithful a student of Plutarch and Livy to be at fault in history. In the next four years he consolidated this classical influence by the production (1787) of the Death of Socrates (now owned by M. de Trudaine) ; (1788) the Amours of Paris and Helen (Louvre) ; and (1798) Brutus Returning from Condemning his Son (Louvre). The exhibition of this was forbidden, but public clamor de- manded it, and its success was prodigious. Crowds constantly flocked around it and turned away inspired to both classicism and hatred of kings. In these paintings he has shown great power of design which 1 David, in the position of " oracle " in arrangement of public spectacles, was the originator of that scene enacted by Robespierre's command in 1794, called the Fete of the Supreme Being, a festival of stupendous plan, in which marched, after the manner of the Panathenaic festival at Athens, choirs of children and maidens as well as the members of the Convention — soon to be acting in very different scenes, if not to cease to act forever. 144 A HIS TOE Y OF FRENCH PAINTING. is an incontestable merit in all his works, and is considered inimit- ably charming by the classicists. But the coloring is garish, the light badly managed, the attitude theatrical, the study of the body con- spicuous, the characters do not relate their sentiments, and their heroism consists in attitude only. Socrates, however, of whom David — an intense hero worshipper — made almost a god, acts well his part. His right hand approaches the cup as he still speaks and points up with the other. 1 As the violent history of his own time progressed and its events touched David more deeply, he was drawn from his cold study of the antique to paint con amove what he saw and the life of which he was a part ; thus his third style was produced. In this we find two of the six chefs d'muvre of all his works, the Lepelletier and the Death of Marat. 2 The assassination of Michel Lepelletier de Saint Fargeau, a member with David of the Convention, occurred January 20, 1793. David's painting of it was presented to the Assembly within a month. This for a long time was supposed to exist only in a pen and ink copy of the head, owned by Prince Napoleon, and the painting to have been destroyed through hatred. But in 1885 the original was discovered in good preservation, walled up in the chateau of M. de Boisgelin, who had married Lepelletier's daughter and, as a royalist, had desired to leave no evidence of his relative's revolutionary com- plication : with that view, he had purchased this picture from the artist himself. David, however, exacted the promise that it should not be destroyed. Time has shown how the promise was kept and the purchaser's own purpose served. The head is of great force and beauty ; artificial and studied effect is lost in truth of sentiment. Soon after, Marat fell a victim (1793) to Charlotte Corday's zeal. This event again warmed David from his cold, severe style, and he produced a wonderfully discriminating effect of color in the contrast of the two whites ; the dead flesh, and the white drapery that en- wraps it. The body which partly projects over the bath tub, in which the spirited woman found him when she forced herself into his presence, is marvellously modelled. 3 A contemporary event preceding these indeed had diverted him from his antiques, and his popularity had assigned to him the task of per- 1 David had represented him as grasping the cup while yet speaking, but the criti- cism of Andre Chenier, that Socrates would not have taken the cup till he had finished expressing his thought, led the artist to make the change. 2 The other four are : Napoleon Crossing the Alps ; Pope Pius VII., one of his por- traits ; The Crowning of Napoleon and Josephine ; and The Sabines. 8 Now owned by David's grandson. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 145 petuating it — that pivotal incident in French history, the Oath in the Tennis Court at Versailles —the sacred pledge of the deputies who formed the National Assembly not to separate until France should have a constitution, having been given there (1790). David planned a large canvas and painted those unclassic, modern physiognomies, white with emotion, and "with arms upstretched like the boughs of a forest in a storm." He drew the figures as statues and over them painted the draperies. 1 The picture remains unfinished. But while in prison he had resolved never again to paint contem- poraneous events. The clearer perception of one of his pupils, Maurice Quai, also, had demanded, " If we seek the true beauty of the antique, why seek it through its poor interpreters, the Eomans ? Why not approach its source, the Greeks ? 2 David then painted for his next work (1799) the Seizure of the Sabine Women (Louvre) of which "he himself said, "In the Horatii, I have perhaps made my knowledge of anatomy too conspicuous. In the Sabines I will treat this with more skill and taste. This shall be more like the Greek." 3 Thus his fourth style is his second " made to approximate more nearly to that of the Greeks." "'Being more like the Greek" was the further development of the body, but of body over soul. It was a treatment necessarily of the nude, a condition now offered as part of a system of the high art which had arisen to reform the nude of Boucher and Van Loo. The picture was tested by exhibition in David's studio, gazed upon in silent astonishment, approved. It sold for 60,000 francs, and ranks among his masterpieces. But there was always an unquestioned purity in the nude of the classic artists, dignity and high purpose being prominent. There were some improvements in this picture upon David's second style. The coloring is better and clearer. Some of the attitudes express appropriate emotion naturally, as those of the women, despair. But in following the supposed Greek idea 4 of softening everything into beauty, the men have lost the strength of manhood. Eomulus bears the features of a woman ; Titus has a feminine motion. Action, too, has become suspended, 1 He always urged his pupils to model their figures in clay as a means of obtain- ing perfect form. 2 He formed the Societe des Primitifs or Phidians, even in the studio of David, who, however, at that time treated them with disdain. 3 The Sabines required four years for its completion, so important did David con- sider the principle involved in its execution. It is said to have been suggested by the faithfulness of his wife to him while in prison. 4 See Lessing on Bacchus being represented in Greek art under a female figure for beauty's sake. 10 146 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the actors giving the impression of standing to be looked at. It would seem that the most beautiful attitude being attained, they were for- ever fixed in it ; that the dramatis personam have all been struck into statues. But General Bonaparte appeared in French history, and David, by his advice, virtually a command, left his sculpturesque painting and took up the Napoleonic art, often, however, giving it a classic form. The First Consul's portrait was demanded of the popular artist. It was just after Marengo (1800). Delecluze quotes from Aime Thome : "The artist begged him to assume an attitude, or 'pose.' 'Pose ! For what purpose ? Do you think that the heroes of antiquity posed for the likenesses that we have of them ? ' replied Napoleon. " ' But I paint you for your own age, for those who have seen you, who know you, and who could desire to find a resemblance to you in your portrait.' " ' Resemblance! It is not the exactness of features, the little wart on the nose, which makes resemblance. It is the character of the physiognomy, that which animates it, which is necessary to paint.' " 4 One does not prevent the other.' " 1 Surely Alexander never posed for Apelles. No one seeks to know if the por- traits of great men resemble them. It is enough if their genius lies in their like- nesses.' " 'You teach me how to paint ! Yes, you are right. I have never viewed painting in this light. You need not pose — leave it to me.'" David produced (1805) the famous portrait, Napoleon Crossing the Alps on a spirited charger (Versailles) as the likeness that would best preserve to posterity that which animated the hero. No doubt it is a truer representation of that masterful spirit than the actual cross- ing on a mule would have been. Under David's classic treatment it became a group fitted for bronze or marble. When Napoleon became Emperor (1804) he named David painter to the Imperial Court and he was commissioned to paint four great Napoleonic pictures : the Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine ; the Distribution of the Eagles ; the Enthronement of the Bishops of Notre Dame ; and the Entrance of Napoleon into the Hotel de Ville. He painted the first two only, and they occupy immense panels on the walls of Versailles. Delecluze gives a detailed account of the imperial inspection of the first picture. After four years' work by David, four years of intense interest on the part of artists, court, and people, that artist announced (1808) to Napoleon that The Coro- nation was ready for inspection. Napoleon, the Empress, and all their family, the officers and ministers of the Court, preceded and followed by music, advanced to the Church of Cluny to judge of the work. It represents Napoleon standing, already crowned, and holding a crown ready to place on the head of Josephine, THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 147 who kneels upon a purple velvet cushion. In a chair behind them sits the Pope, behind him maids of honor, cardinals, and officials. Fourteen figures in all, among them the ambassador of the United States, complete the painting of thirty feet in width (No. 2277, Versailles Museum ). The living Court was arrayed in front of it; Napoleon, with uncovered head, for half an hour walked up and down examining all the details ; David and his assistants waited in suspense. At last, with his eye still on the picture, Napoleon said : " Well done ! Very well done ! David, you have divined all my thought. You have made me chivalrous, a French knight. You transmit to the ages to come the proof of the affection which I wish to have for those who share with me the burdens of government." Josephine approached as David listened, and Napoleon turned to David and said in a loud voice, with a slight inclination of the head and the motion of raising the hat : " David, I salute you." The artist replied : " Sire, in the name of all artists, happy that I am the one to whom it is addressed, I receive the salutation." The figures are small for the space, arid the group of Napoleon and the dignities of the court of greater excellence than the others ; Pope Pius VII. is of great merit. David repeated this picture for America while in exile. It is also engraved. The Coronation marked the height of David's power. The Eagles was a falling off in merit. Assured of high attainment in that class of work, and having a distaste for vestments, uniforms, silk, and textures, David now lapsed into the gratification of his predilections, and resumed his antiques, veiling that purpose, however, by giving them Napoleonic relations. His Leonidas at Thermopylae, finished 1814 (Louvre), was one of an intended series for decorating the Lou- vre with supposed parallels to Napoleon's achievements. Though with no eye for color, the correct drawing, firmness of touch, accurate observation of form, and keen sense of line, acquired by his severe studies, gave to David many elements of the fine por- trait painter. 1 Six portraits by him : his own, as a boy, his wife's father and mother, Pius VII., Madame Recamier, and Bailly are in the Louvre, besides A Combat of Minerva against Mars and Venus (1771), an academic figure (1779), and the six classic sub- jects previously described. At Versailles are his three great Napoleonic pictures ; the portrait of Barere (1790, unfinished); and the portrait of Pius VII., a replica of the Louvre picture. The original of the Helisarius of the Louvre is at Lille ; a por- trait of Napoleon I. at Warwick Castle ; Death of Milo in the National Gallery, Dub- lin ; Sappho and Phaon in Russia ; and Portrait of Madame Vigee-Lebrun, at Rouen. Madame Recamier was ambitious to be painted by him, and he made a sketch charmingly severe, in simple garment and feet bare, 1 Thirty portraits, many of them of persons of rank, are enumerated among David's works. At an exhibition of portraits by artists of this century at Paris in March, 1885, eighteen by David were exhibited. His grandson, however, pronounced some of them not genuine. 148 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. seated at length on a sofa. The proud beauty, not altogether pleased, applied to Gerard to paint her. That artist, out of respect to his master, informed him, and David urged him to consent, but avowed to the much-flattered lady that he should retain his own sketch as his own, and as it was. It was subsequently finished by one of David's pupils. His last work was the Rape of Lucretia. An exile in Brussels for ten years (1815-1825), he was carefully protected by his little court of pupils from learning how his system was opposed by the irrepress- ible Individuality now seizing the right of expression, which from its commencement by Chardin and after its practice by Gros, his influ- ence had retarded for a third of a century. But his friends could not save him from the wound of expulsion from the Institute and Legion of Honor, 1 which he deeply felt. The King of Prussia made him tempting offers to settle at Berlin, which he, however, refused, and Gros carried to him a gold medal which had, in the name of the French School, been struck in his honor. It is said, that, when com- ing in sight of David's residence, so great was Gros' affection and rever- ence for his former master, that he was obliged to sit down and gather courage to approach. Married in 1783, the differences of political sympathies, after many mutual sacrifices for peace, had led to a sep- aration from his wife in 1791. But upon David's imprisonment, his wife returned to share it, and remained with him through all till his death. His eldest son, Jules, was a student ; he became consul under the imperial government, and left a lexicon of the Greek language. Eugene died in the army (1826). The daughters, twins, married : one, General Meunier, and the other, General Jannin. David's grandson, Jacques Louis Jules (b. 1829), exhibited in the Salon of 1859 a Holy Family and a Portrait ; in 1861, A Venetian Lady at her Toilet ; in 1864, Napoleon Visiting the Studio of David, January 8, 1808 ; and others in later Salons. Of David's contemporaries, Vincent and Regnault were chiefs of schools rivalling his, and with him, formed three of the six paint- ers that constituted the Department of Painting in the Institute at its formation. Their influence was through F^o|» Andr6 vmcent th ir gcholars rather than their works. Vincent, (1740-1810), rans. 7 Prix de Rome, 1768. whose father, Francois (1708-'90), was a minia- Mem.Acad.,-8 a .Prof •$>*. ture painter and his mo ther (1719-1803) a por- Mem. Inst., 95. L. Hon. 1 7 v / r trait painter of reputation, was a skilful and learned artist, and painted many pictures, now forgotten, for which 1 After his death he was reinstated in the Legion by Louis Philippe. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 149 he went back even to Zeuxis for his principles and subjects. He was the master of Horace Vernet, who is conspicuous among a large num- ber of his pujDils. Vincent was of the last number constituted Pro- fessors of the Royal Academy. Regnault sustained with David the classic tendencies, but in his works entered a protest against extreme classicism, attempting to jean Baptiste Regnauit mingle with that elevated style some modifications (1754-1829), Paris. 0 f nature. He went to America at ten years of Mem. AcaXVsT' a o e w ^h his parents, who hoped to make a fortune Mem.inst'95 st. Michel, there ; he also served for five years as cabin boy aron, 1 19. ^ e merchant marine. He thus escaped the influences of the style of Boucher. Upon the death of his father he returned to Paris, and was instructed by Bardin at Rome (1769), and returning to Paris took the second and first Prix de Rome when but twenty-two years of age, and finally became the teacher of Guerin, who developed into one of the firmest adherents of David's principles. Until the time of Napoleon's influence, when he took up the battles and the personal history of that monarch, RegnauhVs works were clas- sic and scriptural, but under the restored Bourbons he adroitly re- christened his Triumphal March of Napoleon to the Temple of Immortality, France Advancing towards the Temple of Peace. The Education of Achilles by the Centaur Chiron (Louvre) was his pre- sentation picture to the Academy. Others of his works are, The Marriage of Jerome Bonaparte to Catherine of Wiirtemburg (1810), and The Death of General Dessaix at Marengo (Versailles). Reg- nault took an important part in the art movement of the nineteenth century through his two pupils, Guerin and Hersent, the latter of whom passed from severe classicism to the other extreme. He was made baron by Louis XVIII. Le Barbier was made full Academician 1785, his picture of ad- mission being Jupiter Asleep upon Mount Ida. He exhibited at the same Salon, The Public Baths for Women at Con- Jean Jacques 7 Francois Le Barbier stantinople and in 1787, The Courage of Spartan ('738-.8a6) Rouen. Women (Louvre), and The Combat of the Horatii ; Mem. Acad. 1785. . . . 1st ci. Med. 1808. thenceforth, his pictures show him to have taken up Mem. inst. ,8,6. tlie so-called reform of David with, like David, occasional lapses into representing, when of commanding interest, some contemporary event, as in 1795, The Heroism of Young Desilles at Nancy (Town Hall, Nancy). He illustrated Ovid, Racine, J. J. Rousseau, and Delille, and from 1801 to 1808 published six volumes on art, among them Physical and Moral Causes Influencing Greek 150 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Painting and Sculpture. Taunay painted scriptural scenes, battles, and landscapes, appearing in the Salons from 1787 to 1831, and in that year having a posthumous exhibition, La Saltarella ; he was also seen in the Salon de la Correspondance. He Nicholas Antoine Taunay , . , , /-tnin 5nj\ j_ ■ m t (1755-1830), Paris. spent eight years (1816- 24) on a trip with Le Pnx de Rorre 1734. Breton and Montigny to found an Academy of Art Med"' 1803' 'i^Hon m ^ e J ane i ro - Though a classic subject is rare among all the one hundred and fifteen pict- ures exhibited by him, he won during the period of classicism the honor of being one of the six to constitute the first membership of the Institute and, also, the decoration of the Legion of Honor. His paintings were, however, historical, and often Napoleonic. He has five pictures at the Louvre that fully represent him in all classes of his subjects except in his scenes of Napoleon's campaigns, and six works at Versailles as follows : The Exterior of a Provisional Hospital in Italy (1789) ; Taking of a City (1800) ; Peter the Hermit preaching the First Crusade (1800); Preaching of St. John (1789) ; The Saving of Two Children from Drowning (1802). An interesting phase of art, kept in the background by the assump- tions of the classic school, and yet more truly presenting essential classicism than that, is found contemporaneously with Peter Paul Prudhon . 7 £" J (1758-1823), ciuny. David, m the works of Prudhon — Peter, as he was l. Hon. 1808. christened, Peter Paul as, out of admiration of the Mem. Inst. 1816. , _ . . . . . .. . 1 . great Kubens, m his maturity he wrote his name, and as his marriage certificate is signed. It is the living classic rather than the statuesque, the true conception of the powerful gods and goddesses of the ancients in appropriate action, in that perfection of the body which the Greeks called the flower of its youth, distinguished for a grace and majesty of treatment, that is perceptible, even 111 his smallest pictures. This is the result of a simplicity of drapery and management of lights that recall the chiaroscuro of Correggio and produce similar charming contours. He was the youngest of thirteen children of a master mason but, losing his father at an early age, the tender training of his mother developed in him an affectionateness of character which proved an important factor in the direction of his life; of this the ruling influences were art, love, and a certain dreamy poetry. His early education was received from the monks of Oluny to whom he had been sent by the Cure Besson in that paternal affection to which the priests were often won by gentleness and intelli- gence in the children of the poor. The wonder of the statues and THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 151 painted windows of the Oluny Church was there revealed to his infantile mind. These lie essayed to rival, and modelled in soap a figure, the merit of which long afterwards surprised him upon his return with maturer ideas from Rome. His sense of color early sought satisfaction, like that of the great Titian, in the expressed juices of plants. These were affording him little success, when a monk dropped the remark, " Your colors, my boy, require oil," and on that hint the unknowing lad re-invented the invention of the Van Eycks and painted in oils : he produced first A Hat Seller Offering Hats, "fine and otherwise," iu which the rich colored, picturesque and varied hats of the Burgundians were represented. 1 Being without means, he was sent (1776) at the request of the monks by Moreau, Bishop of Macon, to the Free School of Design at Dijon under Devosges, an artist celebrated throughout Burgundy. There in 1778, at the age of twenty, under the influence of a love that was certainly blind, he married the daughter of a notary of Dijon. His wife did not accompany him to Paris whither he first went in 1780. He was there admitted to the ficole des Beaux-Arts; but after a year or two returned to Dijon to compete in the triennial prize of the Burgundian States, and, winning it, was sent to Rome (1781). In the competition for this he was so affected while " en loge " by the distress of a student in an adjoining room, that he took down the partition and finished his picture for him. Upon its drawing the prize, this was discovered and its real author became the recipient. Letters while at Rome to his former master, Devosges, evince, as do his subsequent productions, that he passed most of his time in sketching antiques and the works of Raphael. His works may fairly be summarized as antique subjects rendered in a Raphaelesque style, and impregnated with his own personal quality of grace. He worked out for himself an ideal, and in its pursuit developed so keen an eye for truth in harmonies of form and suppleness of flesh, and expressed these by so facile a touch, that eye and hand always gave him faithful service, even in his fullest abandonment to his innate poetry. From a ceiling of the Barberini Palace, he copied The Triumph of Glory by Pietro da Oortona, introducing into the lights and contours something of his own qualities and thus making the copy preferable to the original : it still adorns the place for which it was ordered (1787) the Hall of the Burgundian States at Dijon. This secured to him the repetition of the prize of three years at Rome, and the order 1 Preserved in M. Murcille's collection illustrative of the History of Painting. 152 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. for two original pictures painted at his pleasure. The artist begged that this second pensionate might be spent at Paris, that he might before being thrown upon his own resources gain a foothold there ; for the difficulties of doing this he had already experienced. This being granted, he left Rome for Paris (1789), immediately after finish- ing the pictures ordered notwithstanding the offer of Canova, with whom he had formed a friendship at Rome, to furnish him a studio and guarantee a price for his work. The exigencies occasioned by the Revolution, though the Convention did what it could for artists by offering to them in 1793, a competition at which Prudhon took (years III. and IV.) a prize for a patriotic subject, 1 and his rapidly growing family of four sons and a daughter led him into miniature and pen and ink drawings (Salon 1791). If he executed any paintings, they are lost. One, Innocence entrapped by Cupid and pursued by Repentance, is described by Blanc. 2 Some of his Anacreontic designs of this period are among the most charming of his works, as Cupid reduced to Reason, and The Cruel one Laughs at the Tears he has Caused ; as also are The Vengeance of Ceres, and Vignettes for La Nouvelle Heloise. But during the famine of 1794 he left Paris for about two years and found support for his family in paintings, portraits, and drawings at Rigny, in Burgundy. There he formed the friendship of M. Frochot, who subsequently, when Prefect of the Seine, aided him to obtain commissions. Upon his return to Paris he worked at illustrations with a rapidity of invention and execution only equalled by his delicate grace. 3 That proverbial standard of comparison, "the grace of Prudhon," is especially derived from his drawings. He designed business cards and heads of bills ; for the letters of the prefecture of the Seine, the nymph of that river surrounded with Naiads and Tritons ; for the prefecture of police, la Police seated near a sphinx and looking into a mirror. Under his pencil the com- monest objects, such as a cock, a cat, a balance, a level, acquired ele- vation and lost the rough attributes of vulgar subjects. But in the Salon of year VII. (1799) a picture commanded by the Directory for St. Cloud, Wisdom and Virtue descending to Earth, gave him his first prominence and throws his career into this century. It is now at the Louvre in an imperfect condition, having been injured at the nup- tials of Napoleon with the young Marie Louise in April, 1810, by the burning of the drapery of a chandelier. He was also commis- 1 Supposed to be a sketch of the taking of the Bastille, never executed. 2 Blanc assigns it to the Salon of 1791, but it is not in the catalogue. 3 See Didot's Daphnis and Chloe and Tasso's Aininto, illustrated by Prudhon. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 153 sioned to paint the ceiling of the Hall of the Laocoon at the Louvre with Study guiding the Flight of Genius, and, at the Hotel de Saint Julien, now the H6tel de Rothschild, panels of Riches, Arts, Pleasures, and Philosophy. Having returned to Paris (1790), the friendship of Frochot soon proved of consequence. Suggesting one day while the artist was dining with him, that an appropriate picture to hang in the Hall of the Criminal Court would be an illustration of the lines of Horace 1 : " Crime rarely fails of punishment," Prudhon withdrew and produced a powerful sketch representing the first murder, with Justice guiding Divine Vengeance from Heaven in pursuit of the fleeing criminal. The resulting picture, exhibited in 1808, estab- lished the artist's reputation ; Napoleon sought him out, took him into the Legion of Honor, and assigned him apartments in the Sor- bonne, which when the Louvre was taken for a gallery had been ap- propriated to such purposes. Under the Restoration, being con- sidered too dramatic, it was replaced by a simple crucifix and sent to the Louvre (1826). A copy by Gericault is also in the Louvre. David's school not considering Prudhon's talent such as was demanded for historical painting, these honors of 1808 aroused their jealousy, and such was their ascendency, that in 1810 he was obliged to paint a picture in heroic style, in order to be classed with " les peintres de l'histoire." Nevertheless Prudhon was made a member of the Insti- tute in a few years, taking the chair left vacant by Vincent's death. To the claims of the classic school (from which Prudhon had kept aloof, for " their spectacles did not suit his eyes," he said), that Prudhon was only a designer and should not force his genius beyond his pen and pencil, there was the shadow of a basis, in what has been to others an element of the beauty of his style : he was not in painting, as in his drawing, controlled by precision in his contours, but left them slightly vague. But for this impalpableness of outline the modelling of his forms is the more charming. His pictures are felt by advocates of all schools to be distinguished and of a most original picturesqueness of execution. Into his life so troubled by the fretful temper and irregularities of his wife, that he had, by the advice of his friends and at the sacrifice of a large share of his income for his wife's allowance, obtained a separation, there came after many years a firm and sincere friendship with one who was a mother to his children, Mile. Constance Mayer, 1 Karo antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede Poena claudo. — Lib. III. Car. II. 154 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. formerly a pupil of Suvee and of Greuze, and whom he had reluctantly taken as a pupil in 1805. Some years after, when by the death of her father her means allowed, they lived in an affectionate companionship, apart, but within sight of each other, in opposite quarters of the Sor- bonne, where Napoleon had assigned to Mademoiselle Mayer an apart- ment at the same time as to the artist, on which occasion he had also bought two Anacreontic pictures by her. Without great beauty, she had a charm and fascination arising from her own generous and feeling heart which attracted all, even the most philosophic. She presided at the dinner of her master's family and worked in his studio, and is known as "the favorite pupil of Prudhon." Her tender heart had previously shown itself at the funeral of Greuze, her former teacher : now when, having upon their growth and establishment lost her relation to Prudhon's children, of whom the eldest daughter, not many years her junior, was her warm friend, she heard it announced that the artist must leave the Sorbonne to the claims of the church, Mile. Mayer, who had already shown some signs of a failing reason, fancied this ill fortune to have been brought upon her friend by false reports, and, seizing the artist's razor, drew it across her throat (1822). Prudhon never recovered from this shock and the consequent loss of this long companionship, and lived but a year afterwards. Born in 1778, she had received a medal in 1806, and exhibited in the Salons until her death. She has in the Louvre, bought by Louis XVIII. for 4,000 francs in 1815, two pendent pictures, The Happy Mother and The Abandoned Mother (1810). Her qualities had assimilated the instruction of Prudhon while retaining something of the grace of Greuze and Fragonard. In 1822 Prudhon exhibited at the Salon, The Distressed Family Mourning the Approaching Death of its Head, finished from a sketch by Mile. Mayer and intended as a monument to her memory. A friend and pupil, M. Boisfremont, had taken him to his house upon Mile. Mayer's death, and in his arms he died in 1823, thanking God that a friend would close his eyes. He had spent the interval in intermittent work upon a Dying Christ, which was posthumously exhibited in the Salon of 1824 and is now in the Louvre. Of Prudhon's works, besides those mentioned, in the Louvre are The Assump- tion ; Portrait of Madame Jarre ; Portrait of the Naturalist Bruun Neergaard ; and two only of his numerous and exquisite drawings ; The Car of Venus, and Crime dragged by Divine Vengeance before Human Justice. In the Gallery of the Due d'Aumale is a picture by Prudhon, The Awakening of Psyche, and one by Mile. Mayer representing Psyche Asleep with Cupid nestling THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 155 by her Side. Prudhon's likeness of Mile. Mayer is in the collection of M. Murcille from which it has been engraved. 1 " Le pere Picot," so known from the number of his scholars, was a pupil of Vincent, and a follower of the leading art of his time, c . r- . -o + that of the school of David. His works are allegori- Francais Edouard Picot © (1786-1868), Paris. cal, historical, and portrait. His Cupid and Psyche p d rix Pr de d R e ome m ,8,3 18 ''' ( 1819 ) in tbe apartments of the King, escaped de- Med. 1st ci. 1813. struction and was returned to the Orleans family L - Hon - l825 - when the Palais Eoyal was sacked in 1848. Anions Mem. Inst. 1836, in 14th . J 0 chair, previously occu- other ceilings of public buildings decorated by him pied only b y c. Vemet. was tll at of the Fourth Hall of the Louvre, on which he painted Study and Genius Unveiling Egypt to Greece, also the ceiling of the Sixth Hall. His most enduring work was the develop- ment of the distinguished pupils, Pils, Henner, Cabanel, Bouguereau, Lenepveu, Benouville, Gustave Moreau, and Emile Levy. Other followers of classic art contemporaneous with its great head, David, were : Jean Alaux (1786-1864) Bordeaux; pupil of Vincent; Prix de Rome (1815); Legion of Honor 1841 ; Director French Academy at Rome 1846-53 ; Member In- stitute 1851. — Claude F. Feury a painter of history and portraits. — N. P. A. de Forbin (Comte) (1777-1841) died in Paris ; pupil in Lyons of Boisiere and in Paris, of David ; painted interiors and landscapes for which Granet executed the figures ; made Member of Academy but not of the class of painting (1816) ; also Inspector General of Museums, and as such, reorganized the Louvre and Luxembourg upon the restoration to their former owners of the pictures taken by Napoleon. He wrote a work on the Levant. — Fulgeron J. Harriet ( -1805) Paris ; Prix de Rome (1793); first prize 1800 and 1802.— Jean Jaques Lagrenee (1740-1821) Paris; pupil of his brother, Louis Jean. — Pierre Mongin (1761-1821) Paris ; a wit and able writer, a painter of Napoleon's battles of the early century, having taken part in them ; he had painted landscape in the last years of the eighteenth century. — Vincent L. Palliere (1787-1820) Bordeaux; pupil of his father and of Vincent; Prix de Rome (1812) ; medal of 1st class '19.— Jacques F. J. Swebach (1769-1826); crowned at an Exhibition in the Place Dauphin (1784) ; medal 1801, 1810, when he was appointed chief painter at Sevres, and from 1815 to '20 occupied a similar position at St. Petersburg. His son and pupil Bernard E. (1800-70) Paris, accom- panied him there. — Jean J. Taillasson (1746-1809) Blaye ; Member of Academy (1784) ; abandoned the old style and followed David's classicism. He was also the author of various works on art.— Jean Tordieu (1764-1830) Paris ; pupil of J. B. Regnault; Second Prix de Rome (1790).— Joseph B. Suvee (1743-1807) Bruges; 1 One of Prudhon's sons became an engraver under his father's instruction, but through misconduct was forced to abandon art and died an undertaker's assistant : another sou, was practising medicine at Fontaine-la-Guyon in 1874. That year also, an exhibition of Prudhon's works was organized at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for the benefit of his daughter, married to an Alsatian who had been ruined by the war of 1870-71. 156 A HIS TOE Y OF FRENCH PAINTING. though living but seven years of this century, he then did the work that perpe- tuates his memory, the renovation of the French Academy at Rome. Though born in Bruges he was adopted into the French school, shown by his being awarded the Prix de Rome (1771), which he took away from David's competition for it. — Charles N. R. Lafond (1774-1835) Paris ; medal 3d class (1804) ; 2d class ('08) ; 1st class ('17) ; Legion of Honor ('31); pupil of Barthelemy, Suvee, and Regnault.— Charles Thevenin (1764-1838) Paris ; pupil of Vincent; Prix de Rome (1793) ; Member of Institute (1825) ; Legion of Honor ('25; ; Rector French Academy at Rome; keepe»- of prints in Royal Library. Of David's pupils more than three hundred are named in the Sou- venirs of Delecluze, one of their number. His studio formed a brill- iant gathering of ambitious talent, genius, and rank ; for either its social or its artistic influence, many of the returning nobles entered there. Its standards, friendships, theories, criticisms, even its squibs, were of conspicuous interest. The term, rococo as applied to art originated there, coined by Maurice Quai, says Delecluze. Fifty of his pupils were decorated ; three of them were marquises ; one, a count ; two, Gros and Gerard, won by their art the rank of baron ; and one was Mourette, the famous chess player. More important, however, to the tendencies of art, fifteen of them became members of the In- stitute, eight of the class of Painting, four even before the death of Dayid. These, with David's earnest advocate, Guerin, formed more than one half of the entire number in the section of Painting. This we have seen was made by the executive of the time, Louis XVIII., the majority of the jury of admission and. recompense in the Salons, and controlled the Prix de Rome and the instruction of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. They were : Gerard appointed 1812 ; Gros, 1816 ; Ingres, 1825 ; Granet, 1830 ; Drolling, 1833 ; Victor Schnetz, 1837 ; Abel de Pujol, 1835 ; and J. M. Langlois, 1838. Guerin, had been appointed 1816. Of these nine members of the Institute representing David's teachings, Gerard cultivated the more popular qualities of his master and, in his later works, hardly belonged to the 07 7 Ti837) n Rome PaSCal Gerard classic school, but had caught a breath of the Mem. inst. 1812. incoming inspiration of feeling and, in a de- l' Hon M Barol 1819 & ree > was a romanticist : to this Napoleonic art gave opportunity. Working under favor of sovereign power, he was one of the last of the artists assigned (1792) apartments in the Louvre. Like David, he was a revolutionist and, after being an assistant of David, made his debut in 1794 by a revolutionary picture, The Tenth of August, 1792. He painted \ THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 157 subsequently Napoleon's battles and was commissioned by the restored Bourbons to paint the historic work, Henry IV. Entering Paris (1817, Louvre). This was his great work ; it shows skill in physiogno- mies, but attained through intelligence rather than genius. His ro- mantic conception of a picture of Corinne won much notice, and the work was purchased by the Prince Eoyal of Prussia (1821). It represents the fete given by Corinne at Misenum when she improvises a poem to reveal her love to Oswald. On a rock at sunset with the sea and Vesu- vius in the background, the heroine sits with eyes upraised and her lyre by her side. Oswald wrapped in a mantle stands near contemplat- ing her in silence. Four other figures complete the scene. The Prince of Prussia presented it to Madame Kecamier, and she be- queathed it in 1849 to her native city, Lyons, the museum of which it now adorns. Talleyrand acquired a replica of it; another belonged to M. Pozzo di Borgo; and a third, which has been engraved, to Madame Duchayla. Like his master, Gerard was great as a portraitist; and has been called, like Titian, "The painter of kings and the king of painters"; his reputation was established by his being made official portrait painter to Napoleon (1800) but the best of his portraits preceded that date : he left altogether about three hundred. As a man Gerard was essentially superior. Inheriting from a French father and an Italian mother a distinguishing combination of qualities, he im- pressed always as being himself far superior to anything he did. He enjoyed a high estimate as un homme d' esprit even among French- men, being considered as spirituel as Talleyrand and as possessing an insight nearly as profound. To a sympathetic charm about his per- son, far superior to any impression made by Napoleon, was added a striking likeness to the Emperor in his lustrous eyes and clear out- lines. He had the air of something apart from others, and of hous- ing the sacred fire. Withal nothing surpassed the impression made by him at first sight. The social salons of Madame Gerard are still famous, through his attracting to them for thirty years (1805-35) characters distinguished at home and abroad, be it for talent, achieve- ment, or rank. He had the opportunity too of the intimacy of his royal models, and princes and nobles drawn to Paris at the over- throw of Napoleon such as the Emperor Alexander and the Duke of Wellington, paid him great attention, as did also Madame de Stael. He was made painter to Louis XVIII. in 1817. His Napoleon in Coronation Robes is in the Dresden Museum : Madame Bona- parte ; the Empress Josephine ; the Empress Marie Louise ; the King of Rome ; 158 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Murat, are at Versailles, where are also those of a later period: Charles X; the Duke and Duchess of Berri; and their Children. Portraits of Louis XVIII. are at Toulouse. Marseilles, Ajaceio, and at Hatfield House, London. He, also, painted the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, the Duke of Chartres, and many of the large number of distinguished characters that were drawn to Paris in his day. The Prix de Rome of 1789 was taken by Girodet, who, while at Rome, added greatly to the firm and accurate drawing acquired in the studio of David : he also infused into it Anne Louis Girodet de Roussy Trioson -i • -i i i i _c , ti (.767-1824), Montargis. a decided shade of sentimentality, as is Prix de Rome, 1789. Mem. inst. 1815. shown in his Sleep of Endymion sent ™ ^V 8 ' 6 ; , * o from Rome 1792, in which the moon- Of. L. Hon. (at his funeral) 1824. beams symbolize the wooing of the moon. Having in orphanhood received care and education from the court physician, M. Trioson, who, upon his persistent refusal to study archi- tecture or go into the army or be aught but a painter, had placed him in the studio of David, his second work, (1792), was executed for that benefactor. He appropriately chose the subject, Hippocrates Refus- ing Presents sent from the King of Persia, and Dr. Trioson as appro- priately bequeathed it to the Medical School of Paris. Wandering in Italy during the Revolution Girodet was found ill and cared for by Gros at Genoa. This was the basis of a life-long friendship, which ended only when Gros pronounced one of the orations delivered by artists at Girodet's funeral. At Napoleon's instance, Girodet painted in 1802 Ossian and his Warriors receiving the Shades of French War- riors, Ossian being Napoleon's favorite poet, and in 1806 his Scene of the Deluge bore the honors away from David's Sabines, as it also did in the decennial contest of 1810, though in the estimate of authorities since, as for instance that of the earnest Millet, it does not well bear comparison with Poussin's Deluge. His picture, Pygmalion and Galatea was exhibited in 1819, and was crowned with laurel amid the applause of the spectators. 1 It was his last picture. In the interval he had been occupied chiefly with portraits and plans for pictures, of which one, Atala's Entombment, was exhibited with great effect in ^808, a scene from Chateaubriand, in which Chactas and the old her- mit, d'Aubray, are burying the young Atala, who holds in a death grasp a cross to her breast. Girodet practised painting by torch light and came to prefer the strong contrasts it gave. His Pygmalion and Galatea was thus painted. Three of his pictures appeared in the com- i In the general praise a witty lady was overheard to say, ''Nothing so beautiful has been seen since the Deluge." Louis XVIII. in 1818 acquired it for the Louvre with the Endymion and The Deluge, for 50,000 francs. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 159 petition of 1810. In his later years, having been adopted by M. Trioson in the place of a son he had lost, Girodet added that name to his own. He inherited from M. Trioson a fortune, which increased, and made for his nephews, for he never married, an inheritance of 800,000 francs. The cross of Officer of the Legion of Honor was by the order of Louis XVIII. bestowed upon him in his coffin. Granet painted history and many architectural interiors. From his gravity of character and his simple dress of brown, among the many varied characters of David's studio he was Francis Marius Granet dubbed, " The Monk. " He died just as freedom (1775-1849), Aix la Provence. . ~ Med. 1808. was granted to art in 1849, but he had not re- cross of st. Michel, 1826. frained in his later years from the tempting con- Mem° , |nst. l ?83o. ' ' temporary subjects of genre. He painted many conventual pictures. One, The Choir in the Capuchin Monastery of the Piazza Barberini at Rome (1819), was repeated fifteen times; one of the replicas is at Buckingham Palace and one at Lyons. He spent much of his life in Rome after 1802, but was made keeper of the Louvre in 1819. After Louis Philippe's fall from power he returned to Aix, and, at his death, bequeathed all his fortune and pictures for a Museum there. Drolling, before studying with David, had been taught by his father, Martin Drolling, a German, (1752-1827), formed by study of the Dutch masters, and a follower of Greuze. He Michel Martin Drolling. t..-,ii-». 1T » (1786-1851), Paris. obtained the Prix de Rome, and became a painter Prix cte Rome. 0 f history and portrait of David's qualities of style, lst ci. , 8 , 9 . ' correct drawing, and fine composition, and won the Mem. inst. 1833. further honor of commissions for public works. Of these, one was a ceiling in the Louvre in which Law showers Benefits on the Earth ; one, in the Expiatory Chapel of the Conciergerie, representing Marie Antoinette taking Communion ; and one at Notre Dame de Lorette, Christ Among the Doctors. His earlier pictures, among them, The Death of Abel (about 1810), are his better works. Later he painted larger canvases. Two classical subjects are conspicuous among his many scriptural ones : Orpheus and Eurydice, which won the gold medal in the famous Salon of 1819, and Ulysses carrying off Polyxena (1827). Jules Breton, Chaplin, and Henner give him great honor as his pupils. Abel de Pujol, the son of the Baron de la Grave et de Pujol, found the classic education of his youth congenial to his nature and during the entire fray with the romanticists was one of the most convinced 160 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. of the classicists : he, however, lived to see his master's style relegated _ . AL . . n . . to the background. David, in admiration of Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol _ ° 7 (1785-1861), Valenciennes. his first picture, Philopaemen Recognised, wel- Pnx de Rome 1811. corned him gratuitously to his studio. He was L. Hon. 1822. & J of. l. Hon. 1835. an historical painter, and his works, almost en- Mem, inst. 1835. tirely of scriptural and classical subjects of which the earlier are the better, won him in his day patronage from the Government. He decorated the ceiling of the Grand Staircase of the Museum of the Louvre with La Renaissance des Arts. He saw this destroyed in 1856 in the reconstruction of the Louvre by Napoleon III. 1 and was commissioned to reproduce it in the new Library ; this met the same fate at the hands of the Commune of 1871. A copy of it is in the Louvre. Pujol executed a number of pictures for the churches of Paris and the Government purchased some of his works for the provincial museums. The cole des Beaux- Arts acquired through its regulations his picture for the Prix de Rome, Lycurgus presenting the Heir Apparent to the Lace- demonians (1811). The same year he exhibited Isaac blessing the Children of Jacob, and in 1814, the Death of Britannicus (Dijon). Schnetz benefited by both the rival schools, Regnault's and David's, but confirmed his bent toward the latter by the subsequent instruction of David's two pupils, Gros and Gerard, and at the death of Gerard was placed in his chair at the Institute. Beginning (lyST-lsyo^ v^rsamL. i n 1808 with the Valor of a French Soldier, and pro- is* ci. Med. 1819. ducing the three styles that the time developed, Mem. 0 |ns't 82 ?837. Napoleonic, genre, and classic painting, supplying of. l. Hon. 1843. the latter by scriptural, however, rather than by istci. Med 1855 e.u. c i ass i ca i subjects, he appeared in all the Salons but Com. L. Hon. 1866. " 1 1 six up to 1849, — for Schnetz was one in authority to reject, rather than be rejected from the exhibitions. After that year he appeared only in 1855 until 1861, when his pictures were seen regularly till 1867, his last works being of contemporaneous sub- jects ; as, the Vintager Asleep and the Bride of the Goatherd near Subiaco. These familiar scenes exhibited a grace of line, a purity of design, and an elevated pose, caught in the atelier of David, and were of a better coloring than is usual in that school. He took a high rank for himself at the exile of David and the rise of romanticism, was surrounded by admirers, and would, but for the purpose of con- i The debris now forms the ceiling of a staircase of Valenciennes. HYACINTH E RIGAUD PORTRAIT DE LOUIS XV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 161 necting him with David's pupils in the Institute, be placed with those who went over to genre. 1 Gruerin was an extremist of the school of David but a pupil of Regnault. Though severely classic and yet missing some of David's excellences he takes high rank for design and tech- 077Z e .83 3 rParis Gu6rin ni( l ue - During the six years that he was rector of Prix de Rome 1797. the School at Rome (1822-'28) he used all means in Mem° inst 8 ?8i6 ^' 1S P ower to maintain there the principles of David, or. st. Michel 1819. His atelier in Paris subsequently became the centre of °L Hon 1832 °^ ^ e P ronm Ig a ti°"ii of David's principles, but its greatest glory among many distinguished pupils, is found in two who opposed those principles, Gericault and Delacroix. His great work, Marcus Sextus, added to the Louvre by Charles X. represents Marcus Sextus after escaping the proscription of Sylla, finding his daughter in tears near the dead body of his wife. He holds one hand of his wife and his daughter embraces his knees. The simple composition of it is injured by a somewhat timid exe- cution. The greatest of David's pupils were Gros and Ingres. Gros' dis- tinction springs from the fact that he ceased to imitate and began to originate. But this was a greatness never appreciated by himself, and Antoine jean Gros was even acquired by a practice against his will, as (1771-1835), Paris. in theory and desire he was a true follower of his L Hon ,8 ° 8, master and always cherished for him an affectionate Mem. Inst. 1816. J Order st. Michael '19. deference. It was a " greatness thrust upon him" Baron l824 - by circumstances. David wrote to him in 1820 from exile that posterity would say of him : " This man owed us a Death of Themistocles." But Gros painted the history around him, painted it as a reality, idealized only by the emotions which his sensitive nature experienced in view of it, and thus has left works with the stamp of a genuine feeling upon them that in a way makes them more truly historical than most of David's. He inherited artistic power from both his father and his mother; i Germain Jean Drouais (1763-1788) was one of David's pupils and of great promise, but died at the age of twenty-five, and is thus left wholly in the last century, though belonging to this group of artists who, outliving him, chiefly constituted the Institute and bore on their shoulders the art world of France in the first third of this century. He obtained in the school of David the Prix de Rome 1784, by Christ and the Woman of Canaan, and went to Rome with David where he studied the antique and Raphael. His Prix de Rome picture and his Marius in Prison Cowing the Cimbrians are in the Louvre. His brush, as a gift of honor after his death, was, during her visit to Rome, bestowed upon Madame Vigee-Lebrun. 11 162 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the former being a miniature painter, the latter painting in pastel. To the insistence of his father, that from the infantile age of six he should repeat, until lie had attained correctness, an imperfectly drawn hand or foot even if he had to do it a dozen times, he attributed in his mature years, his correct eye and true touch. It was perhaps this importance early given to drawing that led him at the age of fourteen to choose David for his master. But though possessing native talent and having the popular artist, David, as his instructor, Gros missed the Prix de Rome in 1792 though winning the second prize. This was a great disappointment, as the year before his father had died of sorrow at financial reverses in the first shock of the Revolution. To support his much loved mother, Gros applied himself to obtaining an income as he could. He painted portraits for the Louvre then just opened as the National Gallery of Art, those of the members of the Convention and among them, Robespierre. These evinced great truth of drawing and keenness of observation. He then sought support in Italy (1793) leav- ing his mother in France. Miniatures and portraits furnished him means of subsistence on the way. At Genoa, whither his desires as well as his financial plans several times led him, he was presented by the Trench Minister, Faitpoul, to Josephine, who, a bride of a few months, was on her way to join Napoleon, then with the army in Italy. Charmed with his pictures as well as by the grace of his affectionate nature she offered to take him with her. At her suggestion, while passing here the happiest period of her life, General Bonaparte yielded (1796) to the earnest prayer of Gros, and sat a few moments each day for his portrait, the one perpetuating Bonaparte's famous exploit at the Bridge of Areola. It won the favor of Bonaparte, who had it engraved by Longhi and presented the plate to Gros. Under the protecting kindness of General and Madame Bonaparte, Gros acquired, in a small degree, self-confidence, a quality which, however, he always lacked. He also gained opportunity, for Napoleon made him one of the com- mission to select the works of art in Italy claimed by him in right of conquest, and for which he had written to the Directory to send him " three or four well-known artists." He also created for him, that he might have both place and consideration in the army, the office of Inspector of Reviews. Thus Gros gained the knowledge required as a painter of epic battle-scenes. His next picture however was a portrait of Madame Bonaparte. By the former of these positions he acquired a great knowledge of and admiration for Michael Angelo: in the second he saw grim war " en face " in serving in the defense of Genoa under Massena. He left Genoa in an English ship and after much suffering THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 163 reached Antibes in 1799. His Combat of Nazareth was sketched at Paris in 1801 in competition with nineteen others for a prize of 12,000 francs for a picture twenty-five feet long commemorative of that event, in which General Jnnot with a handful of men routed six thousand Turks Of the sketches offered, the public distinguished four, those of Hennequin, Taunay, Gros, and Caraffe, all differing in qualities. The first was praised for the movement and heat of the combat ; Tau- nay's, for the agreeable distribution of the masses and its harmonious tone ; Gros's, for the vivacity of touch and warmth of local tones ; and Caraffe's, for truth of costume and character. The jury of fifteen; five named by the competitors, of whom the painters were the "Citi- zens Vien, Vincent, and David," five by the Institute, among them Eegnault, and five by the Minister of the Interior, as Robert, C. Ver- net, and Hue, decided in favor of Gros. Napoleon, however, never allowed Gros's sketch to be executed, since it was truth as well as art, and Junot was the hero. It still exists in the Museum of Nantes. It gave evidence that Gros had two qualities which David had not, a feeling for light and color, and action. The Pest at Jaffa was painted in its stead (Louvre) and at its exhibition in 1805 Gros was pro- nounced the greatest of living painters ; the picture was crowned with laurels and palms ; and was purchased by the Government for the then distinguishing price of 16,000 francs. It was indeed a success; for, though of an intense realism, and the first decided indication of the romanticism in which the classic doctrines were to perish, the artist had so invested it with the dignity of heroic treatment that in spite of its "buttons and cocked hats/' David joined by Vien presided at a symposium given by artists in its honor. It deserves a detailed description on account of its historic importance. Napoleon stands in the hospital in full light, calmly extending his left hand to give to a pestilential tumor the supposed curative touch of royalty, and with the genial love and air of a father, though so young. All around are conditions of disease; the tainted flesh; faces wan in death's moisture; hands clasping in the last struggle ; swollen corpses ; all the realities of a pest-house are depicted. Negroes carry hampers of provisions, which a group in Oriental costume distribute. In the background, calmly shines the sky of Palestine, against which are seen minarets, the sea with its sails, and forts above which flies the tricolor of France. Far from being repugnant, the scene has something of majesty ; the grandeur of the directness of dire need characterizes the attitude of even the most desperate. One soldier is rendered indifferent to an operation by his absorbed regard of Napoleon. The picture exhibits great power of color in the pallor of disease and the contrast- ing health and bright uniforms of the Emperor and his staff. Gros's epic scenes date from this time. Aboukir, an actual battle, 164 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. followed in 1806, and The Field of Eylau in 1808 (Louvre)— both still further advances of the treatment first illustrated in The Pest at Jaffa. In The Field of Eylau the details are particularly varied and striking: The village is still smoking, and behind it are ranged the soldiers in the field upon which the battle was fought the evening before. This is indicated by piles of snow, apparently taking the outline of the ground beneath ; but no, instead it is of human forms, of the men fallen there in their places. The sombre sky, the snow falling unpityingly on the upturned faces of the wounded and dead, adds im- pressively to the desolation of a battle-field. Officers gallop across to announce the arrival of the Emperor. He and his staff, princes of his own creation ; Murat, King of Naples; Berthier, prince of Neufchatel and of Wagram; Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, are arrested for an instant by the scene, where amid dismounted can- non, twisted and broken bayonets and lances, lie friends and enemies interlocked in the struggle of death. Night has stiffened their limbs and fringed their tattered garments with icicles. Their mouths swelled and soiled with mud and blood, touch the spectator with feeling, with which, indeed, Gros has invested the whole scene. Before he had been drawn aside by circumstances, his classic sub- ject, Sappho Throwing herself from the Rock of Leucadia (1802) had not been well received. A period, 1801-1812, of chiefly battles and por- traits ensued, and then the artist spent twelve years, 1812-1824, in painting for the history of St. Genevieve in the cupola of the church of that saint, or the Pantheon (according to which of the two pur- poses different periods have assigned to it, that of a church or of a monument (( aux hommes illustres," it may be at the moment serving), the four chief dynasties of France making offering of their achiev- ments, and doing homage to that saint. He took portraits in the intervals. For this he received one hundred and fifty thousand francs and, the last of the many official honors awarded him by various execu- tives, the title of Baron. It was conferred upon him by Charles X. in 1824 under the cupola he had just decorated, and in which the figure of Napoleon had receded to give place to that of Louis XVIII. Gros lived through five and into the sixth of the eight forms of the government of France after 1790. 1 He painted the Convention, and under the first Emperor was held in such high honor that, in 1808, when the list for decorations was presented to Napoleon with Gros's name at the foot, the Emperor placed it at the head, and when Gros advanced took his own cross from his breast, and pinned it upon that of the artist. i The old Monarchy, the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire, the Restoration, and into the reign of Louis Philippe. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 165 In 1835 the criticism of his works of 1834, Hercules and Dio- medes, Acis and Galatea, all of a weak classicism, to which he had assumed a renewed fealty upon taking David's pupils after that artist's exile, 1 was so severe that, reaching the man behind the artist, it drove him to desperation, and he went out and lay down in the Seine, a sui- cide. Having tasted the highest praise, he died of the sting of cen- sure. In a discussion at dinner the evening before his body was found, upon the power of art to console the sorrows of life, he had said with great vehemence, " There is only one evil, I think, for which art pro- vides no remedy, and that is a man's survival of himself ! " Though his life offered every home attraction (he had married, 1809 the daughter of M. Dufresne, a rich banker), he was fortified against the ills of age only by the associations of the pot-house in which all his leisure was spent, and his " survival of himself" consisted chiefly in the fact that David's reproof of 1820 so influenced his weak will, as to prevent his perception of his own great achievement and to keep him at that late hour (1835) attempting a classicism which was never his true art, and which now as a school was effete. 2 His fame rests upon his Aboukir, Eylau, and Jaffa, three magnificent epics, in which he has shown, besides technical excellence in material, the excellence of sincerity, and the pictorial quality of presenting the features of the scene for their emotional significance, their power of conveying to another soul his own feeling in view of them. In them the painter's brush has depicted like the pen of Homer. At the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where through changing authorities he was retained as professor for nineteen years (1815-1834), he devel- oped the talent of more than five hundred pupils. Among these were those who were to bear the honors and responsibilities of the Institute, some, even after classicism and romanticism had ceased their strife : Delaroche ; N. A. Hesse (1795-1869); A. T. B. Hesse (1806-1879), nephew of the former. Roqueplan, and Charlet were others of his pupils. Nothing can give a more comprehensive view of the art and re- > In a conversation among artists at the funeral of Girodet (1824) upon the mainten- ance of David's principles of art against the heresy of romanticism, Gros, with deep feeling and in a voice full of emotion, blamed himself for his departure from the doc- trines of his master. 2 How completely Gros had misunderstood his own best work is seen in his reply to Louis Philippe who proposed to him to paint a battle piece. " Having: painted so many subjects of that kind, I feel the necessity of taking some subject more analogous to the study of art." 166 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. lative position of artists of the early century and the attitude of Napoleon towards art, since the acquaintance of the artists who took part therein is now made, than the facts connected with the execution (1810) of Napoleon's decree to establish a decennial prize. In the department of painting the Institute could not decide the question. It made an evasive report that discussed the merits and faults of all. The problem was then left for Napoleon to solve. The real contest in History was between David's Sabines and Girodet's Deluge and, in the other class, between The Coronation and The Pest of Jaffa. Napo- leon cut the Gordian knot by simply forming a list of the works ad- mitted to compete for the prize, of which, of Subjects Honorable to National Character all but one referred to his own history. 1 He gave to The Crowning of Napoleon the first mention. His list runs : I. Sub- jects Honorable to National Character: Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine, David ; Napoleon Saluting Wounded Enemy, Debret ; Napoleon Addressing his Troops, Gautherot ; Napoleon receiving the Keys of Vienna, Girodet ; Pest at Jaffa, Gros ; Field of Eylau, Gros ; Battle of Aboukir, Gros ; Soldiers of '76 find their flags at Innspruck, Meynier ; Eevolt at Cairo, Guerin ; Passage of St. Bernard, Thevenin ; Morning of Battle of Austerlitz, Carl Vernet. II. Pictures of His- tory : Sabines, David ; Consternation of the Family of Priam, Gamier; The Three Ages, Gerard ; The Deluge, Girodet ; Atala, Girodet ; Marcus Sextus, Guerin ; The Remorse of Orestes, Hennequin ; Tele- machus on the Isle of Calypso, Meynier; Justice and the Divine Ven- geance, Prudhon ; The allegorical Ceiling of the Louvre, Barthelemy. Immediately in every Salon a harvest of Napoleonic pictures was gathered, many of which without merit are now in the rubbish rooms of the Louvre. But the decennial competition had no valuable result. The public journals were not bridled in the discussion of art as they were in that of politics, and the merits of Gros's Pest of Jaffa and Girodet's Deluge were considered to rival those of the chief's Sabines and Crowning of Napoleon. This question of his supremacy, aided by his weakness in The Distribution of the Eagles, soon follow- ing, marks the beginning of David's fall. " Of an unchanging face, figure, and character, like a statue of bronze, of great gravity and industry,but lacking in that kind of brill- 1 Delecluze, a contemporaneous account. Bellier dela Chavignarie assigns the Prize to Girodet, but the Moniteur Officiel avoids all mention of any decision, though it records all prizes of smaller occasions, and also records the institution of this competi- tion both in 1803 and 1809. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 167 iancy which the French call ' esprit'; 1 of a nature 'droite' but inflexible and narrow, without originality;" "an imitator never Jean Dominque Augustin Ingres trusting his OWI1 Strength" 2 but of an (1770.1867), Montauban. unremitting industry, Ingres by "the sweat Prix de Rome, .801. • „ s cc • . „ l. Hon. 1824. of. '26. com. '45. oi his genius, a "passionate patience, Grand of. l. Hon. 1855 e. u. anc [ " s i x ty years hammering on one nail," 4 Mem. Inst. 1825. Rec. Rome, '35. , , ... _ Grand Med. Hon. 1855 e. u. attained an exalted position m art. .But 11 senator 1862. the stream was narrow it was extended in length, for, placing the importance of a picture in form and outline, and upholding these principles of David to the last 5 he maintained himself side by side, throughout its career, with the romantic school that dis- placed that of David, and in 1855, when that movement had spent itself, received with its great leader, his rival, Delacroix, a Grand Medal of Honor. 6 This was won by no momentary flash of one brilliant effort, but in view of the works of his entire career, for he had on this occasion an entire gallery assigned to him, and as the Exhibition was an international one it was an international judgment. His con- stant strokes upon the "one nail," the beauty of form, also swept through a broader arc than David's influence, for he combined with that master's teachings, a later close study of Raphael, and sought to harmonize the two. But the theories and practice of David found a kindred basis in his nature, which had, in his earliest attempt, sought expression in the same delicacy of outline, feeling for form, and firm- ness and exactness of modelling, which characterizes his pictures to the end, and to which were continually sacrificed color, emotion, and ac- tion ; and he also had little sense of picturesqueness. In his tendencies too he had, like David, a feeling for nature opposed to his passion for classic forms, and though thus grounded in the classic art of the open- ing century, he too was swept into the Napoleonic current. The classic, Napoleonic, and Raphaelesque, then, chiefly constitute his art, the subjects of which become, at times, simply anecdotal history. He stands first after David in the classic school, though from his modi- fications of that master's art, he is often styled a classic-romantic : his long life, towards the end of which he became familiarly known in Paris as " le pere Ingres," and honored as the Nestor of painting, also made him the last of that school in point of time. He studied until fourteen the violin as well as painting of his father, who was a 1 Delecluze, his fellow pupil. 2 Chesneau. 3 C. Blanc. * Hamerton. 5 Ingres' letter opposing Nieuwerkerke's changes of 1863, p. 267. 6 Upon this occasion, his admirers claimed that some honor unlike those awarded to others ought to be invented for Ingres. 168 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. musician, painter, architect, and sculptor. At thirteen he won great applause as a violinist in the theatre of Toulouse. He went to Paris in 1796 and is found in the studio of David at the age of seventeen. As a result of unremitting labor, he took in 1800 the second, and in 1801, by the picture of Achilles Eeceiving the Envoys of Agamemnon, which is still at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the first Prix de Rome. But the emptiness of the public exchequer in this time of war added to his own poverty kept him illustrating books and painting portraits, while he, also, zealously availed himself of every opportunity to study the liv- ing model, antique prints, and the riches of the newly opened Louvre. Among these portraits were, one of Napoleon as First Consul (1801) (Liege) ; one of Napoleon on his Throne as Emperor (1806) (at Les Invalides) ; and Napoleon passing the Bridge of Keihl (1804) painted by order of the Corps Legislatif (lost). Finally through official in- fluence a way was opened to Rome (1806) and the pictures he sent thence to the Salous were : An Odalisque ; A Sleeper ; (Edipus in- terrogating the Sphinx ; Thetis imploring Jupiter (1817) and a second Odalisque. Chagrined that these did not win distinguished notice, and charmed and persistent in the study of Raphael, he re- mained in Rome struggling with poverty and supporting himself, chiefly by taking portraits in pencil, nine years after the five of his pensionate had expired. His wife (for he had married at Rome in 1813) assumed the financial responsibilities and arrangements with patrons during these years, and thus by trials wholly unsuspected by him, secured to him freedom for work and study. This wife's portrait painted the year after marriage is in the Louvre. That of another taken forty-five years later is, with Ingres' own, in the Uffizzi, Flo- rence. His later pictures of this period sent to the Salons were still scarcely valued there, though highly praised in Italy. They were : Raphael and La Fornarina ; The Sistine Chapel ; Pius VII. holding Chapel at Rome; Cardinal Bibiena affiancing his Niece to Raphael ; Virgil reading theiEneid to Augustus and Octavia (1814); Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta (1818); Philip V. of Spain conferring the Order of the Golden Fleece; Aretino receiving with Disdain the Chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece from Charles V. : in distemper (15 by 20 ft.) for the Palace of the Quirinal, Romulus the Conqueror of Acron : in oil on a ceiling of the Palace of Monte Cavallo, The Sleep of Ossian ; Jesus giving the Keys to Peter, now in the church of La Trinita de' Monti; and a second Pius VII. holding Chapel. Many of these subjects illustrate Ingres' tendency to represent in art ideas that can be properly expressed by words only, thoughts indeed, rather than emotions, appeals to intelligence rather than to feeling. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 169 In these anecdotal subjects he touches upon the field taken up a little later by Delaroche (1797-1850), and by his different treatment, the seeking of imposing and dignified lines instead of familiar forms, shows the difficulty he had in forgetting David's teachings. One of these, and his best known subject of this period, is Henry IV. Play- ing with his Children (1817 and 1824). 1 It represents the moment when the Spanish Ambassador, as he wrote back to Spain, entered and found Henry playing horse with his oldest son, the future Louis XIII. , as rider; the little Henrietta Maria, afterwards the unfortunate queen of Charles I. of England, grasping his sheathed sword, and marching with an infantile stride by his side; and the stately queen, Maria de' Medici, tenderly holding an infant on her knee. The King paused a moment and asked "Are you a father? * * * Then I will continue my round." He transferred his study of Raphael to Florence remaining there from 1820 to 1824, and painted Charles V. reentering Paris, and The Vow of Louis XIII. (1823), now in the cathedral of his native town of Montauban. This was well received in the Salon of 1824 and, satisfied finally, he returned to Paris. He was honored with a decoration and, Denon dying, was immediately placed in his chair (No. 7) as a member of the Institute (1825). Opening a studio, he became distinguished as a teacher and led the old school, modifying it somewhat, while Delacroix was made (1824), by the death of Gericault, the head of the rising romanticists. The two became the leaders of bitter partisans and their methods the theme of every artistic discussion. Every prize or honor awarded was hailed as a victory to the side winning it. In 1827 Ingres painted his masterpiece, The Apotheosis of Homer (Louvre), in which he succeeded in infusing into the severe grace of the Greek treatment something of the charm of modern life. His Martyrdom of St. Symphorian (1834), a young Gaul at Augustodunum, who refused to worship the old gods in accordance with the decree of Diocletian, was considered to have been inspired by Raphael's figures in The Burning of the Borgo, and as Raphael had in that subject intro- duced nude figures in action in competition with Michael Angelo's on the Sixtine Ceiling, Ingres was accused of imitating an imitation. Displeased with these attacks, he yearned to return to congenial Rome, and an opportunity of doing so with honor, after ten years' absence, occurred in his being appointed to succeed in 1835 Horace Vernet as Rector of the French Academy there. Thence he sent The Odalisque 1 The replica of 1817 belongs to the Comte de Placas, and that of 1824 to Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, Paris. 170 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. and her Slave (1839), which with his Stratonice (Louvre) is among the few pictures he painted during his six years' superintendence of the French pupils at Rome. It so impressed French art that there has been scarcely a Salon since without an Odalisque. A fair young girl of the seraglio is weary of idleness, and a young Abyssinian slave, a brunette, sings to the lute and soothes her mistress. Truth of detail in costume and furniture, and the repose which life without thought gives, are its conspicuous characteristics. In it Ingres approached, it was said, to the picture of Delacroix, In the Seraglio ; but the one is the glory of color, the other the perfection of form. During his life at Rome and study of Raphael he was led into painting the beauty of women, which David seldom attempted. Ingres had been subjected to the ordeal of neglect for the first half of his life. But persisting in his methods in 1832 he had written, " In respect to art I am unchanged, my devotion is ever for Raphael and his tones, for the ancients, but above all for the divine Greeks." He also said that to compare " Rembrandt and the others" with "the divine Raphael " was blasphemy. A reaction in the estimation of him at . last came, and upon his second return to Paris (1841), though romanticism was rapidly rising, he was accorded almost a triumph. True, classicism was still well entrenched in the Institute. Honors were now showered upon him at home and abroad. The portrait painter of the First, was made a senator of the Second, Empire ; he became a member of the Impe- rial Council of Public Instruction ; was advanced to be Commander of the Legion of Honor ; was made a member of the Academies of Florence, Berlin, Vienna, Antwerp, and Amsterdam ; Knight of the Order of Civil Merit of Prussia ; Commander of the Order of St. Joseph of Tuscany, and Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Guadaloupe. For Napoleon III., he decorated a ceiling of the Paris Hotel de Ville with The Apotheosis of Napoleon I. (1853) and inscribed upon it "In nepote redivivus" ("he lives again in his nephew "), and he was presented by his native Montauban with a crown of solid gold. The romanticists maintained that some of Ingres' pictures justified their theories, but his practice of subordinating all else to form, and his condemnation of all art but that of the classic style leave him to the end essentially a classicist. Still, through his persistent will, high nature, and love of form, he has produced works that yet command admiration in all the contending schools even the extreme naturalistic. Is it that his persevering hand always did its work well at last, and that, in whatsoever else he may have failed, his unimpeachable drawing THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 171 has a perpetual charm that always commands respect though never enthusiasm? and that his ' f development of sculpture," which he pronounced painting properly to be, was not much affected by his cold, thin color ? His famous La Source (Louvre) was painted when he was seventy-six and after it had remained a sketch for forty years ; it is the union of the beauty of the classic form with natural grace, and illustrates his attainment in the painting of the beauty of woman and his modelling of form, as well as the long time required for his best works, often laid aside to wait. It is a charming result of sixty years' devotion to beauty of line. As the naiad or embodiment of a spring, against a rock stands the beautiful figure of a nude young girl with blonde hair, her arms raised above her head to hold a vase from which trickles the stream into a pool where her shapely feet are reflected. He left one hundred and thirteen pictures, and, though an idealist, his portraits are his best work ; that of M. Bertin is one of the greatest of the century. The year but one before his death at eighty-seven, he painted the portrait of his god-daughter, the wife of his reverent pupil, Hippolyte Flandrin. But music was his last as it had been his first occupation. In his later years he had said, " Con- certs excite me, so my Delphine plays to me sonatas, and I accompany her." A few evenings before his death he entertained some friends with quartets from Beethoven and Haydn. During the following night he caught cold by raising the window to disperse the smoke of a log that had fallen from his fire, and never again left his room. Langlois, the last of David's immediate pupils appointed to the Institute, became his master's assistant and close follower, and his Jerome Martin Langlois classic pictures, Death of Demosthenes (1805); (.779-1838), Paris. Priam at the Feet of Achilles (1809); Cassandra Prix de Rome 1809. . v ' Med. 2d ci. '17; 1st '19. imploring the Vengeance of Mmerva (1817); and l. Hon. '22; Mem. inst. ' 3 8. Alexander yielding Campaspe to Apelles (1819, Toulouse) won him his successive honors. Though first a pupil of Doyen, a follower of Chardin, Lethiere, is known by his Execution of the Sons of Brutus, in the Louvre, one of „ .,, _ ... the four great works of that time, as a fol- Guillaume Guillon Lethiere ° (1770-1832), st. Anne Guadeloupe, lower of his later master, David, that all- 2 nd Prix de Rome 1784. commanding leader of the early century. Rec. of Acad, at Rome i8i2-'20. ° . Mem. inst. 1825. With some history and a few genre pictures prof. Ecoie des b. -Arts. ^ e p a i n t e d many classic ones. To save the shame of his father at his working under his name, Guillon, he took that of Lethiere. Other pupils of David and contemporaries of his pupils who more 172 A HIS TOE Y OF FRENCH PAINTING. or less followed classicism and won honors during its prevalence are : Rene Theodore Berthon (1776 or 8-1859), Paris : pupil of David ; Legion of Honor ; a painter of great talent. — Francois Louis Dejuinne (1786-1844), Paris : pupil of Girodet ; Prix de Rome, 1817; Legion of Honor, '2l. — Pierre Louis Delaval (1790-1870), Paris : pupil of Girodet ; medal, 2d class, 1817.— Francois Dubois (1790-1871), Paris: pupil of Regnault and of Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome, 1819; medal, 1st class, '31. — Jean Auguste Dubouleau (1800-'70), Paris: pupil of Gros ; made, without success, at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, eight attempts to win the Prix de Rome ; medal, 3d class, '38 ; 2d class, '40. — Baron Francois X. Fabre (1760-1837), Montpellier : pupil of Coustou and of David ; Prix de Rome, 1787 ; medal, 1808 ; Legion of Honor, 1827; Officer, '29; made baron, '30. He is believed, while a professor in the Academy of Florence, to have secretly married the Countess of Albany after the death of Alfieri. — Alexandre Evariste Fragonard (1780-1850), Paris : pupil of David, and son of Jean Honore Fragonard ; he took four medals ; Legion of Honor, 1819. — Pierre and Joseph Franque, twin brothers (1774- ): pupils of David; Pierre medal, 2d class, 1812; Legion of Honor, '36. — Bernard Gaillot (1780-1845), Versailles: pupil of David ; medal, 2d class, 1817 ; painted chiefly Scriptural history. — Etienne Barthelemy Gamier (1759-1849), Paris : pupil of Durameau, Doyen, and Vien, but practised the theatrical style; Legion of Honor, '28 : Member Institute, '16.— Claude Gautherot (1769-1825), Paris : pupil of David; painted, with classic works, also the more pathetic scenes of Napoleon's battles, subjects in which he acquired great power. — Jean Perin Granger (1779-1840), Paris: Prix de Rome, 1800. — Pierre Louis, called Henri, Grevedon (1776-1800) : medal, 2d class, '24 ; 1st class, '31 ; Legion of Honor, '32; later painted chiefly portraits. — J. B. P. Guerin (1783-1855), Paris: medal, 1817; Legion of Honor, '22 ; pupil of Vincent, had heavy style but good color. — Philippe Augustus Hennequin (1763-1833), Lyons : was among the best of David's pupils, winning the Prix de Rome (1788) and passing like David from classic to revolu- tionary subjects, he became Director of the Academy of Tournay, 1815; his pict- ures are seen in the Museums of the Louvre (where is his most famous work, The Remorse of Orestes, 1798), of Rouen, Versailles, Lyons, Toulouse, Angers, Orleans, Le Mans, and Caen. — The young Louis Claude Pagnest (1790-1819): pupil of David ; left few works, of portraiture only, but of minute finish and exact reproduction of every detail, discarding the generalizations of classicism. — George Rouget (1784-1869), Paris: pupil of David ; his imitator and assistant ; medal, 2d class, 1814; 1st class, '55 ; Legion of Honor, '22. — Jean Sebastien Rouillard (1789-1852), Paris : pupil of David ; medal, 2d class, '22 ; 1st class, '27 ; Legion of Honor —Francois Souchon (1787-1857), Allais : pupil of David ; director of school of painting at Lille, was there the teacher of Carolus-Duran. — Octave Nicolas Francois Tassaert (1 800-1874,by suicide), Paris: pupil of Rene Giraud and Lethiere ; medal, 2d class, '38 ; 1st class, '49 ; 3d class, 55. — Pierre Augustin Antoine Vafllard (1777-after 1858), Paris : pupil of J. B. Regnault ; medal, 1824. The chief marine painters of the early part of the century were : Ambroise Louis Garnery. (1783-1857), Paris; pupil of his father Jean Francois (1855-1837), who was a follower of David ; medal, '19 and '55 ; Legion of Honor, '52 ; painted marines from 1816 to his death.— Jean Louis Petit (1795-1876), Paris : THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 173 pupil of Regnault and Remond ; medal, 3d class, '24 ; 2d class, '38 ; 1st class, '41; Legion of Honor, '64. — Isabey and Ghidin were also pupils of David, but by their long lives and prominence in the Third Period of the Century are placed there. 1 Throughout the period of classicism, beneath the aggrandizements of that style, the strong sense of current life possessed by Carl and Horace Yernet had been conducting a naturalistic feeling for art to its outburst into the Vernets' realistic work — an outburst which was premature to the gradual development in the entire French School of the realism of the later nineteenth century accomplished through romanticism. It had been inherited from their ancestor, Joseph, and imbibed from the atmosphere which Chardin breathed. That form of romanticism which represents a feeling for the drama of natural life, formed a conspicuous quality of these two artists, and in them, as in the schools, was a basis of realism. Like Ingres, Horace Vernet lived through the duration of the romantic school (d. 1863), and these two with Delacroix formed the contemporary leaders of the three forms of art — the classic, the emotional (romantic), and the naturalistic — which, modified from their extremes, may be found co-existent throughout art history. The son and grandson of Joseph Vernet both inherited what was claimed by that artist, " the ability above all things to make a pic- ture." Both intuitively caught and conveyed the spirit and action, the essential expression of the incident, the impression of the scene. Carl Vernet entering upon this century at the age of forty-two, brought over from the eighteenth century a practice in sympathy with Char- din's painting of incidents, though not with Chardhrs depth and tenderness of feeling. He was in everything superficial, reproducing Antoine Charles Horace Vernet external truths only, without seeing in them Known as cari vernet. anv special meaning or even treating them as p^x 8 d'e 83 Romr r |7 e 8 a 2 UX types. Thus he gave in the hundreds of humor- Mem. Acad. 1789. ous reproductions of the eccentric appearances Mem°"ns?°8i6 an( ^ characters of the period of the Directory, or. st Michel 1827. for which he made use of lithography, the of. l. Hon. 1831. qualities of caricature without any keen, signifi- cant import and, in the cavalry battles of Napoleon, which his love of Connected with the art of David as a pupil of Gerard the interesting case of Ducornet appears, who, born without arms, yet aspired to paint in history and portrait works that in the eager competition of his time of work (1820-1856), won medals. He has three pictures in the Lille Museum ; one at Arras, and, at Compiegne, Fair Edith finding the Body of Harold, exhibited the year before his death. Louis Caeser Joseph Ducornet i8o6-i856)Lille. 2d cl. Med. 1820. 1st cl. 1822. 174 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. horses led him to select, he presented a simple statement of warfare, as it was, without subordinating all to the glory of the general-in- chief. He naively made battle scenic and picturesque ; and, when warmed to the fray, painted it in all its movement, with the sav- agery, the misery, the horror of fact, giving to every one his due, to the private soldier his full meed of honor, his full measure of suffering. This was a revolution in the battle scenes from the previous subor- dination of even truth to panegyric of the leader, who was always made conspicuous in the foreground. The artist effecting this was "the fop of the period, the roisterer 1 of the gilded youth," of the time of the Directory. Drawn by ready impressibility into the cur- rent of events, he reproduced with great vividness two of the battles of the Italian campaign, Millesimo, and The Passage of the Po. In the latter, now at Versailles, with great independence he made Dessaix the hero of the battle, but he subsequently succumbed to the irresistible influence then dominating all, and painted as pane- gyrics of Napoleon, The Bombardment of Madrid and The Morning of Austerlitz. At the exhibition of these in the Salon of 1808, Napoleon bestowed the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and Josephine high compliment, upon the artist. Horses and the foibles and social traits of his fellow men alone commanded his willing attention. Having always a most genuine affection and pride in his father 2 and son, he said at the close of his life, ' 4 1 am, like the great Dauphin, the son of a king, and the father of a king, but never a king myself." He thus assigned to himself a standing as a prince and not unjustly, but he was of princely rank only in a tributary realm in which the power was wielded by the pencil rather than the brush ; and his domain was that of the drolleries of the day — the eccentric forms of dress and costumes under the Direc- tory. From the time when he was four years old and his father's fam- ily took up residence in the Louvre (1762), 3 life furnished his lessons ; 1 This foppishness was so inherent in his nature as to continue into old age. Men- delssohn wrote to his mother from Rome in 1831of a social evening : " Carl Vernet, who paints horses so beautifully, danced a contra dance, and was so nimble and executed such wonderful steps that I could but regret that he is seventy years old .... he goes out every evening." 2 " When the old man speaks of his father, Joseph, one is compelled to respect the whole family," continued Mendelssohn in the letter previously quoted. The year 178^ was eventful for Carl, the link between the other two, comprising as it did his admis- sion to the Academy, the death of his father, and the birth of his son. 3 Application to study was deprecated for him on account of his great delicacy, and the fear of insanity for him. His mother had become insane at the birth of a sister, a few years younger, and was confined in an asylum, the violence of her malady increas- ing until her death some time after that of her husband. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 175 the companions of his father and the scenes in Paris, his text- books. He, however, took the Prix de Rome which neither of his " kings " did ; bnt his volatile nature and habit of gay life at home rendered the life at the Academy at Eome so monotonous in contrast, that he became subject to melancholy and had determined to become a monk, when his father recalled him 1 (1783). Like both his " kings," Carl could not be conventional and this as well as his keen susceptibility to sur- rounding life precluded the possibility of his following the classic style. He attempted one large classical picture, the one he returned from his pensionate in Rome, The Triumph of iEmilius Paulus, but the Roman quadriga in which the conqueror rides in affording the oppor- tunity of painting horses in which he always excelled, overcame his repugnance to the classic style required. Horses were his delight from boyhood. He went to Rome in 1820, and while there painted the picture considered his best, La Course des Barberi, being the start of the horses in a race on the Corso during the Carnival. With this century, contemporary with his own military painting, began the artistic life of his son who was accustomed to say, "I have not put my father to the expense of a sou since I was fifteen years old," for then Horace Vernet began to earn his living by his brush, and at nineteen that of himself and wife. Henceforth the lives of the proud father and his son ran side by side in parallel courses, that of the father ending, however, twenty years the earlier. Together they went to Rome in 1820 when the son's Bonapartist art could not thrive under the Bourbons, and again in 1828 when Horace was made Director of the Academy at Rome ; together they went to the laudation of their family at the opening of the Musee d'Avignon ; together bore thither their trophies of art, the father his famous Course des Barberi, the son his Mazeppa Pursued by Wolves ; together they were conducted to the house of their ancestors and inscribed their names on its door post ; both were addressed with poems in their 1 The real secret of his desire to return is said to have been the charms of Mile. Mont- bau, whom, however, he found on his return married to another. In 1787 he married Fanny, the daughter of the artist, Moreau. It is said that David's admiration for the beautiful sister of Carl Vernet, Madame Chalgrin, the wife of the architect, had been rejected. When therefore in the year 2, according to the new beginning of time on the Republican calendar, that lady had been arrested upon the occasion of the wedding of a friend's daughter in the Chapel of the Chateau de Louvicienne, "for burning the candles of the nation," and was sentenced to death, David turned away the intercessions of Carl that he should influence his friends, Robespierre and Danton, in her favor, saying: "Your sister is an aristocrat; I will not put myself out for her." She died on the scaffold, on the 6th Thermidor, year 2, and Carl in great distress, retired from gay life during the Revolution. 176 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. praise ; and both after their return to Paris were presented by the city of Avignon with a silver urn engraved with the pictures sent by them to the celebration. Again, they sat together in the chairs of the Institute for ten years ( 1826-1836). 1 Indeed, the father's exacting affection — although he had a daughter, Camilla, who married an archi- tect — could hardly allow his son any respite from demands for his pres- ence and attention. They had little sympathy however on national questions, Carl having no positive political opinions and Horace being an earnest Bonapartist. Horace, the last and most eminent of all the Vernets, was, artisti- cally speaking, born in the royal purple, for he first saw light in the apartments of the Louvre where his father and Emilejean Horace Vernet ,» ,i 1 -i t -i i i i i_ (1789-1863), Paris. grandfather had lived ; he also awoke to an Med. 1st ci. 1812. inheritance of artistic talent in the fourth gen- Mem^nsTtsao 01 eration. His feeling for the realities of nature Med. Hon. 1855 e. u. led him early to break away from the sway of com. l Hon. ,842. th gchool f jjavid, definitelv so in his Capture Grand Cross L. Hon. 1862. 7 * of a Redoubt (1810), although he had even then, in marrying Louise de Pujol (1809), been brought under the classicism of the father, Abel de Pujol. But, though he affiliated with romanticism and he and Gericault were companions at the easel and in their favor- ite exercise, riding, while they, nearly of the same age, were fellow pupils in his father's studio, he did not become a romanticist, though he made one attempt in the picture of Edith seeking the Body of Harold after the Battle of Hastings. Throwing off all academic trammels, he became a painter of vigorous actualities. He was the legitimate offspring of his nation and time, and his art was for his own period ; it was quickly responsive to the demand of both its masses and its sovereigns, except for a time that of the Bourbons ; and yet, upon occasion, he was a most audacious adherent of his own convictions. He failed (1809) in competition for the Prix de Rome, as his artistic education obtained in his father's studio, in that of his maternal grandfather, Moreau, and in Vincent's, had not comprised a knowledge of drawing and of the figure equal to that which would have been afforded by his taking a longer course than he did in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts; nor were his tendencies such as to lead him to excel in the classic subjects always assigned to that competition. Failing in this, after applying his pencil for a while to anything by 1 At Horace's appointment (1826) the Comte de Forbin, keeper of the Louvre, re- marked : " The Academy chairs seem to be a part of the family furniture of the Ver- nets." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 177 which he might obtain pecuniary support, costume drawing, carica- ture, and lithography, he returned to military pictures, and his career became distinguished for that class of paintings, the first being The Taking of the Kedoubt. He did not work from the glinting glimpses of genius, to whose far-reaching clairvoyance achievement is often coyly yielded, and did not attain the highest rank as an artist. But with quick conception and astonishing rapidity of execution he could paint from memory anything once seen and with so much of its spirit and essential action that the many inaccuracies were not regarded. A few chalk marks observable only by himself, served him in lieu of sketches, which, he explained, "I carry here," pointing to his capacious forehead. Through the popularity of his works and the lustre derived from the honors he received, he greatly influenced his period. He inherited his father's love of military subjects and of the horse, as well as his humor and his social nature. In his vigorous comprehension of the military tactics of his time and his skill in making the regular movements and uniformed costumes of troops picturesque, his work in art is an extended and magnificent illustration of his incidental words, " I was always charmed with everything military. No matter what I was painting I would drop my brush and fly to the window at the tap of a drum." He was wholly in sympathy with the adventure, the bravery, and the freedom of army life, and he became the painter of its incidents, almost of its individual soldiers, as well as the historian of its battles ; the former through love, the latter through orders. To this military predilection opportunity gave, during his sixty years of work from his infantile beginning (when at the age of ten he painted a tulip for Madame de Perigord), three wars : the Imperial, the Algerian, and the Crimean. Eevolutions also began for him at the early age of three, when he was exposed to the terrible scenes of August 10, 1792, and the same ball struck the father's hand and knocked off the boy's cap. During his seventy-four years five oc- curred. His long career may be considered under four divisions. The first comprises the time previous to 1822, during the earlier part of which his youth, and later, his political opinions, prevented official recognition of his talent. He was then, as always, the painter of the people, both from not being too deep to be easily comprehended, and from the adaptation of his works to "the fever in which the French were kept during this season of victory, defeat, and invasion, with the empire of the world as the prize, and the restoration of an odious 12 178 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. dynasty as the penalty of failure." After 1815 he was made to feel the disapprobation of the Restoration, as his works, pictures painted under the favor of Marie Louise (1813) and those painted under King Jerome Bonaparte's many commissions, and numerous lithographs scattered among the people, marked him as a Bonapartist. Many, for his rapid hand constantly produced, were proscribed by the govern- ment. He however became the protege of the Orleans branch of the royal family, painted the portrait of the Duke repeated in various costumes and characters, and the Duke had bought in 1817 his Battle of Tolosa (Versailles). This won great praise then, though now con- sidered inferior to later ones of a smaller and less gaudy scale. It formed the beginning of his triumphs. He exhibited in the Salon of 1819 — where his father also had nine — sixteen pictures that even amid the excitement caused in that Salon by Gericault's Medusa and Ingres' Odalisque, attracted much attention. They were of all classes of subjects, military, genre, history, portrait and, even, two marines and two eastern scenes. Immediately after, with his father he pru- dently withdrew to Italy. Returning in a short time, for Italy seemed to have few charms for him, he continued the representation of the achievements of the soldier of the Empire. These subjects, added to the remembrance that he had fought with his father and Gericault on the barrier of Olichy in 1814 — and with such bravery that the Emperor decorated him with his own hand on the spot — still excluded his pictures from the Salons. One only, of all offered in 1822, a picture of his grandfather lashed to the mast to study a storm at sea, ordered by the government, was received. Among those rejected were : The Battle of Jemappes, painted for the Duke of Orleans and The Defense of the Barrier of Clichy, one of his best works and now in the Louvre. But he boldly organized an exhibition in his own studio of forty- six of his pictures, and by this added to the sympathy of the Orleans family in sustaining him that of the public. His popular natural endowments aided greatly in this, his conversation, agreeable and full of anecdote and, hidden under an apparently casual attention, a penetrating observation. This exhibition opened the second period of Vernet's career (1822-1835), the period of marked favor from the people — of literal popularity, for the populace was charmed with the air of actuality of his soldiers and their engagements. His pictures, small and large, sold for such prices that for the year 1824 his income was 51,850 francs, and what is more important, they brought to him orders for an equestrian portrait of the Duke of Angouleme and a THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 179 portrait of Charles X. — a victory over the Bourbon proscription of his art. This period was also crowded with portraits which, however, brought him remuneration rather than renown. Other famous works of this time are The Bridge of Areola and The Battle of Valmy (1829), by which was concluded a series of four battles for the Palais Royal of the Duke of Orleans, the other three being Montmirail, Hanau, and Jemappes in which as well as in that of Valmy, before becoming Duke of Orleans that prince had served with great valor and on the republican side (1792). These are painted without pretension or exag- geration, with careful detail, though with a rapid touch. The gen- erals are given in portrait, and the action is such as must have taken place. To financial success, official honors rapidly succeeded. He was made member of the Institute in 1826, therefore by approval of Charles X. who, also, had advanced him to be Commander of the Legion of Honor in 1825 and in 1828 Director of the French Academy at Rome. In concession to these royal favors he abandoned military pictures and attempted during his five years' stay in Rome to study Italian art ; but what he painted there was brigands, beautiful Roman women, and the picture, Michael Angelo and Raphael in the Vatican, which though dry in color and lacking seriousness of design, was assigned a place in the Luxembourg. But the Arrest of the Princes by the order of Anne of Austria (1829) was the best picture among all sent from Rome. It was not equal however to some pictures of his first period, as The Defense of the Barrier of Clichy. His sympathies did not draw him towards the great masters, and when the French army went to Africa he was impatient to fly to it and paint con amove the pictures it offered. In January, 1835, Ingres relieved him at the Villa Medici, and he hastened to Algiers where he had also made a flying visit to the army in 1833. He had been left, when the revolution of 1830 broke out and the French legation withdrew to Naples, the only French functionary in Rome, and, for the time, became, with full powers, the diplomatic representative of France at the Holy See. 1 In 1833 by decree of Louis Philippe, Versailles had been converted into a historical museum, and for it Vernet's brush was now to depict the nation's great battles. The time from 1835 until the revolution of 1848 forms his third period. To the honored artist it was full of glory and happiness ; the East filled him with delight, Versailles 1 A brilliant society frequented his Thursday salons in Rome, some of whom were Mendelssohn. Thorwaldsen, Stendhal, Leopold Robert, and his own gay father. His daughter Louise also formed a great attraction at these reunions. 180 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. promised him renown. He painted in Algiers Rebecca, and Arabs Conversing Under a Tree, and filled his portfolio with sketches. A ceiling was removed converting two stories into one for the Hall of Battles at Versailles, to give room to the large canvases he planned in executing Louis Philippe's commission for the Battles of Fried- land, Wagram, and Jena. All through the period of the official jury during the reign of Louis Philippe, which proved so oppressive to many artists who now stand far above Vernet, he was on the top wave of favor with his former patron, the Duke of Orleans, as sove- reign. But among the battles for the new hall at Versailles, The Battle of Valenciennes was required, and he incurred Louis Philippe's displeasure by refusing to paint Louis XIV. viewing the attack in a windmill with Madame de Montespan. Vernet then absented him- self from Paris by a visit to St. Petersburg where the Czar showed him great favor. But shortly before his father's death (1836), at his father's solicitation, he returned and was eagerly restored to his position as painter at Versailles. He was soon officially sent to Algiers (1837) for material to paint the series of battles illustrating the taking of Constantine, while the nation was in the flush of that victory. There the army warmly welcomed him, for the soldiers adored the artist whose brush expressed so lively a sympathy with them and whom they always called, "the Colonel." Three of these battles ; The Capture of Bougiah, The Battle of Isly (1845), and The Taking of Smala (1844) are among the largest pictures ever painted on canvas and, like all his battle scenes, are vigorous and spirited. They form a part of the special gallery set apart at Versailles for his pictures and called, after the fall of that stronghold in Algiers, the Hall of Constantine. The six years (1835-'41) following his rectorship at Eome formed the busiest part of his life. In 1839 he breathed in more fully the inspiration of the East by going to Turkey, Syria and Egypt, and also made another visit (1842) to the admiring Czar, who feted him and travelled with him to the Crimea. When the Czar naively asked him to paint The Taking of Warsaw, Vernet met the imperial request by a representation that gave an audacious ex- pression of his own sentiments (1842). A soldier surrounded by smoke under a gloomy sky has fallen severely wounded in the head. He is dressed in a white tunic faced with purple (the colors of Poland), and pressing upon his breast with terrible talons is an eagle decorated with the "cordon noir," designating Russia as the bird of prey. Vernet prized this highly and would never part with it. He painted while at St. Petersburg a portrait of the Empress. Portraits of other ANTOINE WATTEAU FETE CHAMPETRE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 181 sovereigns by him are those of Napoleon L, Charles X., Lonis Phi- lippe, Louis Philippe's sons, and Napoleon III. (1855). He represented Biblical scenes with all the characteristics of his style, which however was not appropriate to subjects of that nature. In these he painted the ancients in the costumes of modern Arabs, in the theory that this was archaeologically correct — a theory that he defended before the Academy by proofs gathered during his residence in the East and in which he was sustained by his son-in-law, Paul Delaroche. During the fourth period of Vernet's career, the fifteen years from 1848 till his death, he painted of the Crimean war, The Battle of the Alma, but he now worked with little courage or hope, and often spoke of being obliged to take a lower rank from having lost keenness of faculties. Did not his discouragement rather proceed from self- contrast with the artistic outburst that followed the freedom of 1848? Yet the grand medal of honor was voted to him by the international jury at the Universal Exposition of 1855, and he was made conspicu- ous in the eyes of all nations by having, like Ingres, an entire room appropriated to his pictures. He was decorated by many of the Orders of Continental Europe, was admitted to the Legion of Honor at home and declined a peerage from Louis Philippe. His works number about eight hundred and are conspicuous in large numbers in the museums of France : twenty-seven, besides five portraits, are at Versailles. He was twice conscripted, the last time in 1815, and both times his affectionate father insisted on furnishing a substitute. So he never was a soldier, though he was a handsome man of distinctly military bearing. From his marriage at nineteen he kept an account of his receipts, which forms an interesting list of increasing prices, from twenty-four sous for a tulip to 50,000 francs with many costly presents for The Empress of Russia, and 1,000 crowns which the Duke of Rohan paid for Rebecca. In all the last three generations, the Vernets were vivacious, pleasing, brilliant, surrounding them- selves each with the talented and distinguished society of his day, but by none of them was great depth of thought and feeling attained. The other and more distinctly genre painters of the classic period are : Joseph Abbrier (1791-1863) Paris: pupil of J. B. Regnault but an imitator of Greuze. — Jean Claude Bonneford (1790-1860) Lyons: pupil and successor of Revoil in Art School of Lyons; medal 2nd class 1817; 1st class '27 ; Legion of Honor '34 ; Corresponding Member of Institute '54. — Alexander Marie Colin (1798-1875) Paris: pupil of Girodet-Trioson ; medal 2nd class '24 ; '31 ; 1st class '40 ; Legion of Honor '73.— Michael Philibert Genod (1796-1862) Lyons : pupil of Revoil ; won by care- 182 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. fully executed genre pictures of great truth to nature medal 2nd class 1819 ; Legion of Honor 1855, E. U. — Madame Clotilde Juillerat (1806) Lyons : medal 3rd class '34 ; 2nd class '36 ; 1st class '41 ; pupil of Delaroche.— Charles Paul Landon (1760 -1826) Nonant : Prix de Rome 1792 ; Corresponding Member of Institute ; Legiou of Honor; Keeper of Louvre ; author as well as painter. — Augustin Alexandre Thierriat (1789-1870) Lyons : where he became professor in 1827 and gave up painting ; pupil of Revoil ; medal 2nd class '17 and '22; he painted also landscape and flowers. — Antheleme F. Lagrenee (1775-1832) Paris: pupil of L. J. F. Lagre- nee and of V incent. — A. Xavier Leprince (1799-1826) Paris : during his short life painted after Cuyp and nature, genre and landscape. — One turned backward for his style, Charles Simile Wattier (1800-'68) Paris : pupil of Gros and imitator of Watteau. — Madame Hortense Victoire Haudebourt-Lescot (1784-1845) : pupil of Lethiere, has pictures in museums of Montpellier, Dijon, Versailles, Besan^on, Cherbourg, and Aix. Gericault, the real initiator of romanticism, passed his short life entirely within the period of classicism ; he died some months before . . . . , the romantic school assumed definite shape under De- Jean Louis Andre r Theodore Gericault lacroix. Amid surrounding influences, he seems like (1791-1824), Rouen. a premature growth from a sporadic seed fallen in advance of the full sowing, as does Gros in his involuntary romanti- cism. He was simply of a nature alive to reality and dramatic action, and thus to the appeals of contemporary life, in which he found his repertory of subjects, the realities of which formed his models, and in which he aimed to attain in design the standards of David rather than to overthrow them. But it was as much his nature to give ex- pression, to paint feelingly, as it was David's to choose severe, classic forms, and, with the aim of a thorough study of nature and the attainment of an ideal dramatic movement, his power was one of continual progress, as shown by his designs in the Musee de Paris. He holds the anomalous position of having sprung into renown by the painting of a single picture, and is known by the appellation, " the painter of the Medusa." The son of an advocate of Rouen, after a brief period at the age of seventeen under Carl Vernet, to whom he was drawn by his love for horses, and the only value of whose instruc- tion was the opportunity it afforded him to learn the true worth of his own tendency, he entered the studio of Guerin. Guerin was thus to nourish in art the one who was to give the first decisive blow to the principles of Guerin's honored model, David. Gericault had been very carefully educated up to the age of fifteen, and had then been sent for further instruction to the Imperial Lyceum, later known as the Lycee Louis le Grand, but loving art better than classic lit- erature, he abandoned literary studies. In the hope of some day THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 183 becoming a great painter he was very submissive to Guerin's instruc- tions, but every copy he produced of the classic models assigned him acquired under his touch a vigor, a vitality, beneath which the exact- ness of the copy was not perceived. After many corrections, Guerin, convinced that Gericault " could not help giving expression and dramatic action " to his figures, advised him to abandon all hope of becoming an artist, and despairing of instructing him, permitted him to follow his own ideas. These, beside his love for action, were always permeated with great fondness for the horse, and he attained great excellence in drawing that animal. 1 His first artistic expression was in the Salon of 1812, the portrait of M. Dieudonne as a Chasseur Charging (Louvre). David, scandal- ized by the group, "all life, energy and color," demanded "Where does this come from ? I do not recognize the touch. " It was too much of life to be art, according to the standard then prevailing, and again Gericault was advised, and now by David, to abandon the profession. In 1814, he exhibited an incident from that impressive contempora- neous event, the retreat from Moscow (Louvre), in which with deep pathos and great dramatic power, he depicted a grenadier in the midst of a snow-covered plain, leading the tired horse of a wounded companion. Then, after three years in the army in a company of young aristocrats who enrolled themselves in devotion to the restored Bourbons, and as a member of which he accompanied Louis XVIII. into his exile of a hundred days, he studied Gros' works with an admiring zeal that constituted Gros his real master. He paid one thousand crowns for permission to copy Gros' Battle of Nazareth. While his naturalism was condemned and restrained by his master, he found precedent for it in the works of Rubens, and that he might discover the true method, and that all excuse for discouraging him might be removed, he went in 1817 to acquire standards in Italy and, for two years, studied chiefly Michael Angelo. He returned with a fine accomplishment added to his rich natural endowment. But though by this his art was modified in coloring, so that on his return he spoke contemptuously of his former "rose tones," be still 1 It is related that having thrown a cartman, who disregarded his remonstrances for beating his horse, which was in vain struggling with too heavy a load, the cartman urged in view of Gericault's great height and strength, that it would be better if he would help the horse, whereupon he with his shoulder at one wheel and the cartman's at the other, pushed the load through the street. Rosa Bonheur on being congratu- lated in 1851 by Auguste Desmoulins upon having acquired within a short time a larger and broader manner of treatment of the horse, silently removed from behind her easel and showed a study of horses by Gericault. * 184 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. retained his feeling for reality and dramatic action, with which he always combined a love of elevated form. His style culminated in The Kaft of the Medusa (1819), based on an incident over which he had brooded for three years. It was severely criticised at the time, but is one of the masterpieces of French art. 1 It was hailed as an acceptable protest against the classical school. 2 It is a work of large size and of life-sized figures. The frigate Medusa, as related by Correard, a survivor, set sail June 17, 1816, accompanied by three vessels, to carry to St. Louis, Senegal, the governor and others, families of officers of that colony. On the 2d of July the Medusa with four hundred passengers ran aground, and after five days useless efforts to free it, was abandoned for the boats and a raft, carrying one hundred and forty-nine, to be towed by the boats. Soon the boats cut themselves free and left the raft alone at sea. There after its occupants had suffered hunger, thirst, death, on the twelfth day, the Argus, one of the convoys, found it and removed fifteen in a dying condition. This is the moment that the artist has chosen for representation. He, however, made two sketches of it, thus studying different acts in the drama as it were, and developing one to comprehend them all, and so putting into practice a lesson learned from studying cartoons of the old masters while in Italy. The sketches were ; one, Cutting the Raft Loose, in which despair and rage are depicted on one side, and treachery and selfishness on the other ; the second, the Struggle and Suffering in the interval. For his picture he has chosen the point of time in which all these are implied, while a hope is also comprehended by a faint sil- houette of a vessel approaching on the horizon. The raft is depicted as a few timbers ill-pinned together carrying a handful of men abandoned to the agonies of death by starvation. Some have sunk down at the foot of the mast, but aroused by a cry of hope, rise, and as best they may, drag themselves to the edge of the frail structure. There, a negro, supported by his companions, raises himself upon an empty hogshead and waves a signal of distress to a brig which their sight, quickened by despair, descries in the far distance. The waters in their regular flow, breaking against the miserable raft, wash the last corpses hooked on here and there by a stiffened limb. It is intensely dramatic, but Gericault always maintained a feeling for style that prevented extravagance. Its tones are subdued, but luminous points serve to increase the dramatic effect. The light and shade resemble Caravaggio's treatment. Its models were furnished 1 It is classed by Chesneau with the Orestes of Hennequin, The Sons of Brutus by Lethiere, and The Massacre of Scio by Eugene Delacroix, and these pronounced the great dramatic pictures of that age. 2 The time now seemed ripe for it ; for, in 1819, David sent from his exile and ex- hibited, not far from the Louvre, a Cupid and Psyche, the execution of which in being excused was accused by even his friend and pupil, Delecluze. Gros sent to the Salon his Embarkation of the Duchess of Angouleme, and Gerard an inferior Portrait of the Duchess of Orleans. Girodet alone, says Chesneau, bravely upheld the banner by his Pygmalion and Galatea. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 185 from the dead and dying in hospitals and the artist reproduced realities. Its composition is of wonderful power. 1 Melancholy was a trait of Gericault's character, a supposed im- pression of the gloomy years following his birth during which, an historian has written, he "did not remember having seen the sun shine." He was, however, of great geniality of presence, of dis- tinguished appearance, and a favorite, a light irradiating his brow, and " the tone of his ' Ah ! bonjour ! ' when drawn from his habitual reverie by a greeting, was so cordial that one retained in his heart a warm impression of it for the entire day." 2 Yet he never painted woman, child, or sunlight. "If I begin a woman," he once said, "she becomes a lion under my pencil." No one dared to buy the Medusa. "What audacity to consider as a proper subject for art this incident of the other day, the characters of which were our friends and acquaintances, their actions and attitudes those of the dying around us ! " Gericault appealed from his countrymen and exhibited it in England, where it made a profound impression, as Dore's won- derful imagination has, in later years, and won for him the large pecuniary benefit of $4,000. He remained with it there three years and, while there, painted the Derby d'Epsom (1821, Louvre), a sub- ject admirably fitted to his pencil, full of life, emotion, dramatic action, horses. 3 While there, like Gros, he attempted suicide, but was saved by a friend, Chalet, a young artist who had accompanied him as assistant, and who removed the brazier of charcoal from the fumes of which he sought death, and by skilful ridicule cured him of the desire. Upon his return to Paris, a gold medal was awarded his Medusa from England. He died of a fall from a horse while rid- ing with Horace Vernet, although he lived a year after it occurred. Ary Scheffer commemorated it by a painting. After his death his friend, M. Dorcy, a former fellow pupil, bought his Medusa for 6,000 francs and, although refusing twice that sum offered by an American, sold it to Count Forbin, the keeper of the Louvre, who added from his own purse 1,000 francs to the 5,000 offered by the government, and it was placed in the Louvre where it still is. He 1 There has been traced by Michelet's keen sense of significant resemblance an intended parallel between the raft floating helplessly out at sea and the condition of the French government which imbued Gericault with sombre feeling between those years of 1791 and 1824. 2 Chesneau. 3 Much impressed with the fresh coloring of English art, he wrote to H. Vernet, May, 1821 : " There is but one thing lacking to your talent, viz., that it should be soaked in the English style." Archives de l'Art. 186 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. worked in water color, lithography, and sculpture. Of his works, nine are in the Louvre : the four mentioned, three pictures of Horses in a Stable and A Portrait of Lord Byron : Two Horses in a Stable are in the Montpellier Museum. Six other galleries of France contain works by him and he is represented in American col- lections. LANDSCAPE UNDER CLASSICISM. The landscape school of France, which was subsequently to become the foundation of two great movements in French art, served at the opening of the nineteenth century, under the thraldom of the class- ical spirit, only as a conventional locality for the action of the heroes of the "absolutely beautiful." Under the influence of Poussin and the great Claude Lorrain, but unillumined by their genius and unin- formed by the close inquiries of nature by which Claude attained his refined modifications of reality, the painters of historic, heroic, or classical landscape sought grace of line, balance of composition, grandeur of impression, for which imposing sites, " with trees that menace the sky," majestic accessories, as of statues, fountains, temples, and palaces, combinations seen only in sublime imaginings, were the chosen subjects. Thus the classic landscape was not nature but a convention. It was an ideal which had been fully attained by Poussin 1 and by him alone, and classic landscape came to be called the Poussinesque tradition. 2 Huet (1745-1811), Demarne (1744- 1829), Taunay (1755-1830), and Valenciennes (1750-1819), represent this treatment of landscape, renewed in an inferior way in the early part of this century, but from it all the truth that had been intro- duced by Watteau and Joseph Vernet was obliterated by Valenciennes. This conventional style was continued into and through the romantic period by Michallon, Alexandre Desgoffe, Edouard Francois Bertin (1797-1871), Bidault, Jean Victor Bertin (1775-1842), who formed the link between Valenciennes, the ultra classicist in landscape, and Cogniet, Corot, and Roqueplan, as the pupil of the one and teacher of the others ; and won in the classic period a 1st class medal (1808) 1 So Valenciennes, a distinguished writer on art at the beginning of the century, as well as a painter of landscape, limits his admiration to Poussin's landscapes. Claude Lorrain was excluded because, " There is not in the pictures of Claude a single tree in which we could imagine a dryad, nor a fountain in which one sees a naiad." 2 Claude is, however, in a broad sense placed in the classic conventional school. But Claude's selected results were made from a series of studies progressing from out- line to completeness, some of plants, some of trees, some of rocks, which, still in the British Museum, show him to have been a systematic student of realities. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 187 and the decoration of the Legion of Honor (1817) ; also by Achille Jean Benouville (1815-1845), Lapiere (died 1820), Prieur, Aligny (1798-1871), Remond, Paul Flandrin, Andre Giroux (1801) who also painted genre, and to whom contemporary estimate gave the Prix de Kome (1825), a 1st class medal (1831), and a decoration (1837) ; he came finally to the true interpretation of landscape by breadth of effect. Except as their practice was necessarily modified by the influence of the rising school and thus their conventionality (consist- ing in regard for beauty, grandeur, and dignity of theme, in fact, aggrandizement of nature) was subordinated into simply imparting seriousness, sobriety, but sometimes severity to their work, it lost all touch with life, and served only to increase the indifference of the period to landscape. As in the advance of French painting their forms of art are soon to be left behind, they demand consideration here, though the works of some do not chronologically fall into the classic period. To their general characteristics implied by their classifica- tion, may be added some individual traits. Aligny, "PIngres des arbres," and Edouard Francois Bertin (and Corot at first) 1 continued the classic landscape by introducing into it more freedom and expression. Aligny became Claude Francis Theodore . ,., ., , carueiie D'Aiigny beiore the end of his long hie its only repre- (1798-1871), chaumes Ni4vre. sentative, except Paul Flandrin, who now fills that relation to art. Aligny was the pupil of Watelet and Regnault, but, systematically retaining classic dignity and sobriety, he sought poetic truths by actual study, by going to Greece and Rome and looking upon the nature "which Theocritus and Virgil saw," and studying classic fields in modern form. This concession to the tendencies of the time gave him an anomalous posi- tion. The moderns did not accept him for his realism, because it was Greek and Roman, and the old school condemned him for seeking it, as indicative of a prosaic mind that did not appreciate the true ideal. But he presented the ideal grandeur of line, and reproduced nature in marble, "cut in bas-relief," hard and unsympathetic. He believed in himself, however, and won respect for his sincerity and even great distinction amid the contentions of the different schools. He was director of the Academy of Fine Arts at Lyons ; correspond- ing member of the Institute ; Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; his Chase and Setting Sun (1865) were purchased for the Luxem- 1 As will be seen, Corot eventually, after being disclaimed by both the old and the rising school, was known as the most conspicuous of those who expressed feeling in their pictures. 188 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. bourg ; The Tomb of Cecilia Metella (1861) by the Baroness James de Rothschild ; and his Souvenir des Roches Scyroniennes (1861) by the State. His Prometheus Bound exhibited in 1837, and sent to the Luxembourg, is his greatest work. In it, as is often true of his pictures, the figures form no essential part of the scene, but the land- scape claims and holds the attention some time before Prometheus is seen upon the top of the mountain. Aligny had one true aim, the effect of the landscape as a whole, but he carried generalization too far and, wholly disregarding the incidental, too often produced mere abstractions. He was among the first to perceive the beauty of the Roman campagna. He and Corot first made it known in France. When they were together in Rome he assumed a superiority to Corot, and ridiculed the latter's earlier work in that city, though he one day awoke to Corot's merit and patronizingly admitted it. His landscapes are to be seen in, besides the Luxembourg, seven museums of France ; Rennes, Nantes, Versailles, Carcassonne, Amiens, Besancon, and Bordeaux. Bertin began his artistic career, like Aligny, before the love of simple nature had found place in French feeling, and followed in the line of instruction given him by Girodet and Bi- f^Xl Pans. 8 Bertin dault - His last exhibition was in 1853, Old Tombs on the Nile, when he left painting to succeed his brother as editor of the Journal des Debats, which his father had founded. Under Louis Philippe he was Inspector of the Fine Arts. Michallon's father had taken the Prix de Rome for sculpture, but dying early his son became a pupil of David, Valenciennes, and Ber- tin. While studying Poussin at Rome he was also Achille Etna Michallon .. . . .. (1796-1822), Prix d.e Rome drawn to nature m its simple truth, and finally for classic Landscape 1817. was diverted by the influences of romanticism from mythological subjects but not to modern ones, approximating these only as far as the Middle Ages. A subject of that period, The Death of Roland, won for him the high esteem of his day. He was of great precocity, bearing off a medal at sixteen, and at twenty-one he took the Prix de Rome for landscapes — the first award after its establishment (1817). He was Corot's first instructor. A posthumous exhibition of his works was accorded to his memory in 1824. Twenty-one of his landscapes, bought by the Duke of Orleans for the modern gallery of the Palais Royal, indicate the dis- tinguished patronage he received. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 189 Desgoffe was of the school of Ingres. He first exhibited in 1834, _ and thus bore classic landscape far into the rooiantic Alexandre Desgoffe 1 (1805- 82), Paris. period. He painted chiefly the scenery of Italy, but ^'fndci' 'i8«-' 4 8 also execnted some religious subjects. In 1883 a " ist ci. 1845. posthumous exhibition was A Souvenir of Naples, l Hof 1857 857 together with A Heath Near Fontainebleau. He has at the Luxembourg The Medusa and Orestes ; his Narcissus at the Fountain is owned by the town of Lemur. Flandrin, the landscape painter, who still almost alone continues its classic forms, was the youngest of three brothers ; Auguste Rene Je a„ Pa U , Fi.„d,i„ (1804^44), Jean Hippolyte (1809-'64), and Jean (1811- ), Lyons. Paul, the two youngest the reverential pupils of Med. 2 ndci. 1839. Ingres, and thus only one remove from the teach- " 1st cl. 1857. . " 2nd ci. 1848. ing of David. Auguste was conspicuous at his L Hon ' 1852 death for brilliancy of promise. He had been Direc- tor of the School of Fine Arts at Lyons. Hippolyte became the great religious painter of France, and we shall meet him again and with him Paul also. Paul has a landscape, The Sabine Mountains (1852), in the Luxembourg. Since painting that he has exhibited in every Salon but the three '53, '64, and '72, his later works being Autumn near Montmorency (1883) ; In Autumn ; Diggers at Work (1885) ; Autumn Eeminiscences ; and Ombrages (1885). Among other landscape painters of the early century, Jules Louis Philippe Coignet (1798-1860), Paris : pupil of Bertin; medal 2nd class '42, '48 ; Legion of Honor 1836 ; gave a poetical rendering of scenes, and wrote a book on landscape painting. — Launcelot Teodore Turpin de Crisse (Comte de, 1781-1859), Paris, was one of the noblemen who, left without resources by the Revolution, found a support in the practice of art. His father, the Marquis de Turpin, expelled from France, died in America. The son found patrons in Josephine, Napoleon, and Prince Eugene. His landscapes, painted chiefly from 1806-30, are in the Museums of Angers, Dijon, Marseilles, Nantes and Lyons. He admired and imitated Giro- det, but with a deep sentiment for light. — Louis E Watelet (1780-1866), Paris : medal 2nd class 1818 ; 1st class '19 ; Legion of Honor 1825. Having made his debut in 1789, his first style was the classic landscape, from which he freed himself by a study of nature as he found it by travel in Belgium, Southern France, and Italy, and in his second style, beginning in 1824, produced a series of landscapes that, by their truth to nature, won for him renown and made him conspiciious in the tran- sition to the great school of natural landscape, of many of the artists of which he was the teacher. CHAPTER VI. PERIOD II. — ROMANTICISM FROM ITS DEFINITE RECOGNITION IN 1824 TO THE REVOLT OF ARTISTS IN 1848. IT was to be made apparent that classicism was only a dialect of art language. The solvent, as it has been aptly termed, of the tenacious grasp with which classicism held and stifled all differing art, was romanticism, a name derived from the literature which had earlier expressed the same tendencies of popular feeling. 1 Having loosened that grasp, it was to usher in realism in its various forms. In art, romanticism 2 meant the expression of emotion and sentiment as opposed to the aim for ideality of form which gave the statuesque figures of classicism. It is said of Delacroix that he restored expression to the human face. Had art been as quickly responsive as literature to national conditions, it long before would have burst the strong clasp with which it was held. The nation had been led through deep feeling, had caused and suffered the French Revolution, had been glorified or shocked in its different elements by the brilliant cam- paigns of Napoleon ; had had its republic, its empire, and its " liberal monarchy " ; its Elba, and its St. Helena. Its thought had been enlarged by extensive contact with other peoples in the marches of its armies ; by a forced comprehension of large affairs in its experi- ments of government ; by, on the one hand, the new experience of the nobility of privation in exile, 3 or imprisonment at home, and, on the other, of power in the hands of the lower classes. Could a people 1 Representatives of this are Burns, Goethe, Victor Hugo, Chateaubriand, Schiller, Byron and Scott, the two of greatest influence in the movement. It found its expres- sion in France in art more fully perhaps, though not earlier than in literature. 2 It will be remembered that the term romantic was first adopted in literature as meaning opposed to the classic, i. e., not written in Latin but in the Romance language, and from that came to mean impassioned, demonstrative ; and the classic, passionless, representation. 3 Louis Philippe's wide experience in his transition from a prince of the Royal House to the tutor in a school, or the poorly paid translator for the press, forced by long exile to become a traveller through many lands, is typical of how, as men, the nobility must have become broadened in thought by an enlargement of experience. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 191 which had participated in the retreat from Moscow, or which had had a reversal of the dearest hopes of all parties twice in a hundred days, and which was still adjusting itself to the results, speak its feelings in the calmness of classic art, in the forms of the old Greeks ? These " sons of the empire and grandsons of the Eevolution 99 could but have feelings the repression of which would stifle them. But romanticism had a deeper cause. Its sources were in the very sources of the Revolution ; the ideas that were the basis of that, had been working throughout Europe, as is evident from the romanti- cism awakened in the literature of other nations. Man, in becom- ing, chiefly through the teachings of Christianity, aware of the soul within, had recognized in life an earnest problem, where the Greek had seen only an established fact. The perception of the supremacy of the spirit, feeling, passion, was now to create the romantic in art, as it had earlier done in literature. Art ideals were now to pertain to the soul, rather than to objective form. The depth of its roots gave great strength to even its early growths. It had been long in breaking through the rigid surface formed by the forty years' supremacy of classicism, but it was not easily to be aborted. It had had a deep root in Napoleon's very nature, which, even amid his desire to emulate the Roman emperors, sent forth a luxuriant efflorescence, and, apart from this again, a "wild-flower" had blossomed in his Corsican temperament that led him to carry Ossian with him through- out his campaigns. Ossian in contrast with Homer, whose poems Alexander made the companions of his expeditions, affords a type of the new period of art, emotional and of impassioned expression. The firmly seated members of the Institute, slow to yield to the oncoming wave, that was to sweep away their long established prestige, and being chiefly classicists, 1 tried as vainly as did Canute to keep back the swelling tide. As the jury of the Salon, and thus holding power of artistic life and death to artists, they opposed this rise of innovating thought and with it that which represented it — youth and genius — for it was essentially a movement of youth and was remarkable for the precocity of the artists and authors who bore its banner. It was in a measure misunderstood by the Institute, it was misunderstood and misrepresented by its own followers, the inferior ones who copied the defects of its leaders, being unequal to their excellences. Classicism 1 The table (facing p. 134) shows them to have been Guerin, Hersent, Garnier, Bid- auld, J.B. Regnault, Taunay, Ingres, Lethiere, Gerard, Thevenin, Gros, and Carl Vernet. Schnetz soon succeeded Gerard and he with Ingres soon gave up the fierce opposition to the new art. 192 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. also presented against romanticism many influences of self-perpetua- tion. All the models in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were works of the classic school and had the prestige of haying won the Prix de Rome or honors at the Salons, critics also prolonged its influence by cling- ing to the convenient rules it afforded. But while the period takes name from its most forceful element, romanticism, the contending influences modified each other. A decade after the recognition of romanticism, at the death of Gros in 1835, art found itself controlled by three differing principles which may be called, "for the sake of clearness of classification, renovation, conciliation, and romanticism, or invention, and in accordance there- with was divided into three " camps." The great classicist, Ingres, was modified into a renovator and became the leader of that division. Its aim was to seek by every possible means to assimilate to its use the ideality of the Italian masters of the sixteenth century. As prac- tised by Ingres it was limited to Raphael and did not interfere with his devotion to form. Those following the principles of conciliation sought to reconcile and combine all schools of the past and by this eclecticism present and obtain a result which would be the true art of their time. Romanticism, of which Delacroix was the protagonist, seeking the ideals of the mind rather than of the body, portrayed thought, wit, emotion, passion, and hence the incidents of passing life. Thus it had on its side the strength of the tendency to be pleased with one's own personality, with the individual made clearly recognizable in art, the "ego" reflected by these passions, emo- tions, and incidents, a feeling inherent in human nature and made by events at this time unusually active. It is apparent that unless the Frenchman had lost his individuality, the mingling of the ideas of divers epochs and countries would not be a satisfactory art repre- sentation of his period. Art of the past had had its reasons for being and they had passed. Should not the same right be accorded to the present ? 1 Conciliation was merged into romanticism and renova- tion became the classic-romantic in which even the Davidian, Ingres, is by some still classed. Romanticism conquered apparently by a decisive victory. But although classicism no longer exists in its uncompromis- ing austerity, its forms and lines of grace, infused with the senti- ment of modern romanticism, still appear ; indeed, in later years, in the recoil of romanticism, the classic is again asserting itself. 1 "If the art of Raphael himself could be reproduced," it was truly said, "it would not find conditions of success now existing." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 193 But it is modified and is one of the forms of the individualism born legitimately of romanticism. As such it may become true art, as all sincere treatments are, for every work of the fine arts : poem, painting, architecture, sculpture, or music, finds its surest element of effect in the chord of human sympathy, and speaks to us primarily through the fact that some other mind has been touched by the subject and is seeking our sympathy in its emotions. The value of the subject, the greater or less perfection of presentation, the varied skill of the various languages, the choice of distinguishing or characteristic qualities, by which to represent it, by which the feel- ing, the impression of it, may be best reproduced and in which lies, essentially, its sentiment — all these are important, but the strength with which the scene, or incident, or fact has appealed to the artist to reproduce it, is the measure of the appeal it makes to others. The feeling that has been called forth in another in view of the object that thus demanded reproduction, rather than exact imitation or rhythmic lines adopted in conformity with some a priori ideal, is the fundamental influence in art ; and the artistic nature is one suscept- ible to vividness and depth of impressions, accompanied by the desire and the ability to express them. The method of expression is impor- tant, but that the artist be impelled to reproduction by deep impression is absolutely necessary. Under such feeling every artist in reproduc- ing his subject modifies it : a dozen artists in the different impression of the color, light, even form, would in view of the same old tree stump, make as many different pictures : the one, in whose rich nature it finds most points of emotional suggestion, will make the best work of art, and whatever of personal sincerity can be expressed by classicism — so far as this, indeed, is not an incompatibility of terms — is true art. This demonstrates the true place of the real and of truth in art, viz., to serve as the basis of suggestion, the basis of the combinations with which the free imagination (not, however, as a wild follower of fancy, but restrained by the laws of probability) shall appeal to aesthetic emotion. This principle will make clear a way through the manifold forms of the growing individuality of artists ; will afford the true test of true art ; will constantly demonstrate that every work of art is a confession ; that elevated souls will produce elevated art, be their arena the treatment of heroes of history or of the Goose Girl and Spaders of the fields of to-day. Upon his 1 accession to the throne, Louis Philippe decreed that 1 " The only Bourbon prince of a liberal turn of mind," said the Emperor Alex- ander to Madame de Stael at one of her reunions. 13 194 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the Salons should be held annually, and they followed every year from 1831 to 1850, with the exception of the year of the cholera, 1832. But Louis Philippe counteracted this increased opportunity for artists by again investing (1830) the power of the jury in the Institute, that is, in the first four sections of the Academy of Fine Arts ; painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving, which were to act together in the decisions for admission to the Salon. This resulted in a serious oppression. 1 A fierce battle ensued and the rising romanticism was cruelly crushed back in its earnest and sincere struggles with the classic style, entrenched as that was in the firmly established Insti- tute, and thus invested with the power of recompense and of exclusion from the Salons. The time presents rising artists not infrequently combating starvation on the one hand, and on the other, oppressive exclusion from the exhibitions, and yet fortunately for art, unwill- ing to stifle the promptings of genius. It forms a most touching passage of history. 2 Some of the Salons under the Restoration and the modified mon- archy of Louis Philippe, were epochs in art. That of 1819 became so by the exhibition of Gericault's Raft of the Medusa. That of 1824 forms the date of definite revolt with Delacroix's Massacre of Scio as the banner of the rebels. That of 1831, on the crest of the wave that then had surged up from the underlying desire for popular rights in politics, deposed Charles X., and enthroned Louis Philippe, is conspicuous for its many remarkable works by romanticists, and the strength it thus opposed to classicism ; it was the initiatory exhibition of the great school of landscape in France, " the men of 1830." So many artists conscious of merit, were refused 3 admission to the Salon in 1847 that a plan of insurrection was published under the title " Opposition in the Fine Arts." It demanded that a portion of the jury should be chosen from the artists by their peers. This not being acceded to, a work entitled " The Expositions and the Jury " followed. It concluded with a plan recognizing the necessity of a jury 1 It was the basis of great injustice, for, as nine constituted a quorum, and archi- tects attended most regularly, it often occurred that pictures were approved or con- demned by architects almost entirely. Fontaine, an architect, once said: " It always is with a full heart that I condemn a painter." 2 See Millet, Jules Dupre, Theodore Rousseau, Courbet. 3 In 1840 Jules Dupre, Theodore Rousseau, and others, annoyed by repeated ex- clusions, renounced henceforth all attempts to exhibit. It is related that the janitor of the Institute had come habitually to say in bringing pictures before the jury : "Gentle- men this is a Rousseau ; I need not turn its face from the wall." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 195 of admission, but proposing that it should be named by the artists ; that it should be divided into two sections, of which the second should revise the works refused by the first, and that each form of art should be judged only by those practising that form ; and that exemption from decisions of the jury for admission should be granted to those once awarded an honor, in order that they might be shielded from any future indifference or change of taste. Also, it demanded that the exhibitions should no longer be held in the Louvre whereby the old masterpieces were lost to sight for some months each year, but should have a place appropriated to their sole use. While this project was under consideration, an unforeseen importance was given to it by the Revolution of 1848. The Provisional Government — which seemed the proper place for the inception of all reform hoped for in whatsoever government was to be established — was no sooner formed than a petition was pressed upon it by Barye, Diaz and Couture, in the name of many others. The popular temporary Executive, Lamartine, received favorably the petition that asked, as a beam of the new government structure, "that all officials of the government whose service had a direct action on the fine arts should be chosen by a general assembly of the artists," and allowed such an assembly to be called. Ingres was made president and Delacroix vice-president of an Artists' Associa- tion. 1 In the excited hope prevailing, assumptions of the old Royal Academy were far surpassed by such demands as that the works acquired by the State and the award of the degrees of the Legion of Honor should be determined by the artists. The government being pressed with affairs beyond the possibility of attending to the open- ing of the Salon, the Minister of the Interior, M. Ledru-Rollin, authorized for that purpose a committee of forty chosen by the exhibitors and decided that all works offered should be admitted. 2 Thus the Salon of 1848 was virtually a free Salon. It presented a curious spectacle of works of all degrees of merit and demerit, the 1 Held in the Salle Valentin, amid, says an 'eye-witness in the Art Journal of that month, such a din and confusion of deafening shouts that the formation of an Artists' Association as subsequently published must have been a pre-arrangement, for any action was impossible. It, however, proved a valuable organization in the disturbed state of affairs ensuing. 2 The artists in general assembly elected among the painters ; Leon Coguiet, Cou- ture, Theodore Rousseau, and a respect still underlying the sense of oft-repeated injury led to Abel de Pujol and Brascassat, of the most arbitrary of the Academicians, being chosen to act with the "innovators." Ingres, Delacroix, Vernet and Decamps were others. 196 A HIS WHY OF FRENCH PAINTING. latter predominating, 1 and demonstrated as emphatically as those of 1791, '96, '99, the need of discriminated admissions. The public became most bitter and unsparing judges. Satirical cries resounded from before the worst of the canvases. Some of them were adorned with funeral wreaths and others with the inscriptions, " This is a woman," " What is that ? " The result was that some were immedi- ately withdrawn. All artists demanded a jury thereafter. But the Salon of 1848, universally condemned and generally inferior as it was, was the dawn of day to many a struggling artist. Courbet writing in March, 1850, after the Director of Fine Arts, Charles Blanc, had been persuaded to purchase for the gallery at Lille his After Dinner at Ornans, says : " I had for ten years worked at Paris in solitude, privation, and struggle, hav- ing a kind of lodging, half bed-room, half studio. After my first picture had been accepted and hung in the Salon Carre, the place of honor, and thus afforded me the opportunity of there announcing my profession, my works were invariably refused every year, if not entirely, at least those that were important to my reputa- tion. This was because my painting did not attach itself to traditions, and I was not a scholar of the Eeole des Beaux-Arts. But with the Revolution of February there came a free exhibition. I sent the rejected pictures with some painted since. Artists could then appreciate me in my true light and to that exhibition I attribute the entire success that I have obtained during the past year." Millet's pathetic pictures of the life of the French peasantry in that Salon, too, found a public from which they had previously been at times excluded. The inferiority of the Salon of 1848 was well atoned for in that alone. The artists' demands were acceded to for 1849. Proceeding thence from a new point of departure conditions arose that characterize the next period. During the last few years of the eighteenth and the early part of this century there was for the first time in a century and a half no Gallery of the Palais Royal — no Orleans Gallery. The one formed by the Regent of Louis XV. having been dispersed in 1771, the Palais Royal became the Palais du Tribunal from 1801 to 1807 and from that time until 1814 it remained vacant. But in that year one day an unknown man applied for entrance there ; he was refused but insisted, and upon being admitted, stooped and kissed the steps of the grand staircase. It was his ancestral home, but he had been excluded from it in poverty and exile for more than a score of years, but was soon to 1 Thore's saying that in its increased number, 5,181 works, no new talent of high rank was discovered, would go far to justify the previous exclusions, if that rejection had not led many of the rising geniuses to abandon the Salons. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 197 bring great interests both political and artistic again to centre there. It was the Duke of Orleans whose father had dispersed its former priceless gallery, the fourth after the Regent, to whom as the only representative of the Orleans family it was now restored. He gathered a distinguished collection, and there in 1830 the deputies came to offer him the crown of France, for from 1814 to 1832 with the exception of the " hundred days," when Lucien Bonaparte occupied it, he made it his residence until he removed as King Louis Philippe I. to the Tuileries. His patronage of art while making this collection was an important influence in this and the preceding period, and at its completion in 1830 its pictures numbered two hundred and seventy- eight, besides a magnificent and ancient collection of portraits (a part originally made by Mile, de Montpensier, " la grande Mademoiselle," cousin of Louis XIV.), as well as other more modern portraits. It illus- trates his estimate of artists of this time. It represented 99 artists : Michallon had 21 pictures there ; H. Vernet, 19 ; Gericault, 7 ; Turpi n de Crisse (le Comte), 5 ; Gros, 1. Of 150 pictures of this gallery, as still existing in La Galerie Lithographiee du Due d'Orleans ; 19 are of pictures of Horace Vernet ; 9 of Michallon ; 7 of Gerards ; 7 of Granet ; 6 of Gudin's marines ; and though of Bidault there are two, and one of Abel de Pujol, there is not one of the chief classicist, David. During this period National Museums also were increased by Louis Philippe's creation of the galleries at Versailles (1833) dedicated to "all the glories of France." He also contributed at an expense of 74,132 francs thirty-three pictures to the Louvre. But while he cared for Versailles, the internal administration of the Louvre was in a deplor- able condition. The riches it contained were imperfectly known, even to the officials who governed it. More than twenty warehouses, dark and out of repair, were filled with uninventoried objects, and during this reign studios there, with attendance from the servants of the museum, were again granted to artists in favor. Its treasures being uncatalogued, all were deprived of means of studying them, and, in the great artistic movement of 1847, the absolute necessity of a reformed administration of the Louvre was urged. It was effected after the Revolution of '48. PAINTERS OF THE ROMANTIC PERIOD. The painters of the Romantic Period form three divisions : first, romanticists ; second, classic-romanticists ; third, the naturalistic classes resulting from romanticism, e. g., orientalists, and landscape painters. 198 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Among the romanticists Delacroix stands easily first. Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix was the son of Charles Constant Delacroix, an advocate who had had an active Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix (.799-1863), Charenton, St. Maurice. part HI the StilTmg SCdieS of the Med. 2nd class 1824, l. Hon. 1831; of. 1846. i ast years 0 f t } ie eighteenth cen- Cam. 1855; Mem. Inst. 1857. . 0 tury, being deputy to the National Convention from the Department of the Marne, successor of Talley- rand as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador to Holland under the Directory. The son being designed for public affairs was most carefully educated, and in the first years after his father's death enjoyed the benefit of a patrimony of three thousand dollars' income. He was the youngest of four children, of whom the eldest, in the service of Napoleon, was made a general, Commander of the Legion of Honor, and a Baron of the Empire ; the second was the wife of M. de Verninac Saint Maur, ambassador to Constantinople ; and the third, Henri, was killed at Fried land. Eugene was the true represen- tative of the age so replete with ideas, but for its burning enthu- siasms and activities he found other expression than the only pre- vious one, the painting of battles. No one more than he felt its deep significance, no one more eloquently expressed it. 1 He has indeed been judged as being too thoroughly imbued with the French spirit of 1830 to be permanently and universally interesting. But in thus being the expression of his age lies his merit, and in it are found the excuses for such extremes as he may show. He has been called the painter of the soul of his age, and it was, indeed, not with externals that he dealt. He had the sensibilities of the true poet and an ex- tremely emotional temperament, 2 and becoming learned in the litera- ture of many times and lands he interpreted its fullest meanings, not simply illustrated. " To penetrate and express meaning, his genius set aside law and he early became drunk with the wine of intox- icating color," one of his critics says. He was a lover of music to such a degree that he derived some of his finest conceptions from its inspiration. 3 Left fatherless in 1805, his mother placed him in the 1 His infancy had by strange happenings epitomized its imminent violence. Five times he escaped from sudden death, once being so badly burned in his cradle that had taken fire that he bore the marks for life ; once he was near to death, poisoned with verdigris ; once he fell into the sea at Marseilles and was barely rescued by a seaman ; and twice he was nearly strangled. 2 Having a profound admiration for Gericault, who was his friend, when that artist once asked him for one of his sketches, in joy and pride Delacroix fell upon his knees to offer it to him. 3 " Elle me pousse aux grandes choses," said he, and he confided to Adolphe Moreau that while listening to the Dies Irae played upon the organ he had found the move- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 199 Lycee Louis le Grand, at Paris, and he there had a view of Napo- leon's wonders of art in the Louvre. In enthusiastic admiration the lad forthwith decided that his life-work should be to emulate those achievements, and he entered the studio of Guerin which was soon to become the " foyer " of romanticism. At this time, during the exile of David at Brussels (1814-24), there were but three celebrated teachers at Paris : Guerin, Jean Baptiste Kegnault and Gros, and in the studio of Guerin, the ultra- classicist who carried David's principles beyond David's practice, were gathered as fellow-pupils those who were to revolutionize painting : Gericault, Eugene Delacroix, Ary Scheffer, Sigalon, and another, Champmartin, at that time a reformer of promise, or rather a promise of a reformer. An account by Delacroix furnishes a glimpse of the life there : Champmartin held the esteem of his fellows so that they, even Gericault, were more zealous for his approbation than for that of their master. Ary Scheffer was the philosopher seeking to direct the morals of the studio, haranguing often, with a Dutch accent, which was very pronounced in his youth. Delacroix and Gericault were drawn together by their sympathies, and at this time Gericault had been banished from the studio for a trick, which resulted in the upsetting of a pail of water, intended for Champmar- tin, on the head of Guerin. Delacroix visited him often at his room, and his own genius was aroused by contact with that earnest mind. There, Gericault made his various sketches of the Raft of the Me- dusa, naively wondering what Champmartin would think of them, and Ary Scheffer criticising and correcting. Delacroix's first great work, whose conception and execution had been much discussed with Gericault, The Barque of Dante, appeared in the Salon of 1822, when lie was only twenty-three years old. 1 Dante in the dress of a Florentine, and with the face and form of a living man, and Virgil of an antique type but imbued with the serenity of an immortal, embark for the city of Dis, as described by Dante, and of which the distant fires make the sky lurid. They are ferried over by Charon, who sturdily rows with his back to his passengers, regardless of the crowds of wretched souls who seek to cling to the barque. ment for the scourging angel in his Heliodorus Chased from the Temple. Madame George Sand wrote : " Delacroix is a complete artist. He feels and understands music in a manner so superior that it would have made him, probably, a great musician had he not chosen rather to be a great painter. He is an equally good judge of literature ; few minds are so accomplished and clear as his." 1 Observe that Delacroix's innovations were not subjected to a jury of admission of classicists " de rigueur," but to that jury instituted by the ordinance of Louis XVIII. and composed of the Institute with the addition of some officials and some amateurs. 200 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. The appropriately classic figure of Virgil formed a seeming tie with the classicists, who also could appreciate the subdued coloring that harmony with the scene required, and it was leniently received, although an innovation on their canons in regard to line and form and intensities of expression. Gros admired it, but Gros, who might be considered as now by his fiery temperament sustaining alone 1 the classic school, was unwittingly, but none the less — nay, all the more — truly a romanticist. Ingres on his return from Italy two years later was delighted with it, and Thiers, who at that time was in the first stage of his brilliant career, the art writer of the Constitationnel, the chief organ of public opinion, discovered in it the " future of a great artist," the " burst of a nascent superiority." Said he : " This artist possesses in addition to the poetic imagination which is common to the painter and the writer, the art imagination . . . which is quite dis- tinct from the other. He throws in his figures, groups them, binds them to his will, with the boldness of Michael Angelo and the wealth of Rubens." Time was to confirm Thiers' youthful perceptions. Meantime in 1824 Delacroix was awarded a second class medal upon exhibiting 1 David was in exile (1814-1824). Prudhon was benumbed by the suicide in his household. Ingres was in Italy and there reforming the reform of David, and Baron Gerard's classicism unsustained by David had weakened. His comment was, " the Barque of Dante is not bad, but that artist is running over the house tops." Gros' reception of it illustrates the old Baron's large heart. Delacroix, for his patrimony was gone, had been too poor to frame it for the Salon, and a carpenter, interested in him, gave him four laths of white wood, over which he sifted a yellow powder and made what seemed to him a passable frame. When the Salon opened he hastened to the Louvre to ascertain the effect of his picture. But he in vain searched the galleries for it, and threw himself upon a bench in despair at its exclusion. After a time of great disappointment and suffering, he at length discovered his Barque of Dante in the Salon Carre, the place of honor, and in a fine frame ! Delacroix's poor substitute for one had fallen to pieces, and Gros had replaced it. Delacriox hastened to make his acknowledgments, and ringing at Gros' door, the Baron himself opened it with his palette on his thumb. "Ah! you are the young man who has painted this boat? Well, you have made a masterpiece, and probably without knowing it, for you are too young to comprehend the merit and range of your work. It is Rubens reformed. But you do not know how to draw. Come to us and you will learn to correct your contours, to model truly, to see accurately." Delacroix bowed but devoured with eager eyes the Jaffa, the Eylau, and the Aboukir which hung in Gros' studio, having been returned to their author by the government of the Restoration, unwilling to see even in such masterpieces, bought, at high prices by Napoleon's government, the Empire reflected from its walls. Gros seeing his eager looks, continued, " I am obliged to go out ; come in and remain as long as you please, and on leaving, give the key to the concierge." Upon returning Gros, greatly surprised at finding Delacroix still there, exclaimed, " My young friend, you have been looking at my pictures for three hours. No one has ever done them that honor before. Come to us. We will teach you drawing, believe me, and you will astonish the schools." — Charles Blanc. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 201 Tasso in a Mad House and also produced The Massacre of Scio (Louvre), both pictures intensely strong in expression and dramatic action, which was the aim in all Delacroix's art. Emotion with him was not to be prescribed by harmonized lines and unruffled forms. The latter had been conceived under the influence of the Pest at Jaffa in Gros' studio; nevertheless it led Gros now to abandon the "inno- vator," saying : "The Massacre of Scio is the massacre of art." He was wrong. Instead the Massacre of Scio became the rallying point of all earnest workers who by their originality had become innova- tors in the eyes of the old time artists. Delacroix had painted it as he had been made to feel it by the public journals which had been full of indignant accounts of the outrages which the Greeks had suf- fered at Scio. In the foreground he represented desolation only, and kept in the background the carnage, which is only the more terrible as imagined, or caught in glimpses ; here an infant 1 clinging to the breast of its dead mother, there two lovers embrac- ing while awaiting death, and again a young wife weeping and supporting herself upon her dying husband. A Sciote is in a desperate struggle with a Turk, who mounted upon an iron gray horse, drags, bound to its tail, a beautiful Greek maiden, nude. This touching figure assumes in the scene of horror the signifi- cance of allegory and seems to symbolize Greece despoiled and struggling against the oppressor. The romantic school of painting now took definite form (1824). Its banner caught from the stiffening hands of Gericault was thrust into those of Delacroix, who was thus made the representative and sponsor for all the audacities perpetrated by the rebels against established standards, and was thus naturally seriously compro- mised. He was misunderstood and misrepresented. " Le roman- tisme mal entendu infecte les ateliers de France," wrote Heine in 1831 . . . " chacun s'efforce de peindre autrement que les autres." Romanticism as received did not describe his work or theory. 2 He, however, represented its aspirations. With this "honor thrust upon him," he held in history the chieftainship of that growing company, 1 Delacroix was painting this infant when he heard of the death of Gericault. Greatly depressed by the loss of his friend, he did not resume painting for some time. 2 He himself often railed against "romanticism" in some of its forms, and was a warm admirer of Ingres. He was always classic in his literary tastes and never re- nounced the influence of the antique. He maintained, however, that to understand the antique it was necessary to apply to other sources than the school of David. He wrote : "That which characterizes the antique is an informed fulness of forms, com- bined with the sentiment of life. It is the breadth of scheme and the grace of the ensemble. It does not consist in giving to each isolated figure the appearance of a statue " (Studies onPrudhon). 202 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. that since 1820, in fact since his exile, had been revolting against David, and now " armed with their palettes as bucklers, declared in loud hurrahs," that the dogmas established by the secret seances of the Institute should no longer be considered authoritative. Delacroix excited the fierce opposition of some and the delirious enthusiasm of others. He sustained himself in the new path with great originality, exhibiting in the next Salon (1827) no fewer than twelve works. 1 Among other important ones was The Execution of Marino Faliero 2 and The Death of Sardanapalus which, by his opponents in their eager haste for such event, was christened " The Death of Roman- ticism," but in which the sybaritic king reclining on the gorgeous bed which he had substituted for a throne and about which he had gathered his treasures, even to his favorite horse, gave a rare oppor- tunity for the artist's love of color and of violent action. Delacroix's great excellences were now apparent, color, power of imagination, strength of expression. Not beauty, but emotion, dramatic action, the drama of life, were the field of his affinities ; thus he does not charm so much as overwhelm. He depicts vividly time, place, season, the entirety of his subject, but perfect drawing 3 was not a part of his equipment. He was rather a painter who constantly employed what is technically known as the " tache," a word which recent painting has made necessary to its vocabulary and perhaps is best translated as "patch." His instinct for color pene- trated its most secret relations and bore thence the science of its com- binations and reflections, its sentiment even. 4 By the former, two 1 Ary Scheffer, who had learned before Delacroix a power with his pen and was the defender in the press of the new movement, wrote in 1828 : " The last fifty years comprise the entire life of the classic school," apparently considering that the Salon of that year had ended it. 2 Reminding one of Henri Regnault's executions. A garment being drawn on the wounded neck it is less abhorrent than those pictures accepted as masterpieces at the end of the Second Empire. Delacroix esteemed this above all his other works. It sold some years ago for £4,000, having sold originally for £400. 3 Though sometimes unconscious of his incorrect drawing he was not always so. He sometimes varied from strict truth of outline in his aim of emphasizing an impres- sion or an essential characteristic. Thus in the portrait of Alfred Baryas in the Museum of Montpellier he has given a disproportionate importance to the hand of the invalid, which with great expression, simply holds a handkerchief. "Such liberties are not merely permitted to genius, but are its absolute right," said he. " It is a great ques- tion," he wrote apropos of Michael Angelo, " and one that has been much agitated, and will be discussed as long as there are calm spirits and others more easily exalted ; whether inaccuracies spoil a work of genius, and whether correctness gives to a work of mediocrity a sufficient degree of merit." 4 Of the exhibition of Delacroix's works in March, 1855, a critic says : " He makes hues skilfully contrasted or fraternally united sing together." This scientific accuracy THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 203 strong colors in proximity are modified each by the other, by the latter, the modulations of color are made to harmonize with the feeling or action of the picture, as brilliancy with joy, sombreness with sorrow. No tone in his pictures could be changed without loss. With him color dominated design. He chose his forms for his color rather than his color for his forms. He conceived his objects in color, instead of first drawing and then coloring. Contemporaneous comment un- consciously acknowledged his skill, in accusing him in his St. Sebastian (1836) of copying Titian ; The Magdalen at the Foot of the Cross was said to recall Kubens, and, in The Woman of Algiers (1834), he was said to have imitated Veronese, to whom, indeed, he acknowl- edged himself indebted for all he knew of color. This picture so illustrates the mathematical certainty, as well* as the poetic sense of effect, with which he made use of hues that its description will serve a double purpose. It won the honor of a place in the Luxembourg en route for the Louvre where his being deceased ten years has now placed it. Three women of the Seraglio, half reclining on the carpet, doing nothing, hardly holding their narghiles in their nonchalant fingers, present no prevalence of life and thought, more than flowers or jewels, and so leave the play of color undominated by any intellectual interest. He has pushed to their maximum of splendor, but has brought to a repose by a perfect equilibrium of intensities, the great brilliancy, opulence, and fulness of color of the accessories — stuffs and faience, and walls of wonderful combinations. He has made use of complement- ary contrasts and harmonies of tints, and of blacks and whites as amalgams, so to speak. As slight illustration of this management, the orange corsage of one woman allows its edge of the lining of blue satin to be seen ; a skirt of violet silk is striped with gold. The negress who has served the women and is seen retiring into the background has a drapery of dark blue striped, a corsage of light blue, and a madras of orange color, three tints which enhance each the other's value and the orange is still more accentuated by proximity to the dark skin of the negress. But a less palpable management is seen in the almost im- perceptible manner in which he tempers contrasting tones by breaking one with the other. Thus one of the women wears a rose in her hair and a demi-pantalon of was acquired : he was often uncertain. "I have never undertaken a work," said he, "that at certain moments did not make me despair." But at those moments he felt after truth, and so illustrates how truth is to be found. One of these moments of despair occurred while painting golden tones on the mantles of the doges and senators of his Marino Faliero which seemed dull in spite of the brilliant yellows he used. Blanc relates how Delacroix was going ''-to confide his despair to Rubens at the Louvre " and obtain his counsel when, in the canary colored cabriolet brought to him, he noticed that the yellow of the carriage produced violet color in the shadows, and became more brilliant in proximity to these violets. He applied the discovery to his picture without consulting Rubens' works that day. 204 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. green, over which are scattered spots of yellow, and a loose garment of rose color about her shoulders is modified by an almost impalpable sowing of little flowers of green. His harmonizing of color with action is illustrated in The Fanatics of Tangiers (1838), a masterpiece among the pictures of genre of his time, in which he has made the hraivling of the light and color cor- respond to the convulsions of the figures. Delacroix's penetration of the spirit of scenes represented desolation by lugubrious tones and this harmonizing of color with sentiment is seen also in his first pic- ture, The Barque of Dante. Conspicuous and famous, condemned and worshipped, he had had all forms of attention except that of commissions for public works, or that of paying patronage. As an innovator, whom received authori- ties arraigned as the " murderer of art," 1 this could hardly be hoped, and in 1828, to keep the wolf from his door he resorted to making lithographic illustrations for journals and books. But in 1830 the government of Louis Philippe 2 commissioned him to paint two battle scenes. He responded by his Liberty on the Barricades, or July 28, 1830 (Salon of 1831), a scene of the recent revolution and the only picture in which he ever touched upon politics. He also received from the government the opportunity of travelling in 1831 in Morocco as attache to a provisional legation and in Algiers. This with a short journey to England in 1825 in company of Bonington and Isabey, and where Shakespeare as interpreted by Kean gave him a new impulse in romanticism, and to Belgium in 1838, comprises all his travel. He never went to Italy, though ascribing, as has been said, all he knew of color to Veronese. He was sometimes received coldly, sometimes even rejected at the Salons, as in 1836. His apti- tude for mural decorations, in his quality of conceiving pictures as a whole, and subordinating the parts to the combined effect, was finally recognized. M. Thiers who, thirteen years before, had perceived his talent, having now risen to be Minister of Public Instruction, gave him commissions in 1835, and by 1855 he had decorated the Palais Bour- bon, the Chamber of Deputies, the Library of the Luxembourg, the 1 Ingres, after Delacroix's Sardanapalus, joined Gros in such epithets. He called Delacroix the " Robespierre of painting." There is now in the Cabinet des Estampes at Paris a copy of Faust with seventeen illustrations by Delacroix. They received from the aged Goethe, himself, the high encomium that he found in them again all the imp-ressions of his youth. 2 His liberal tastes and desire of conciliating made an offset, in a measure, to his plunging the Salons again under the unrestrained power of the Institute, and thus making possible the tyranny of the period from '31 to '48. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 205 Church of St. Sulpice and galleries in the Louvre and the Hotel de Ville. In the Chapel of the Holy Angels in the Church of St. Sul- pice, as his last work, he painted scenes of struggle — The Wrestling of Jacob with the Angel, St. Michael Overthrowing the Demon, and Heliodorus Chased from the Temple. He thus challenged comparison with Raphael, in which "he has failed utterly," say his opponents, " a flash of genius," say his followers. 1 But even while occupied with these great works, his easel constantly furnished pictures to the Salons. 2 A partial enumeration gives : Faust and Margaret (1846) ; Battle of Nancy (1834, Museum of Nancy) ; Prisoner of Chillon (1835) ; St. Sebastian (1836) ; Battle of Taillebourg (1837) ; of Poictiers ; Media (1838, Lille Museum) ; Hamlet and the Grave Digger (1839) ; Ophelia ; Pieta (1844) ; Romeo's Farewell ; Rebecca (1846) ; Lady Macbeth ; The Giaour (1851) ; The Two Foscari (1855) ; The Bishop of Liege ; Sardanapalus ; Attila ; and Merlin. Some of his Eastern subjects are Jewish Wedding in Morocco (1841, Louvre) ; Entry of Crusaders into Constantinople (Versailles) ; Sultan of Morocco Leaving his Palace (1845, Toulouse) ; Arab Musicians (1848, Tours) ; Arab Cavalry (1832) ; Algerian Women at Home (1853). They illustrate the fascination the great sea of human passion had for him. He may be called the painter of struggle and violence. Famine, imprisonment, martyrdom, battles, the desolations of war, massacres, cruelties, orgies, tragedies, madness, melancholy, love in its impassioned form, as of Romeo and Juliet, the violence of crime, strength, combat, — the combat for existence, or combat for pleasure, but always combat — form the inspiration of his brush. This he wielded with an "overpowering fury" that proved him to be truly the man of his violent national era. He has been called the Victor Hugo of painting. It was his practice to imbue his mind with the sentiment of his subject and study the lessons to be learned from his models, and then set all aside and "evoke" from his own feeling thus aroused his picture. 3 1 " A Heliodorus less murderous, less brutal than Raphael's, of a different race but of great value, as it enables us the better to understand that of the great masters," says Vitet. 2 That the Salons were open to his pictures, though now (1831-'48) by the ordi- nances maintained through Louis Philippe's reign subject to the sole control of the Institute as jury, and notwithstanding the opposition of such a constituency to Dela- croix, is alone an indication of a power in him, or behind him, that could not be resisted. 3 "The presence of the model lowers the artist. An inferior person debases by contact," said he. " In attempting to raise the model to your ideal, you, instead, approximate the ideal to the reality, which presses upon you what you have under your eye." He was accustomed to say, Blanc tells us, " An artist should know his picture by heart before painting it." Once after saying this as he parted from two friends in the street he turned back and making a trumpet of his hands, repeated " By heart, yes by heart." 206 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Delacroix's position toward the public was an interesting one. From bis gift for color and dramatic action, and from the character- istics of the time in which he lived — immediately following David — both his difficulties and successes may be inferred. He had risked all in the new path in which free movement was superseding the defined march of tradition, and conscious of physical infirmity, was struggling to establish its value before failing health should prevent. To this, arduous manual labor was necessary as well as nervous vigor for thought and invention, and he devoted himself to it even to the exclusion of marriage, jealously shut in alone in his studio warmed to the temperature of an invalid, for his feeble digestion caused even a prolonged conversation to produce fever and weakness. A critic (Vitet) was writing with keen analysis a severe judgment of his Chapel of the Holy Angels, when hearing of his death (Aug. 13, 1863), he added a postscript of homage to this "fertile and puissant" mind. It was but the beginning of the verdict of posterity. He left the small fortune of 210,000 francs, for which he was indebted to his patronage by the State. Strangely inconsistent, though it may have been through his keen sense of a harmony of things, in his will, made Aug. 3, 1863, he says, "My tomb shall be copied exactly from the antique.'' Like Ingres, the great high priest of the opposing school, he was enabled eventually to speak ex cathedra, for he was made a member of the Institute in the chair of Delaroche in 1856. This Blucher of revolt was admitted to the secret councils of the chiefs of conser- vatism. Independent of it, defying its condemnation, his greatest satisfaction was, nevertheless, this dipping of its flag to his. It was a cold salute to his colors brought about by N. Robert-Fleury, who won over one by one the various members to this compromise with, romanticism, but it was an acceptance of his art. At the Inter- national Exhibition of 1855, Ingres' forty and Delacroix's thirty-five pictures led to the comparison : " Ingres, like Plato, walks the groves of Academe ; Delacroix drives swift steeds across the broken roads of an American forest — follow who can, fall into quagmire who can- not." At every gathering of artists, at every conference on art, even after they had passed away, these two leaders were present by their influence. Ingres could be followed and copied, while Delacroix was inimitable. His " winged " nature had too high and rapid a flight for pursuit, but he aroused ambitious rivalries and would-be imitators. Ingres' point was the individual, Delacroix's the mass ; Ingres was the portrait painter, Delacroix the painter of the great " tout ensem- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 207 ble." 1 With the warmth of romanticism Delacroix admired Ingres, with the severity of classicism, Ingres frigidly said'to Delacroix, " Mon- sieur, le dessin est la probite de Tart." His works cover the period from 1813 to 1863, and comprise 853 pictures, 1,525 pastels, and water colors, 6,629 drawings, 24 engravings, 109 lithographs, and more than 60 sketch books. 2 At his death the pictures in his studio were appraised at 100,000 francs ; they brought 350,000. Millet, hungry and in sabots, was there to possess himself of one of Delacroix's drawings. Courbet, too, admired his works. While Delacroix, the chosen chief of the romantic school, shut himself into his studio, excluding all disturbance or observation, while he worked off the exciting "fievre" of his ^lol^e^X**^***"* artistic impulse, Eugene Deveria, who in his Birth of Henry IV. so nearly outri vailed him, with a younger brother, Achille (1810-'58), a painter of historical and religious subjects, kept a rendezvous for the leaders in the great movement of the time, romanticism. There were discussed the great reforms, artistic, political and literary, by men soon to become conspicuous, such as Alfred de Musset, Victor Hugo, Gautier, and other romanticists in literature and politics, and here came Dela- croix with the calm and finished exterior of his habitual social bearing. Madame Deveria, assisted by her daughter, a brunette of remarkable beauty, presided at these evening salons of her sons. The history of romanticism in art would not be complete without 1 There have been sixty-seven portraits of Delacroix produced since 1820, twenty- seven of which are posthumous. They are of every form of art expression : drawing, wood-cuts, etching, engraving, lithography, water-coolr, oil, bronze, and sculpture. Two are by himself ; one (1820) at the Montpellier Museum, and one (1837) presented by the artist's intimate friend, Mile. Josephine Leguillon, to the Louvre. Three are caricatures, but in their exaggeration not less impressed with some of his marked char- acteristics. One of these, published in 1839, with the head of a vulgar gamin, but in the attenuated figure, expressing the distinction which characterized this artist, is labelled " Eugene Delacroix of a pencil ' riche et sauvage.' " But perhaps his best por- trait is a verbal one by his schoolmate at the Lycee Louis le Grand, Philarete Chasles, who writes: " I was at college with this lad of the olive brow, the flashing eye, the mobile face, the cheeks early hollowed, the delicately mocking mouth. He was slender and elegant in figure, and his crisp, abundant, black locks betrayed a southern origin. . . . From his eighth and ninth year this wonderful artist reproduced attitudes, invented foreshortening, drew and varied all outlines, pursuing, torturing, multiplying form in all its aspects with a persistence that resembled mania." 2 The prices of Delacroix's pictures have ruled very high for the last twenty years or more. Even the sketch for his The Barque of Dante brought $750 at the Johnston sale in New York, 1876. In 1876 the Due d'Aumale paid 7,000 francs for The Two Foscari, and in the Ward-Brown sale, New York, 1886, a single head, The Revolutionist, sold for $1,500. 208 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. this glimpse of these gatherings, nor its works fully illustrated with- out a notice of Deveria's Birth of Henry IV. (1827), which won for him so complete a success at so early an age (twenty-five) that it seemed to have exhausted his talent, for he never equalled it in any after work. In The Beading of the Sentence of Mary Stuart, exhibited at the same time, his execution fell below the proper conception of the subject. But the merit of The Birth of Henry IV. was so incon- testable that at the opening of the Salon it was purchased by the Government at six thousand francs for the Luxembourg, and is now in the Louvre. All the means of artistic expression seemed to serve in it to their full capacity ; arrangement, light and shade, form, selection, all contributed to a skilful and impressive conveying of the idea in- tended. It marked an epoch in art-history in affording a grand historical subject with its characters clothed — not draped, like those of the classicists — in the costumes of the time. The expression of the many figures gathered upon the occasion of joy is skil- fully rendered, that of the mother Jeanne d'Albret a felicitous mingling of joy, hope, physical pain, and courage, with grace and modesty. In the centre of the picture the father holds the child on high to show him to all, and thus his own head is in the shadow of the child, and by this happy invention the principal lights are left to fall upon the mother and the child, while at the same time the father occupies the centre. Many charming details interest a closer observation after the first impression less absorbs the attention. Deveria became a Protestant pastor at Pau in 1836, but in 1837 he painted works for the Historical Museum of Versailles and ceil- ings in the Louvre, the Palais Koyal, and Notre Dame de Lorette. Boulanger the pupil of Achille Deveria and of Lethiere was of the romantic school, painting chiefly from literature and history. Louis Boulanger Mazeppa was his first exhibition (1827) and 08O6-.867) verciiie, piedmont. A Concert in Picardy his last (1866). In Med. 2d cl. 1827; 1st cl. 1835. --oj^i- i , xi n 1 -m tit l. Hon., 1840. 1840 his work at the balon was Three Women Director of Art Schools at Dijon, beloved by Poets: Dante's Beatrice, Pe- trarch's Laura, and Ariosto's Orsolina. Champmartin, the third of the group of four rebels against the school of David found in friendly alliance in the studio of Guerin, caiiande de champmartin. after exhibiting for several years portraits of most (1797- ) Bourges. excellent coloring and charming in every way, 1st ci. Med. 1831. catered more and more to the ideas of the public, and was soon lost from the ranks of artists to be remembered. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 209 Perhaps most prominent among the classic romanticists who form the second group of the painters of this romantic period, and another of the rebels in Guerin's studio, Ary Scheffer, as he advanced found his mystic sentiment and romance allied in the delicacy of their nature, to the ideal of Ingres's style, and developed, especially after meeting and being influenced by that artist in 1841, a romanticism tinged in form, type, and cast of draperies by the classic. This was more easily effected as his sense of color was not strong. He greatly admired Ingres, and often speculated upon the advantage having had him as his teacher would have given him. The changes of his style to greater purity of form owing to that master, chiefly shown in his works from Faust, have caused him sometimes to be classed with those who went over to Ingres. He was born at Dordrecht, whereto com- memorate that fact, he now stands — since 1861 — in bronze effigy. He was of mixed nationality (his mother being Dutch, (lygy-issVDordrecht. his father German, and France the country of his Med. 1817; l. Hon. 1828? adoption) but of pure artistic inheritance, for his father was an artist whom death alone prevented from acquiring fame, and who left to his wife the dying injunction that Ary should be kept from composing until by the study of anatomy and drawing he had laid a good foundation of art. His mother, also something of an artist, well understood the artist's life and its true aims. Left by her husband with but 300 livres' income per annum, she sold her jewels to educate her three sons, two of whom, Ary and Henri, became artists. Ary, before twelve years old (1807), exhibited a pic- ture at Amsterdam that won distinguished attention. He was then sent to Lille to learn drawing, and subsequently (1811) to Paris, where he exhibited, when only fifteen, Abel Singing a Hymn of Praise. At Paris in the studio of Guerin, the leading one for pupils at that time, the tolerance of the master who could not guide, except in classic tendencies, left for this pupil as for Gericault, individuality to develop itself, and Scheffer attained the power which enabled him to exhibit in 1819, The Patriotism of the Six Citizens of Calais. This announced him a painter of ideas. It, with Gaston de Foix Found Among the Dead at Eavenna (1824, Versailles), shows in the color and attempts for effect the strength of his early romanticism. But with the mysti- cism of the German, it was in expression of sentiment, rather than material execution, that he affiliated with the romantic school. At first he sought to combine the two, but, as his character matured and asserted itself, he developed more and more the tendency to expres- sion, and his execution sometimes wavered under the strength of his 14 210 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. sentiment. 1 He possessed skill in design, but had almost no feeling for color. His artistic life may be considered under three divisions in accordance with the three classes of subjects he treated : First, scenes from real life, among which many have commanded such attention as to be well known through engraving and photog- raphy. They show his sympathy with human suffering : The Soldier's Widow (1821); Death of Gericault (1824, Louvre); The Return of the Conscript (1831); Orphans at the Tomb of their Mother ; Sister of Charity (1824); Scenes of the Invasion of Alsace of 1814 (1824); The Suliote Women (1827, Luxembourg); Burning of the Manor (1824); Fishermen in a Storm (1831). Then followed a series from the field of poetry, to the elevating influences of which in this period of his life he has shown a susceptible nature. Faust's Marguerite so seized upon his mind that he returned to the subject again and again. Marguerite at the Fountain (1858, Sir R. Wallace, London) was one of his last works. In 1830 the first of his series of this heroine Martha and Marguerite, now owned by the king of the Belgians, appeared, and in 1831 Marguerite at the Spin- ning "Wheel, accompanied by the Faust in his Study Tormented by Doubt, both now owned by the Baronne de Rothschild, Paris. Each, a single figure almost without accessories, made apparent, at a glance and by simple means, an intensity of feeling, a thing so new in paint- ing, that crowds gathered about them with a curious sympathy. Marguerite at Church (1832, Samuel Ashton, London) followed. This is Marguerite at mass yielding to remorse, with drooping body and abased head throwing herself upon a prie-dieu, in an absorbed appeal to God, the agony of which is mainly depicted in the hands. He told the story again and again in his Marguerite au Sabbat in the manner, alone, of her holding her infant, in The Coming Out of Church (1838, S. Ashton), in The Walk in the Garden (1846, S. Ashton), in Faust's Vision (1846, S. Ashton), and Faust with the Cup (1858, Count Kircheloff). The Marguerite at the Fountain completes the series, and in this, expression still is the great excellence. In it are mingled the dawning happiness of love, and the awakening of the lost i Among this little group of innovators, he wrote of the Salon of 1828: " Classi- cism attained its exclusive aim so perfectly that it has imparted a temporary illusion to all that it leaves behind it, and has led an entire generation to aim in painting only at correct outlines, to be susceptible only to the type of beauty of antique statues and bas- reliefs. All this could last but for a time, for painting, far from being limited to a cer- tain type of design, is not limited to design even, but comprehends color, effect, the depicting of passions, places, times, history entire, and not that of a few centuries. The public, 'blase ' in the pleasure of contemplating Greek and Roman figures, cannot fail to desire others." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 211 sense of guilt, as without seeming to, she listens to the innocent con- versation of the maidens coming for water. Scheffer also painted various pictures of Goethe's Mignon, as Mignon Eegretting her Native Land (1836, Duchesse d'Ayen) ; Mignon Aspiring to Heaven (1839) ; Mignon and the Harper (1844, Queen of England). These pictures, though German in a certain mystic expression, were none the less favorites in France. Le Larmoyeur (The Weeper) was drawn from Schiller. It was painted in 1831, placed then in the Luxembourg and taken thence to the Louvre, and a replica of it is now in the Cor- coran Gallery, Washington. Eberhard, the old Count of Wirtemburg yesterday had reproached his son for having withdrawn from battling alone with superior numbers and, too indignant to allow him to sit at the same table, seized a knife and cut the table cloth to separate himself from his son. One day more, and he weeps over the dead body of that son, who lies in the armor in which he has sought to remove the stain from his father's honor. Sixteen years after (1850), Scheffer painted The Cutting of the Table Cloth and made, since that of 1831 had become defaced, a new picture of the scene of The Weeping Father. Both are now in the Eotterdam Museum. They show more than his usual power of color, and the mute despair of The Weeping Father is powerfully rendered. These are the most energetic and vigorous of all Scheffer's pictures. He painted also a Giaour (1832) and Medora (1833) from Byron and a Francesca da Eimini from Dante (1833, Sir Richard Wal- lace, London) and a replica of the same (1855). This is one of his pictures in which feeling enfeebles the execution and renders the touch irresolute. In many of his pictures he balances in attitude and light two figures against each other, as Dante and Beatrice, Ruth and Naomi. The mere study of Scheffer's works in the order of production evinces the subjective nature of his treatment, and reveals the growth of his character from the delicate sympathy with human suffering of his early pictures to all that is expressed in his last work, Earthly Sorrows Rising to Heaven (1848, Madame Marjolin). In the greater maturity of his third period, he shows higher aspi- rations and great faith in the Christian's hope, and his subjects are chiefly from the sacred writings. Of these, he presented in 1837 his Christus Consolator. 1 Christ, the central figure, receives and heals the unfortunate and sorrowing. Conspicuous among them, a negro's manacles fall disjointed at a touch. This pic- 1 This was owned by the Duchess of Orleans, and from that collection bought by M. Fodora, a famous Dutch collector, for $12,000, and is now at Amsterdam. 212 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. ture has been criticised as "too much a painting of philosophy, too much a presen- tation of ideas." It is said the unfortunates whose sorrows Christ softens and cures, brought together by an artificial grouping, are but so many arguments in the support of an idea, losing their personality and becoming mere types ; that Christ is, himself, but a symbol of gentleness and goodness, " not the God we love, and to whom we pray." His Cbristus Remunerator, a companion-piece in the same spirit, is in reality a Last Judgment. But the public so approved of pic- tures of ideas, "of the paintings of philosophy," that though not taking the high rank of work of pure pictorial qualities, these are known wherever pictures are known. Scheffer continued his sacred themes and painted Shepherds Guided by the Angels, and the Magi Bringing Presents. In these he avoided all metaphysics and made pure pic- tures of incident with simplicity and, so old were the themes, without originality. Others of this class of subjects are : Christ and the Children (1831); Christ upon the Mount of Olives (1837) ; Christ Carrying the Cross (1846) ; Christ Buried ; St. Monica and St. Augustine (1846) ; The Holy Women returning from the Tomb (1846) ; Jacob Meeting Rebecca. Scheffer's great works are three paintings of Christ, each in its way a masterpiece : Christ Weeping over Jerusalem ; Christ on the Mountain Tempted of Satan ; and the Christ of the Reed. In these the thought and the execution are signally balanced ; the idea is ele- vated ; and the execution equals the idea. In the Temptation (exhibited in New York in 1856 and now in the Louvre) a bare, rocky, mountain-top forms the entire scene of action with the exception of a glimpse at a great distance of the kingdoms and glory of the world. These, Satan, Milton's conception, not the Mephistopheles of Goethe, offers with a gesture to Christ. Scheffer painted portraits with success. Those of Franz Liszt (1839) ; the artist's mother (1835) ; Kossini (1843) ; Madame Guizot , (1847) ; and Lord Dufferin (1853), are representative ones. The senti- ment of his religious paintings is of such power as to command atten- tion everywhere, and except Dore he has been possibly the most widely known of French artists. But since his death he has been much criti- cised, his influence in art not only being weakened by his lack of power in color, but the taste for allegory and illustrative painting consid- ered as high art having sensibly declined. Hamerton says, " Scheffer by uniting bad color to considerable artistic merit of other kinds, has done positive harm to the art of painting. " As a man, fidelity and simplicity of affection were conspicuous traits of his character. As a filial son, a tender brother, a helpful THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 213 friend, and an earnest patriot, he deserves great esteem. To supply the family exchequer, he early painted rapid sketches in great num- bers, and he always kept an open purse to needy friends among his fellow artists, by whom, as indeed by all, he was esteemed a most lov- able man. On the common ground of politics he habitually met dis- tinguished men, whose acquaintance could not but be liberalizing. Together with his brothers he belonged to the Carbonari, and aided in the rising in Alsace in 1822. Upon the Revolution of July, 1830, he went with Thiers to Neuilly to summon Louis Philippe to the throne of France, and, on the abdication of that monarch eighteen years later, by a singular coincidence, it was Ary Schef- fer who handed him into the carriage which bore him away from Paris. In this later revolution, he led a battalion of the National Guard, for which the decoration of Commander of the Legion of Honor was offered him. He persistently refused it, as "it would only recall the horrible days of the civil war." His art had long since made him Officer. Scheffer enjoyed intimate relations with the fam- ily of Lafayette at Lagrange, with whose liberal ideas of government he was in sympathy. He also, although a warm republican, contin- ued the most friendly relations with the family of Louis Philippe, to which in 1836 he had been appointed drawing-teacher, when the artis- tic taste of the Princess Marie and the charming and solid qualities of character of the artist, led to a relation between them of great mutual esteem. He was welcomed as a guest by the family at Charlemont, their place of refuge in England, and there in 1857 painted the por- trait of the queen, Marie Amelie. After the coup d'etat of 1851, Scheffer's hopes of a republic were destroyed and he abandoned politics. He married only at the age of fifty-five, the widow of his friend, Gen. Baudraud, whom with the Duke of Orleans he had accompanied in 1836 to the siege of Ant- werp, but his daughter, then the wife of Dr. Marjolin, was the great solace of his last years, his wife's death occurring in 1856. Ninety- five paintings, and three sculptures in marble, formed an exhibition of his work after his death in 1859. Auguste Legras (1817- Perigneux) was a pupil and follower Henri Scheffer of A. Scheffer, both in style and subjects. His (1798-1860, The Hague. brother Henri, and Henri's son, Arnold, con- Med'^st C cM83i' '55 e u. tinued on a lower level the artistic reputation of l. Hon. 1837. the name. Henri has portraits and genre pict- ures scattered through the museums of Paris and Holland ; Arnold has been conspicuous since 1859. 214 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. But another pupil of Guerin, Sigalon, eleven years the senior of these three, in the same year that The Massacre of Scio appeared, xavier sigaion ^y the predominance of thought and emotion over (1788-1837), uzes, beauty of form, in his Locusta experimenting on Med. 1824, l. Hon., 31. a gj ave with the Poison intended for Britannicus, gave nearly as bold an expression to the revolt against David as Dela- croix. It commanded for him a medal and, under Thiers, he was sent to Rome to make the copy of The Last Judgment of Michael Angelo, now in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. He remained three and a half years to accomplish it, and though but a copy, it attests his great powers, and he received for it the liberal compensation of 58,000 francs with 20,000 indemnity, and 3,000 travelling expenses. He died in Rome of cholera upon returning to copy other pictures of the Sistine Chapel. The neighboring studio of Gros, which he entered at the age of twenty, furnished the second of the chief classic romanticists at this time, for thus practically must be classed the eclecticism of Hippo- lyte, by familiar abbreviation Paul, Delaroche. ( ^^_ ( l 856 ) p0 pari S De,arOChe ^ e na d previously, as a pupil of Watelet, Med. ist d. 1824. L.Hon. '28. studied landscape exclusively, but missed the b'wI 5 ' Prize for it. He first exhibited in 1819, Nup- Mem. Acad. st. Luke, Rome, '44- thali in the Desert, and in 1822 had three pict- Mem.Acad.Amsterdam. ^ j ^ g j R f ^ j h ^ Mem. Acad. St. Petersburg. ^ by Jehosheba, Gericault was attracted to the youth only six years his junior, and the two often conferred on art and art methods, Delaroche seeking Gericault's direction and advice. In 1827 his Death of Queen Elizabeth (Louvre) made a great impres- sion : this was continued by his practical talent and appropriate style, for his genius consisted chiefly in not surpassing the compre- hension of the genius of his contemporaries or the limitations of his own capacities. By giving a somewhat poetical rendering of history in incidents of great accuracy of detail and accessory, at the most fitly chosen moment, he touched a chord of universal appreciation and, unlike Delacroix who divided criticism, united all in a more or less tem- perate admiration of his works. Through his wife, he seems to have been in the line of inheritance of the popular, successful, meritorious art of the Vernets. Like his father-in-law, Horace Vernet, he was not a genius of a high imaginative order, but his keen intelligence led him to become, perhaps, the most influential painter of his times, hav- ing a prestige that made it the first ambition of pupils to enter his studio, of which his successful management serves also to illustrate THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 215 his practical talent. Until 1843, he confined himself to familiar incidents of history. A simple list of the subjects of these, shows how adapted they were to touch deeply the sensibilities, how dear the views they ex- press were to the parties holding them, and how well calculated was the treatment to win sympathy from all sides. 1 There is nothing in his picture of Marie Antoinette Turning away from the Trial (1851) to alienate the appreciation of either party in the eventful history of the times, as is evident from the meagerest skeleton of its details. The refined, noble, haughty physiognomy of the beautiful queen so represented as to come in contrast with the coarse faces of her guards ; the one with drawn sword, grimly fierce and bitter towards her ; the other without animosity, only submissive to the dictates of authority ; the face of the pretty little grisette looking pityingly on, or the insolent stare of the hard woman as the queen walks resolutely by ; the hand outstretched in kindness or the fist fiercely shaken at her in the crowd, all furnish material for the sympathy of royalist or communist as each shall select. Similarly in Charles I. Insulted by the Parliamentary Soldiers (1836, Bridgewater Gallery), either party may see its views triumph ; so also in many of the list : Cromwell Gazing into the Coffin of Charles I. (1831, Nimes Museum) ; Joan of Arc in Prison (1824) ; and Scenes of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew (1826, Konigsberg Museum) ; The Assassination of the Duke of Guise (1835, sold to the Duke of Orleans for 52,000 francs) ; De Thore and Cinq Mars Conducted to Execu- tion on the same barge in which the dying Richelieu is lying (1829) ; The Death of Cardinal Mazarin (1830), Sir Richard Wallace ; Destruction of the Bastille ; The Princes in the Tower (1830, Louvre) ; The Girondists in Prison (1856) ; Execution of Lady Jane Grey (1834, H. W. Eaton, M. P.) ; Strafford going to the Scaffold (1835, Duke of Sutherland); Baptism of Clovis; Coronation of Charlemagne at Rome (1847, Versailles Museum) ; Last Communion of Mary Stuart. These subjects show that he drew his romanticism from history rather than fiction. But it was still romanticism, as the representa- tion was wholly imaginary, and he often imagined a more emotional incident than history would warrant, and his subjects are all treated with expression and force : they are well worth study. That of The Death of the Duke of Guise (1835, Due d'Aumale, Chantilly) is of great excellence and scrupulously faithful to history. Its dramatic arrangement could not be surpassed. 1 This power to adapt his art to popular demand would so naturally result from the influence of both his father-in-law and his father, who was a conductor of large picture sales, that it can hardly be unjust to attribute it, if not to their direction, at least to the atmosphere in which he was thus placed. 216 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. The dead body lies by the side of the bed which in its suggestions is strongly dramatic. The carpet, twisted and awry, tells the struggle of the group of nobles, now shrinking away from their victim towards the door. Through this the cow- ardly Henry III. peeps to see if the deed is really accomplished. On his startled countenance can easily be read the words history attributes to him : "How tall he looks, so much taller than in life ! " Three years before (1832) Delaroche had been appointed a member of the Institute. 1 About this time (1834), after much hesitation, as it involved religious painting, he accepted the commission for the deco- ration of the Madeleine at Paris, and went to Eome to study that style of art. There he mingled with the gay company drawn together by the Thursdays of the Vernets, during Horace's rectorship of the Academy, and there, to the deep chagrin of his rival, Leopold Kobert, he won the hand of the beautiful, accomplished, and high-minded Louise Yernet. On his return to Paris, finding that a part of the commission for decorating the Madeleine had been given to Jules Zeigler (1810-1856), a pupil of Ingres, he dissolved all connection with it and returned the money advanced to him. But in 1843 his wife died of a nervous fever, and Delaroche never exhibited again. This event also hastened her father's death. Her husband travelled in failing health in Italy and the East, and, impelled by his grief to religious reflection, he there painted a number of sacred subjects. Some of these have a depth of pathos and tenderness that indicate how deeply he was touched by his loss. The Virgin and the Dis- ciples during the Passion (1856), done late in life, is among the best, with which The Virgin in Contemplation (1856) may also be classed. Others are Moses in the Ark of Bulrushes (1853) and The Entomb- ment (1853). Of this class The Christian Martyr (1855), the body of a beautiful woman floating on the water with an aureole above her head, is well known through numerous reproductions. In some of his Scriptural subjects he does not rise to the requirements of earnest feeling, and the treatment is calculated and theatrical. He returned to Paris and died there suddenly in 1856. His great work, the one that set the seal upon his reputation, is the fresco of the Hemicycle of the Fine Arts (1838-1841) in the room of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts where is awarded the coveted Prix de Kome. The subject is the distribution of laurel wreaths to talent, in the presence of the great artists from the time of Pericles to that of Louis XIV. The 1 This was appropriating another of its chairs to the family of Vernets, and making three generations of a family, if we may include a son-in-law, simultaneously members of the Institute, and giving to it three fourteenths of the authority in the Salons. J. L. DAVID SERMENT DES HORACES THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 217 commission for another work had been proposed to compensate him for giving the decoration of the Madeleine to another, and he sug- gested a frieze of fifteen figures which eventually grew into this. Its details are as follows : In the centre of a picture eighty-eight feet by thirteen, in an apparent opening, are seated, as old men, Phidias, the chief of sculptors, and Ictinus, the architect of the Parthenon, while between them, in the vigor of life, is Apelles. An exceeding serenity shines from their countenances, intended to express their apotheosis. Seated at their feet are two young women, one of Greek type, repre- senting Greek Art, and the other with a diadem upon her imperial head, Roman Art. In front of the step stand two others, one typifying the Art of the Middle Ages, the other Mediaeval Art freed from the restraint of the Chris- tian idea, that is, the Renaissance. The latter is beautiful but of loose manner. Her rich drapery falls in disorder, her brilliant coiffure escapes unheeded, while the former placed next to Greek Art, as allied to her, gazes with rapt eyes into the heavens, a chaste mantle drooping from her shoulders ; her blonde hair falling in gentle waves. 1 In front of this group is a half-kneeling female figure represent- ing the Genius of Fame, distributing the laurel wreaths heaped at her side. At the feet of these, in an animated grouping, are the great artists of the world, producing a picture of seventy-five figures. To find the fitting likeness, or type when likeness could not be found, required no little research, and in the execution of the work Delaroche spent four years of untiring effort. It was unveiled in 1841, and its importance both in merit and in size drew widespread attention to the artist. Afterwards (1853) Delaroche himself made a copy of it in reduced size, 2 which was exhibited in England and has been engraved. The year before his death the original was injured by fire, but was completely restored. Just after his death his collected works were exhibited in Paris and from them photographs were published in 1858 by Goupil. While his fine drawing is preserved in these, they give no idea of the beauty of coloring which characterizes his pictures. His great influence in art has not been wholly beneficial ; it created a taste which had a reflex influence in demanding a theatrical rather than simple character of production, which his pupil, Millet, was among the first to coun- teract. He was made professor of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1833. The death of one of his pupils from the effects of Beaux- Arts hazing, about the time of the death of his wife (1843), led him to close his studio, in which at that time were Millet, Hamon, Jalabert, Gerome, Boulanger, and Aubert. He holds high rank as a portrait painter, for which his qualities well fitted him. Among others, he painted portraits of : 1 This is said to bear the face of his beautiful wife. 2 Owned by Mr. William T. Walters, Baltimore. 218 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Peter the Great (1838) ; Mile. Sontag ; the Duke of Angouleme ; M. de Eemu- sat ; Thiers ; Lamartine ; Guizot ; his father-in-law, Horace Vernet ; his sons, Horace and Philippe Delaroche (1851) ; five of Napoleon — one as a young man, called the Napoleon of the Snutf Box; Napoleon in his Study (1837, owned by the Countess of Sandwich) ; Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1837, painted nearly half century after David's) ; Napoleon at St. Helena (1852, owned by Queen Victoria) ; the Napoleon in the Duke of Portland's Collection ; and one of him when defeated, called Napoleon at Fontainebleau (1845, Leipsic Museum, a replica owned by Mrs. M. 0. Roberts, New York). This is one of the most remarkable portraits of history in the skil- ful combination of bearing, pose, and corporeal conditions to express the character into which the " little corporal " had matured, as also the feeling of hopelessness in which he was for once plunged. He was succeeded in the professorship of the ficole des Beaux- Arts by Hippolyte Flandrin and in the Academy of Painting by Delacroix, representatives of the two opposing schools, but we have seen by what effort this advancement of Delacroix was effected. Robert's art is a product of the study of the natural and emotional combined with the classic influence. Born in Switzerland and living , . , , . , _ , chiefly in Italy, he is classed in the French school from Louis Leopold Robert, »> * ^ (1794-1835), Neufchatei. his education in Paris, his exhibitions at the Salons, L - Hon l83K and his style. After trying in vain a commercial life, Robert became at fourteen years of age the pupil of David, and upon David's exile, of Gros, who then assumed direction of David's school. At the same time he studied engraving under Girodet. David expressed a high estimate of his talent. At the age of twenty-six, after returning to his native town and painting portraits, he was enabled to go to Rome by the aid of a generous patron. Thither accordingly he went saying he would " conquer or die." A melan- choly interest attaches to his memory as in fifteen years by his own act he had done both. Arrived at that Mecca of all artists of modern times, he studied the old masters, but, always susceptible to the picturesque and making it an important part of his pictures, he was attracted from them to the pictorial elements of life around him and, by an impressive incident, in the very presence of the grand style and after imbibing the influence of David, made a painter of genre. By the arrest of a band of banditti, two hundred men, women, and children, had been brought from the mountains and lodged in prison. Robert, charmed with this picturesque people, spent two months in copying their dress, attitudes, features, and manners and henceforth became a painter of life, the life of Italy as it touched and aroused his imagination ; but he always preserved something of David's severity of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 219 line. He now conceived the idea of four pictures of a double signifi- cance, that of typifying the seasons and of representing the four principal peoples of Italy. The Fete of the Madonna del Arco, a spring festival of Naples (1827), and Reapers in the Pontine Marshes (1831), representing Rome and Summer, are two of the series. The Vintage in Tuscany for Autumn and The Carnival at Venice for Winter, were planned but never executed. He thus substituted actual life for the old symbolical treatment of the seasons. The Fete of the Virgin expresses the irresponsible gayety of the impulsive life of Italy. The peasants dance around the car of Flora with the joy- ous energy of strength in full abandon. The Reapers is a similar scene. It formed part of the historic Salon of 1831. Robert was present, and was claimed by both the rival schools that crossed swords at this exhibition ; by the classicists as a pupil of David who attached importance to design ; by the romanticists because he went to life for both his subjects and models and emphasized the importance of action and emotion. Amid this appreciation of all shades of opinion he was decorated. These two pictures were hung in the Louvre, and the king himself bought The Reapers, paying for it $1,600. Robert was a feeble colorist, for his classical instruction led him to exaggerate the value of neutral tints. He was also, judged by aca- demic standards, weak in invention, though this is not always apparent, since when an artist's motifs are copied from life, life supplies true ones. His love of the picturesque made him seek effects and compose too obviously. A third great Italian picture, The Departure of the Fishermen for the Adriatic, after being exhibited with great eclat at Venice, missed the Salon of 1835 by arriving too late. It was his last work, and the best of all his pictures, though like its prede- cessors it lacked the air of facile rendering. Missing by mischance the one opportunity for artists at Paris, joined to the recurrence of the anniversary (March 20) of the death of his youngest brother, Alfred, who, after an unhappy marriage, had committed suicide, though trifling causes for his own self-murder, proved enough, aug- mented as they were by the brooding sorrow of his unhappy love for the beautiful Louise Vernet, and he saw nothing in life that he should desire it. His elder brother, Aurele missed him, was from his previous despondency led to suspect him, and after a few moments' absence followed him, but delayed by a trivial accident reached him only as he lay upon his face, dead, in their room in the Pisani Palace. 1 i Alfred de Musset said, " The reason Robert took his life, was that it cost two sous a day to live in Italy, and Robert could not always find the two sous." 220 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. A statue of Kobert was raised in the Louvre by the Government in 1856. The phrase, " Pupil of Leon Cogniet," occurring and recurring in art biography has made familiar the name of this artist,* who went . , n . . out from Guerin's studio a classicist and Leon Cogniet, (1794-1880), Paris. carried that art into almost contemporary Med td R c i ^ • 8 |'Jt ci '55 practice, with, however, in his later develop- L. Hon. '28; Mem. Inst. '49. ment, a tendencv to more realistic treat- prussian Or. Pour i e Merite, .86 5 . ment> He p a i n ted history and portrait, but eventually became, through a lack of imagination and great skill of technique, a professor, a most admirable one, famous for such pupils 1 as Cot, Tony Robert-Fleury, and Meissonier ; with the talent of the last of whom, indeed, his own, though of inferior quality, had a certain affinity. His pupil, Catharine Thevenin (1813), after she became also his wife, acquired reputation as a painter of history and genre, and took a third class medal in 1840 for her picture, Le Prix de Rome, and one of a second class in 1843. The works to which his popularity and reputation are chiefly due are a ceiling in the Louvre, Napoleon I., and Tintoretto Painting the Portrait of his Dead Daughter (1843, Bordeaux Museum), in which Tintoretto, under the features of the Louvre portrait, with white hair, and eyes dimmed with tears, seeks to reproduce the beautiful face and blonde hair of his daughter, Maria Robusti. A conspicuous artist under the names of Fleury, Floury Robert, and once (1836), as Robert Fleury, exhibited at every Salon from 1824 until 1841, when his name became permanently Joseph Nichob^Robert-Fieury g xe( ^ Rg j^ 0Der t- Fleury. He made his debut 2d ci. Med. 1824; 1st ci. 1834. (1824) just as the definite recognition of L. Hon. 1836; O. L. Hon. 1849. • • n • n t • • Mem inst 1850 romanticism was influencing the classicism 1st ci. Med. 1855, e. u., '67 e. u. of the Institute to fortify itself in authority. Re" F;. H Schod?t'Rome .86 5 . Thou g' h seldom executing a classic subject, his painting of history or rather historic genre won him honor after honor, beginning with the medal awarded to his first exhibition, which comprised the five pictures : Brigands ; Portraits of French Painters in Italy ; A Family of Creek Refugees ; A Nun ; and A Shepherd in the Roman Campagna. He received first class medal 1834, and a decoration just as Rousseau was rejected and thrust back to appear no more for many years at the Salon, that necessity of the French artists' life. As a pupil of Cirodet, Gros, i No fewer than sixty-five exhibitors of the Salon of 1886 are catalogued " Pupil of Leon Cogniet." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 221 and Horace Vernet, an instruction which could but tend to imbue his practice with the varied elements of art then practised, he con- firmed the classic principles by instruction in the Government school, which he entered 1817, and of which he lived to be, under far differ- ent requirements of art, a director (1864). That he could value the highest romanticism of that time is shown by his obtaining for Dela- croix his election to the Institute. His pictures were often bought by the Emperor ; were assigned by official authority to the museums of the leading cities of France, two to the Luxembourg ; and several are decorations of the public buildings of Paris. Among them are : At the Luxembourg : Jane Shore (1850, re-exhibited at the Universal Exhibition 1855) ; Pillage of a House in the Giudecea at Venice in the Middle Ages (1853) : at the Tribunal of Commerce, Paris, The Institution of Consular Judges in 1563 ; Presentation by Colbert in 1673 of the Ordinance of Commerce for the Signature of Louis XIV. ; Promulgation of the Commercial Code by Napoleon I. in 1807 ; In- auguration of the new Tribunal of Commerce by Napoleon III. in 1864. Of many who maintained in a degree the old style of painting, history chiefly, a list will furnish a clue for further details. As the annual Salon was omitted in 1855 the distinguishing mark, E. IT., to indicate the higher value attaching to medals awarded at the Exposi- tions Universelles is not required for that year. H. P. L. P. Blanchard (1805-73), La Guillotiere : pupil of Chasselatand Gros ; medal 3d class '36 ; Legion of Honor '40— Theodore Chaseriau (1819-'56) : died at "the poet's age" ; pupil of Ingres, who sought to combine that master's style and Delacroix's ; medal 3d class '36 ; 2d class '44, '55 ; Legion of Honor '49. — Nicholas Gosse (1777-1878), Paris : medal 3d class 19 ; 2d class '24 ; Legion of Honor '28 ; Officer '70 ; .maintained historical subjects and portraits through his long life and by a portrait, after an interval of 42 years since being made Chevalier, won the grade of Officer of Legion of Honor 1870. — Francois Joseph Heim (1787- 1865) ; Prix de Rome 1807; medal 1st class '12 ; Legion of Honor '25 ; Member Institute '29 ; though during the romantic period he was without favor and gen- erally dubbed " the fossil of the Academy," in 1855 he was both made Officer of Legion of Honor and awarded the grand Medal of Honor. — Nicolas Auguste Hesse (1795-1869), Paris : Prix de Rome 1818 ; medal 1st class '38 ; Legion of Honor '40 ; Member Institute '63 ; pupil of Gros. — J. B. Hesse, the nephew of Auguste Alexandre (1806-'79), Paris : medal 1st class '33 ; 2d class '48 ; Legion of Honor '42 ; Officer '68 ; Member Institute '67 ; pupil of Gros.— Claudius Jac- quand (1805-78), Paris: medal 2d class '24; 1st class '36 ; Philadelphia '76; Legion of Honor '39 ; Order of Leopold of Belgium ; works of excellent design and compo- sition, poor in color. — Paul Joudry (1805-'56), Dijon: pupil of Lethiere and Ingres; Prix de Rome '34 ; medal 2d class '44. — Pierre Antoine Labouchere (1807-73), Nantes : pupil of Delaroche; medal 3d class '43 ; 2d class '46. — Lucien Theophile Langlois de Chevreville (1803-'45), Mortin: pupil of Gros. — Alexandre Laemleim (1813-'73), Hohenfeld, naturalized in France: medal 3d class '41; 2d class '43, '59; 222 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. early worked with Alaux and aided in restoring the works of Primaticcio at Fon- tainebleau ; painted among other works at St. Clotilde's in Paris, three incidents in life of St. Remy. — Charles Philippe de Lariviere (1798-1876), Paris : Prix de Rome '24 ; medal 1st class '51, '5o ; Legion of Honor '36. — Charles Lefebvre (1805- '8o), Paris : pupil of Gros and Abel de Pujol ; medal 2d class '33 ; 1st class '45 ; 3d class '55 ; Legion of Honor '59. — Leon de Lestang- Parade (1812- ) Aix: medal 2d class '35 ; 1st class '38.— Charles Victor Frederic Moench-Munich (1784- 1 861), Paris : pupil of Girodet ; medal 2d class '17. — Raymond Auguste Quinsac Mon- voisin (1794-1870), Bordeaux: pupil of Guerin; Prix de Rome '22; medal 1st class '31 ,'37.— Sebastien Louis Guillaume Norblin ( 1796-1884), Warsaw, of French parents : pupil of Vincent and Blondel; Prix de Rome '25; medal 2d class '33; 1st class '44; Legion of Honor '59. — Edouard Alexandre Odier (1800- ) Paris : though he still lives has not presented any works since 1850 ; medal 2d class '31 ; 1st class '38 ; Legion of Honor '46.— Victor Orsel (1795-1850), Oullins : pupil of Revoil at Lyons and at Paris of Guerin ; medal 2d class '22 ; 1st class '31 ; while studying in Rome was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites. — Pierre Justin Ouvrie (1806-'79), Paris : pupil of Abel de Pujol and of Chatillon; medal 2d class '31 ; 1st class '43 ; 3d class '55 ; Legion of Honor '54 ; he also painted landscape. — Pierre Auguste Pichon (1805- ) Soreze : pupil of Ingres : medal 3d class '43 ; 2d class '44 ; 1st class' 46, '57, '61 ; Legion of Honor '62.— feenne Raff ort • (1802- ) Chalons-sur-Saone : pupil of Castillet ; medal 3d class '37 : 2d class '40 ; 1st class '43. — Eugene Roger (1807-'40), Sens : pupil of Hersent and Ingres ; Prix de Rome '33 ; grand gold medal Paris, '37. — Madame Sophie Freminet Rude (1797-1867), Dijon: pupil of Desvoges and David ; wife of the sculptor Rude ; medal 2d class 1833 ; she also painted genre. — A. B. Vinchon (1789-1855), Paris: pupil of David and ^Jcole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome 1814 ; Legion of Honor 28 ; medal 2d class '55. — Jules Ziegler (1804-56), Langres : Officer Legion of Honor 1828 for wall paintings in the Madeleine, Paris, those once contracted for with Delaroche. Natukalistic Schools— The Orientalists. While the young artists were revolting against classic formalities and the public were but slowly accepting the works of the revolu- tionists, compelling Gericault to appeal to the Alexandre Gabriel Decamps . _ • _ -i r\i i i (i8o3-'6o), Paris. judgment of England and Delacroix to de- Med. 2d d. 1831 ; ist ci. '34- pend for bread upon lithography, there ap- l. Hon. 1839. of. l. Hon. 1851. ^ e Salon of 1827 an artist of twenty- four years, 1 who, while also disregarding the authority of the classic school, and even going so far in innovation as to originate a style, touched at once the public feeling. His subjects were of all kinds, and he would be properly classed in landscape, genre, or Oriental painting, the last of which with him included the other two. His work was not of Gericault's strength of dramatic i Being born, as he said, "on the third day of the third month of the third year of this century." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 223 action, nor did he with Delacroix reach the deep significance of things. Yet aspects of every kind he did interpret rather than copy, and he may be considered to have concerned himself with externals alone. In a word, he became a naturalist, and represents that school during the romantic period. And, aside from the claims of his treatment, which were many and great, his subjects were in harmony with the spirit of adventure of the time, and his own nature in accord with the restless tendencies of Louis Philippe's period. It was Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, and this, his earliest offering in the Salons, was in the new field that was to be developed by him into the foundation of the charming French school of Orientalism. This small picture of A Turk in Cashmere Robe was a most appropriate introduction of Decamps to art then and to history now, as representative of the impulsive and vivid action of both his art and his life. For, if the statement of Charles Blanc be accepted that Decamps did not visit the East till after 1827, this must have been a conceit of his imagination, a picture in which his deep sympathies with the qualities of Eastern scenes seem to have projected them as a reality before him previous to any actual contact with them by travel and observation. 1 It thus was a sporadic growth, attesting fche adaptation of the soil that produced it to rich harvests when sown and cultivated. Correctness of line he did not attain, and, indeed, he did not seek it : but he divined truth of form rather than learned it, and therefore while his design may not bear close scrutiny it has the higher characteristic of being expressive and dramatic. He excelled in everything that appealed to the senses ; light and shade, color, grouping, grace of attitude — in all the charming beauty of nature. He has been called the founder of the school of painters of sensations, and in painting appearance rather than realizing actual form, did, indeed, establish a precedent for the modern impressionists. Reflec- tion and ideas of purely intellectual character were not demanded in his work, and in his art the accessories from the point of view of moral significance were equal to, often greater than the principal. But he touched a responsive chord with the public and charmed as a painter until everything that bore his touch had almost a talismanic power of commanding gold. And better, it was true 1 Decamps, Horace Vernet, and Delacroix began almost simultaneously the painting of oriental scenes — Delacroix travelling in Morocco in 1831, Vernet spurning his honors at Rome to fly to the army in Algiers in 1833, and Decamps sending the first result of his actual contact with the East to the Salon of 1831, though in 1827 he had furnished a foretaste of the new art. Vernet had been drawn to Algiers by the much-loved army life, though he soon became fascinated as a painter with Eastern subjects. 224 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. art. The substance of his art-expression was, " Look at this beautiful object ! See how its tints are lighted ! " and owing to his pioneering struggle for light and a palpable environment of air (a result of his intuitions, which gives him great credit), he often enveloped his objects in an illuminated atmosphere that gave great charm to his treatment. Whole days of truancy in his youth spent in the sunshine had served to give him an intimate acquaintance with light, a love for it, and a joy in it. He knew its way of distributing itself, and he felt deeply the colors it evoked or cast into shadow. 1 In the pictures of his best period (1833-'39)^ light streams over the canvas, playing in infinite fancies, breaking into multiplied reflections, and overflowing the picture. Light with him controls all but composition ; literal and imitative resemblance of detail is sacrificed to it ; but his composition and light supplement each the other ; his composition is planned for the distribution of light. His earliest work was genre painting, but wearying of hearing it said that that was an easy, inferior art, if art at all, he became an earnest but disappointed aspirant for the honors of the historical style. Although in his nine designs of the History of Samson (1845), in which he made an effort to prove himself worthy of an order from the State, he for once approached Michael Angelo ; and though he painted one historical picture of great merit, in which he attained to true grandeur of conception, The Defeat of the Cimbri by Marius, in which also the dead in the foreground are painted with a truth 1 In an autobiographical letter written by him in 1854 Decamps says : There " [in a village in the depths of Picardy whither his father had sent his boys when young to learn " the hard life of the fields " ], " whatever my brothers may have learned, I soon forgot Paris and what our good mother had taken great pains to teach us, reading and writing, and instead became skilful in robbing bird's nests and eager in stealing apples. I had a firm persistency in playing truant. ... I wandered at hazard, overrunning the woods, dabbling in the ponds. It is there, no doubt, I contracted this grain of savagery for which I have been so much reproached since, and which the civilizing friction to which the men of to-day are subjected, bongre, malgre, has not been able entirely to remove from me. Having seen some peasant children make hideous figures in chalk, I shaped them voluntarily for them, and, can it be believed ? in these works I submitted myself to the received rules. Genius did not reveal itself. The spirit of innovation had not yet breathed upon me its venom. After about three years of this apprenticeship, reddened by the sun, inured sufficiently to go bareheaded and speak an unintelligible patois, I was taken back to Paris, of which I knew nothing. My poor mother, to whom this mode of education was very displeasing, succeeded at last in taming me and rubbing off the rust a little. I was delivered up to the inexorable Latin. During these years in Paris the woods, the heaths, the pastures, came back to me in memory with an inexpressible charm, and at times brought tears to my eyes. Gradually the taste for daubing took possession of me and has never left me since." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 225 of detail worthy of the painter of the Medusa, he was ill fitted for that class of painting either by mental qualities or education. 1 Though strong in natural endowments, as well as in the two acquired ones of a sure eye and a decisive touch, he was weak in the discipline of his talents and, from lack of training and dissatisfaction in not hav- ing an order for a grand historical work, 2 always remained with a somewhat indefinite aim and an uncertain estimate of his own true place in art. Thus a sadness, "the sting of his artistic conscience," underlay all his qualities. Once having been shown by Millet over his studio he exclaimed, " Ah ! you are a lucky fellow. You can do all you wish to do." The love of external nature and the habit of freely following his own will had early been developed together, and had made him impatient of the restraints of instruction. He received lessons for a short time from Bouchot and afterwards from Abel de Pujol, but, as he subsequently wrote, he found this "monotonous." His originality was too assertive to be directed and, freeing himself from the discipline which that master's classic practices required, he groped his own way along. He now was living in Paris with his brothers and his mother, a woman of gentle and refined manner, essaying in vain to express the color and charm of landscape as he saw them in that memory of his early life that " brought tears to his eyes." Failing to reproduce satisfactorily that light of his boyhood days, he began, with hesitancy, the familiar genre scenes from the streets, quays, and markets, so opposed to the standard art, classicism. But the public greeted them with avidity. He rendered them with origi- 1 A fine description by Planche says : " The landscape is immense, the crowd innu- merable. It is made evident by the havoc and slaughter, the furious and desperate struggle, that it is not the fortune of a day but the ruin of a nation that turns upon the battle. The battalions succeed each other and renew themselves by myriads, rapid and over sweeping as the waves of the sea. Masses of the dead and wounded disap- pear under the feet of the whinnying horses, like foam under the keel of a ship. But death has before it a severe and long task, for as the crowd is swallowed up in the sea of blood, it renews itself and recommences the struggle, as if it were inexhaustible and took birth from itself. The sky has the warm tone of the Orient, and in all the mass, one can distinguish behind the line of attack and retreat, a thousand points of color which seem nothing to the merely curious, but which all at once become men, increasing the astonishment, without diverting the attention from those already advanced and engaged in action." 2 He wrote, " I was condemned to easel pictures in perpetuity. I saw my comrades honored with mural pictures, but the easel was my lot, my 'aptitude.' It is true I had early found my talent, but could it not be seen that I had developed? When this fright- ful evil to which I succumbed began to annihilate my hopes, I exhibited a series of designs strongly executed and in various processes, The History of Samson. They were highly praised and a distinguished amateur, Benjamin Delesert, generously bought them, but the State and the rich Maecenases gave no orders." 15 220 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. nality, humor, and sometimes with irony, and amateurs, wearied with formalities, petted him and "critics caressed him." He was thus confirmed in art of this character, and thus also suffered the penalty of too early a success. Subsequently he took a high position with Paul Huet among the early interpreters of landscape, in which his instincts were in accord with the principles of the English Constable, that light and air should rule all. His love of light was so insatiate that he could make use of it in no subject without causing it to dominate everything, and he painted it with exquisite effect. He soon sought inspiration of subject by travel, for which his mother provided the means. He went to Switzerland and southern Greece. But it was only travel in the Grecian Archipelago and Asia Minor where he journeyed with the marine painter. Garneray, that brought him into true accord with his real material. In that terre ensoleillee he not only found the sun- light and color of the aspirations that had sprung from the idealized memories of his boyhood, but he saw the Turk, conquered him, and brought him back in his portfolio and memory to serve him in cap- turing the French by charming pictures of his Mussulman material. These he painted with a surprising reality of detail not fully under- stood until others had followed him to the East. He had discovered the painter's Orient. But for a while (1833-*4) he was obliged to resort to illustrating for his own support. He furnished designs for La Caricature, in which he satirized the government of the Eestora- tion, but it may be noticed that it was after its fall. He had exhib- ited in 1831 The Turkish Patrol by the side of The Learned Ani- mals. The latter, full of humor, won attention from the other, although the Turkish Patrol 1 tells its story vividly and with a keen characterization of the actors. The soldier in advance motions his followers towards a shop, the owner of which has, no doubt, made himself liable to the visitation of the patrol to render justice after the manner of the country. The gesture seems to say " This is the place " as if all truly understand their errand. Their attitudes express the ready devotion, the naive servility, the quick obedience, the thorough carelessness charac- teristic of the officers of a tyrannical government, as to the cause or the result of the punishment of which they are the instruments. The classicists for a time forgot exclusion and condemnation in laughing at his humor and originality. But this became irony when 1 This picture afterwards met with an appreciation that commanded for it at the Johnston sale in New York in 1876, $8,350, and its replica sold in Paris in 1861 for 25,000 francs. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 227 he had been rejected 1 by the jury, and he revenged himself in paint- ing The Monkey Experts, in which two monkeys are gravely judging a picture, while a third, servilely holding the traditional worn umbrella of the artist then president of the jury, awaits their decision. It was of most finished execution and it was conspicuously hung (1839). Some of his satirical pictures of Charles X. in homely conditions, as, a peasant in sabots holding Liberty chained, were less pleasing. The early infatuation, as it may be called, for his works had constantly increased and in 1839 he had reached the most brilliant point of his career. In the Salon of that year he exhibited besides The Expert Monkeys, Four Executioners at the Door of a Prison ; Cafe in Asia Minor ; Street of a Eoman Village ; Punishment of the Hooks ; Chil- dren Playing near a Fountain ; and Joseph Sold by his Brethren, in which the figures thrown back to the third plane are small and leave a most exquisite landscape. He had painted all forms of reality ; but he had hesitated at the domain of metaphor and allegory, though his imagination had been deeply touched by varying effects of light. These pictures exhibited all forms of his art at its best ; landscape, orientalism, genre, caricature ; and he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. For the next ten years (1840 to 1850) he accom- plished little though aiming at much. Then again came a wavering in his course, and he yielded to the influence of Ingres, whom he had met in Rome during Ingres's rectorship of the French Academy there (1835 to 1841). Ingres's clear grasp of principles and fixed certainty of aim, were keenly felt by Decamps, who in contrast wrote, " I walk groping, staggering, without direction, without theories." Nothing bears more eloquent witness of how difficult it was for an artist dur- ing the high authority of the classic school entirely to disregard it, than Decamps' susceptibility to the power so reverenced. 2 Over- powered by his recurring uncertainties, he came almost to hate his profession, planned to burn everything he had done, did destroy many of the works remaining in his studio, and in 1851 arranged a last sale of those saved by a friendly hand. He then withdrew to the country, and ignored all reference to art until within a few years of his death, which was occasioned by being thrown from his horse 1 As he does not appear in the five Salons from 1834 to 1839 his first rejection proba- bly was of the same year as that of Rousseau's great disappointment (1835). But his Body-guard of 1834 sold in 1868 at the Mason sale for 80,000 francs. 2 In 1833 he exclaimed before a work of that style but of a low order : "Ah if I could have painted that ! If I could have painted a Prix de Rome, what a great artist I would be ! But I am too much exhausted," and this at only thirty years of age. 228 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. while riding to the hunt. He was, nevertheless, made Officer of the Legion of Honor (1851) and at the Exposition Universelle of 1855 at Paris, the international jury, in awarding him the Grand Medal of Honor, 1 placed him besides Ingres and Delacroix at the head of French art. He had 39 pictures there : The Monkey Experts of 1839, the nine sketches of The History of Samson of 1845, and many others re-exhibited from previous Salons. These showed that the works of this artist, alone, comprehended all the new growths prompted by romanticism ; the familiar treatment of the incident in genre, the reproduction of nature in landscape, the significance allowed to unre- flective orientalism, and the painting of sensations, a remote anticipa- tion of impressionism, the latest off-shoot of this root. When on the jury of the Salons, where he served sometimes by elections, as he was never a member of the Institute, his sense of his unfortunate lack of training made him very severe in his judgment of those led to follow him in omitting discipline. He, too, always urged the testing of artistic inclination in young painters, by placing obstacles in its way. Seventy-seven sketches and pictures were sold from his studio after his death. 2 Of these, 18 were Bible subjects, among them a Christ in the Praetorium ; 22 oriental scenes ; and 14 landscapes. 3 The painter's Orient, thus discovered by Decamps, seemed a field congenial to the French mind, and the French school has furnished many artists delighting and excelling in depicting the gorgeous scenes of the East, where the transparent atmosphere reveals the full radiance of the heaven and brings it seemingly nearer earth, and the Eastern civilization, or semi-civilization, that with its sug- gestions of romantic emotion, its gentle indolence, its incitements to the imagination — of all of which the blind, devoted faith of the Mus- sulman is an element — appeals so strongly to the poetic spirit. Many, like Delacroix and Vernet, besides those belonging to the class of Ori- entalists, have been fascinated by its charms. But Marilhat, Fro- mentin, Benjamin-Constant, Theodore Frere, Ziem, Belly (the latter five, though making their debut in this, belonging to the period later) are conspicuous as being entranced by the Orient, as the moth by the flame — not, however, to the singeing of their artistic wings. About this time, Algiers, just after its conquest by Charles X. (1830), attracted national attention, and soon became not only the place of 1 Ten artists in all received it, six of them being French painters. 2 The Good Samaritan sold from among them for 23,000 francs. 3 The Toilers, owned by Mr. G. I. Seney, New York, is among his finest examples of color. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 229 military training for the youth of France, but with a fascinating spell drew thither her authors and artists. 1 Marilhat left, at his early death, three hundred paintings and sketches, more than two hundred of which were unfinished. He had been a pupil of Koqueplan, but while travelling (1831) 08°ri847) Ma vertaison in tne East as a companion of a wealthy nobleman of Prussia, Baron Hugel, his artistic power rose to a development of which it had previously given no promise. As to Decamps, the East proved to him indeed the Orient of his inspiration. Under that influence he became a competitor, that only an early death prevented from surpassing Decamps in some respects. The charm he found in the Orient kept him there after the depart- ure of his patron, and, while garnering a wealth of memories and sketches, poor and struggling, he supported himself by painting por- traits at $60 apiece. In painting the same scenes in the same land as Decamps, he wonderfully preserved his own originality ; indeed, he saw the same material differently, and he and Fromentin confirmed each other's rendering of the color of the East in quieter tones and softer harmonies than Decamps. Marilhat also excels Decamps in accuracy of drawing, and gives happier scenes of Ori- ental life. The Tomb of Abou Mandour (1837) was among the best of his early pictures. Of the eight pictures which he exhib- ited in the Salon of 1844, — A Souvenir of the Nile, his master- piece ; View taken in Auvergne ; Effects of Storm ; Souvenirs of Environs of Thiers in Autumn ; Syrian Arabs Travelling ; A City of Egypt at Twilight ; View taken at Tripoli (in Syria) ; Cafe on the Route to Syria, — Theophile Gautier said, " This exhibition was to the artist the song of the swan." He painted no more, and died in 1847 after a period of great wretchedness of mind, from which death was a release, originating in ill health generated by living many years in the climate of Cairo. It culminated in discouragement that his pictures of this exhibition were not sufficiently noticed although the same critic of unimpeachable authority, Gautier, pronounced them " each a dia- mond." This dying " song " also awoke answering vi brations in the soul of the young candidate for an advocate's profession, Eugene Fromentin. Naturalistic Schools — The Landscape Painters. As a greater interest in actual human life was developed in art, strange though it seem to a superficial view, a deeper interest in land- See " Constantine " by Gautier ; also, Fromentin's literary works. 230 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. scape is apparent. In restoring to man the expression of his real feelings, his long-time — his earliest — friend, the all-sustaining earth, was found to have a large share in them, and, during the Kom antic Period, relieved of its depreciation by classicism, landscape became the great feature of the French School, and has always since main- tained an unchallenged eminence not to say supremacy in French art. It is the only department of art in which this age has surpassed all former ones, owing, no doubt, to the fact that in this age feelings in the presence of landscape have become familiar that previously were totally unknown. His own miseries in the eighteenth century and the early wars of this had left no opportunity for man to appreciate nature. But by the time romanticism had made a breach in the ramparts of classicism, a sympathy with external nature had made itself so felt as to form a marked characteristic of the revival of poetry occurring at the beginning of the century. In Great Britain this was seen in the charming pictures of Highlands scenery by Scott, in such passages as the tender saving of the daisy from the ploughshare by Burns, and the descriptions of the placid English lakes by Wordsworth. In France Bernardin de St. Pierre and Chateau- briand had made landscape an important feature of literature, but the French less frequently than other nations gave expression to this feeling in verse. They found an outlet for it through the palette and pencil. The same year (1824) that romanticism unfurled its banner and formed a definite school, a large exhibition in Paris of more than twenty of the works of the English landscape artists, three by Constable, chief among them the Hay Wain (National Gallery, Lon- don), made a deep impression, roused a tempest of discussion, won removal from an obscure to a more prominent place in the principal room, and awards of decorations to Lawrence and medals to Boning- ton, Fielding, and Constable, but — a more extended honor — it inspired the royalty of some of the French kings of landscape, for thenceforth those artists' real followers, confessedly so, were found in France rather than in England. Constable's style was based on the close and patient observation of nature and the aim to render landscape by a sympathetic treatment, in which all parts are subordinated to the impression of the sentiment of the scene by which the sympathetic imagination is addressed. This aim, combined with technical skill, that ever ready handmaid of the French School of Art, whatever the service required, formed the basis of this brilliant school of land- scape. By it, to the qualities of balanced and significant composition, the perception of the grace and beauty, and the refined suggestions THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 231 of landscape afforded by Claude, was now added a feeling for nature in the phenomena of light and shade, the movement, the drama of the atmosphere. Traced through its continued influence and broad- ening development, this is the predominating art movement of the nineteenth century, later the source of Millet's great inspiration of French Art, and of the demands for the unforeseen and unsuspected subtle services now made by a class of artists upon light and air. Its chiefs 1 are Corot, Rousseau, Troyon, Diaz, Daubigny, and Jules Dupre, with the Orientalists, especially Decamps, Marilhat, and Fromentin. Like Constable, who said : " There is nothing beautiful but light and shade make it so, and if those are subtly rendered, even an old crushed hat becomes worthy of art," and, as Rembrandt practised, they recognized that the ceaseless movement of sunlight and shadow is the major truth of nature, and that it, more than aught else, rouses human sympathy. They gave supremacy to the sky and its influence, and record the delicate changes of the atmosphere until modern landscape becomes " more a painting of air than of earth." Though all were rebels against a system and were working with sim- ilar aims, their work is markedly individual. Supplying to the French nation expression for poetic feeling, they are truly the French poets of rustic nature, irresistibly attracted to her, though many of them and of their numerous though less conspicuous allies, were city- bred. But each has his special department of rustic nature. Corot and Jules Dupre are the poets of nature's power to reflect the sentiments of man ; Rousseau, the poet of forest scenery ; Dau- bigny, of atmospheric effects — in which, however, all add a strophe of more or less power, and Corot no doubt outsings them all; Diaz of hue and color, while Millet, in the later development of this influence, landscape and figures, is the profound and pathetic poet of lowly labor. Sympathy with rusticity, too, associates Jules Breton with the same movement. It was, no doubt, through the keen feeling for the humble life depicted in their landscape-genre, and of which out-door life and human toil, as the sowing and reaping, the stone picking and weeding, were so essential a part, that human sympathy was so deeply enlisted in landscape. Thus, it is partially a result, or growth, of the democratic attainment of the age which gives the sense of individual worth, making the humble peasant "the 1 Of these all but Jules Dupre have recently passed away, their generation being ended ; their births were comprised between the years 1796, which marked that of Corot, the eldest, and 1817, that of Daubigny, the youngest. They now have a repu- tation w r hich makes no collection complete without their works. 232 A HIS TOBY OF FRENCH FAINTING. man for a' that/' and while it is not a painting lesson learned from the Dutch, it has its source in the same underlying feeling of the importance of humble things to which the Dutch, as a result of their struggles for a government " by the people, for the people," attained two centuries earlier. Soon after the Restoration, when from the low condition then reached, all forms of material progress received in the acquired sense of security, a freshened impulse, the new school began to take life. The bitter struggle that ensued, the condemnation that led Dupre and Rousseau to cease all attempts to have pictures accepted at the Salons ; that left Corot to his fortunate happiness in a susceptibility to nature, and Cabat and others to present them- selves only to be again and again repulsed by the jury of admission ; that made a heroic bravery necessary to keep up heart till success was achieved, are easily understood when it is remembered that the previously established school was entrenched in official authority and nourished on official patronage. The Jury of the Salons was constituted of the Institute by Louis Philippe (1830) ; it was not the elected jury, as later and now ; the teachers of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were of the old belief ; the prize pictures accumulated for years on its walls were of the old practice ; 1 the much coveted Prix de Rome depended upon the competitor's succcess on subjects assigned, and which were always Greek or Roman 2 or Biblical. The young painter must paint a country which he had never seen or, if he had, his works must not partake of reality and must be conventional. Two classes of the new school of landscape painters appear, their difference being in their aim, viz. : those who subordinated all parts to the whole, aiming at unity of effect ; and those who conscientiously reproduced with accuracy of detail the various features of the actual scene, often- times with a delicate skill and keen sense of the qualities of each object, the rock, the tree, the stream, the sky, but with little of the inner perception that catches the spirit of the whole, interprets in reproducing, and melts all into unity of expression. Paul Huet was the first (1827) to free landscape from academic conventionality, and is called the founder of romantic landscape 1 Thackeray wrote in 1838 : " In the Ecole deR Beaux- Arts all is classical. Orestes pursued by every variety of Furies ; numbers of wolf-sucking Romuluses ; Hectors and Andromaches in a complication of parting embraces." — Paris Sketchbook. 2 When Rousseau did not take the subject assigned, viz., The Finding of the Body of Zenobia, but painted A Scene at Auvergne (1831), a river and rocks from nature, his competitors in the old school said : " Ah ! he could not, and has given us a stream of roughly rolling water instead ! " That he did not win the Prix de Rome it is hardly necessary to add. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 233 painting, the first of the so-called lyric painters of landscape, that is of those who expressed their own poetic emotions in 0804^869) Paris ^ ne P resence °f mature. He cleared and ploughed a Med. 2d ci. 1833, soil that produced a wonderful growth. He was a pupil I st u' ' 48 «!?' 67 ' of Guerin and of Gros, and of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. L . Hon. 1841 , 7 But before entering at eighteen years of age the studio of Gros he had already for two years studied open air effects, until the lie Lequin was as a familiar page to him. He was not so daring as his successors, but it is interesting to trace his increasing power in grasping the essential harmony of landscape, in his pictures of the Salons of 1827 and the following years, until 1838. An Evening Effect of Storm, 1831, View of Kouen, of 1833, and three land- scapes of 1834 ; View of the Chateau d'Eu, View of Avignon, and The Environs of Honfleur show different degrees of attainment, but a constant seeking of the necessary conditions of the truest land- scape. From the first he possessed a rich and varied coloring, and from year to year expressed more clearly the sentiment of his scenes, taking frequent trips to Holland for instruction from the master- pieces there. He had a large following of pupils, and the character of the patronage he received indicated, to the observant eye, the future appreciation of the style of landscape inaugurated by his work. A Landscape of 1831 was purchased by Victor Hugo ; A Thicket of 1835 was acquired by the Government ; The Morn- ing Calm of that year went to the Luxembourg as did, also, later his Toucque Valley. The Gust of Wind (1838) and Castle of Avi- gnon (1843) were acquired for the Avignon Museum ; his Chateau of Arques (1840) for the Orleans Museum ; and he was made Cheva- lier of the Legion of Honor (1841). In the later success of the school, other pictures for the State followed : The Inundation of St. Cloud of 1855, by which he won a first class medal, is in the Louvre ; The Beach at Houlgate of 1863 ; The Chateau of Pierrefonds Kestored (1867), were purchased by the Ministry of the Beaux- Arts, also the Euins of the Chateau of Pierrefonds (1868). The Museums of Bordeaux, Caen, Montpellier, Orleans, also have works by him. He, too, painted Fontainebleau (1868), the subject so often chosen by landscape painters since it was first interpreted by Eousseau and Corot and has been so constantly the inspiration of Diaz. He also etched successfully, skilfully omitting the non-essential. Side by side with Huet, but in a different way, Charles de Laberge worked for the renovation of the art of landscape painting. His aim was the exact and finished reproduction of the least detail, with 234 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. which he combined a fresh, English coloring, but by it lost unity chanes Auguste de Laberge of lights, unity of lines, unity of sentiment, (.807-1842), Paris. and all unity of effect, each object centering in itself after the approved pre-Baphaelite prac- tice. His Diligence Passing Through a Village Announcing the Kevo- lution of 1830 (1831) showed also a keen power of representing human nature. Excellent artists followed in both of these paths. The larger sweep of Huet's manner was destined in its development to produce Theodore Rousseau and Corot, though it was not in the early years of their practice that they attained that just mingling of careful reproduction of the real and the subordination of facts of detail to poetic unity. Both these artists' early works in the Salon side by side with those of Huet, won little attention and no admiration. The original, the most accomplished and conservative of this modern French school, Corot, forms the transition from the classic to the modern landscape, recognizing ( J ir6- B 87 P 5) iS part mille ^ no anta g° nism between them, pass- Med. 2d ci. 1833 ; 1st ci. '48, '55 ; 2 d ei. '6 7 e. u. ing from the instruction of Mich- L.Hon.,846; of. L.Hon. .867. alloil the pupil of Valenciennes, Dip. to Dec. Artists E. U. 1878. > 1 1 > to evolving in his own practice the essential principles of the modern interpretation of nature through an ardent inquiry into all her realities. He is in truth a culmination of all these principles. He retained, through his affinity to them, all the characteristics of the classic treatment possible to true land- scape : composition, selection, style. The subjects of the landscapes to which his most careful work was given are historic, that is, either Biblical or mythological, as: Diana surprised Bathing (1836); Silenus (1838) ; Flight into Egypt (1840) ; Democritus among the Abderites (1841) ; Homer and the Shepherds ; Daphnis and Chloe* (1845) ; Nymphs playing with Cupid (1857) ; Dance of the Nymphs (1851, Luxembourg) ; Orpheus (1861), etc. In his treatment the classic quality, ideality, is especially maintained, and his practice developed in form and color the vague, the general, the type : in this, indeed, though it is a feature of the old classicism, consists both his origi- nality and his charm, because of the marked way in which he insisted at the same time upon his own personal point of view. An under- standing of both its origin within himself and its effect, is suggested by his own description of his development of the power of sketching. " I arrived in Rome the merest tyro in sketching. Two men stopped to con- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 235 verse ; I began to sketch them beginning with one part, the hand for example. They would separate and leave me with two pieces of heads on my paper. I re- solved not to return without having in its entirety something. I attempted there- fore to sketch in the winking of an eye the first group that presented itself : if the figures remained in position for a time I had, at least, the character, the general outline ; if they remained long, I added details. I practised in this until I was able to fix the outlines of a ballet at the opera with a few strokes made with light- ning celerity." So in his landscapes he suppresses all but the significant and gives the constant features, those upon which nature works her changes, and, therefore, presents her ever ready for change, in indecision, " on the wing." Thus he makes that happy compromise between vague im- pression and precise definiteness of form, which also so well serves the orator and litterateur, when they leave those addressed to interpret and fill out details for themselves. The details are thus made to accord with nature as already uuderstood by each individual. His sketchiness of treatment thus arose from knowledge rather than ignorance, the com- prehensive knowledge that, choosing from all, gives the best, that from the mass selects the significant. " He is rich enough to live on half his income," happily says a critic, and a sonneteer has addressed him as, " Thou painter of the essences of things." In his treatment, that of so controlling the representation of a scene as to convey its impression, he forms with Claude Lorraine and Theodore Rousseau the triumvirate head of landscape-painting in France. With the former he has a complete scheme or formula which turns upon aerial grace and refined suggestion of landscape ; with the latter he brings to it new material and new methods. Corot and Eousseau are the greatest painters of landscape of the modern school of France. Corot took an extensive range and painted historical, religious, and antique subjects, and portraits, but it is by his landscape that he is judged and accepted. With all the classic features of his style he was a con- scientious student of nature. He was accustomed to say, " Above all be true to your own instincts, to your own method of seeing ; this is what I call conscientiousness." 1 " Place yourself face to face with nature and seek to render it with precision ; paint what ycfti see, and interpret the impression received." This direction gives the key to his work. In " painting what he saw " he reproduced the portion of the landscape that comes within the scope of vision, focussed the escape of the view, so to speak, its passing away into the horizon, and painted this with a precision that leads the eye through this path 1 To his pupil Francais. 236 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. away to where the earth and heaven meet. All else he sacrifices, leaves all outside of this indefinite ; the blades of grass confused ; the foliage, the outline of the trees even, undefined. This, it will be seen, is perpetuating the one view that the act of looking at a landscape gives. But besides this he expresses what he feels in view- ing it. Earlier, definite outline and form held an important place in his method, and he preferred a firm and decided touch. The outline of a tree clearly defined on a dark background or rising vig- orously against a clear sky, was a common feature of his pictures, and he then, too, affected the large line and the sobriety of Aligny. 1 But a closer acquaintance with nature led him to feel that interpretation, rather than imitation of its externals, was its truer expression. The man by this was transformed into the poet with happy dreams and " charming little songs of love," love of nature, the mistress for whom he reserved all his enthusiasm, all his ardor (for he never married) and rather than nature he painted his love of nature, an abstract of her charms. He had little power as a colorist : he gave suggestions of trees, rocks, and figures, by thin washes (or solid im- pasto, as the individual case required) of pale greens, silvery greys, and browns, but he had an inimitable charm in the management of light, giving through it a wondrous rendering of air. Atmosphere is the essential factor in his composition. It serves to mould, illu- mine, modify all the features of the scene. He has been compared to Turner. He was like him in using the permanent forms and local colors of nature only to serve in expressing and emphasizing the impalpable and shifting features of the aerial world, but unlike Turner, he never overstepped a certain limitation ; he never tried to paint full unrelieved sunlight for its own sake. He surpasses all others in the ability to indicate the presence of water without making it seen. For this he makes use of its effects upon the air, the upris- ing, delicate mist. Throughout, subtleties of tone rather than reali- ties of form and color, characterize his works. Twilight's suggestive, mysterious dreaminess, and the " caressing light," as he terms it, of the early morning, are the periods of the day that most powerfully appeal to Corot's poetic sense, and in his works, though they are in the conventional sense vague, he presents the season of the year, the day, " the hour, the moment." His own description of a day affords an idea of his feeling and that aroused by his pictures. One of his letters says : 'A very beautiful work of this style sold at the Wall-Brown Sale, New York, March, 1886, The Forest of Fontainebleau, had won him his decoration at the Salon of 1846. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 237 A landscape painter's day is delightful. He rises early, before sunrise, at three in the morning, and sits under a tree and watches and waits. There is not much to be seen at first. Everything has a sweet odor. Everything trembles under the freshening breeze of the dawn. Bing ! the sun gets clearer ; but he has not yet torn away the veil of gauze behind which lie the meadow, the valley, the hills on the horizon. Bing! Bing! The first ray of the sun ! . . . another ray! . . . the landscape lies entirely behind the transparent gauze of the ascending mist gradually sucked up by the sun, which permits us to see as it ascends, the silver-striped river, the meadows, the cottages, the far-receding distance. At last you can see what you imagined at first. Bam ! The sun has risen . . . Bam ! Everything sparkles, shines ! Everything is in full light — light soft and caressing as yet. The backgrounds with their simple contours and harmonious tone are lost in the infinite sky through an atmosphere of azure and mist. The flowers lift up their heads. The birds fly here and there. A rustic on a white horse disappears in the narrowing path, The rounded willows seem to turn like wheels on the river's edge and the artist paints away. Ah ! the beautiful bay cow, chest deep in the wet grasses. I will paint her. Crac ! There she is. What a capital likeness ! The enthusiasm and warm imagination of Corot held an important place in forming an opposing element to the materialistic tendencies maintained by others working for the renovation of art by a return to nature. This enthusiast carried his blitheness and simplicity of heart in a body of Herculean stature. So sincere and earnest a love as was his love of nature, continually gratified by his artist life, gave to his character an underlying tone of sweetness that made him the popular, yet much respected comrade ; the patient recipient of Aligny's iron- ical deference while in Kome, to which, though he understood it, he did not respond, for, although a Parisian, he was simple-hearted and perhaps awkward ; and a submissive, obedient son, even at fifty years of age, though in his youth the strength of his artistic sense had led him to persist against the wishes of his parents 1 in the profession of art. This happy consciousness enabled him quietly to wait in faith during the total ignoring of his work by the French landscape-paint- ers, his comrades at Rome, 2 and the long delayed appreciation at home. His father and mother both being enriched by trade, after he had, for five years upon the festival of his father's birthday, pleaded for > His simplicity of nature and his shrewd humor as well are shown by this incident: a young presumptuous artist in sketching near him, asked : " Why do you omit this from your sketches and insert that and the other, which is not in the actual land- scape ? Why do you insert this tree?" "Do not tell," replied Corot, "but I put it here to please the birds." 2 He had found there Guerin, director of the Academy, Schnetz, Leopold Robert, Paul Chenavard, Dupre, Aligny, Edouard Bertin. 238 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the boon, his father said to him : " Camille, if you will establish yourself as a cloth merchant, I will put into your hands a hundred thousand francs, but if you wish to become a painter, you shall please yourself, but I will give you an allowance of only two thousand francs, though you may have food and shelter here." "Here," was in the house opposite the Pont Royal, on the Quai Voltaire, which bore in yellow letters, on a black ground, the sign " Mme. Corot, Marchande de Modes." Camille had been at the College de Rouen and also, in honest naivete, failed in being profitable after some years' trial as a clerk to a cloth merchant in Paris. He now quickly sought for art instruction of Michallon, a friend of his own age who had studied out the Prix de Rome in Italy, and, he dying within the year, of Victor Bertin. With Michallon he passed some of those " happy landscape- painter's days" sketching in the country, and it was Michallon who taught him what he never forgot, to paint simply what he saw. Through him, from Valenciennes, Corot also probably derived his practice of placing naiads and dryads in his pictures. Michallon him- self had innate tendencies to true landscape and the romantic school. But in 1826 Corot went to Rome, inspired by Michallon with the idea of its landscape views, and there learned by painting in the Cam- pagna, great breadth in the treatment of horizons. He was also then, for a time, greatly influenced in his methods by Aligny, whom he had the pleasing consciousness of having won from contempt of his work, to acknowledging, as he looked at his picture on the Campagna one day, their mutual gain in working together. He loved nature, how- ever, more than Aligny did. He writes : "After one of my excursions, that is, after travelling and making sketches, I invite nature to come and spend a few days with me, and then my foolishness begins. Pencil in hand, I hear the birds singing, the trees rustling in the wind, I see the running brooks and the streams charged with ten thousand reflections of earth and sky — nay, the very sun rises and sets in my studio." He did not yet, however, conquer Parisian appreciation, and his first works, View at Narni and The Campagna at Rome, exhibited in the Salon of 1827, won no notice ; but by 1831 his exhibited works attracted at least the attention of disapproval, and in 1833 he received a medal, though this induced no patronage. The love of rural nature had not yet gained the high place it now holds in French sentiment, was not yet deep enough to pierce Corot's veiling of it in his own misty, dreamy impressions. Hid Corot overdo the use of the mist and " caressing light " he loved so well ? Did his eye, with its loving THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 239 sensibility to the air see it too palpably ? " If we pierce this veil we shall see profound depths/' says a critic, " where all is bathed in trans- parent shadows and warm lights." Corot himself said, "To under- stand my landscapes you must at least have the patience to wait till the mist rises. It is only by degrees that you can penetrate into them, but when you get through you will be gratified by them." Until " the mist had risen " at least from the minds of the public, and a growth in the estimate of the ideal in landscape had been attained, his work suffered a neglect that nothing but the reality of his art and his faith in himself could have survived. When forty years old, he one day smilingly told a friend, " I have at last sold a picture, and I regret it as it makes a break in the complete collection of my works." But for his father's allowance he might have starved, as incorrect accounts record him as being on the verge of doing. He contin- ued his landscape studies in Provence, Normandy, and around Paris, still developing breadth of treatment. At last he touched respon- sive chords ; the language he spoke was understood ; his pictures came to command high prices, and his annual income reached 200,000 francs. Inheritance had then forestalled all need of it, and death had precluded the possibility of its justification in his father's eyes of his wilful pursuit of an artist's vocation. He now exer- cised his ingenuity in devising relief for unfortunate artists, often- est the suddenly increased estimation of some picture for which he offered a large sum. A short time before his death, he handed ten bills of a thousand francs each, to a merchant who was count- ing out a large payment to him, directing him to keep them for a pension for ten years after his death to the widow of his friend, Millet. The Grand Medal of Honor was never conferred upon him, although he lived fifteen years ('60 to '75) of the time of his most exalted fame after its creation (1850), and he and his friends were naturally expectant that this new honor would be bestowed upon him. In 1855 he saw at the Exposition Universelle, Ingres, De- camps, Delacroix, and Meissonier, his contemporaries, take it, and in 1867 the younger men, Rousseau, Gerdine, Cabanel, with Meissonier again, while he won no honor higher than that of Commander of the Legion of Honor. His friends among the artists sought to compen- sate him for this official perversity, and shortly before his death pre- sented "le pere Corot" with a gold medal which he received from "mes enfants " with a radiant pleasure. The compliment of being- imitated was, however, fully accorded him, and the market, before his death, was flooded with spurious Corots. It is related that in the 240 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. height of his success Corot recalled how, as late as 1852, no one stopped to look at his picture in the Salon. Finally he lingered him- self before it hoping to lead others to do so. A young man and woman stopped to discover what he saw. " There is something in it," said the man, seeking to point out some merit. "No, no," replied she, pulling his sleeve, "it is horrid. Come, let us go." The pic- ture, some years later, sold for 12,000 francs at auction, and the purchaser gave a dinner in honor of obtaining it. But at the last Corot stood almost above criticism, where all he did won the most exalted praise, when, even under the prevailing theory that mythology should be banished from landscape, the introduction of nymphs by Corot was by the critics both admired and commended. It is true, however, that he made them a part of the life and true sentiment of the scene ; indeed, embodied its sentiment in them and through them enhanced his naturalistic effect. Nor, in the latter part of his life, did his lack of obvious drawing, his sobriety of color, or sameness of treatment excite criticism. Shortcomings, even if his excellences cannot be said to have of necessity involved such as he showed, are lost in the charm of poesy he makes felt. " This poetical perfume is a personality and supersedes the necessity of signature," says Rene Menard. Only the boldest dare dissent from the approval his works commanded. He added his name to his last works on his death-bed. Was it his perception of Nature's innermost spirit, a fore- taste of the deeper insight of the hereafter ; a memory of earth or a glimpse of heaven, that inspired his dying words when, moving his hand against the wall as if painting, he exclaimed : " See, how beautiful ! I have never seen such lovely landscapes." Long before Jules Dupre had said " Corot there paints with wings at his back," and Wolff has called him the Mozart of painting, who has been char- acterized as "the only Athenian who ever wrote music that has united sentiment with style." He exhibited in every Salon from 1827, except that of 1850, to the year of his death, and left two pictures for the Salon of that year, Biblis and The Pleasures of Evening ; in all ninety-one pictures. He marked as highly esteemed by himself A View of a Roman Forum and The Coliseum at Rome in bequeathing them to the Luxem- bourg. Napoleon III. purchased the Souvenirs of Marcoussis (1855). His really representative pictures are now almost priceless. The Frog Pond, exhibited by Cottier at the Loan Exhibition for the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund in New York, 1884, was insured for $25,000. It is in color one of his most pleasing pictures. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 241 Of the pupils of Corot, Fnmcais and Chintreuil are the most dis- tinguished. Ckintreuil, a most interesting character, followed his master not only in poetic landscape and in excellence of atmospheric Antoine chmtreuii effect, in the solemnity of twilights and joy- (1814-73). Pont-de-vaux, Ain. ousness of dawns, but also in failing to win public fayor till almost too late for his own cognizance of it. The work of the last year of his life, A Thicket of Deer (1873) found a place in the Luxembourg, and since his death his pictures have greatly increased in value. He holds in landscape a middle place between those who copy the features of nature in detail and those who interpret the effect. His works are unequal ; the best approximate Turner's pictures. He had great boldness and knowledge : he made space felt, treated sunlight with rare skill, ren- dered foregrounds charmingly aglow with vapors settling or scattering before the coming dawn ; and has been called " the poet of the dews and mists." He began his career as a bookseller's clerk in the pro- vincial town of his birth, but nature had conjured him with her witchery and, stealing away into the half-lights of an attic, he would there re-create her gold and amethysts, setting yellow gleams in the depths of the valleys and leaving exquisite purple glows on the slopes of his foregrounds. Here he was discovered by the son of his employer, Desbrosses, and encouraged in this charming alchemy as the art for which he was born. Sustained by this life-long friend, he toiled on without other recognition until the mists of age fell upon him ; but he had worked in loving fealty to nature and his life had not lacked reward. As late as 1863 his November was rejected at the Salon, but it won favor from the critics. He had a great love for the little river Bievre, and would often forget himself in its mists to the detriment of his health. His subjects give a clue to his works and their places in the museums indicate their present appreciation. Valley of Igny (1852) ; The Moors ; Autumn Evening (1853) ; The Country in the Morning (1855); After the Rain (Rheims) ; Evening (Angers); Paths through Apple Trees ; Coining out of the Woods (1857, Bourg); The Deer Pond (Mende) ; Rain ; After a Stormy night (1861); Broom Plant in Flower (1861); Field in the Early Dawn ; Field of Sainfoin ; Sunset with Ruins (Macon) ; Meadow (1864) ; Scotch Mist (St. Malo) ; Twilight (Pont de Vaux); Vapors of Evening (1865) ; Aurora ; A Flood (1868); Space ; Woods in Sunlight (1869); A Beam of Sunlight on a Field of Sainfoin (1860) ; Close of Day (1872) ; Rain and Sunlight ; Low Tide ; and The White Road (1873). Theodore Rousseau, the " father of modern French landscape/' 16 242 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. to whom, however, Dupre had opened the route, and both of whom were but twelve years old when Con- Pierre Etienne Jheodore Rousseau S fc a ble gave its first impulse to French Med. 3/01.1834! 'std. '49, '55 e. u. landscape, like Corot gave to landscape L - Hon - 18 5 2 a poetical rendering, but in contrast Grand Med. d'Honneur, 1867. . . n ., i • 1 1 • 1 Dip. to Dec. Artists, 1868. with Corot s as lyrical, his was dramatic. He excelled Corot in combining with a thorough draughtsmanship a rich scheme of color, but hardly equals him perhaps in the suggestiveness that is the highest aim of landscape painting. Rousseau began in his first picture, Signal Station on Mont- martre (1826), with an earnest love of reality, which he then and always impressed on his work, but, as he grew in power, he harmonized all the accuracy of details into a poetic unity, and has been called a poetical realist. He gives atmosphere to his distance, diffuses light through that atmosphere, and impresses a reality on his foliage, whether he makes it firm and clearly cut as the florescence " of a Japan- ese bronze" or light and airy as the wings of butterflies; his plains recede, and here and there furnish charming points of local perspec- tive. 1 Like Corot he was not at once appreciated, not because misty like him he needed interpretation, but because his methods and effects were scorned by the established school. Rousseau's father, a merchant tailor of Salins on the Jura, who through a distinguished connection which he seems to have formed had been able during the Hundred Days to render a service to Talley- rand, planned through Talleyrand's influence to educate his son for an engineer. His mother's cousin, Alexandre Pau de Saint Martin, an artist, when he saw the picture which the lad of fourteen had stolen away to paint (The Signal Station), and had presented to his father with, the request that he might be a painter, influenced his parents to change their plans of sending him to the Ecole Polytech- nique and to place him in the studio of the landscape painter, Remond. He also was taught by Lethiere, who had won the prize of historic landscape by the classic picture, The Seizure of Proserpine, and for a time studied at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. The followers of Bidault, his competitors, were accustomed to relate among them- selves how Rousseau had been incapable of treating the subject of his- torical landscape chosen by the Institute for the Prix de Rome of 1831, 1 This is delightfully illustrated in A Summer Afternoon, sold in New York from the Probasco Collection of Cincinnati, 1887, a river scene in which the eye travels back from point to point in cumulative effect, each point furnishing a complete landscape in itself. It is now owned by Mr. Wm. T. Walters, Baltimore. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 243 and had painted, in disregard of all rule, A View of Auvergne, " where undisciplined and untamed waters, not worthy of being called waves, rolled in torrents between banks without buildings," in which, in short, the classic temple of classic landscape had been omitted. He then left the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and went by advice of Ary Scheffer, who had also been the friend of Decamps, to learn his art from pictures in the Louvre, but much more from studying in the fields. He had, indeed, before his picture of 1826 spent much time in the forests of Franche-Comte with the proprietor of a chain of saw- pits there. A voyage into Auvergne and Normandy (1830-'31) now aided in giving him a mastery of landscape, based on his intense sensi- bility to its charms and served by a wonderful power of hand. By 1833 he had discovered his favorite field of work, the forest of Fon- tainebleau, of the very twigs of which he was solicitously tender, and where he made historic, by his frequent lodging there, the tavern of Ganne, and in 1848 he set up a home there, at Barbison. In 1834 his View of Auvergne was admitted to the Salon, and he received a medal of the third class for a Border of the Forest of Compiegne, which, also, before the opening of the Salon, was bought upon the advice of Ary Scheffer, by the young Duke of Orleans. Exultant with hope, he painted for the next exhibition a scene from the familar Jura, The Descent of the Cows in Autumn, and The Alley of Chest- nut Trees. They were both rejected (1835). The President of the Academy, Bidault, advised it ; the Secretary, Eaoul Rochette, lam- pooned the pictures, and with great dignity avowed that " he could not understand modern painting." Unfortunately, through his official position he could wound those who did in the opinion of connoisseurs since. This was the year when the classicists of the Institute were vividly awakened to the influences of the romantic developments in landscape, which, up to this time, had been unheeded in the general indifference to landscape which had long existed (in truth, it may be said since the time of Claude), and now, with Rousseau, Huet, Marilhat, Decamps, and the other romanticists, Delacroix, Champmartin, and L. Boulanger, were condemned. Such rejection would have been impos- sible after the election of the jury by the artists. But for the ensuing thirteen years, until the revolt of artists in 1848, Rousseau's pictures were excluded from the Salon. But though thus crippled he bravely fought the battle of nature against convention in landscape. The Descent of the Cows was bought by Ary Scheffer and exhibited in his studio, and there Delacroix in company with George Sand approved it. It also won favorable criticism in notices of the following Salon 244 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. ('36), but which served only to confirm the official hostility to this artist. Planche wrote : " We recommend all lovers of landscape to visit the studio of M. Scheffer to see the work of Rousseau, for M. Bidault will be next year as this, obstinate, ignorant. This work should be counted among the most important of the Salon, but instead, the doors are closed against it. A group of heifers descend along a steep gorge ; the time is evening, the eye discerns continually new riches. It is a magnificent spectacle." Bidault was one of the honored fourteen, a member of the Institute from 1823 to his death in 1846, a follower of classic landscape but best known now from his bitter oppression of Theodore Kousseau. Of the exhibition by him of classic landscapes in the Salon of 1836, the same critic writes : " I do not comprehend how Bidault excites the anger of artists that he judges and excludes from the Salons, for these three landscapes plead eloquently in favor of his ignorance. I hail them with a thrill of joy as elucidating the principles by which he sustains and undermines.*' He was one of those who had not yet any perception of the develop- ment of the period, the feeling in view of landscape ; and stiffness, exactness, minuteness, were Bidault's characteristics. This contrast continually made by the critics may serve to explain Bidault's per- sistent prejudice against Kousseau, for his spirit and that of the jury during the entire war with the " innovators " was especially bitter against this artist, and it so remained till, in the changes of 1848, the purely official jury was abolished. Their continued suppression of Rousseau's works kept him in a poverty that both injured his art by preventing desirable travel and study, and caused him great destitu- tion and suffering. He was the " protomartyr " 1 of modern land- scape as well as its "'father," but later he became in his popularity, " the wizard of Fontainebleau." The reaction in his favor was effected without the aid of the Salons. It began in 1848 at an exhibition organized for the aid of artists during the trying times fol- lowing the Revolution, and in the Salon of that year the appreciation of his merit, long felt by the body of artists, was shown by giving him a responsible place on the hanging committee. In 1849 under the new order of art affairs, he received a first class medal and, also, the prize of three thousand francs sent to the jury by the Minister 1 The critic Thore, who shared his rooms, has left a picture of him at this time as "rising in the night, feverish and desperate, and by the light of a hasty lamp essay- ing effects already covered many times in his previous efforts, and in the morning fatigued, sad, but always eager and inexhaustible." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 245 of Public Instruction to be awarded to talent. But long injustice had embittered his nature, that never had had the sunniness of Corot's, and he became affronted at Dupre who again and again had tramped the pavements of Paris to sell a picture for him in need, because Dupre had been decorated, while he had not. He, like all the once neglected, Corot, and later, Manet (and as might have been true of Millet, had he been allowed to drink deeply enough to acquire a taste), having once been honored perpetually thirsted thereafter. Even then, too, for the innovation of color in his Interior of a Forest, Fon- tainebleau, with the fresh green of a clearing in which cows grazed or lay ruminating on the grass, no condemnation seemed to the critics too severe. He had ventured to break over former conventional coloring, and paint the real green of spring, the tender yellow of budding leaves, instead of russets and browns. And even as late as 1861, when he exhibited his Oak 'of the Eock, in which the tree, receiving on its clustered foliage the down-pouring of the July sun, in bright contrast to the cool shade of the underwood, issues from between boulders etched with mosses and lichens, the critics called the tone, "brutal, sharp, and violent, of an untempered intensity." Others admitted that he had great skill and " stood at the head of those who had reproduced the exact notes of rural harmony." And that year some of his pictures and drawings sold at the Hotel Drouot for 37,000 francs. 1 In 1864 his picture was assigned to the Salon Carre, the place of honor and pronounced "a masterpiece, complete, vigorous, powerful," and, in 1866, his pictures sold to the amount of 150,000 francs, and he indulged himself first in paying his debts, and then in a gratification long held in abeyance, viz., possessing himself of 30,000 francs' worth of rare prints and Japanese drawings. He also this year was the guest of the emperor at Compiegne. In 1867, at the Exposition Universelle, where his friend and neighbor, Millet, found the first approximate appreciation of his work, he was made president of the French jury, and was awarded the grand medal of honor by the votes of all the juries of the various nations united. He was one of four painters, and the only landscape painter, receiving that honor for France, Meissonier, Ger6me, and Cabanel being the other three. Only eight were given to all the nations exhibiting. But there he also suffered humiliation, the supposed result of intrigue, 1 Albert Wolff relates that when, twenty years after the purchase of Le Givre for 500 francs at the pressing soliciation of Dupre by the great baritone singer, Baroilhet, it sold for 17,000 francs, and Dupre" alluded to it as a good bargain, Baroilhet replied : " Ah ! but then there was not another than I on the pavements of Paris who would have given 500 francs for it." 246 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. in having Corot, Jules Breton, and Francais made Officers of the Legion of Honor over his head, although he was entitled to it by his talent and the respect of his colleagues. Always sensitive to his per- sonal dignity, he was greatly affected, so much so that he then experi- enced the first sensations of the paralysis that caused his death in the following December. That honors were now accorded him was not because of change in his work, but of change of the jury and a growth in the public taste. He had been from the first one of the most convinced in his innovations, and his picture The Alley of Chestnut Trees of 1835, was undoubtedly one of his best. His merit once discovered, the appreciation of it included his entire art career, and in 1857 Ed- mond About wrote : " For twenty-five years Theodore Rousseau has been the first apostle of truth in landscape, above all as a colorist ; but neither the Institute nor the public has been willing to confess it. His incontestable talent has been contested by everybody." But the establishment of his landscape painting was the establishment of the school ; in acknowledging his work, landscape itself was given position. One of his treatments of foliage, a peculiar one that be- comes often very charming, is of a deep green, of almost distinctly separated leaves clearly defined against the sky. He enters greatly into detail, expressing the infinite varieties of plants, grasses, and mosses ; the incidental condition of the ground as covered with leaves, or stones, or etched by lichens ; or simply composed of the grassy turf. But he does not sacrifice the unity of effect of the whole for the details, or for exactness of reproduction. By a careful treat- ment of certain parts of the picture, differentiating conscientiously its features — the branches, the shrubs, the foliage, rigid or supple — he leads the eye to supply the same imitation of nature in the parts to which this finish cannot be carried. As has been aptly said of him, "he can evaporate a scene" to its essential facts. From his own words we may learn his aim. He said in giving advice to a pupil, M. Letrome : " Let us understand the word finish. What finishes a picture is not the quan- tity of details ; is is truth of the 1 ensemble.' A picture is limited not by the frame alone. Whatever the subject, there is a principal object to which the eyes are constantly to be borne. The other objects are only the complement of this, and interest us less. Beyond that there is nothing more for the eye. These, then, are the true limits of a picture If your picture, on the contrary, contains a precise detail, equal from end to end of the canvas, it will be regarded with indifference. All interesting the spectator equally, nothing will interest him. You will have never finished." TROYON LE GUE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 247 Thus, to a high artistic end, he allowed himself to neglect execu- tion in parts where this neglect enhances artistic effect. Pictures of this treatment are considered of his most charming style. It is seen in his picture, the Stormy Morning during Harvest (Salon 1857) excellent in its general effect, but broadly treated in execution and even in color. But he was exceedingly versatile — as versatile as the aspects of nature which he studied; and of this versatility three styles are conspicuous. Early, following Constable, his style had a marked breadth, freedom, and impressive sentiment ; then a middle style of great finish of detail, in 1852 exhibiting a finish almost exceeding proper limits ; and his later work after 1855 of less exactness of detail and a less varied color. His strength is in design, which more than all else determines the character of his pictures and which with perspec- tive outlived his feeling for color. But by design is not here meant outline. Rousseau said himself : " A design does not consist in exactness of silhouette. A tree should have vol- ume like the ground water, air, space. Your branches ought to advance out of, and thrust themselves into the canvas. The spectator should feel that he could go around it. In order to express form, which is the first thing to observe, your pencil ought to follow the meaning of objects. Every touch should count in the ensemble as expressing something." Content with the material at hand, his genius transformed the commonest aspect of nature into a poem, and thus his work comprised all varieties ; he could paint the storm as well as the smile of nature. He painted many pictures of sunrise and sunset in which he illustrated the principle which he expressed in saying : " Light spread over a work is universal life, . . . without light there is no creation." His life was a sad one, spent for nine- teen years after 1848 at Barbizon in a peasant's cottage, made beautiful by his taste. It was near that of Millet, between whom and himself had long existed the close alliance of sympathy in suffering, and who, weeping, closed his eyes at his deathbed. Rousseau lived there in the gloom caused by the mental aberration of his wife, whom he kept with him in all her wild laughing and weeping. During his long abstention from sending to the Salons (1835- ? 49) he took consolation in his continual studies and in the esteem of his cultivated friends, Diaz, Jules Dupre, and later, Millet and Charles Jacque. He conversed and corresponded little. He always firmly refused to visit Italy, fearing like Delacroix to destroy his indi- viduality, his own ideal, which he considered a result of qualities of 248 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. race. He was intensely French, and to his love of landscape was added the love of his native land. He roamed over and studied all France, and he felt that an artist needed the undissipated force of all his mind, all his feeling, and the sentiment of his age, " to concen- trate in the limited space of a panel, the spectacle of Nature, multi- ple in her secrets." His pictures now command high prices. Early Summer Afternoon (29 x 21 in.) sold at the Probasco sale (New York, 1887) for $21,000 ; in 1873 at the Laurent Kichard sale, Paris, the Water Course at Boulogne sold for $8,000, and at Mrs. M. J. Mor- gan's sale (New York, 1886) his Twilight for $15,500. Born the same year with Theodore Kousseau, but making his debut five years later (1831), Jules Dupre added his force to that art- ist's in breaking down the strongly defended intrenchments of con- ventionality in landscape. Dupre sought his inspiration directly from nature or, more correctly, nature sought him (i 8 is— UP ) 6 Nantes. with irresistible appeals from the beauti- Med. idci. 1833; 1867 e. u. f u i banks of the Oise near his home, that L. Hon. 1849. Of. L. Hon. 1870. , . . „ , , , , . . bore him away from the humble porcelain factory, where, confined by his father's need, at the age of twelve he drudged with little education beyond reading and writing ; appeals that inspired and controlled his brush and made him a conspicuous painter of the " paysage intime." Though he carries love of nature to exaltation, he, equally with Corot, depicts in landscape what he has felt as well as what he has seen. That able critic, A. Michel, says : "It can be said with great justice that he treats trees somewhat as Michael Angelo did the human body ; that in them reality exists for us only under the form that our feeling imposes upon them and in the measure in which we understand them ; that in describing them we describe ourselves, and that at the foundation of every work of art a confession is found." Dupre continually, through some Forest, or Sheepfold, or Mid- day, makes such "confession." Under his feeling all parts of a scene are softened into a harmonious whole, and exactness of detail is subordinated to the interpretation of impression. Nevertheless, he accepts nature on her own conditions in the main and, like Con- stable, whose methods formed his most important instruction, in securing the reality he secures the charm. He studied design in the porcelain works of his father and afterwards painted for a while Alpine landscapes on clock cases. But these representations of the nature he loved so deeply proved to him insufficient, and at length THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 249 he went to Paris, and at the Louvre saw the works of Hobbima and Ruysdael, whose inspiration was in the same direction as that of the English Constable. Whatever of tender and just treatment of the features of landscape already so dear to him he may have learned from these, he at least was afforded in them a recognized precedent for the principles of the so-called innovations. Fortified against the advocates of conventional arrangement by The Mill of Hobbima and The Bush Beaten by the Tempest of Ruysdael, he startled the artistic world by his debut with five landscapes in the Salon of 1831 — a Salon that has become famous by the romantic demonstration then made. Delacroix had sent to it his Barricade of Liberty, or July 28, 1830 ; there Brascassat, the conservative, renewed the paint- ing of animals, long fallen into desuetude ; in it Rousseau and Diaz made their debut and took position ; there Decamps, with Roque- plan, sustained the new principles ; and there the heroic age of French landscape began, and not least among works illustrating it were Dupre's Recently, in the Triennial Exhibition of 1883, at the age of seventy- one, Dupre exhibited eight landscapes, and still maintained in them the principles he had emphasized in the beginning, and illustrated what, during the interval, had been the accepted practice, what the interpretation of impression must always be, personal landscape or landscape intime. By a masterly harmonizing of parts, and hence unity, he makes a deep impression, which overpowers his slight defects, as, a certain heaviness in places, even some hard realisms, and some negligence. His trees are sometimes excessively twisted and violent in action, and design is sacrificed to the presentation of light. He and 4 Rousseau stand high as colorists in the landscape school of the generation just passed, and in color both adopted a broad scheme. Dupre has also painted some charming scenes of rustic genre, as The Haymakers and The Shepherd. He has two beauti- ful and extremely characteristic works in the Luxembourg, Morning and Evening. At the International Exhibition at Paris, 1867, he had twelve landscapes. Among these were The Forest of Oompiegne, Bridge in Berri, Sheepfold in Berri, The Return of the Flock. His Environs of Southampton sold at the Nilsson sale (Paris, 1873) for £1,680. In recent years he has only occasionally appeared at the Salons, but then in some landscape, as the Prairie Normande of 1884, which shows that he has not forgotten his skill, and that the tie between him and nature is still close and strong. The only survivor of the land- 250 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. scape school of 1830, from a charming humble home on the banks of the Oise, at Pile- Adam, he is still able to look upon the views that first charmed him ; but he is also able to see at the Salons the high level which that art holds through the achievement of the group of painters to which he belonged nearly sixty years ago. Roqueplan, one of the innovators, proceeding from the studio of Gros, was also a pupil of Abel de Pujol. Not without honors . . n ... D in the old school, he became one of Joseph Etienne Camille Roqueplan 7 (i8oo-'55), Maiiemart. the founders of landscape painting Med. 2d cl., .824; ist cl., ,83. L. Hon. " 3 .. frQm with egpecial aim ^ unity> He produced charming effects of light and color in landscapes and marine pieces, and also painted genre. He was employed in the dec- oration of the Luxembourg. Flers gave strength to the new school in landscape. He had been _ ... trained in the old ideas under Paris, but belongs Camille Flers 0 (i8o2-'6 8 ), Paris. to the group whose debut in the Salon of 1831 Med. 3d ci., 1840. was emphasized by their breaking away from 2d cl., 1847- L.Hon., 1849. . r . . f, J convention and tradition. He did his best work between 1831 and 1855. The Four Seasons and A Mill at Annay, which won for him a decoration, illustrate his style. Lambinet, a pupil of Boiselier and subsequently of Drolling and Horace Vernet, uses, with a refined taste, high, clear, brilliant lights Emiie Lambinet * n painting the views of his own country, (i8i5-'78), Versailles, usually the natural and simple scenes of Med. 3d ci., -43; *d ci., ' 53 i Ra P . ' 5 .. the lowlands, as well as landscapes of the L. Hon., 1867. ' r East and Algeria. In general he contents himself with an approximation to detailed finish, having a kind of accentuation with the brush which suggests it. He -exhibited from 1833 to 1877 thirty-seven pictures, and has A Landscape (1855) at the Luxembourg, besides others in the museums of Cambrai, Avignon, Amiens, Montpellier, Besancon, and in the United States. A landscape painter, a keen lover of nature, and one who inde- fatigably pursued the aim of becoming an artist ; who obtained the c . , . „ first-class medal three times, two of them being hrancois Louis rrancais 7 0 (1814- ) piombieres. at Universal Exhibitions, where, also, in 1867, M + ed , 3d p' i ' 4 c 1 1 ,« a 1 1 he was made Officer of the Legion of Honor ist cl. '48, 55 E. U., '67 E. U. ° l. Hon. -53; of. l. Hon. '67; over Theodore Rousseau ; who has been a mem- Med - Hon - ' 78 ' ber of the Jury of the Salon many times ; who has had pictures acquired by the State ; whose painting, The Sacred Wood, was pronounced by Rousseau himself "one of the most remarkable landscapes of modern times ; " and to whom so impor- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 251 tant a work as the decoration of the Baptistery of the church of La Trinite, Paris, was successfully entrusted, — Francais, is an im- portant name on the roll of French artists, though his fame on this side of the ocean bears no proportion to that of his teacher, Corot, of Kousseau, Diaz, Daubigny, Millet, Breton, and Bastien-Lepage. This charming artist has a talent entirely French. Says Gautier : " If ever name were nicely adjusted to the person ... it is so with Francais." His drawing is most accurate, and shows a charming detail, in sowing the grounds of his landscape with the real flowers of nature. If some critics have condemned his color as too gray, and his impasto as "soft and cottony," this cannot be said of his best pic- tures, as of the three acquired for the Luxembourg, The End of the Winter (1855), Orpheus (1863), Daphnis and Chloe (1872), which is a thickly- wooded, well-composed scene of true poetry. Gautier praised him with delicate eulogy, and the art critic, Merson, appre- ciatively says: "He is very skilful in painting nature when the evening powders with gold the hills of his backgrounds, or the sun pierces with arrows the foliage of his grand trees." He began life in poverty, but to the great tenacity of his purpose to acquire aesthetic training he sacrificed rapid financial advancement in other directions, for which his great practical ability and high character won for him repeated opportunity. This resulted in his becoming an illustrator of books, in which he gained great reputa- tion, especially for the illustration of La Lorraine. Having thus acquired means, he went to Italy (1847), where he studied art three years. Subsequently he had instructions from Gigoux and Corot. His tw T o designs in the Baptistery of the Church of La Trinite, The Baptism of Christ and Adam and Eve Driven from Paradise, are among his best works. The figures of his scenes have been painted in most instances by M. Baron — in one, St. Cloud (1846), now in the Musee of Plombieres, by Meissonier. In the Salons up to 1885, beginning with that of 1837, he has exhibited seventy-two landscapes, chiefly French and Italian views, and some portraits. Landscapes by him may be seen, besides, at the Luxembourg and Plombieres, in the museums of Tours, Bordeaux, Epinal and Nantes. His pupil, Cabat, another of this school of landscapists, lacked the essential power of interpretation, but painted what he saw with a realistic treatment. Some of his small pictures are noteworthy for their clear foliage and the ramifications of boughs so well defined as to be outlined against the sky like lace. He studied from nature the picturesque landscapes of France and Italy, and achieved great 252 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. popularity, first appearing in the Salon of 1833 with five landscapes, and since exhibiting thirty-one pictures, chiefly of this class. He is represented by An Autumn Evening (1852) Nicholas Louis Cabat • j.t_ t v. -, i (1812- ), Paris. m the Luxembourg, was made Officer of Med. 2d ei. '34. the Legion of Honor, and thus had the offi- L. Hon. '43 Of. L. Hon. '55 E. U. • j ■» ■ , ., , , Mem. inst. '67. cial seal set upon Ins work, as it also was by Med. 3d ci. 67 e. u. the purchase by the Ministry of the Fine Rector Acad. Rome '7Q-'85. „ , . T , . , . , -. • , 1 Arts of his Lake Nerni, which he painted twice, in 1840 and in 1864. In the next period, when the art esti- mate was not antagonistic to the romanticists, he was made a Mem- ber of the Institute (1867), also a Director of the Academy at Rome (1879). He had an extended influence through his pupils, conspic- uous among whom is Fromentin. Diaz, also, belonged to the group of artists working for interpreta- tion, and aiming chiefly to convey the entire artistic effect, the sug- gestions to the sympathetic imagination rather Narciso Virgilio Diaz de la Pena ° J J f (i8o8-'76), Bordeaux. than the separate leatures ol the scene. In Med. 3 d ci. ' 44 ; 2d ci. ' 4 6. this none were more successful; he could, Dip C 'tol^ec!~Artists '78 e. u. ^ke Corot, catch the intangible atmosphere and fasten it upon his canvas. In addition he had an extraordinary charm of color ; indeed, all in his works is but an excuse for light and color, and they become charming min- glings of the real and unreal : from both these fields he selected the graceful and impressive. His design, which he was still pursuing at forty, is sometimes obscured by his attractive color; he boldly held up to ridicule those who insisted on accurate drawing, and was as frank a hater of Ingres as he was an admirer of Delacroix. He, indeed, spoke what he thought, whatever the surroundings, and from a seemingly rough exterior, only by prolonged acquaintance revealed the tender delicacy of his nature, which, more frequently than that of many others, led to rescuing his artist friends in their need. He was born at Bordeaux, where his mother had taken refuge upon his father's being banished from both Spain and France, as belonging to an unsuccessful conspiracy against King Joseph Bona- parte, and began as an orphan at the age of ten to battle single-handed with poverty. Unskilful surgical treatment, when the bite of an insect had made necessary the amputation of a leg, complicated his difficulties, and at fifteen he is found in a porcelain manufactory as a humble shop-boy. Promoted to the atelier of his employer, who had noticed his copying of objects around him, he made acquaintance with Cabat and Dupre, who worked there with him, and soon, having THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 253 quarrelled with his master, began by himself the struggle of life. He early had thrown back on his hands, by Desforges, of whom he had borrowed the means for painting it, The Descent of the Gypsies, as it had long been exposed for sale without finding a purchaser. At this juncture, Paul Berrier relieved the despair of the youth. He per- ceived at a glance the merit which has since given the rank of a mas- terpiece to the work, and, though the youthful artist's hope had not aspired to more than five hundred, paid for it fifteen hundred francs. Commencing thus with landscape-genre, Diaz glided into genre, and then into landscape, and, not until he adopted this form of art, did his pictures command distinguished notice. Most of those which in his struggling youth he painted for support, and some of which, it is said, he sold for five francs apiece, were studies from Delacroix, but around him he found varied styles, and was held in turn by each, but finally Rousseau became to him " le maitre." Into his style enriched by his study of the many, he infused his personal quali- ties, and succeeded in getting a picture into the famous Salon of 1831, Sketches from Nature, though he only received his first medal thirteen years afterward (1844). His buoyant character which kept him, after the amputation of his leg, the same active boy, swimming, dancing, and running hopity-hop with loud bursts of laughter, and which clung to him through life, is illustrated by his playful habit of calling his wooden leg " my drumstick." This joyous exuberance pervades his works ; he never saw any curtaining mists or leaden clouds ; the sun always shone for his pictures and penetrated to the depths of the forests. These he loved to paint, and though obliged to exclude the sky from them, the sun is never banished, but lights them through and through, gilding in spots both the tree-trunks and the ground, and in these conscientious labor and finish are appa- rent, though sometimes wanting in his other compositions. His play- ful, delicate fancy invests his figures with a grace, which with his coloring gives them a sufficient "raison d'etre," even if in the world of grosser reality their exact prototype does not exist. Moreover, they are always in harmony with the scene. They have full foreheads and large, far-apart eyes, by which one distinguishes them at a dis- tance, the dogs even sharing these characteristics. He revelled in, and reproduced with an absorbed identification of himself in the scene, the brilliant colors of autumn. The Forest of Fontainebleau, where he lived at Barbison in loving companionship and sympathy with Millet and Rousseau, to whom he was always a pupil, furnished his field, and, ' in driving or walking there, one again and again recognizes a pict- 254 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. ure of Diaz. As one does not look at his feet in gazing at a natural landscape, he, like Kembrandt, Corot, Kousseau, and Huet, leaves the first plane of his picture without definite detail, and so carries the eye directly to the second plane. His charms so outweigh all their accompanying limitations that his slightest sketch has long been contended for at the sales. When wealth finally came to him he still retained his simple tastes, but bought a villa at Etretat, where he might gaze upon the sea " ensoleillee " which afforded him more of light than his loved Forest of Fontainebleau. In its presence, Wolff tells us, he would plan grand and noble pictures that he was to paint for posterity, saying, " Fortune is nothing without satisfac- tion with one's self." He died of the bite of a viper. His son, Emile, also a pupil of Eousseau, died in 1860. Diaz's works abound in America. Daubigny, from artistic surroundings and law of inheritance, could hardly have been other than a painter. His father, his father's pk.ri«p,. R ,«i.n. 1 ,ki™» brother, and his father's brother's wife Charles rraneois Daubigny ' (1817-1878), Paris. were all painters ; his father, Edouard M " d ' 3d c!" ' 5 8 5 48 e "u Cl ' ' 53 ' Francis (1789-1843), of landscape, his - 1st ci. '57. Rap. '59, '69. uncle, Pierre ( -1858), of portraits, for l. Hon. '59. of. l. Hon. ' 75 . which he was distinguished at the Salons from 1822 till his death. Charles became a landscape painter, of the class which, following the true Fontaine- bleau manner, subordinated all parts to completeness of impression. For this he often sacrificed form and minute execution, although a close follower of the essential realities. He did not aim at graphic detail, but at breadth of treatment. Daubigny, however, had great charm of color, and sometimes in his indifference for drawing, for that was not the touchstone of feeling with him, was accused of making pictures of mere spots and unfinished sketches. But, as with Corot, effects rather than literal aspects were his aim, and these he attained in a high degree in the river scenes, which he painted from a studio floating down the Oise and the Seine, catching the bird's-eye view, as it were, of such combinations of illumination, of atmosphere, of cloud, and vegetation — for this he does not ignore — as should have the finest pictorial effect. He sought the impression of the scene and derived the variation of his art from the changing notes of nature, the sensations she imparts. He became especially the painter of river scenes, while Corot and Diaz painted as their water scenes the ponds of nature, for neither they nor other artists ever affect large lakes in landscape. In vivid realization of the natural effect TEE NINETEENTE CENTURY. 255 of atmosphere he is a worthy compeer of the great Corot. He also had a singular power in conveying an intense impression of vegetation, of "tout ce qui pousse." What is meant by just rendering of values, or the relative strength of tones, the degree of light or dark in tints irrespective of their hues, is eminently illustrated in his works. Daubigny learned his art of his father, whose manner for a time he followed. He inherited no means with his artistic talent, and suffered many years of painful struggle, during which he supported himself by painting small articles for tourists' purchases, even clock cases. At seventeen he started for Italy with a friend, Mignan, upon the joint capital of $300, which, by great economy, they had accumulated. He remained there a year, and there, as everywhere, was a keen student of nature. Mignan abandoning art for busi- ness, Daubigny subsequently (1838), for the purpose of support by furnishing designs for illustrating periodicals, associated himself with three young artists, Louis Steinheil, Trimolet, and a sculptor. Their common purse allowed one of them to send each year a work to the Salon. He was for a time in the studio of Dela- roche. Success came to him in abounding measure when his art was known, but ten years of patient labor elapsed after his debut in 1838 before he won official recognition in his first medal, one of the second class, though thereafter for thirty years his pictures were accepted and he could work at his ease. The emperor bought his Pool of Gylein (1853) for St. Cloud ; The Harvest (1852) was assigned a place in the Tuileries ; The Vintage (1863), and his View of the Valley (1855) won the honor of places in the Luxembourg. A very correct idea of his manner is conveyed by the discrimi- nating pen of About : " Daubigny is a painter of the country as distinguished from a painter of nature — that is, he is a painter of charming scenes just as they impress his artistic sense, without artifice in composition or in treatment of light ; the real, hospitable, familiar country, without display or disguise." This power of catching the essential features and omitting all others, the first principle of good etching, enabled him to excel in that art, and he left over one hundred etchings of great excellence. In loving alliance with the beautiful in nature of this world, and, when he came to die, recalling, perhaps, that Corot had passed away in rapturous admiration of the visions before him, his own last words became, " Adieu, adieu, I am going up on high, to see if Corot has found for me there any new motifs for landscape." 256 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. His son, Karl Pierre (1846-'87, Paris,) was an artist of real ability in the same field as his father, of whom he was a pupil. He was awarded a medal at the International Exhibition at Philadelphia for The Valley of Porteville, Normandy, having become in 1874 Hors- Concours at the Paris Salons. After his debut in 1863 he exhibited in every Salon but that of 1878 up to 1884 : in twenty Salons thirty- eight pictures. These are all pure landscapes but ten, which are scenes of shipping and fishing. Another artist deeply impressed with the sentiment of landscape, and making even "passionate experiments" in conveying it, Georges Michel, belongs to the "men of 1830." Of great ui63-i8^ ,C p^\s. sensitiveness, he rose to consideration in the artistic world by his feeling transcripts of the exquisite gray skies and tender twilights from the environs of Paris, whither he was wont to make almost daily excursions accompanied by his family, loaded with his artist materials upon his patient donkey. And in dramatic power he may be said, without exaggeration, to surpass Constable, from whom he caught the feeling, perhaps, as well as the landscapists of his own country. Other landscape painters of the romantic period may be named, many of whom, it will be seen, by honors taken at Salons from which Kousseau, whose memory now eclipses theirs, was rejected, would, had the present rule then held, have been rendered doubly or trebly Hors Concours : Jean Alexis A chard (181 7- '84) Isere ; medal 3d class, '44 ; 2d class, '45, '48 ; 3d class, '55. — Noel Raymond Esbratt (1809-56) Paris ; pupil of Watelet and Lethiere ; medal 3d class, '44 ; 2d class, '47. — F. A. Leon Fleury (1804-58) Paris; son and pupil of Claude Fleury; also pupil of Hersent and Bertin ; early painted history, but by landscape won his honors ; medal 3d class, '31 ; 2d class, '37 ; 1st class, '45 ; Legion of Honor, '51.— Jean Baptiste Adolphe Gibert(1803- ) Pointe-a- Pitre, Guadaloupe ; pupil of Lethiere and Ecole des Beaux-Arts ; prix de Rome, '29 ; then settled in Rome, but has works in the Museums of France. — Edouard Jean Marie Hostein (1804- ) Plehedel ; medal 3d class, '35 ; 2d class, '37 ; 1st class, '41 ; Legion of Honor, '45. — Andre Jolivard (1787-1851) lie Mans ; pupil of Bertin ; medal, '27 ; Legion of Honor, '35. — Jules Romain Joyant (1803-'54) Paris ; pupil of Bidault and Lethiere and of the architect Hergot, for he also painted architecture ; medal 2d class, '35 ; Brussels, '45 ; Legion of Honor, '52 : there is still great demand for his pen and ink sketches, which are of great power. — Louis Auguste Lapito (1803-74) Joinville, medal 2d class, '33 ; 1st class, '35 ; Legion of Honor, '36 ; pupil of Heim and Watelet ; a poor colorist. but obtained honors the very years Rousseau was rejected. — Louis Antoine Maille-Saint-Prix (1796- ) Paris ; pupil of Hersei\t and Picot, who also won medals, 3d class, '41 ; THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 257 2d class. '44, while Rousseau was unappreciated. — Antoine Leon Morel-Fatio (1810-70) Rouen ; medal 3d class, '37 ; 2d class, '48 ; Legion of Honor, '48 ; Officer, '60, when he also was appointed Custodian of the Louvre, where, upon entrance of the Prussians in 1870, he died of grief ; he painted some Algerian scenes. —Alexander Francois Pernot (1793-1865) Vassy ; pupil of Bertin and Hersent ; medal 2d class, '22; 1st class, '39 ; Austrian grand gold medal, '46 ; Legion of Honor, '46.— Romain Etienne Gabriel Prieur (1806-80) La Ferte-Gaucher ; pupil of V. Bertin and Nicole des Beaux-Arts ; Prix de Rome, '33 ; medal 3d class, '42 ; 2d class, '45. — Jacques Augustin Regnier (1787-1860) Paris ; pupil of V. Ber- tin ; medal 2d class, '19 ; 1st class, '28 ; Legion of Hon., '37.— Charles Caius Renoux (1795-1846) Paris ; medal 2d class, '22 ; 1st class, '31 ; Legion of Honor, '38 ; also painted architectural views. — Theodore Richard (1782-1859) Millau, pupil of Bertin, Aubry, and Ingres ; medal 2d class, '31 ; Legion of Honor, '54. — Pierre Thuillier (1799-1858) Amiens ; pupil of Watelet and Gudin, and a follower of nature ; medal 3d class, '35 ; 2d class, '37 ; 1st class, '39 ; Legion of Honor, '43, all taken during Rousseau's rejections ; and he selected no classic subjects such as The Body of Cleopatra, etc. His daughter Louise, Madame Momard (1829- ), also took for landscape a 3d class medal, 1847. LANDSCAPE WITH ANIMALS. This noble department of French Art takes definite classification in this period. Constant Troyon's charming work gave it promi- jacques Raymond Brascassat nence, but the painting of animals, which (i8o5-'67), Bordeaux. liad fallen into disfavor during the classic Med. 2d. cl. '27; 1st cl. '31, '37- . n • i i t> , Ll Hon. 1837. period, was revived by Brascassat some years Mem. inst. 1846. before Troyon adopted it. Before that " most accomplished female painter who ever lived," as Hamerton calls Rosa Bonheur, had taken her place by the side of Landseer and Troyon, Brascassat won the title of "the poet of animals," although his most conspicuous and most frequent subjects were fierce and un- poetical bulls. " No one not a Dutchman paints so broadly, or with a surer and firmer touch ... or models with more energy the necks and shoulders of bulls and cows," said De St. Sartain the year after Brascassat's death. Still the treatment of sheep, those gentle animals that always elevate a scene by their association with ancient pastoral life, poetry, and religion, is the most graceful phase of his talent. In 1825 he took the second Prix de Rome for historical landscape, by Meleager's Hunt, but as this gave no advantage but exemption from conscription, Charles X. and the Duchesse de Berri provided a fund for his pensionate at Rome. He was awarded a medal (second class) at his first exhibition. This was, also, a landscape, and he continued that class of painting until 1831, when his first Land- 17 258 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. scape with Animals appeared. Thereafter his work was chiefly of animals. There followed in the Salons : 1833, Study of a Bull ; 1835. A Bull Butting against a Tree (Nantes), Land- scape with Animals, Repose of Animals, A Sorcerer ; 1837, Bulls Fighting, Repose of Animals, A Pasture Landscape, Animals ; 1838, Wolf ; 1840, Park of Sheep, Landscape and Animals ; 1842, Landscape with Animals (Nantes) ; 1845, Cows Attacked by Wolves and Defended by Bulls, Landscape with Animals (at Luxem- bourg once, at Louvre now), Marine ; 1855, Bulls Fighting, Cow Attacked by Wolves and Defended by Bull, Repose of Animals, and a portrait of Brascassat (owned by M. Paulinier). Besides these, there are by this artist, at Nantes, White Bulls and other Ani- mals in a Landscape (1836) ; Bull and Cow at the Drinking Trough (1837) ; A Wolf Devouring a Sheep and Attacked by a Dog (1839) ; Head of Wolf (1837) (a reduc- tion of the larger picture exhibited at the Louvre the same year) ; Wolves and other Animals in a Meadow (1841) ; at Montpellier, Cow in a Pasture (1846) ; at Bordeaux, Cows in Pasture (1835), Death of the Boar of Calydon, and a Landscape with Animals. The high prices of his works mark the public appreciation. A Bull at Liberty sold in London in 1872 for 960 guineas. Brascassat threw his influence on the side of the conservatives in the contests of the Institute, and his name is associated with the cruel exclusions from the Salons of the rising artists by those in power in the period preceding 1848. Troyon has no art biography ; his artistic career had no system- atic teaching at home, no study in Italy, no Ecole des Beaux-Arts, n . . _ no Prix de Rome. As an artist, he was a spora- Constant Troyon 7 1 (i8io-'65), Sevres, die and spontaneous growth. His pictures have 1* ci 3,d 6 ' ' 4 ? ! '55 °e 'u° ! 110 distingiiisbing names; they are simply Land- l. Hon. '49. scape and Cattle, Wood and Cattle, Cattle at Work, Mem. Acad. Amsterdam, -47. Cows and Landscape, The Road, etc., and, like Corot, satisfied and enriched by his love of nature, he never married. Also, like Corot, he had caught from nature a rustic manner. " He had the air of a poacher," says Blanc, "and apparently only the simple instincts of the common people." But in reality it was the rare instinct of a penetrating poetry, though seen only in the common things of his common, limited sphere ; the peasant life ; the fields around his home ; the forest near by ; the cattle in their majestic labor, or their placid ruminations. Seeking subjects no further removed, and subtly seeing a happy perfection in these, he painted them in an intimately truthful and realistic style. But he made the sunshine play upon and around his cattle, he endued them with a sentiment that expresses the story of vigorous creatures patiently serving a weaker being, he placed them in such perfect relation to THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 259 the atmosphere and fields that, if his animals are not always of an obviously accurate anatomy, his pictures are most charming, and he an artist of the highest rank. His artistic quality is espe- cially seen in his unfailing maintenance of a true tonality. His colors and lights are in the same key. There is no salient starting forth of brilliant parts, which might better please the less artistic eye, but every element of his picture is modified by an artistic perception of relative tones. The inaccurate anatomy with which he has been charged by academic literalness, is a sacrifice for the greater truth of the whole. He studied, as the sketches made known at his death proved, all the severalties of a picture in accuracy of detail, but, instead of literally rendering its parts, he fused them into correct relations to the whole, more than most painters have suc- ceeded in doing. He studied analytically, he painted synthetically ; he was, says Hamerton, "the most synthetic painter of the century." He met with high appreciation at home and abroad and both before and after his death. Troyon entered the porcelain manufactory of his native town, Sevres, in which his father had had employment and lodging before his death in 1817, to become a decorator of porcelain. Then Rio- creux, at that time a painter of flowers there, but afterwards, when he had given up art, the founder and keeper of the Museum of the Sevres factory, gave him some lessons in design. But what is more important, he gave the stimulus of encouragement to the promptings of the lad's temperament and instincts, already at work to bring out for him a greater destiny in art. This was the chief teaching, properly so-called, that Troyon received. At twenty, he went forth with baton and color box, upon a life of which landscape painting was the aim, food and raiment the incident. But as he was feeling his way, guided only by his artistic sense, and seeking his sustenance by temporary work where he might find it from porcelain makers, while sketching one day he was approached by Roqueplan, who was also sketching. Roqueplan saw sincerity in the youth and merit in his work, and gave him sug- gestions that cleared his way through the infinity of nature that then encumbered him with detail, a natural result of the minutiae of por- celain painting, and from which he was to make a great leap to attain his final qualities of breadth and completeness of effect. Frequent visits to Roqueplan in Paris followed. He exhibited at the Salon for the first time in 1833, presenting three pictures, The Colas House at Sevres ; Fete at Sevres ; and The Park at St. Cloud. In 1842 he estab- lished himself in Pans, and soon entered into that brilliant coterie 260 A HIS TOBY OF FRENCH PAINTING. that became a little later the distinguished French school of land- scape, the attainments of which have surpassed all landscape, except perhaps the work of the greatest of the Dutch masters. Between Decamps seven years older than himself, and Harpignies nine years younger, Troyou found there besides them, Cabat, Dupre, Millet, Jean Flandrin, Francais, Huet, Flers, Rousseau, Daubigny, Gambinet, Diaz, Isabey, and Roqueplan, all in the hey-day of life and artistic hope. Huet was groping after the interpretation of impression, and all were aiding in tearing away the veil that till then had hidden the grace and simplicity of nature, "The veil," says Blanc, "in which at first the majestic genius of Poussin and Claude had draped, and in which, later, the school of the false classics had stifled her." Troyon, who had not yet taken up animal painting, enlisted all his faculties with those claiming the right of individual expression and the study of nature as opposed to convention. He inserted no col- umns, no palace ruins in his landscape ; on the contrary, his pictures are formed, chiefly, of low lying, level lines. In 1847 his sketching tours, already extended through Normandy, took him into Holland, where he was so much appreciated as to be made a member of the Academy of Amsterdam. Through the high attainments of the Dutch school in the direction of his own tendencies, he matured his style and developed capacities for a finer art ; Paul Potter's works awakened an unsuspected predilection for cattle, and, after 1848, he became the painter of animals and thus added to his success. Rem- brandt's works taught him also to make use of the atmosphere for soft- ening outlines ; and atmospheric effect, giving great amplitude of out- door space, became his marked characteristic. Violence of color, which had previously characterized him, was softened, and when he rose to his best, for, at times, he painted carelessly for gain, his work is truly great. His cattle, often coming towards the spectator, are grand, solid, strong, slow, heavy, patient. His sheep it has been truly said are painted with a palpable " bleating truth." In Paris he was much influenced by Dupre's style ; they both received their decoration at the same time, in 1849, and were thus on the first list decorated by Louis Napoleon as President of the Republic, and during that interval of a few years in which the management of the Salons was left to the artists. Troyon's works immediately after his decoration trebled in price and he rapidly accumulated a fortune. He exhibited in the Salons from 1833 to his death in 1865 sixty pictures. Two are in the Louvre, Return to the Farm (1859) ; Oxen going to Work (1855) : three are at Montpellier, Flock of Sheep ; Drinking Place ; Drinking THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 261 Place at La Touque (1853) : in Leipsic, Cows in Pasture (1851) : in the Ravene Gallery, Berlin, Two Dogs in Leash (1854) ; Cattle Piece (1855) : other landscapes at the Hamburg Kunsthalle, Havre, Lille, and in the United States. In the Lux- embourg he has A Landscape with Animals. This with A White Cow ; Scotch Dogs ; A Seashore ; and Dog and Partridge was exhibited two years after his death in the Exposition Universelle of 1867. It was then presented to the Lux- embourg by the artist's mother. His special qualities were impressed upon a following who, in doing by imitation, study, and design, what he did with the direct- ness of a natural bent, lost his charm, even while aiming to improve upon his style. They fall into the next period. Other animal paint- ers of this period were : Jean Charles Ferdinand Humbert (1813- ), Dardagny, who supplemented the instruction of Ingres and Diday by thorough study of nature and won a 3d class medal, in Paris, '42, membership of the Academy of St. Petersburg and Rus- sian Order of Stanislaus in 1860, and Italian Order of St. Maurice and Lazarus in 1862 ; he has become a distinguished painter of cattle : iEmile Francois de Lansac who still lives at the age of 84, a pupil of Ary Scheffer and Langlois, besides paint- ing history and genre he painted animals with skill, making a special study of horses ; medal 3d class '36 ; 2d class '38. CHAPTER VII. PERIOD III. FROM THE FREE SALCW OF 1848 TO THE PRESENT TIME. PERIOD OF INDIVIDUALITY. HPHE art of this period 1 is largely the result of romanticism and I the victories of romanticism in official quarters, the one giving opportunity to liberty of thought, the other obtaining the right of exhibition. The Salon of 1848 established no precedent except one to be avoided, and thenceforth in considering previous admissions to a Salon a basis of privileges (for instance from 1852 to '70, of voting for a jury) the Salon of 1848 has always been excepted. But from the rocket-like explosion of that year fell back some substantial elements of a basis of action. In the change of authorities, three important con- siderations were mooted : the terms of admission to the Salons ; the awards ; and the places of exhibition. One of the complaints of 1848 had been that holding the Salons in the Louvre kept the master- pieces there hidden for some weeks each year. Until a building could be erected, what better substitute offered than the residence of royalty, the Palace of the Tuileries, already adapted by its large rooms and fine lights to this purpose and now vacated by the flight of Louis Philippe and his family ? None, and in 1849 the French artists succeeded to the French kings, and held in the royal palace their first Salon of this period of anticipated emancipation. The two next followed in the Palais Royal. But the new Republic immedi- ately appropriated 650,000 francs for the erection of the Palais de l'lndustrie in the Champs Elysees, which since the Universal Expo- sition of 1855, which was held in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, has furnished the place of holding the Salons. For an adequate idea of these times, regard must be had to the excited condition of artists, who, perhaps, more than any other class were aroused : they were jubilant at their apparent success in casting off the bonds which had so long oppressed them and which, 1 Owing to the formation of the Hors Concours class, artists, as their exhibi- tions approach the last part of the Third Period, have a shortening list of medals, after 1880 many artists becoming H. C. even before receiving the first class medal. Some new honors are, however, offered to competitors. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 263 previous to the political rising, had incited an artistic revolt. Artists had been among the first to cry ' 'Vive la Republique ; " they were among the first to suffer from the ensuing poverty. The Government finding itself scarcely able to continue the commissions already given under its first impulse of power, and, in the general disturbance, private orders being few, painters of ability were seen hawking newspapers about the streets, or doing manual labor on the public works. Belief was attempted by an appropriation (1849) of 150,000 francs for direct aid to artists, and soon of a further 200,000 francs for commissions for works. A lottery was also established, and, by the sale of 100,000 tickets, 250,000 francs were obtained, with which works of art were to be purchased and bestowed as prizes. For their aid, also, the subject which inflamed every heart, La Repub- lique, was made by the Secretary of the Interior, Ledru-Rollin, a com- petition for a commission, and from among the sketches offered twenty of the best conceptions were ordered to be executed for a further com- petition, an indemnity of twenty livres being allowed for expenses. Among these was Millet's. That the execution was awarded to Gerome, however, long remained a mystery. The Salon of 1849 is representative of the maturer judgment of the new authorities. Its regulations required a jury for the admission of works, but a jury (for the first time) elected by the exhibiting artists. 1 The first regular exemption from judgment of the jury was then also allowed ; it was to the works of members of the Institute, members of the Legion of Honor, those who had taken the Prix de Rome, and those who had previously been awarded medals of the first and second classes. French artists were apparently no longer to contend with narrow academic principles fixed by those in authority, and controlling not only the recompenses and all encouragements to art progress, but even the right of exhibition. Notwithstanding the poverty of artists, various causes combined for a splendid setting forth of art : the spirit of independence which had been fostered by romanticism ; the artistic sense, always so widely diffused in the French nation, and now fully aroused by long-continued contentions ; the newly-achieved liberty of the nation ; the — after a few years — con- stantly increasing encouragements of the Government ; the rivalling private endowment of prizes ; and, not least, the great amount of origi- nal talent of the preceding period which formed a basis to progress in this, indeed, overflowed into it ; and, finally, the special cause, the 1 But the first jury, a hundred years before, in 1748, was virtually elected by exhibitors, the electors being Academicians. 2G4 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING fuller voice of the artists in art matters, which since has been listened to even more scrupulously by the authorities of the republic of 1870. This impulse was, however, checked by early regulations of Louis Napoleon. However despotic politically, he was always highly amen- able to popularity, and his policy was to hold in his own control all that was consistent with the semblance of great liberality to the arts, with the farther view of in this way adding magnificence to his reign. These two aims were soon modified by the sincere and ener- getic efforts really to benetit art of the Comte de Nieuwerkerke, who, made General Director of Museums in 1850, exercised throughout Napoleon's reign an influence of constantly increasing power, rising himself to be Superintendent of the Fine Arts, Senator, and Member of the Institute. These several aims effected, through tentative and progressive regulations, almost constant changes. Nieuwerkerke's thorough and bold action, based on convictions gradually reached that art should be freed from the control of tradition, led in 1863 to a renovation of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and Prix de Eome, not less important to art progress than the " grand restoration of the Academy " by Colbert exactly two hundred years before. But pre- viously to this, by a judgment which the Emperor's later wiser course would seem to condemn, the Salons, though in the height of their destitution the measure would reduce the opportunities of artists by half, were from 1850 to 1863, with the exception of one in 1853, made biennial. They had been biennial in the time of the first Napoleon amid his military preoccupations, and the demands of the Crimean War were now great. Also, for one Salon only, that of 1850, Louis Napoleon allowed to the artists the election of the jury ; in 1852 the administration named half, and in the International Salon of 1855, in order to secure to foreigners a proper share, appointed the entire Jury. 1 It became difficult to depart after- wards from the purely official jury, and in 1857 the Emperor invested the first four sections of the Academy of Fine Arts with the powers they had held under Louis Philippe (1830-'48), and which had then i In the French department thirteen of the thirty-five for painting and drawing, of whom not all were artists, were members of the Institute, as Abel de Pujol, Alaux, Brascassat, Cornier, H. Flandrin, Heim, Hersent, Leon Cosniet, Picot, Robert-Fleuiy, H. Vernet. Though not members of the Institute, Theodore Rousseau, Troyon, and Couture also served. For 1853 the first Salon after the Coup d'Etat, exemption from judgment of the jury for admission to the Salons, the great boon for which the artists had struggled in 1848, was withdrawn except for members of the Institute and of the Legion of Honor. In 1852 the organization and conduct of the Salon had been given to the Director-General of Museums, the Comte de Nieuwerkerke, who at once limited each artist to three works. He — July 20, 1852 — explained to the artists, assembled for THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 265 worked so oppressively. Also the Director of the Museums, JSTieuwe- kerke, became, permanently, ex-officio president of the jury. But now (1850) was instituted the Medal of Honor. It was to be of the value of 4,000 francs. In 1853 it was further announced that, as this Medal of Honor was specially intended by the Emperor for the en- couragement of young talent, the members of the Institute and of the Legion of Honor were not expected to compete for it. This was the first intimation towards the exclusion of those already having the highest honors from competition with those who had yet to win them, which in the form of Hors Concours subsequently itself became of the nature of an honor. The newly made Emperor could now be satisfied with nothing less than a calling together of the nations of the civilized world, and thus instituted the first International Exhibition in France, in the history of French Art. ! Two Annual Salons, those of 1854 and 1855, were merged into it. Its contribution of magnificence at this early point in his usurped power to the nephew of the man who had been repudi- ated by the sovereigns of Europe, is indicated by the ceremonies of bestowing its awards, in contrast with the last occasion of the kind which Louis Napoleon had attended. 2 The official report describes it: " More than 41,000 persons were assembled in the nave of the Palais de l'lndus- trie, transformed into a vast hall, brilliantly decorated : . . . the elite of civilized nations, represented by the most illustrious and the most eminent of men. the distributions of awards, these three severe regulations ; the first, in such manner as to win, in the main, approval and even applause. He said : "The expositions held as they are, gratuitously in one of the palaces of the State, . . . confer in themselves a primary recompense upon those admitted to them. Artists should, therefore, be repre- sented there by one of their most complete works and not by an unlimited number of inferior ones." This limitation, some years increased to but two pictures, with one ex- ception — that of 1872 — has since held. No longer do artists send from ten to twenty works. The limited exemption was on the principle, he explained, that the stars of the first magnitude were fixed in excellence, while those who had only attained to receiving a medal, by the reproof of a rejection, might, without too deep a wound of self-love, be wisely checked in wanderings from true art. The jury now with unexampled severity rejected works, even of those who had taken medals of all classes, and who had had in the galleries of the nation works commissioned by the Government. The Emperor also established a special jury of awards, consisting of members named by the Minister of the Interior and of those of the jury of admission who had received the highest number of votes. Medals were to be of three values, 1,500, 500, and 250 francs, with three only of the first class, six of the second, and twelve of the third. 1 As he predicted, by it all the crowned heads of Europe with their retinues were drawn to Paris. Two only remained away. Victor Emmanuel pleaded that he and his people had no money to spend in travel. 2 In awarding the honors of 1849 Louis Napoleon in citizen's dress as President of the Republic opened the ceremonies by saying, " I have not been willing to yield to any one the pleasure and the right of bestowing upon you the honors that are your due. It 266 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. The throne rose in the transept . . . covered with a carpet of crimson velvet and surmounted by a canopy of the same color covered with golden bees — the well- known Bonaparte emblem. At the right and left of the enthroned Emperor and Empress, were seated the princes and men of rank ; their ladies ; the widows of the high functionaries of the First Empire ; the officers of the Church both Catholic and Reformed ; the officers of Education ; the National Guard ; the Army ; every department of political, military and civil life, affording a most imposing coup tfaiil in their various presentation dresses, a visible representation of the new power." Amidst this splendor he conferred upon other nations and his own besides, in the department of V Industrie, 112 Grand Medals of Honor, 252 Medals of Honor, 2,300 Medals of the 1st class, 3,900 Medals of the 2d class and 4,000 Honorable Mentions ; in that of the Fine Arts, 40 Decorations, 16 Medals of Honor, 67 medals of the 1st class ; 87 of the 2d class ; 77 of the 3d class ; and 222 Honorable Mentions. And now he instituted a triennial prize of 20,000 francs, which in 1859 he made biennial, to be given " to the work most adapted to honor or serve the State." The year 1863 was a year of emphatic and extended action in art matters, and the extreme reaction against classicism and the academic influence of the Institute seems then to have been reached. It was effected by the Comte de Nieuwerkerke, then Superintendent of the Fine Arts. It is hardly credible, when seen through the Comte de Nieuwerkerke'S analysis of its tendencies, that the management of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts could have remained so long just as it had been established, during the views of absolutism maintained in the classic period. His complaints w f ere : That by the regulations existing since 1819, the Minister was held responsible for it, while he could not even present in its government a single idea ; that unlike a learned body, which it was proper to allow by elections within itself to per- petuate itself, this was a service of the state ; and that the existing system must inevitably result in the perpetuation of doctrines and theories more or less abso- lute. He condemned as being only better than nothing the method of instruc- tion ; daily exercises, in which students from different studios contended with each other, as it were, in the short sessions, in which the professor criticised and coun- selled, running from seat to seat. He called attention to there being in a school of painting no professor of painting, only of drawing, and claimed that the regula- tions for the competition for the Prix de Rome were such as to favor a certain manner, and stifle all originality. He urged that the Academy, of fourteen painters only, should not decide what pictures were to command that prize. is the sweetest prerogative of power to encourage merit wherever met." He did not appear at any recurrence of this ceremony until his greeting written at the head of the regulations was, "Napoleon, by the grace of God and the national will, Emperor of the French, to all present and to come, salutation." THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 207 In view of these objections the Minister submitted to the Emperor for signature on Nov. 13, 1863, a decree whose terms were substan- tially as follows : A Superior Council of Instruction was to be instituted outside the school of (as its president) the Superintendent of the Fine Arts, (as vice-president) the Director, and of two painters, two sculptors, two architects, one engraver, and five other members named by the minister. The corps of instruction was to consist of seven professors, chiefs of studios, who were to teach painting, sculpture, architecture, and engraving, with seven others charged with special courses, who were to give instruc- tion in the history of art and aesthetics, anatomy, perspective, elementary mathe- matics, descriptive geometry, geology, physics, and elementary chemistry. A pro- fessorship, if the minister should consider it more useful to the school, could be tem- porarily assigned to one outside of the administrative body. For the Prix de Kome every artist from fifteen to twenty-five years of age, whether pupil of the National school or not, was to be allowed to compete after having succeeded in two previous tests to be decided upon by the Superior Council, which instead of the Institute was also to regulate the details of the competition ; the works were to be judged by a jury drawn by lot from a list presented by the Superior Council and confirmed by the minister. The period of the pensionate should be four years, instead of five as previously, of which two should be spent at Rome and the other two, at the will and taste of the pensioner, in instructive travel, provided he advised the administration of his intention to do so. By this the absolute direction of the national instruction both at home and in Rome would be taken from the Academy and placed in the hands of the Government ; the liability would thus be removed of any preconceived art theories suppressing originality. Also the Prix de Rome for classical landscape was abolished. The decree afforded a test of the desire in artistic circles for liberty, or for absolutism in art. Both sides flew to arms, but the pen was the sword ; brochures and magazine articles crowded upon the public. A numerously signed petition not to pass the decree was received by the Emperor. Beule, the perpetual secretary, drew up for the Academy a protest of great length and of well-considered argument : Ingres addressed to the Institute an attempted refutation of Nieu- werkerke's charges against the existing system. The prestige of this Nestor in art — eighty- two years of age — for whom only eight years before (E. IT., 1855) it had been proposed that an honor should be created different from those bestowed on others, was great. His position amid the differing tendencies was not left uncertain. The closing words of his address were : " I declare in my heart and conscience, that I disapprove of the proposed changes . . . because they are a blow ... at instruction based upon the classic traditions, in order to put in its place only a teaching of caprice and adven- ture, with incompetent judges and a false direction in study." 268 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Elandrin in Italy for recuperation of health, prepared a paper just before his death, but withheld it, in order not to appear to judge that of his revered Ingres insufficient. But when the decree passed, a letter of thanks signed by a large number of " independent artists " was addressed to the Emperor — Nov. 29, 1863 — and published in the Moniteur Officiel. The first professors in painting chosen — Gerome, Cabanel, Pils — and the lecturers on special subjects, were all of such tendencies and recognized merit that even the disen throned Institute was conciliated. In 1863 also, and in response to a petition sent to the Emperor, an exhibition in rooms adjoining was granted to those not admitted to the regular Salon 1 and they thus allowed an appeal to the public : this " Salon of the Rejected" continued until 1874 But the bitter reproaches against the infrequency of the Salons and the severity of the jury appointed by the administration were such that the Government yielded in this also, and in 1863 a purely official jury acted for the last time : 2 thenceforth, a great joy to art- ists, Salons were held annually, and were not even interrupted by the Universal Exposition of 1867. In 1864 such advance had been made in liberalism that the election of three-fourths of the jury was again granted to the artists exhibiting who had received an award, one- fourth being appointed by the Government. The grand prize of the Emperor was also now created. It was of the value of 100,000 francs, and was to be awarded every five years to a deserving artist in painting, sculpture, or architecture. It was awarded but once (1869), to J. L. Due, an architect, as five years later Louis Napoleon was an exile from France at Chiselhurst. Louis Napoleon also, by decreeing that no artist should be nomi- nated for membership of the Legion of Honor until he had taken medals of all the various grades, made a regular system of honors. The Emperor's system of medals, constantly increasing in definite- ness, derived an additional breadth from the distinct establishment (1866) of the Hors Concours class of artists, and by it, also, more 1 In the Salon of the Rejected, six hundred and eighty-seven pictures were exhibited, among them a portrait of the Duke of Orleans that had been rejected from every Salon since 1840, even that of 1848. Others were works of Harpignies, Lansyer, Chintreuil, and Manet. 2 As early as 1859 exemption from examination by jury was also restored to those having taken a medal of the first class at an annual Salon or one of the second at a Universal Exhibition and, in 1863, to those having taken even a second class medal at an annual Salon. Medals were now made all of one class : forty, each of 400 francs value, were assigned for awards in the section of painting. Thus Medals received between 1863 and 1871 are here designated simply Med. This unique medal continued until 1871. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 269 opportunities were afforded to the younger aspirants for honors. It was then decreed that no artist should take more than once a first class medal or its equivalent, that is, a second class medal preceded by a third, or a third three times, or the one class medal established in 1864 three times. Those who had taken the Prix de Rome and, after its establishment (1874), the Prix du Salon, also became Hors Con- cours. 1 In the beginning of this period the Louvre, which had been so brilliantly inaugurated as a gallery by Napoleon I., was renovated, enlarged, and connected with the Tuileries. But what was of greater importance, its priceless contents, which, from being the property of the people since 1848, were now claimed by the Emperor as an appan- age of the crown, under its direction by Jeanron (1848-'50) were systematically arranged and catalogued, and the great confusion and continual decay of many valuable works during the neglect of Louis Philippe remedied. Separate galleries were assigned to precious works found in the old royal collections. One of the earliest acts of the new director, in the first year of the short Republic with which this period began (before Louis Napoleon, who for a time affected the classic art that his uncle had favored, had imperial control), was to remove the works of the Davidian school from the place of honor in the Louvre, — a significant act, considered either as a cause or as an effect. They were assigned to the less conspicuous Hall of the Seven Chimneys and masterpieces of all schools substituted for them. All good art was now to be allowed an influence. The Republic, through Jeanron, also added seven pictures, four by Gericault, to the Louvre. Fifty thousand francs only were appropriated annually by the second Republic for purchasing works of art until 1852, when, through the influence of the efficient Nieuwerkerke, the sum was made 100,000 francs, an amount only equal to what the first Republic had appropriated in 1793 — a time of far greater purchasing power of money 1 This position was reached by gradual steps, as, 1st, the exclusion from further com- petition for medals of Members of the Institute and of the Legion of Honor (1855); 2d, by the required resignation of all medals by those acting on the Jury of Recompense. Hors Concours has varied somewhat in its requirements for different years. It finally, on the principle that no artist should take a medal or its equivalent more than once, with a growing liberalism, has been decided that not only those who have taken the 1st class medal, but those who have taken a 2d class medal are H. C. An artist may, however, waive this and still compete for the 1st class medal, which the jury may always award to one who has not received it. H. C, exemption, and the requisitions for voting for the jury became identical in 1878. Since, by a still increasing liberalism, exemption is allowed to those having previously been medalled, as well as to the H. C. class, and now any artist, having previously been admitted to a Salou, is qualified to vote for the jury. 270 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. in pictures. Nieuwerkerke added (1850-'5o), sometimes by exceed- ing appropriations, twenty-two pictures at a cost of 797,914 francs. Among these were two of Gericault's, four of Chardin's, and the Immaculate Conception by Murillo, which alone cost 615,300 francs, and to procure which Louis Napoleon especially aided him (1852). In Napoleon III.'s time, up to 1864, besides twenty-eight pictures at a cost of 761,817 francs, five of the Spanish treasures from Marshal Soult's Collection, at a cost of 300,000 francs, among them the Murillo just mentioned and another, were added to the Louvre, and the Musee Campagna from Rome, containing, among various classes of relics, six hundred pictures illustrating the history of painting from 1200 to 1700 a. d. was acquired, at a cost of 4,800,000 francs. The last Orleans Gallery of the Palais Royal was lost in this period by its dispersion in the Revolution of 1848. In 1852 the Palais Royal was assigned to Jerome Bonaparte as a residence and he occupied it until his death, as did his son Jerome, until the fall of the Empire. Although Jeanron had peremptorily stopped the cleaning of the pictures of the old masters in the Louvre, the practice was resumed within a year or two, a small portion of each being left untouched for a means of comparison. Discussion did not determine whether the results were disastrous or beneficial. " We now see a Rubens for the first time," exclaimed those favoring ; " We shall never see a true Rubens in these pictures again," urged others. Finally in 1861 an official enactment appointed a Commission on Cleaning the Public Pictures, and decreed that consultation with the Academy of Painting must precede every decision. Through his years of power, Napoleon III., as one element of the fete he made of his birthday (Aug. 15), dis- tributed works of art among the provincial Museums. Thirty valuable pictures were so distributed in 1858, and in 1867 two hundred were distributed in sixty-four provinces besides Algeria. Notwithstanding a continued decrease of the Emperor's liberality of patronage, 1 the eclat afforded by his lustrous artistic aims and, at times, accomplishments (such as his foreign purchases and his two grand reviews of art, the International Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867) culminated the year before his fall. Then the Emperor's munificent prize of 100,000 francs was first awarded and the La Caze Hall was established at the Louvre. This was the gift to the nation by M. La Caze, a physician and philanthropist of wealth, on condition that it should not be broken up (though a distribution of one hundred i The average price of pictures bought for the Emperor from the artists was in 1863, 3,413 francs ; in 1864, 2,743 francs ; in 1865, 2,680 francs ; in 1866, 1,840 francs. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 271 pictures might be made to provincial museums), of a collection of more than six hundred pictures, valued at many millions of francs. It contained, among others, nine Watteaus, four Lancrets, four Paters, several of those great contemporary portrait painters, Largil- liere, Eigaud, and De Troy, five Bouchers, ten Chardins. among them Le Benedicite ; six Greuzes ; and a wealth of the Dutch and Flem- ish schools, nineteen Teniers, eleven Knbenses, three Rembrandts, four Van Dycks, four Brouwers ; while the Spanish school was richly represented, showing two Murillos, two Riberas and three Velas- quezes. In 1870 the official management of the art of the nation fell to a new power, that of the Third Republic. The disasters of 1870-'71 prevented a Salon in 1871, and the civilized world was watching and anxious whether, instead of the annual exhibition, the master- pieces of the Louvre were to be destroyed and the great artists of France shot down in battle. The masterpieces of the Louvre had, upon the French defeat at Sedan and the consequent probability of a siege of Paris, been removed, some to Brest, and some, as were also those of the Luxembourg, to vaulted underground halls. These works had upon the withdrawal of the Prussians been replaced, when, on the terrible 14th of March, the Communists in the insane desperation of a defeat that meant literally death destroyed the Tuileries, the Hotel de Ville, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor with all their treasures of art. They failed, however, to communicate fire to the Louvre, and thus its precious accumulations of centuries were pre- served to civilization. The new Republic assumed control in the fine arts, cautiously, wisely, liberally. Being a less personal government and having less motive for self-aggrandizement, it adopted the principle that the true basis of government administration of fine art was simply that of encouragement ; that its only province was to provide for prizes, pur- chases, and a high character of instruction. In the absence of an imperial power so large a proportion of the affairs of the nation as the Fine Arts was necessarily subjected to regulation by a depart- ment of the Government, a Bureau of Fine Arts. This now consists of the Minister of Public Instruction, Fine Arts, and Worship as its head ; an Under Secretary of State ; and a Director. Its duties are to decide upon the purchases and orders of the Government, the dis- position of these works, the decoration of public buildings and squares, to accept bequests, regulate foundations, superintend the instruction of PEcole des Beaux- Arts, arrange competitions and prizes and, even, 272 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the sales of art works at the Hotel Drouot (erected 1850). As an agent of the government it delegates authority and changes regula- tions to meet the varying needs, or varying perception of needs of art. Not until 1874 did the new authorities seem to gain the poise required for permanent decisions in the Department of the Fine Arts ; then many regulations were changed. A Superior Council of Artists, similar in its functions and constituency to that created in 18G3, was formed to act with the Minister or Bureau of the Fine Arts. Animated, however, by republican rather than imperial ten- dencies, its formation proved an important step towards what has since been effected (1881), viz., the investiture of the general body of artists with almost the entire management of art affairs. 1 To this end the energetic measures of the Marquis de Cbennevieres, who in 1874 superseded M. Charles Blanc as Director of the Fine Arts, greatly tended. He urged the precedent that the exhibitions of the Academy were established in the seventeenth century and continued for one hundred and forty years by the votes of majorities among the artists, and that now of the artists, members of the Institute, of the Legion of Honor, and medalled, a body of voters could easily be formed, as dis- tinctly classed and as able as that of the ancient Academicians. The "encouragement" which the Government deemed its only function with relation to art may be considered under the heads, Instruction and Eecompense. I. Instruction. For this, the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, taking origin in the first teachings of the Academy, definitely reestablished in 1795, again regulated by Napoleon I. in 1803, by Louis XVIII. in 1819, and Louis Napoleon in 1863, is still maintained by the Kepublic as the school in which the nation gives instruction. Its management, based upon what its aims have continually been, has been changed only in accordance with the increased liberalism of the age. To it Frenchmen between the ages of fifteen and thirty and those of other nationalities both then and when older, since they cannot compete for the Prix de Rome, are admitted on presentation of proper creden- tials and making a sketch in twelve hours that shall prove ability warranting the adoption of art as a profession. Women, however, are excluded. Nothing is spared in the plans that can contribute to develop artistic ability. Day and evening courses are furnished, i " By the establishment of the Council, which includes in its sphere not only the ficole but the whole domain of the Fine Arts, the artists have been called to take their part in the discussion of their own affairs." — (Official Address of H. Wall on, Minister of Public Instruction, Aug. 7, 1875.) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 273 and a broad culture is given by lectures instituted in 1863 and con- tinued by the new administration. 1 Since its commencement by Louis XVIII. the building for the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, Sue Bonaparte, has become truly a Palace of the Fine Arts. It is a museum as well as the national school of instruction. A gateway adorned by colossal busts of Puget and Pous- sin opens into a court which is flanked on the right by a part of the old buildings of the Convent des Petits Augustins, notably the chapel of Margaret of Valois. The front of these is now masked by the portal and a part of the facade of the Chateau d'Anet built by Henry II. for Diana of Poitiers. Within this is Sigalon's copy of Michael Angelo's Last Judgment and plaster casts of his Tombs of the Medici, his Moses, and also of Ghiberti's bronze doors that Michael Angelo pronounced " worthy to be the gates of Paradise." Between the columns of the faC/ade are placed statues, among them the bust of Alexandre Lenoir, and a statue of Henri Regnault. The court is divided in a line parallel to the entrance by one of the facades of the Chateau Graillon, nearly contemporaneous with Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, brought here stone by stone and reerected by Lenoir. Upon its inner side brackets support statues and medallions. The court behind this forms indeed, in the fragments of sculpture and architecture, chiefly remains of Lenoir's collection dispersed in 1816, a museum of French art from the Gallo-Roman period to the six- teenth century. At the right of the first court and next to the cast museum are cloisters; the Cour du Murier is frescoed in Pompeiian style, containing copies of celebrated antiques, and decorated by a replica of the famous terra-cotta frieze of the Pistoja Hospital by the Delia Robbia. Behind the second court is a building which contains in its first story and in its court copies of antiques, among them the Phidian marbles of the Parthenon. On the walls of its semi-circular lecture room, where the Prix de Rome is awarded, is the famous Hemicycle of the Beaux-Arts by Delaroche, representing artists from Veronese at the extreme left to Poussin at the right. Near this are committee rooms, in which are hung the portraits of all the instructors of the school since its foundation, which comprise some, even, of the "anciens." Beyond the lecture room are the stu- dios of instruction. A cloistered hall, frescoed by the brothers Balzic under Ingres (1836), with copies of the fifty-two divisions of the famous Vatican loggie of Raphael, leads to the gallery of the Prizes of 1 Eight hundred pupils registered Oct. 15, 1883, for the ensuing scholastic year, and in 1887 the number was increased to twelve hundred. 18 274 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Borne, in which almost all the works that have taken the first prizes are preserved, over two thousand in number, of which one by Natoire is as early as 1721. 1 An important aid of instruction is the Ecole du Louvre, estab- lished by the Government in 1882, and consisting of courses of lectures on the collections at the Louvre, on National Archaeology, Egyptology, Orientalism, and, most important of all, a course on the History of Painting. This subject was assigned to M. Lafenestre, and Eugene Miintz succeeded him. Besides the schools of instruc- tion afforded by the Government, many artists give instruction to classes, the rent of the studio taken for the purpose and the fees to the model being the only expense to the pupils, who are, also, not excluded from the honors provided for in the budget. Said the Minister, Henri Wallon, in 1875, " These shall comprise all those not only in the special studios of the Beaux- Arts, but in the studios out- side who take part in the competitions of any year." Also a chair upon the Theory of the Fine Arts founded on Beauty has been created in the College de France, and the teaching of design not only by description for useful ends, but for aesthetic purposes in appealing to the sense of beauty, has been made obligatory (1878) in the colleges and high schools. Explained the Minister : " This is not in the hope of making artists " by that alone, "but not to imperil the elevated traditions received from the grand masters, and to keep up the level so that the sacred battalions of artists can always be recruited." II. Kecompense. As varying appropriation may allow, 2 pur- chases of works are made by Government for the various galleries of the nation as a reward of merit to the artists executing them. The prizes instituted in the National School of Fine Arts and in the Salons have been so supplemented by private foundations that it is difficult to enumerate all the prizes offered to the various competi- tions. Together they form a system replete with incentive, and are at once both an effect and cause of the strong art promptings of the race. Of the Government instruction the first prize is still the Prix de Rome. This yet attracts with a charm which, except with the later schools of naturalism, though more than two hundred years old, has lost nothing in the eyes of the young aspirant. Having won 1 Still greater facilities are now proposed by a plan of purchase of adjoining grounds and enlarging the building. a The budget contained an appropriation for art expenses for 1886 of 13,863,055 francs, or $2,772,611, that for 1885 having been 13,788,055 francs, or $2,757,611. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 275 what has lured him on through poverty, through doubts of himself and the discouragements of others, he hies himself to the Villa Medici to bask in the favor gained : viz., the privilege of intimate acquaint- ance with the great cinque-centists. A second Prix de Rome and a second second Prix de Rome are also awarded, but serve only to put the recipients en route more certainly for winning the first, which, since 1863, furnishes four thousand francs a year for four years for study in Rome. The State also allows to the chosen competitors (ten) for it three hundred francs each for the expenses of execution. The Department of the Seine furnishes five purses for travel of twelve hundred francs each to recompensed artists. In the Ecole des Beaux-Arts there is also the Grand Medal of Emulation, founded in 1852 by Louis Napoleon, to be given to the pupils who have in each department recorded the greatest number of successes in the year. There are in painting also four purses for travel. Of prizes estab- lished by private individuals a list gives : A sum of 4,000 francs per year for four years after returning has been added to the Prix de Rome by a fund left by the Comtesse de Caen (1870), when she also bequeathed £120,000 to the Academie des Beaux-Arts to found a Museum. Thus the Prix de Rome carries with it a support for eight years. In 1879 a legacy was left to the Academy by Madame Laboulbene by which 2,250 francs are to be divided among the ten competitors for the Prix de Rome in Painting when they come out of " loge." 1 In 1847 a fund of 3,000 francs was left by Madame Le Prince to be divided among the recipients of the Prix de Rome in the four departments of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Engraving. Also a sum yielding 3,950 francs has been ]eft by Charles Dubosc to be distributed among the competitors when they go into "loge.'" Thus the winner of the Prix de Rome would receive, be- sides a support of 4,000 francs a year for eight years, 395 francs from this last found- ation, 750 from the second, 250 from the first, and 300 for expenses; 3,945 francs. A prize for women of small resources adopting the pursuit of art was bequeathed to the Academy in 1883 by Madame Ardoin. The Huguier Prize, having the aim of developing young artists in the study of anatomy, was bestowed for the first time in 1873. The mother of Constant Troyon established at his death in his memory the Concours de Troyon, for which a prize of 1,500 francs is to be awarded biennalJy by the Academie des Beaux-Arts to the painter of the best landscape with cattle without figures. In March, 1884, M. Brizard left a legacy bearing an income of 3.000 francs to be given to the author, not over twenty-eight years of age and not having taken a medal higher than of the third class of a landscape or marine admitted to the Salon. In 1884 Mile. Maria Baskirtscheff 2 bequeathed to the Academy a founda- 1 Gazette des Beaux- Arts. 2 Maria Baskirtscheff was a young Russian lady who had been a pupil of Bastien- Lepage. Her mother gave for his Adoration, his Prix de Rome picture, 2,800 francs. 276 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. tion for the annual award at the close of the Salon of 500 francs to an interesting work that had received an award at the Salon. This was given for the first time in 1885 to M. Eugene ( arriere for The First Veil. TheLehmann Prize, founded by the artist, Heinrich Lehmann, is of 3,000 francs to be bestowed triennially upon the painter under twenty-five years of age " who should be farthest removed by choice of subject, composition, style, and execution, from the degradation which the highly extolled doctrines of the day seem to favor, which should, indeed, most eloquently protest against them." The first presentation, to have been in 1885, was deferred, as the Academy found that the 3,000 francs would accrue from the principal only in seven or eight years. The Foundation Lambert is in favor of poor artists or their widows. The Foundation Maille-Latour- Landry is a prize given biennially to young art- ists without fortune. The Foundation Benoit Fould affords an income during five years to two young Israelites pursuing, one painting and the other architecture, whose abilities merit encouragement. In the Salon, also a prize of 20,000 francs founded by Napoleon III., triennial in 18e56, made biennial 1859, for the work " most adapted to honor or serve the State," still continues. It was, in 1887, closely contested by J. P. Laurens, Detaille, and Mercie, the sculptor, and decreed to Mercie for his Tomb of Louis Philippe. Although in 1870 " every artist in France took up arms in the defence of his country," 1 and though artists had also given exhibi- tions and works in aid of the wounded, under Government officials new to the management of affairs and in a city so far deprived of its public buildings that the Palais de lTndustrie was necessarily used for Government offices, but one Salon was lost to the artists, that of 1871. The one in 1872 was circumscribed in room, and only one- half the usual number of works received. But though the artists were saddened by personal experiences of war, its two thousand works were of great vigor, and the " artists of France" also contributed that year a large number of works to the sufferers by the Chicago conflagration. Jules Breton's pictures, A Fountain, and A Young Girl Guarding a Cow, commanded the Medal of Honor, of which at some Salons no work is found worthy. Owing to the disturbances this Salon was again, in the leniency of the jury composed of former exhibitors, virtually an experiment of admission without judgment of jury, and again was demonstrated the necessity for exclusions. Sys- tematically arranged annual exhibitions were again ushered in by a vigorous Salon in 1873. 2 1 Address of Jules Simon, the Minister of Fine Arts, in presenting awards for 1872. 2 The awards of this year were delayed from June to November that the confer- ring of the Legion of Honor might be legislated upon, for, after attempts to abolish C. F. DAUBIGNY fiCLUSE DANS LA VALLEE D'OPTEVOZ THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. While maintaining, for its first ten years, the most liberal plan of constituting a jury heretofore practised, viz., that which had existed during the last six years of Louis Napoleon's control, the Government, in 1878, upon the suggestion of the Superior Council of the Fine Arts, planned to withdraw entirely and yield the management of the annual Salon to the Society of French Artists represented bv a com- mittee of ninety, named the Honorary Society. In the official recog- nition, at last, of the necessity of the Salons to all artists, all exhibit- ing who have been admitted to a previous Salon, whether recompensed or not, have since had a voice in the formation of the jury of admis- sion to the Salon. The reservation was made, that the Government should open in 1883 a triennial Salon of the best pictures, eight hundred and eighty in number, of the intervening annual Salons. 1 it in 1870, in 1872, in order to reduce the number and to give to the honor a real value, it was enacted that the maximum number of Chevaliers, previously unlim- ited, should not exceed 25,000, of Officers, 4,000, of Commanders, 1,000, of Grand Officers, 200, and of Grand Crosses, 70, and that except upon the army no more decora- tions should be bestowed. Kesistance led to this being practically disregarded: twelve artists, eight in the Department of Painting alone, among them Van Marcke, being decorated in 1872. A commission was appointed, and, July 25, 1873, it was deter- mined that while those of 1872 should be legitimized, the excessive number should be gradually reduced to the legal limitation by appointments to the Legion of Honor or advancements in its grades of only one for every two vacancies by death in both the civil and military list (only the military list received emolument). Accordingly for the entire Department of the Fine Arts in France there were but six decorations and no promotions in 1873 ; in 1874 but three, two painters, J. P. Laurens and L. E. Lambert ; in 1875 but one, a painter, Gustave Moreau ; in 1877 but three, Beaumont, Glaize, and H. Le Roux, and one promotion, Puvis de Chavannes. 1 M. Jules Ferry, then Minister of the Fine Arts, in opening the Salon said : "The annual Salon must be allowed to the artists to get before the public. It is an absolute necessity to them. The Triennial Salon will represent the art of France." The Re- public had decreed in December, 1872, that a 1st and 2d class medal should replace the one medal existing since 1863, and eight of the first, and sixteen of the second, in place of the forty of the one kind, were assigned to the section of painting. The number of medals has varied since, in 1875 a third class being restored, with three of the first class, each of 1,000 francs value ; twelve of the second, each of 600 francs value ; and twenty-four of the third, each of 400 francs value. Thirty-nine were awarded in '82 and forty-five in '84, and it was definitely regulated in 1886 that but forty medals should be given — three of the first class, ten of the second, and twenty- seven of the third. But each medal of the first or second class uot awarded should augment the number of the next lower class. That year, for example, none of the first class were awarded, fifteen of the second, and thirty of the third class. When for the last number of any one class two or more receive the same number of votes, a medal is given to each. The Grand Medal of Honor was to be awarded only if the jury discov- ered a work of illustrious merit, and it was to be awarded by a special committee at first, but later its award required a majority of all the artists entitled to vote for the jury (it was not awarded in 1883 nor in 1884). Up to 1884 an artist could take it as many times as his works warranted. The difficulties of awarding it then led to the regulation, that the largest number of votes should decide it, and that it could be taken by the same artist but once. 278 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. This was accomplished in 1881, and that year occurred the first Salon managed, entirely by the artists. It was placed on a basis of perpetuity in 1883, when the Society of French Artists, Painters, and Sculptors, numbering nearly twenty-five hundred, was formally constituted by the Government an " establishment of public utility " and empowered to regulate the annual Salons (Decree, May 11, 1883). The Government has since shown its good faith in this matter by withdrawing the proposed triennial Salon of 1886 upon the remon- strance of the Under Secretary, M. Turquet, that the frequent recur- rence of the representative Salon of the State would belittle the annual Salon and destroy its influence. In 1874 (May 16) was founded the Prix du Salon, which is the highest prize of the Salon next to the Medal of Honor. It stands to the Salon as the Prix de Rome to the School of Instruction, and affords, for study in Rome, four thousand francs annually for three years, to the painter or sculptor, not under 32 years of age, whose exhibition in the Salon indicates that he, of all exhibitors there, is best qualified to benefit by such instruction. But the Grand Medal of Honor is still the highest award of the Salon : it indicates excellence already achieved ; the Prix du Salon, capability of achieving it. The art of this period has been enriched by the varied mental elements of the large number of foreigners who have become a part, of the art life of Paris, drawn thither by the advantages of its art in- structions, exhibitions, and sales. Thus in bestowing, Paris enriches itself. It is the world's emporium of art, and has justly been called "a maelstrom that sucks in of all nations." 1 Like the enchanted mountain that drew all swords from their scabbards, it attracts talent from all countries. A comprehensive retrospective and prospective view of the growths and changes in art, fundamentally necessary to a consideration of the different artists' special characteristics, is afforded during Louis Napo- leon's control by those grand reviews, the Universal Expositions of 1855 and of 1867. In that of 1855, very naturally from its central position, seemed to gather, like a ganglion, all the varied art-nerves of the cen- tury, except, indeed, the last, that of ,tf plein air" painting, with the handling technically known as the "tache." There the classic, the romantic in its great head, Delacroix, and the naturalistic in Horace 1 Of 1,284 artists exhibiting in the Salon of 1885, more than one-fourth, 389, were foreigners. Of these 98 were Americans, 47 Belgians, 34 English, 31 Germans, and the others Spaniards, Swedes, Norwegians, Swiss, Portuguese, Dutch, Russians, Austrians, Italians, Greeks, and Turks. South Americans and Australians avail themselves of it, and in 1888 one Japanese, Garoo Fonji, exhibited. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 279 Vernet, and that charmingly natural naturalistic, Decamps, all re- ceived consideration both in the official honors awarded them and the great space allowed to their works — an entire room each to Ver- net and Ingres, Vernet having thirty pictures, Ingres forty, Delacroix thirty-eight, and Decamps thirty-nine — fifty-two including his designs. A view of the great movement in landscape for a quarter of a century by "the men of 1830," then made apparent that it had become the predominating art, while the classic landscape was still represented in twelve works by Paul Flandrin. Then Millet, too, appeared with The Grafter. Then, also, were afforded prophetic glimpses of the lustre and influence of the art of Meissonier, then only eleven years before the public, and of Gerome, but seven years an exhibitor, an art that, by its wonders of execution, was to draw so much of French painting into parallel lines that by 1867, while landscape still main- tained its high position, anecdotal genre was, from the point of view of quantity alone, the prevailing art of France. Genre had, indeed, then become the principal occupation of all the art schools of Europe. This practice, as crowding out high art, the ideal, had been repre- hended by the Ministers' presentation addresses of 1853 and 1855. But the production of genre still increased. Genre is the art of the people, of those masses that classicism never reaches. Principles founded in human nature, and therefore permanent, give it popular consideration, and have always done so, for, even when the classic types were the only ones considered as art proper, in the Salon of 1808, " the largest class of works was portrait, the next genre, and the third in number, historical works." 1 True, genre then had its wider original French meaning of all kinds of art not history or landscape. Subsequently it was limited to those works that represent, in small dimensions, incidents of familiar life, gener- ally in interiors by draped figures, for the nude usually exalts above the familiar into the historical style. But later it has again a more extended meaning. Eomanticism, in making thought and invention important, made the story, the incidents of life important, made all that aids in telling the story important, dignified the surroundings, the accessories. And we shall see how, from using externals as a means, art has with many come to end in externals, even such as painting a costume well. This class of pictures being often judged by their story rather than by their art, while thus widening the interest in pictures and increasing their sale, says Hamerton, has 1 Landon's Reproduction of the Salon of 1808. 280 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. brought pictures under an untrained, often incompetent judgment ; and the principle of " art for art's sake/' so dear to the true artistic aim, has led painters to hold that the less story the better, and thus to take subjects of little import, even of scarcely any other interest at all, if they afford opportunity for artistic treatment in their purely pictorial elements. As a result of the prominence of the French school of genre at the International Exhibition at Vienna in 1873, official influence 1 was used in 1874 to restrain the tendencies to genre painting and to give an impetus to historical works. That year that able and ener- getic Director of the Fine Arts who instituted the Prix du Salon, Chennevieres, urged that to promote that style and to form at the same time a complete example of French art, the Church of St. Gene- vieve, or Pantheon, should be decorated by the best artists of France with a series of historical pictures illustrating the life of the patron saint of Paris, St. Genevieve. His superior, M. Fourtou, the Minister of Public Instruction, promptly approved this proposal as well as the institution of the Prix du Salon, but the artists strongly resisted. Chennevieres planned the subjects for the Pantheon, and selected the artists to execute them. His assignments were : To Galland, The Preaching of St. Denis; to Bonnat; The Martyrdom of St. Denis ; to Puvis de Chavannes, The Education and Pastoral Life of St. Genevieve; to Delaunay, Attila Marching on Paris, and St. Genevieve Haranguing the Be- sieged Parisians ; to Meissonier, St. Genevieve Preparing the Revictualing of Paris, and St. Genevieve Distributing Food to the Besieged Parisians; to Gerome, The Death of St. Genevieve, and her Burial in the Tomb of Clovis ; to M. Blanc, The Vow of Clovis at Tolbiac, and The Baptism of Clovis ; to Lehmann, The Crown- ing of Charlemagne, and Charlemagne Among the Paladins of Letters, etc. ; to Cabanel, The Captivity of St. Louis, and St. Louis Rendering Justice, Founding the Sorbonne, and Abolishing Judicial Combat; toBaudry, Joan of Arc atRheims, and in Prison ; to Chenavard, Christ Showing to the Angel of Paris the Destinies of the Country ; Gustave Moreau was to decorate the Chapel of the Virgin, and J. F. Millet that of St. Genevieve. Criticism, even derision, was excited, especially at the idea of mural paintings by Meissonier. The artists maintained that it should not be a work of appointment, but of competition. At first those selected declined, and at the Salon, the jury, so great was the feeling, refused to award the Prix du Salon. The Minister upheld the Di- rector, and himself bestowed it upon P. A. P. Lehoux, to whom the jury could not object, as they had already awarded him a gold medal. 1 Address of M. Balbie, Minister of Public Instruction in 1873, in awarding the honors, November 5, 1874. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 281 Chennevieres, stung by the opposition, resigned, but his resignation was not accepted. Thus there has been no time when the openly expressed official opinion has not advocated " high art," "the eter- nal type of beauty," the classic, the academic, i. e., the art of the academies, or of the authorities ; the battle between the academic and the natural is continual. Similar reviews furnished in the latter part of the period by the International Exhibition of 1878, and the Salon of Selection of 1883, show that under the official opposition to genre and the popular favor towards it, genre and the historical, often practised by the same art- ist, are assuming a balanced position in the French School. Works of a more ambitious size soon prevailed at the Salons, and now the great size of the pictures from year to year is as conspicuous as was, for a period, their diminutiveness. PAINTERS OF PERIOD III. The painters of this period may be considered as of two groups. First, the large number of brilliant artists taking rise in the preceding period and in full development at the opening of this. Their up- springing genius had been disciplined by opposition and even oppres- sion. These influences give them a conservative relation to the art of this period, which is greatly indebted to them for the influences they bring to it of breadth of experience, maturity of judgment, and skill of technique. Of this class are Meissonier, Millet, Courbet, etc. Second, those who at the opening of the period by the hopes and enthusiasms of youth were linked with the future. The early years of these were characterized by a precocity engendered of the long- continued Government encouragements of the Fine Arts, by the liberty allowed to artists ; and by an inheritance of national devel- opment that has ensured to them technical excellence. This is universally acknowledged. They control the means of significant artistic expression ; they have boldness, zeal, scientific technique, erudition in subjects and accessories, skill of manipulation, brilliancy. Their lack is in what they express. Much of the art is characterized by an absence of high significance and purpose, less intellectual force, less pursuit of the ideal, a trivial motive constituting a sufficient aim, as oftentimes a mere copying of elegant or otherwise interesting externals. Modernism in its limited sense as applied to the painting of mere externals without aiming at thought and significance is conspicuous in this period : "Petticoat painting" it has been derisively called, 282 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. though modernism covers many kinds of art difficult of classification that modern taste approves. No doubt Worth, in the fine art he has made of dress, offers most tempting subjects of this class, but no one of them would have been accepted by the public, had not the exquisite technical skill that reproduces them proved sufficing in its charm. "The hand," as Theophile Gautier says, "has become so perfect in its skill, it can proceed without appeal to the brain." But many forms of this trivial art are, perhaps, the result of an attempt, by those not able, to attain the standard claimed for the highest art, viz., that it should not depend on mental or moral, but simply pictorial qualities ; that not in the thought it conveys, not in the moral it inculcates, but in the emotion it excites, lies its excel- lence as art, as thus it is made a language interpreting the artist's susceptibility to that of the observer. Aiming at this interpretation simply, and ill comprehending and executing it, would leave an art poor indeed, 1 without mental, moral, or pictorial quality, a treat- ment failing utterly of any mission. The period opened with the debut of a large group of artists who have become illustrious, all born in 1824 and 1825. Since it could not be that the goddess presiding over births bestowed genius more abundantly at that time, it must be true that the conditions were favorable to its development. Gerome, Boulanger, Aubert, Hamon, Cabanel, Bouguereau, Baudry, all at about the age of twenty-four, were making their earliest art flights in the first years of this period of increased liberty, and a still younger group, led by Kegnault, have continued the characteristics of the school. Classicism in its severest and its theatrical forms is probably per- manently banished from French art, but entering with this period and lingering throughout it there has been a " perfume of the antique." At one time this influence is charmingly mingled with romanticism, forming the neo-grec ; at another, lending a grace to realism, it demonstrates that the classic line and pose, in truth, are not to be divorced from nature. During the later part of this period, since the official efforts of 1874, historical painting has resumed a high place. But most of the theories of the old classic treatment, such as the ignoring of reflections and textures, have been totally abandoned. Eeligious art has, in this period, few votaries. It is placed in the difficult attitude of, if departing from the methods of the old masters, 1 The eminent art critic, M. Taine, cites against the art of the English and Germans as art, that they are influenced in their choice of a subject by the moral feeling of the German races, and indeed the remark has become a commonplace of esthetic criticism. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 283 "being accused of breaking away from tradition, and, if following them, of showing nothing original. It is, in the main, permeated with realism ; there has, indeed, in pursuing in religious subjects the familiar or "intime" treatment, arisen a religious genre. A classification of artists of any period or country might be based on their spiritual qualities and the relation of these to their powers of technical expression. Absolutely speaking, it is not the value of his motif nor his skill in imitating the natural objects of which his picture is composed that assigns his true rank to the artist, but the power with which he conveys to another the effect on his own mind and emotional susceptibility of the scene through whose repro- duction he is endeavoring to communicate this effect to the beholder of his work. But obviously such a classification is too delicate as well as too speculative, and implies the common acceptance of too esoteric standards to lend itself to the purposes of a history. Pursu- ing, therefore, a classification of the painters by their subjects, their manner of treatment, and the degree of their eminence in an environ- ment as critically competent as that of Paris, and following, as well as may be, chronology, which, however, is sacrificed to the more important connection of results and tendencies of their art, those earlier artists that still cling to the old love of form and academic line, while breathing in something of the new inspiration of emotion, are first considered. Naturally this classic tendency would make them painters of figures. They form the transition from the severe form of the old classic to the more familiar treatment of the later period. This classification can be neither of deep significance nor rigidly binding, but rather an elastic band enclosing in groups. Of these, Hippolyte Flandrin, the pupil, representative, and defender of the methods of Ingres, whom he always (isog-'e^rLyons.'*" held m reverent affection, ranks almost as a Prix de Rome, '32. classicist. Indeed, the higher charm with L*Hon. '41. of. '53. Cl 38 which his deep religious feeling has imbued Mem. inst. '53. the classic line and form, for which he was continually grateful to Ingres' teaching, places his work far above all classicism, and gives him a position alone in later French art as a painter of simple Christian faith, and thus the first great religious painter in France after Lesueur and Ohampaigne. Amid the intense worldliness of his age, the earnestness of genuine faith exhales from his work as an aroma. His own moral sincerity has thrown over his religious works a veil of feeling that sug- gests a modest shrinking in the presence of the grandeur of even 284 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. his conception of sacred characters, the personal formulating of his religious ideal. He had a depth of conviction that would have ena- bled him to lead a school of followers into his elevated and charming art, but for his gentleness and timidity, enhanced by a sickly consti- tution, possibly the result of the rigors of poverty endured in his pursuit of art. He was the fourth of seven children of an artist who had sacrificed his aspirations for historical work and confined himself to miniature to support his family, the struggle for which is painfully indicated in the continued opposition of the mother to her sons learning art, as she " wished them to learn a business by which they might live." But the sculptor, Fayatier, passing through Lyons en route for Italy, so appre- ciated the drawings of the two brothers, Paul and Hippolyte, inspired by the glorious wars of the empire, that the mother hopefully allowed them to study with the painter Magnin at Lyons, and subsequently for seven years in the School of Fine Arts there. Finally, besides aiding in the family expenses by selling drawings and lithographs, with a letter to Hersent from the director of the Academy at Lyons and a small sum of money, they set out early in 1829 to walk the dis- tance of one hundred and twenty leagues to Paris. A townsman, M. Guichard, also a student, whom they met in their first eager visits to the museums of art, expressed with decision the opinion that the painter of the portrait of Amedee de Pastoret, which they had just seen, must be his teacher, and the young Flandrins entered with him the studio of Ingres. There Hippolyte found the science, the tech- nique which was to guide his inspirations, the development of form with which to clothe his feeling, and while his style illustrates the higher uses of pure form, his development also illustrates the most favorable phase of Ingres' teachings. The brothers entered also the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but, though Ingres felt certain of this pupil's success, Hippolyte failed to win the Prix de Rome in 1831, and was remanded to his struggle with poverty. He was about to refuse to compete the next year on account of the expenses of models and colors, for commissions, any kind of which the brothers were glad to fill, had ceased for awhile, but at this juncture an order for a portrait of a gend'arme came and he entered the competition. Their life at this time is touch ingly told by Hamerton : " The winter of 1829-30 was an especially severe one, and in a poor little gar- ret of the rue Mazarin two young painters [Hippolyte was twenty] lived all through it without a fire. One of them got (not easily) the commission to paint the por- THE NINETEENTH. CENTURY. 285 trait of a gend'arme. The price of the portrait was thirty francs, and the gen- d'arme came to the little garret to be painted, but the ceiling was so low that he could not stand erect, so he had to sit on one of the two chairs that the garret contained. As there was no easel the other chair had to do duty for one, and the painter had to sit on a wooden box that constituted his wardrobe. The gend'arme sat till he was nearly frozen, and the painter painted till his hand was numb. The portrait was a success, and the gend'arme munificently gave the painter five francs more than the price agreed upon, and commissioned him to paint his wife. Some years later (1861) the same painter made another portrait also of a man in uniform; but this one . . . wore the grand cordon of the Legion of Honor, and was, in fact, the sovereign of the order and heir of the Emperor who founded it . . . and the model certainly stood up. Whatever may have been the qualities of the first portrait, which excited much enthusiasm at the barracks, the latter took place at once as one of the few indisputable masterpieces of the century. . . . Asa likeness it went far beyond the point of mere military resemblance, and sets before us the aspect of the man, the wonderful mildness and gentleness of a nature which, without being bloodthirsty, shrinks at no shedding of blood— the calm exterior of the greatest dissimulator alive. . . . This was his Napoleon III." On the income of the portrait of the gend'arme he entered the competition of 1832. It was the year of the cholera ; one of the competitors was carried off by it, dying on his way to work ; Flandrin was seized, and though determinedly dragging himself to the school on his brother's arm, was at last obliged to yield and to keep his bed for a month. In the little time remaining, by continuing at work through the last day, when the competitors' rooms were thrown open to each other, he finished in time the picture, Theseus Recognized by his Father. It received great admiration from his master, and, though depreciated by the opposing school, won the prize, the first prize given to a pupil of Ingres. Before he went to Rome it gave Flan- drin prominence in the great excitement which it aroused. But to him it meant also support, and support amid the master- works of art, a grand fruition of his patient painting of the gend'arme in the icy garret for six dollars. As a further happiness his brother, Paul, won the prize for landscape in 1834, and, at the close of that year, Ingres succeeded Horace Vernet as director of the School at Rome ; thus the sympathetic teacher and pupils were again to- gether. Flandrin there, through his natural predilections, minis- tered to by Ingres' appreciation of all that Raphael offered of artistic nourishment, developed the qualities of elevated painting, and espe- cially "mastered the significance and sentiment of religious gesture." To speak of his less elevated art first, his qualities were equally adapted to portraits. In these his sincerity still counted ; it pre- vented exaggeration or studied attitude ; it perceived truly, and truly 286 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. reproduced. His merit commanded for him more orders than he could fill. 1 Those of Mile. Maison, known as The Young Girl with a Pink, which shows his power of coloring, a power almost forgotten in his pursuit of line and form, Napoleon III., Prince Jerome Bonaparte, and Madame de Rothschild are masterpieces. He was not, however, always at an equal ease with his models. His earliest exhibition (1836), Dante Conducted by Virgil Through Purgatory (Lyons) and The Young Shepherd, took a second class medal, and his next (1837), reexhibited in the Universal Exhibition of 1855 and now in Nantes Cathedral, St. Clair Healing the Blind, takes rank as the best of Flandrin's oil paintings. The trusting faith of the Saint, the differing emotions of the crowding spectators, their grand heads and fine drapery, all unite to make it admirable. In the Salons until his death, except the six, 1838, '44, '49, '50, '52, and '53, he exhibited fifty-one works : thirty-four were portraits of women, and seventeen of men. He has at the Louvre only A Portrait of a Young Girl and A Study, but has pictures in other Museums of France : Lille, one ; Nantes, three ; Lisieux, two ; Lyons, two ; Montauban, one ; and Versailles, five. His religious masterpieces are mural paintings : at Paris, in the Church of St. Germain des Pres (1842-'61), St. Severin, and a frieze of St. Vincent de Paul (1852-'54) ; at Nimes, in the Church of St. Paul (1847-'49) ; and near Lyons, his native town, in the old Church of St. Martin d'Ainay of the eleventh century. He had a clear understanding of the requirements of mural painting, and gave no large perspective, no great depth, no sharp projections, nothing to interfere with the proportions of the edifice. The nave of the Church of St. Germain des Pres, of which he decorated the sanctuary in 1848, was begun in 1865. For its frieze he planned the representation of Heb. xiii. 8 : " Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." The Yesterday and To-day were carried in parallel couplets of pictures, one from the Old Testa- ment showing Christ symbolized to the Jew, and one from the New Testament showing him revealed to the Christian ; the Forever he was to represent in the Ascension and Scenes of the Last Judgment, but he died before finishing the work, which was assigned to his brother to be executed from cartoons which he left. He had gone to Rome for recuperation in 1863, but his health still failed, though his mind and heart grew strong on renewing the scenes of his « It is related that a lady once offered him 80,000 francs to paint her portrait, and he quietly bowed her out of his studio without a word. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 287 fond labors of thirty years before. With his master, Ingres, he was making earnest protestations against the reforms of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts of 1863, of which he made a personal sorrow, when, in a weakened condition, he was seized by the epidemic of small-pox then raging, and carried off in three days (March 21, 18G4). After death he was brought and laid for funeral services under the blank space left for his painting of The Last Judgment in St. Germain des Pres. In Gleyre's antique dreams arose a foreshadowing of the neo-grec movement, which took definite form in the works of Gerome, Hamon, chanes Gabriel Gleyre Picou, Damerez, Aubert, and their companions, 08o6-'74), cheviiiy. who came to Gleyre from Delaroche when that Med. '43; Med. maste r closed his studio (1844). In notes left by Hamon he calls Gleyre "an antique man," and adds : "He gave me a horror of singer ie or imitation. M. Gleyre loved original things that one had seriously thought out. He never jested on that holy thing that is called art." But the neo-grecs did not fully attain his aspirations. He had the sentiment of style ; beauty ; and form, pure, delicate, exquisite, ideal. Of his pupils, Hamon and Aubert were his true artistic posterity. He had a power of giving clear and compre- hensible form to poetic conceits and fugitive fancies: he was a painter of dreams. A Swiss, he studied in Paris with Hersent, but took Ingres for his model and, like him, slowly matured his works. For four years he copied the old masters in Italy (1833), and for six years studied in Sicily, Greece, and Egypt. His earliest works were A Young Nubian Woman, and Diana in the Bath (1838) ; his first im- pressive work, St. John Inspired by the Apocalyptic Vision (1840). He made his last exhibition in Prance, The Dance of the Bacchan- tes, in the Salon of 1849, thus leaving his work there when and where the neo-grecs began. After this, owing to a quarrel with the administration, he sent his pictures to Switzerland, and there up to 1863 exhibited : Diana Hunting ; Nausicaa : Daphnis and Chloe ; Virgin with Christ and St. John; Ruth and Boaz ; Hercules and Omphale (1863); Minerva and the Graces; Sappho; The Charmer (Basle Museum). His life was a silent but productive one. His picture, Lost Illu- sions (Walters Gallery, Baltimore), suggested by a twilight on the Nile, illustrates admirably his poetic and distinguished qualities. A sad, dreamy figure, bent with age and depressed with memories of lost pleas- ures, sits upon the shore, while a boat full of gay beings, representing, said Gleyre, " all that was dear to youth," floats away with music and laughter. The Bath of a Young Roman (1858, sold at the Johnston sale, New York, 1876, for $5,200) 288 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. shows, in all the beauty of a Greek statue, a life-sized, nude figure of a Roman child about to be plunged into a bath. The attending maids, one extending a blanket ready to receive it, are rendered in classic form. His Evening (1843) is in the Luxembourg. Many brilliant artists issued from his studio, among them Toule- moucbe. Chenavard first became conspicuous through the favor of Ledru- Rollin, who, amid the turmoils of 1848 and 1849, assigned to " Citi- , _ , zen Chenavard " a commission for decorating the Paul Joseph Chenavard ° (1808 ), Lyons. Pantheon. The friend' of Delacroix and pupil of m 'dTicM Ingres, this artist combined in his predilections the opposing forces of his period, the design of his master and the feeling of his friend. He was also a pupil of Hersent. Even more than Ingres, to use a phrase of that master, "he fed on Michael Angelo." By mental constitution and previous training he was adapted to assimilate that substantial nourishment, and to win it he spent several years in Italy. His connection with the political events of his time had the result of retiring him from before the public, and of leaving as the only exhibited product of twenty years of the comprehensive thought of his philosophical mind, of the informed style evolved, of the power of hand acquired during twenty years, one picture — The Divine Tragedy. This, after having received a place in the Salon of Honor at the Exhibition of 1869, was relegated to a less conspicuous position on account of its questionable ortho- doxy. Ledru-Rollin, the Minister of the Interior, after the Revolution of 1848, had opened to Chenavard a credit of 30,000 francs for begin- ning the decoration of the Pantheon. This was to illustrate by a series of pictures the development of the human race, beginning with the deluge. The less important spaces were to contain the divinities of all ages, and even for the pavements allegories were planned. For all he made forty compositions, eighteen of which were very care- fully executed in highly finished cartoons. Ledru-Rollin, amid the great responsibilities devolving upon him during these disturbed times, took time from his sleep to examine them as they were produced. They were exhibited in 1855, and won a first class medal. Through the influence of the clergy it was decreed, a few days after the Coup d'Etat of 1851, though the likenesses of Rousseau and Voltaire were upon its front, that the Pantheon should become a church. Thus losing their proposed destination, only one of Chenavard's cartoons, The Divine Tragedy, was afterwards finished as a picture, and it is now in the Luxembourg. It contains forty colossal figures, representing the THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 289 Trinity striking, by the aid of Death and the Angel of Justice, the heathen gods from existence. It is full of significant and wonderful invention. Chenavard had exhibited in 1833, in the Hall of Drawings, a drawing of The Trial of Louis XVI. Louis Philippe very unexpect- edly entered the exhibition. After gazing for a long time at the picture, in which his father was placed between Sainterre and Marat, he forbade its remaining, and ordered it to the Tuileries for further examination. It was subsequently exhibited in the Universal Exposi- tion of 1855, and is now owned by Prince Napoleon. Pils was the product of the National School of instruction, gradu- ating in 1838 at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, when, with the picture, Peter Healing the Cripple at the Gate of Isidore Alexandre Auguste Pils 0 x x (i8i5-'6 5 ), Paris. the Temple, he took the Prix de Rome. He Prix de Rome ^38. ^ ^ nac [ h a( j instruction, also, from Lethiere and Med. Hon. '61. Picot. In 1863, when that school, under l. Hon. '57. of. '67. the Minister Nieuwerkerke, was withdrawn from the direction of the Institute and its departments rearranged, he was made, with Gerome and Cabanel, as a propitiation of the classical influence, one of the three professors of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. His career was, indeed, full of honors. He painted subjects from Scripture, mythology, and history, until he travelled in the Crimea and made sketches for painting the scenes of the Crimean war, when he became a military painter, and is one of the last representatives of the older panoramic style of battle paint- ing, now superseded by the modern treatment of incident. As early as 1849, Rouget de ITsle, its Author, Singing the Marseillaise, a pic- ture touching upon both departments that were to form his practice in art, the historical and martial, drew marked attention to him. In later works he is seen at his best in The Battle of the Alma, bought by the Government in 1861, and at his worst, perhaps, in a Reception of Algerian Chiefs in 1860, exhibited in 1867, and for which he re- ceived great honors from the Emperor and Empress, for in it all is made to flatter the reigning power. Heinrich Lehmann, naturalized in France in 1847, was made a member of the Institute and the successor of Pils as Professor in „ IC in j km. ■ 'ui u the ficole des Beaux-Arts. He was one of Karl Ernst Rudolf Heinrich Lehmann (1814- 22), Kiel. the foremost portrait painters of his time, r. e Ho 2 n d . ^e^or^.' 40 ' 48 ' 55 ' and was employed by the Government in Mem. inst. '6 4 . mural painting in the new Hotel de Ville Mem. Sup. Council of B. Arts '75. fa rebuilding after 1870? a succeSS largely obtained through the influence of his master, Ingres. His 19 290 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING, German tendencies were never quite lost in his French adoption. He attempted to adhere to his master's feeling for form, though not always successfully. He, however, added a charm to Ingres' classicism by engrafting upon it something of his German mysticism, and was led by the truer tendencies of his later art to combine nature with that master's teaching, and painted a Hamlet after Delacroix and a Mig- non after Scheffer. But at his death he left in the terms of his bequest of a prize, a perpetual expression of his contempt for " the degradation which the unclassic doctrines of the day favor." He also improved in color in his later works, but a weirdness of coloring, " pallid as that of a dream," always had a great attraction for him. Fine draughtsmanship and conscientious labor of great finish in detail gave a permanent value to his works. Couture, who also, in his style, turns towards the preceding period, was the pupil of Gros and of Delaroche. Gros said to him one day : " My little fellow, your drawings are like those Thomas Couture J / ° ('815 -'79), seniis. of an old academician. Ah, if you were only Med. 3d ci. '44; 1st ci. '47, '55 older, we would crush those abominable roman- cers." He thus bears the approval of the school of which the strength was design. He is euphoniously described as " trapu, membru, and moustachu," squat, strong-limbed and moustachioed. Of great vigor and firmness of will, yielding nothing to the idiosyncrasies of others, conceding nothing to the mode, but, from his first picture, A Young Venetian After an Orgy (1840), to his last, exhibited after his death, Un Pifferaro (1879), maintaining his own individuality, he could well combat with " abominable " adver- saries, were they romancers or realists. But it was not to victorious and permanent results, for, though vigorous, his talent, like his life and character, was undisciplined and, though fecund of grandly conceived designs, he seldom continued them to completed pictures. Conception after conception crowded each other, until all would be superseded by another subject. These abandoned sketches, gathered at a posthumous exhibition of his works, gave to it the sad appella- tion, " The Apotheosis of the Incomplete." To the able design early approved by Gros, he added a charming color, which is rich and golden in general, though sometimes silver lights prevail ; a technique that for quality has been rarely surpassed ; and a composition which enabled him, like David and Horace Vernet, to throw large numbers of figures into pleasing relation, — to make a picture. He worked largely from the intellect, which gives to his pictures deep signifi- cance ; makes most of them keen satires with a general inclination THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 291 to allegory. But he tempered the purely sensuous tendency of French feeling, although he did not fail to present the passions and senti- ments required by the scene which now represents him among the distinguished works of the Luxembourg. He took the second. Prix de Rome in 1837, and his Troubadour (1844) commanded a price of 55,000 francs (at the Gsell sale). But all previous successes were eclipsed, and, as it resulted, all future ones prevented by his famous picture, The Decadence of the Romans, painted in 1847 when he was only thirty years of age. His previous works had, indeed, through his timidity perhaps, possessed an obvious conventional side, but here his individuality arose to frank and free expression of itself. The picture was seemingly a reconciliation of the sculpturesque classicism of Ingres and the passion and romantic ardor of Delacroix. " The enormous canvas seemed, indeed, to have aflame playing over it as of Raphael, kindled to emotion by Rubens, " says one enthusiastic com- mentator. To drawing and color it added a wonderful power of clearly telling the story. This one picture, painted at thirty, did at once for him what Gericault's masterpiece, painted at twenty-eight, only eventually did for him — it made him celebrated : he was ac- claimed and idolized at the time. It gave him a European reputation. In detail, it presents an orgy, symbolic of the vices that led to Rome's ruin, placed in a Corinthian hall, around which stand the statues of the men who had made Rome : Brutus, Pompey, Cato, and Germanicus. Thus ingeniously was secured an antithesis of Roman history in the contrasting presence of the Roman virtues. The sky in the freshness of dawn is seen through the open architecture, and worn-out Rome is symbolized in the enervated actors of the waning feast, who are men fit for conquest — Romans, but with a manhood wasted. In the central foreground the magnificent figure of a woman extended on a long couch, some- what in the attitude of the figure in one of the tympana of the Parthenon, looking with large eyes wearily out of the picture, seems to symbolize Venus and convey an impression of even her sense of the dissatisfying nature of such joys. This was a portrait of the artist's future wife. An early success thus secured, the artist relied, without the cul- ture of wider travel or study, upon the genius which he undoubtedly possessed, but which an over self-esteem and pride now blighted, and he soon became hardly more than a critic of society and art, paint- ing satires which were, however interesting, wholly unworthy of his talent. One of these, The Realist, was a burlesque upon Courbet's claim, that artists should paint nature's unmodified features. It represents an imaginary pupil of Courbet assiduously painting the head of a boar, while the classic bust of Alexander is used for a stool. Around the room 292 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. are seen, in the place of the usual bric-a-brac of an artist's studio, the supposed sources of realistic inspirations : a cabbage, an old lantern, and a clouted shoe. The drawing for this was photographed and extensively purchased by artists, who maintained that Couture had out-done the realist on the realist's own ground. He received commissions under Napoleon III. : in 185G for The Volunteers of 1793, the future army of Napoleon I., and (1857) for The Christening of the Prince Imperial, designed for a ceiling of the Louvre. This brought him among the official painters of the Court, but, because of a quarrel with the Empress about the baptismal robe, the order was withdrawn and the picture left unfinished. The incident led him to refuse to exhibit again at the Salons. Among his works, a study for The Volunteers is in the Vanderbilt Gallery, and a sketch of two figures of it is in the Boston Museum, where it is among the most valued pictures of the collection. Damocles (1872) ; Jocunda ; Love of Gold (1844) ; The Gipsy (185'2) ; The Falconer (Collection of M. Raucune, Berlin, 1855) ; The Return of the Troops from the Crimea ; the decoration of the Chapel of the Virgin of St. Eustache; and Day Dreams (Wolfe Collection. New York, and Walters Gallery, Baltimore), a boy fragile, melancholy, and beautiful, in a reverie over his soap bubbles, are others of his works. Damocles, also called Liberty in Chains, was intended to express the slavery into which Art and Letters had fallen under Napoleon III. In The Thorny Path he satirizes the influence of woman by a beauty cold, hard, but graceful, and radiantly clothed in gauze, driving before her carriage with a whip through a path in which thorns grow high, helpless men of all times and classes, old Silenus with bloated form leading. He published a book (18G7), " Studio Conversations," which con- tain valuable suggestions on painting. 1 Famous through his Orgy, but never again equalling it, his fellow-artists rendered indifferent to him by his insufferable conceit, he was obscured from sight for some years before his death, when he was tauntingly called, i{ only a teacher of Americans." But among them were developed many distinguished ones, as William M. Hunt, George B. Butler, and others. Following in the semi-classical style almost all of whom are Hors Concours, are : Louis Janmot (1814- ), Lyons : pupil of Orsel at Lyons and of Ingres at Paris ; medal 3d class '45 ; 2d class '59 ; rappel, '01. — Charles Alexandre Francois Morin (!809-'86h Rouen : pupil of Chaumont and Leon Cogniet ; Legion of Honor '65. — Victor Louis Mottez (18U9- ), Lille: pupil of Picot and of Ingres; medal 3d 1 While the Prussian army was occupying France, Couture's house had been appro- priated to its use, and he himself was even reduced to rinding substitutes for his linen which the enemy requisitioned for cleaning their guns. His condition attracted notice in the street from a newly-arrived general, who, learning that it was Couture, caused his house to be at once cleared for his use. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 293 class '38; 2d class '45; Legion of Honor '46. — Charles-Louis Muller (1815- ), Paris : known as Muller of Paris ; pupil of Gros, Cogniet, and the Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; medal 3d class '38 ; 2d class '46 ; 1st class '48, '55, Exposition Universelle ; Legion of Honor '49 ; Officer '59 ; Member of Institute '64. — Alphonse Ouri (1828- ), Versailles: pupil of Gosse and of Delacroix. Aside from his decorative works in the Paris Hotel de Ville; the Tuileries; the Prince of Wales' Hotel, Pould, at Sandringham ; the Khedive's palace at Cairo ; and the Palais Narischkin, St. Petersburg, which, by the Legion of Honor '68, made him Hors Concours, he has few works. — Dominique Papety (1815-'49), Marseilles: pupil of Cogniet and of the ficole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome '36; dying at thirty-four, his early promise was unfulfilled. — Henri Pierre Picou (1822- ), Nantes : pupil of Delaroche and Gleyre ; medal 2d class '48, '57. — Jean-Baptiste Poucet (contemporary). — Saint Laurent-de-Mures : pupil of H. Flandrin ; medal 3d class ; 61 ; medal '64 ; worked with Flandrin for nine years on his works in St. Germain -des-Pres at Paris and in the Church d'Ainay at Lyons. — Prosper-Louis Roux (1817- ), Paris: pupil of Delaroche, and, in Delaroche*s style, painted Delaroche's subjects of histor- ical genre ; medal 3d class '46 ; 2d class '67 ; rappel '59. —Louis- Henri de Reudder (1870- ), Paris : pupil of Gros and Charlet ; medal 3d class '40 ; 2d class '48 ; Legion of Honor '63. — Francois Charles Savinien Petit (1815-'78), Fremily : pupil of Auguste Hesse ; medal 3d class '34 ; 2d class '55, Exposition Universelle '64. — Jacques Pilliard (1814- ), Vienne : pupil of Orsel and Bonneford ; medal 3d class '43 ; 2d class '44, '48. — Jules Richomme (1818- ), Paris : pupil of Droll- ing ; medal 3d class '40 ; 2d class '42 ; rappel '62 ; rappel '63 ; Legion of Honor '67. — Emile Signol (1804- ), Paris : pupil of Blondel and Gros ; still paints the history and Scripture scenes which he has painted for two-thirds of the century, and in which he has won honors during all its changes of standards ; 1st Prix de Rome '30 : medal 2d class '34 ; 1st class '35 ; Legion of Honor '41 ; Officer '65 ; Member of Institute, '60.— G. L. Tabor (1818-'69>, Paris: pupil of Delaroche; medal 1867. — Louis Charles Timbal (1822-'80), Paris: pupil of Drolling; medal 2d class '48, '57, '59 ; 1st class '61 ; Legion of Honor '64 ; his picture, The Agony of Our Lord (1867). is in the Luxembourg. — Theophile Auguste Vauchelet (1802-73), Passy : pupil of Abel de Pujol and Hersent ; Prix de Rome '29 ; medal 2d class '31; 1st class '46, 'Gl ; Legion of Honor '61. — Leon Viardot (1805- ), Dijon : pupil of Ary Scheffer ; medal 2d class '35. — Jean Louis Hector Viger (1819-'79), Argentan ; pupil of Monvoisin, Delaroche, Drolling, and Lehmann. The painting maintained by a class of artists somewhat in the old historical style forms a connection with the renewal, after the official efforts for that purpose in 1874, of historical painting in the younger artists, chiefly pupils of Bouguereau, Cabanel, and others, painters of the figure. As these masters form a transition to it, it is placed after them. Though allied to this class, the school of the neo-grecs is left to be introduced by its special leader, Gerome, and precedence is now given to the painting of landscape with animals, and to the Oriental- ists of the Third Period, as continuing classes of art inaugurated and practised in the preceding period, and thus the next older of the 294 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. family groups. The Orientalists in their practice include both land- scape and genre. PAINTERS OF LANDSCAPE WITH ANIMALS. Rosa Bonheur, that "honored master" as she is termed by Claretie, is the greatest woman-painter of animals of France and of all lands. She paints them with a simple Marie Rosa Bonheur (1822- ), Bordeaux. hearty love, as they are, and thus with more of Med. 3 d ci. '45; nature than Landseer, who invests them with 26 1\. 1867, e^u.' E U human wit and intelligence ; and with less of a l. Hon. 1865 from Empress, sensitiveness to pictorial quality and color than Mem. Inst. Antwerp, 1868. rn tt i l' i Leopold cross, ,880. Troyon. Her heartiness imparts a charm to cross Royai Ord. Isabella the all her works, and we are drawn to her creations catholic, ,880 ag tQ the «beasties" themselves, and derive Exempt by special Order, 1853. 7 from them the same wholesome impulses. En- gravings have made her pictures well known, but they have not made known, except by implication, her early life in which love of animals and drawing were mastering passions ; nor her early home, lacking material wealth, but rich in the high aims of a family of artists ; nor yet, except still by implication, the charming home of her later years, the Chateau of By, a village a few miles from Fon- tainebleau. Her father, Raymond Bonheur, lived at Bordeaux, where he painted portraits, landscapes, furnished illustrations to publishers, and gave lessons. He was a thorough republican and personally acquainted with the revolutionary leaders. Borne down by poverty, he was still more embarrassed by marrying one of his pupils as poor as himself, but as she was a fine musician, the joint income from their lessons had enabled him to begin for the Paris Salon two large pictures, when his spirit was broken and his life burdened by her dying and leaving him with four children. In 1829 he removed to Paris and confided his children to the care of a worthy woman living near the Champs Elysees, whom they fondly called "Mother Catharine." Rosa, who was the eldest, passed whole days of absorbed life in the Bois de Boulogne, playing truant from the school of the Sisters of Chaillot. It. is said she spent hours on the grass studying the clouds. Then she would form a background by smoothing the dust, and, regardless of the wondering spectators, draw on it with a stick what was before her : the silhouettes at the horizon, the passing- people, but above all, the animals. Before leaving Bordeaux, her parents would often miss her, and had come to know that they would find her under the spell of the coarsely-carved and rudely-painted THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 295 wild boards head which served as a sign at the neighboring pork butcher's. From these pursuits she was apprenticed to a milliner, but in a week her sad and wan face caused her father much sorrow, and finally he joyfully announced that he had arranged with Madame X., the directress of a boarding-school, to receive her, three additional lessons from him in the school per week being the com- pensation. There, after various other annoying misdemeanors, strik- ing and cunning caricatures of her companions and teachers, fixed upon the ceilings by means of threads and pellets of bread, were traced to her. Eosa was condemned to dry bread, writes a biographer, but the admirable sketches were retained to enrich the portfolio of Madame X. Drawing fascinated the girl who has since grown into the noble-hearted and generous woman, and who must then have pos- sessed the germs of fine character. It claimed her attention from all else, and as also the richer pupils taunted her with her poverty, her father removed her. He had married in 1842 a second wife, Madame Peyrol, a widow with two sons. Her activity and intelligent manage- ment multiplied, not only the loaves and fishes, but all the necessaries of comfortable life. Much loved by all the large family, for whom she wisely cared, she was fondly called " la mamiche," the equivalent for mother in her native Auvergne dialect. Eosa then for four years faithfully drew from the paintings of the Louvre, and with two small pictures, Goats and Sheep and the Two Eabbits, which now hangs in the studio of her sister, Madame Peyrol, made, in 1841, her first appearance at the Salon. By her talent and industry the pressure of poverty was soon removed from the household. It can well be imag- ined that in their community of tastes, the Bonheurs were a happy family. All loved art, and all loved animals, Eosa with peculiar inten- sity. In the evenings of those early years the father sat in his arm- chair and gave advice and lessons to his pupils and to his children, of whom five, the fifth being Germain, the child of the second marriage, and now a landscape painter, lived proudly to sign themselves each, " Pupil of my father." Auguste, born 1824, painted animals with landscape backgrounds of more mellowness and beauty than Bosa's. He attained the honor of . . ■ a l Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1867, and Auguste F rancois Bonneur o (i824-'84), Bordeaux. but for the eclipsing fame of his sister would Med 3d ci. '52, -57. have an even wider reputation than he has. 2d cl. 59. m * 1st ci. '61, '63. Isidore Jules, born 1827, is a sculptor of animals. L ' Hon '' 67 - He appeared in the Salon of 1848 with both a painting and a piece of sculpture, but afterwards abandoned painting. 296 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. He received medals in 1865 and 1&67. Juliette, now Madame Peyrol, is also a painter of animals, and received a medal in 1855. From her husband's foundry the statues of her brother, Isidore, are produced. Her two children are continuing into the third generation the artistic tendencies of the family. Madame Peyrol has in her studio, over her husband's exhibition room, a portrait of her sister with short hair and in simple female attire of green, painted by her brother Auguste. In those years, in the early home, the father in his teachings used to predict that the new French School would be landscape, with such men as Decamps, Francais, Cabat, Rousseau, Troyon, and Corot as leaders and teachers. One evening, it is related, one of the family was reading aloud, as was the custom. The book was George Sand's La Mare au Diable, and the passage, the celebrated description of a ploughing scene, with which it opens : "The ploughman young and robust, the ground rich, eight vigorous oxen, and a bright autumn sunlight lighting up the scene;" Madame Sand closes the descrip- tion with the comment : " It would be a noble subject for a painter." " Yes," interrupted Rosa, "the author is right." Rosa painted it. It was exhibited in 1850, is her greatest work, and has a place in the Luxembourg — Plowing in the Nivernais. In England, however, where in later years she is more highly esteemed even than in France, her masterpiece is considered to be The Horse Fair. This work occupied her for eighteen months, and, in frequenting the old horse market on the Boulevard de l'Hopital for the studies of it, she adopted male attire to avoid notice from the frequenters of the place. It is a group of twenty or more strong Percheron horses ; they are white, dappled, black, and splendid in the energy of action and draught power indi- cated. Some are ridden, some led by sporting, tricky grooms, whom, notwith- standing their frequent jests at her expense while making her studies, she has faithfully painted as exultant in the mastery of the noble brutes. The scene is in a familiar spot of Paris, with the dome of the Invalides and an avenue of trees seen in the background. 1 i The French Government wished to buy it, but it was sold into England to Gambart & Co. for $8,000 before the close of the Salon ; brought thence to Weehawken, N. Y., by Mr. W. P. Weight in 1857, who paid $6,000 for it, it was up to 1887 in the gallery of Mr. A. T. Stewart, who is said to have paid for it $20,000; at Mrs. Stewart's death it was sold (1887) to Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt for $52,000, and presented to the Metropolitan Museum, New York. While owned by Gambart & Co. it was engraved by Thomas Landseer ; as a more convenient form for the engraver, the artist made a replica of half the size of the original. This was purchased by Mr. Jacob Bell-, who bequeathed it to the National Gallery, London. The artist, in the desire to be better represented there, then painted a larger replica, but the exchange was never effected, and this sold in 1886, at Christie's, for $15,000. A third replica, small and in water-color, is also owned in England. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 297 Solid and firm modelling ; accuracy of action rendered with spirit ; fidelity to patient observation ; the representation of space above, before, and behind her figures ; fine rendering of the spirit of the animals, are the qualities of the picture, and with landscape of great grandeur added, represent her style. In acquiring a large and broad manner of treating the horse she has freely acknowl- edged indebtedness to studies left by Gericault. From her debut in 1841 to 1853 she exhibited annually at the Salon, omitting that of 1852, as she was then working on her Horse Fair, which graced the Salon of 1853. Her father never saw this, as he died just before it was completed ; but when, on his deathbed, he asked for Rosa's latest work, Plowing in the Nivernais was shown him, and he expressed great satisfaction. She had obtained for him the place of Director of the Free School of Design for Girls, founded through her efforts, but in 1849 she took the position herself. In this she is aided by her sister. Her principal pictures number about forty, but between the exe- cution of these she has painted many smaller ones. After her Horse Fair she travelled in the Pyrenees, and took thence many subjects. She has painted some portraits, one of George Sand at the age of twenty-five, which she presented to that author. She has also done some works in sculpture. One day, in 1865, she was surprised by the Empress Eugenie, who entered unannounced, kissed her as she rose from the easel to receive her, delayed a few moments, and was gone. The woman artist found that the woman sovereign had pinned upon her working blouse the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The Emperor had been hesitating to confer a decoration on a woman when the Empress, having, during his absence, been left Regent, drove over from Fontainebleau near by and, in its bestowal by her hand, added to its value. The Empress bought Sheep on the Seashore from the Universal Exposition of the same year. The artist has since re- ceived the Leopold Cross of Honor, from the King of Belgium, and by order of the Crown Prince of Prussia her residence was respected by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War. Says Henry Bacon : " Her home, the Chateau of By, dates from the time of Louis XV. Since her purchase of it she has raised the roof, turned the chapel into an orangery, and added a picturesque building, which contains, on the first floor, her stable, and, on the second, her studio. In a wire enclosure on her grounds are two chamois from the Pyrenees. Other enclosures hold sheep and deer, which, even to the stag with antlers of six branches, receive the caresses of their mistress like pets. A cow and bull graze upon the lawn ready to serve as models, for which they, as the finest of 298 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. their kind, are well worthy. Two life-size dogs, the sculptured animals of her brother Isidore, are found supporting the chimney in her studio, and at the end of a linden avenue in her lawn is a Gaul attacking a lion, in bronze, also by him. In her studio is also found a landscape by her father." 1 By special decree, July 27, 1853, exemption was accorded her. Her principal works are : Two Rabbits ; Goats and Sheep, 1841 : Animals at Pasture (evening) ; Cow Lying in Pasture ; Horse for Sale ; Shorn Sheep (terra-cotta), 1842 : Horses Going from Watering ; Horses in a Meadow, 1843 : Cows at Pasture ; Sheep in Meadow ; The Meeting (landscape with animals), 1844 : The Three Mousquetaires ; Sheep and Lamb Lost in a Storm ; Ploughing ; Cows and Bull ; Ram, Sheep and Lamb; Cows at Pasture, 1845 : Flock on the Road ; Repose ; Sheep ; A Flock ; Sheep and Goats ; Pasture, 1846 : Ploughing ; Sheep in Pasture ; Dead Nature ; Study of Horses, 1847 : Oxen and Bulls ; Sheep in Pasture ; Pasturing of the Oxen of Solers ; Dog Running (study) ; The Miller on the Road ; Ox, Bull and Sheep (in bronze), 1848 : Ploughing in the Nivernais (Luxembourg) ; Shadow, 1849 : Morn- ing (sheep), 1851 : Horse Fair, or Market at Paris ; Cows and Sheep, 1853 : Hay- ing in Auvergne (Luxembourg), 1855 : Mare ; Sheep on the Seashore (bought by the Empress Eugenie) ; Ox and Cows (Scotch) ; Shepherd ; Colts of Arragon ; A Barque ; Stags ; Kids in Repose ; Skye Ponies ; Scotch Shepherd, 1867, E. U. Works ordered chiefly from England, that were not usually sent to the Salon, are : The Painter, 1868: Sheep at Pasture, 1871 : Forest of Fontainebleau, 1873: Meadow near Fontainebleau ; Monarch of the Glen ; Pack of Wild Boars, 1879 : Foraging Party ; On the Alert ; Lions at Home, a charming piece of animal genre represent- ing a family of lions in their natural relations in their cage, 1881. Jacque, who is high in rank among the painters of landscape and animals, and who excels in both, harmonizes the two with true feel- ing. He first became known as an etcher. Charles Emile Jacque T ., tvt-h l j? i it (1813- ), Paris. JLiike Millet, lor a time he sought elegance 3 d ci. Med. ' 5 i for Engraving. of style, bat abandoned it to give to the Rappel '61. '63 for Engraving. n r> i • 1 ,i , •. 3 d. ci. '6,, Painting. figures of his scenes only the rural look Rappei '6 3 , Med. '64. natural to them. This change took place L. Ho!"' 67. 1867 ' ^ ^ ™ aboUt 1844 5 m Mil1 ^ a ] ^ later. Before that artist's merit was gen- erally acknowledged, Jacque highly appreciated Millet's art ; they 1 A further description of a ring at her carefully closed gates makes the bell set the evidence of her love of animals reverberating : " The jingle of the bell is at once echoed by the barking of numerous dogs ; the hounds and bassets in chorus, the grand St. Bernard in slow measures like the bass drum in an orchestra. After the first excitement has begun to abate, a remarkably small house pet that has been somewhere in the in- terior, arrives upon the scene, and with his sharp, shrill voice again starts and leads the canine chorus. By this time the eagle in his cage has awakened, and the parrot, whose cage is built on the corner of the studio, adds to the racket." (Henry Bacon in the Century Magazine, Oct., 1884.) THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 299 became friends, and between them a reciprocal influence was devel- oped. Jacque still has his home in a little house with a large studio at the end of a garden at Barbison, the place sanctified by the life with its patient sufferings of poverty and the death of both Millet and Rousseau. Having barely left school, Jacque entered the office of a notary, but after a second attempt to pursue that profession, began at seven- teen the study of engraving — joining the army, however, in the exciting period of 1830, and loyally remaining in it for the required seven years. But in the army, as in the notary's office, he made drawings, selling them for a franc apiece. Resuming his arts, he worked for two years as an engraver on wood in England, and began to paint in 1845. His drawing has something of the precision derived from his previous habits of engraving, but in rendering color he showed early almost a positive blindness ; green, particularly, he makes crude and harsh. Indeed, his range of color for a time was limited to a few grays and yellows, for which a dull brown was sometimes substituted. His later works show a vast improvement in this respect. But his most delicate and charming renderings are best shown in his etchings and engravings. These, of which four hundred and twenty have been catalogued, are of the highest merit. Although he prefers cows and sheep, and as a painter of these animals holds a high rank, he has been called " the Raphael of Pigs," so great is his success with that unideal race. He even gives to them, as to his other animals, their special characteristics, in an environment of light and atmosphere, and little airs of mystery, and even suggestions of poetry. He has also written a remarkable book on hens, which in the court and barnyard scenes of his early pictures he was fond of painting. Jacque has an appreciation of the sentiment that requires that the pail at the well, the hoe or rake, incidentally left, should have the associations of use and wear, and feels the greater worth of the old dog whose decrepitude suggests many years of faithfulness. Menard recounts that upon his purchasing one such model, his won- dering neighbors, thinking he must have a strange love for weak animals, brought them to him in great numbers. It was almost incredible to them that he should desire to exchange a new wheel- barrow for one worn and broken, but most collectors of prints now own that wheelbarrow, rendered in a corner of one of his compositions, with poultry pecking around it. His inns, his farms and poultry yards, his village streets, his skirts of forest, his old walls full of crevices, of stains of damp and crumbling plaster, his barns with cob- 300 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. webs hanging from their ceiling, are full of the familiar sentiment of life, as also are of poetry his far-away twilight skies, for Jacque is one of the harvesters of Constable's sowings. Not less does he catch the distinctive detail of the movement, action, attitude, and relations of animals. He has taken six third class medals and one when medals were all of one value ('64 to '71), and has therefore been Hors Concours since that distinction was first established, and for this, as well as for the reason that since 1870 he has not exhibited at the Salons — his pictures passing directly from his studio to the purchasers by whose orders his time is crowded — he has had no recent medals. He has received the compliment of having the market flooded with forgeries of his work. Among his pictures are many Poulterers. From his first exhibition in 1845 to 1861, they were at the Salons almost entirely etchings and engravings. In 1863 he exhibited the painting, Folding Sheep at Barbison. He is represented in the Luxembourg by a picture of his earlier heavy coloring, A Sheep in the Border of a Wood (1861) ; at the Musee d' Angers, by Oxen at a Watering Place ; at the Musee de Chalons-sur-Saone, by The Watering Place ; and in America by a very large number. His etching of 1886, Sheep Passing into the Fold, seems to surpass any that he had previously executed. The management of the light, the delicate rendering of the wool, the grouping, the feeling, all serve to make a picture complete, effective, beautiful. Excepting Eosa Bonhenr, Veyrasset is the painter in France who best understands horses — working horses, it should be said, for the elegant, thoroughbred high-stepper never enters Jules Jacques Veyrasset . b b ft Ir (1825- ), Paris. his pictures. Veyrasset s father, a jeweller, Med. '66, '69. Engraving, informed him when a youth of twenty-three 2 c 72 ' 7 that he must earn his living as he could, for his own business had been ruined in the Eevolution of 1848. He had previously thrown all possible discouragements in the way of his son's becoming an artist, a tendency to that profession having been developed where the son had been placed to fit himself for a trade, viz., at the Drawing School in the Eue de l'Ecole de Medicine, a school that has awakened the artistic powers of many artists now of high rank. Decamps also had urged the father to test the genu- ineness of his son's vocation for art by its power to surmount obsta- cles. In the real difficulties that he now encountered, Veyrasset began to copy the pictures of the Louvre and practised etching, of the entire range of which he became a thorough master. After THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 301 some instruction, chiefly from Heinrich Lehmann, he appeared in the Salon of 1853 with a strong portrait of his brother, and A Farm Cart, the forerunner of what he at last settled into reproducing — the scenes to which his affections had been drawn by his life on his father's farm at Gravelle, viz., its Farm Yards and Hay Carts, drawn in fields of far-away horizons by strong, working animals. The Watering Place, of the Salon of 1875, is a simple scene, but full of true feeling for artistic effect. A Kelay of Horses for Tow Boats and The Fair of St. Catharine at Fontainebleau appeared in 1878, and won him a decoration. Early in his struggle, as soon as his income permitted, he took a modest room in IScouen and there became the friend and a student of the methods and style of Edouard Frere. He now lives at one of those villages that, surrounding Fontainebleau, form the chosen homes of artists, Samois on the Seine, where he is enabled to study the horses of the boats and barges, which he reproduces with the charm born of affectionate rendering. Some of his works show- ing his range of subjects are : 1851, Drinking Cider ; Harvesters : 1857, The Harvesters' Luncheon ; Cart of Wheat : 1879, Information ; Market Dues : 1880, Rest of the Harvesters ; The Horse Ferry ; La Petite Culture : 1881, Old Horse at the Gate of the Blacksmith ; Chanticleer : 1882, The Fir*t Grain : 1883, Two Scenes in Algeria: 1884, The Horse Ferry ; The Relays : 1885, Arab Cavaliers at a Fountain ; Breton and Norman Jockeys: 1886, Vintage ; River in a Village : 1887, Tow Horses ; Blacksmith at the Market. He has exhibited in all the Salons except that of '83 from 1850 to 1887 inclusive, one hundred and nine pictures, besides three series of pictures. Four- teen of these were etchings ; two after his friend, FJdouard F re re's, A Cooper, and Prayer of the Little Breton : five aquarelles, four pastels, and two drawings. Six are scenes of Harvesters; ten of Field Peasants, Shepherds, and Gleaners ; six of Tow Horses, in the Morning, in the Evening, on the Seine, on the Marne, in Relays, or Crossing the Ferry Boats ; five Ferry Boat Scenes ; four of Horses Watering (1863, '66, '68, '69) at Sunset, at Sunrise ; five Smithies ; five Farm Carts, ranging from his early Manure Cart of 1853 to that of the full harvest filled with golden grain of 1878 ; and three were portraits, one in 1853 of his brother. Troyon's fellow-townsman and pupil, Van Marcke, has attained high rank in the line of his master's successes. He is, indeed, a . ., w master of brush-work and vivacious effect, Emile Van Marcke (1827- ), Sevres. but does not often attain Troyon's feeling L^Hon 7, 6 ?' 7 ° ; lstcl ' 78 ' E,u ' and poetry. He groups and models with ex- cellence, usually making marked contrast of color, as a white cow against a black one. His pictures, forty-three in all up to 1882, have been conspicuous in every annual Salon since 302 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. he made his debut in 1857. They form a series of varied pasture scenes and milking times. Some of his works are : Water Trenches ; and Scene of the Imperial Farm, 1875 : The Chariot ; and Village Fair, 1861 : Pastures by the Sea ; Pastures in the Woods, 1808: Village Pastures, 1875. His daughter, Mile. Marie Van Marcke, exhibited in the Salous of 1874 and 1875 ; in the last, A Grassy Corner. Schenck's admirers feel that Millet has no more certain touch for the peasant's sad sincerity, Gerome is no surer of his archae- r- >^ • »,u * c u i ological details or of race characteristics, Auguste Frederic Albert Schenck o ^ ' (1828- ), Giuckstadt. Meissonier of subtle expression, nor Detaille Med. '65; Med. 3d ci. '76. or jy Q N euv jn e 0 f French patriotism than he of the emotions of his woolly friends. They are truly his friends, for he owns his models, a flock of sheep kept in the fields of his home at Ecouen. He represents chiefly their timidity, their terror, their shelter-seeking, sometimes making them almost human in sentiment — he is, indeed, the Edouard Frere of the flocks. He was a pupil of Leon Oogniet. His Last Hour represents sheep in the butcher's shambles, in which their terror at the red floor and smell of blood, their despair, for with their susceptible instincts they have a foreboding of their doom, make the scene really a tragedy. Dramatic power contrasted with ovine simplicity characterizes his tender subjects. This is again illustrated by Anguish (1878) in which a wounded lamb is rapidly bleeding to death ; the ravens' keen sense of prey has perceived this and led them, in evil boding, to hover about. The mother, cognisant of all, is agonized and in despair, but in vain, bleats for the shepherd. One of his scenes, though ludi- crous, is still pathetic : sheep, seeing no other accessible shelter, are flocking around, under, almost upon, a donkey standing docilely near, and not rejecting the trust reposed in him (Metropolitan Museum, New York). Among other painters of landscape with animals are : Camille Paris, whose Bulls in the Roman Campagna is a picture of distinction. — Alfred Auteroche(1831- ), Paris: pupil of Brascassat and Cogniet. — Leon Baril- lot (contemporary), Montigny-lez-Metz : medal 3d class "80 ; 2d class '84 ; pupil of Cathelineaux and Bonnat. — Auguste Sebastien Benard (1810- ), Paris: pupil of Granger and Lafond, is a painter of horses in stables or as teams. — Felix Saturnin Brissot de Warville (contemporary), Sens : pupil of Cogniet ; medal 2d class '82 ; paints sheep chiefly. — Louis Coignard (1812- '83). Mayenne : pupil of Picot ; medal 3d class '46 ; 1st class '48 ; first appeared in 1838 with a scene of Mary in the Desert, followed in 1848 by The Disciples at Emmaiis, but in 1846 had gravitated THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 303 into his true field, that of animals and landscape, by Cows at the Border of a Wood, and in 1852 was made one of "the living French artists" of the Lux- embourg by his Morning Repose. — Philibert L. Couturier (contemporary), Cha- lons-sur-Saone : medal 3d class '55 ; rappel '61 ; pupil of Picou ; paints poul- try.— Jules Didier (1831- ), Paris : Prix de Rome '57 ; medal '66, '69.— Pierre Gavarni (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Fromentin and Busson ; medal 3d class '74 ; paints steeple chases, riding schools, and game. — Jules Bertrand Geli- bert, (1834- ), Bagneres-en-Bigorre : medal '69 ; 2d class '83 ; paints hounds, hunts, and wild animals. — Jean Richard Goubie (1842- ), Paris : pupil of Gerome ; medal 3d class '74 ; paints horses, hunts, cows, etc., in a spirited treatment of subjects. — Arsene Desire D'Haussy (1830- ), Paris : pupil of Lazarges ; has great merit in treating domestic animals. — Charles Hermann Leon (1838- ), Havre : pupil of Philippe Rousseau and Fromentin ; medal 3d class '73 ; 2d class '79. — Louis Godefroy Jadin (1805-82), Paris : pupil of Abel de Pujol and Her- sent ; medal 3d class '34 ; 2d class '40 ; 1st class '48 ; 3d class '55 ; Legion of Honor '54 ; eight of his animated Hunting Scenes adorn the dining-room of the Minister of State. — Louis Eugene Lambert (1825- ), Paris: medal '65, '66, '70 ; medal 3d class '78 Exposition Universelle ; Legion of Honor '74 ; he is properly placed in art as "the Landseer of Cats;" but he does not ignore the dogs ; he was a pupil of Delacroix and has exhibited in every Salon from 1852 to 1885 except those of 1853 and 1881.— Joseph Melin (1814- ), Paris: pupil of Delaroche and David d' Angers ; medal 3d class '43, '55 ; 2d class '45, '58 ; paints hunts, deer, and dogs. — Alfred Emile Mery (1824- ), Paris : pupil of Beauce ; medal '68. — Charles Monginot (1825- ), Brienne : pupil of Couture ; medal '64, '69 ; paints still life also. — Charles Olivier de Penne (1831- ), Paris : pupil of Cogniet; 2d Prix de Rome '57 ; medal 3d class '75; 2d class '83. — Amedee Elie Servin (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Drolling ; medal '67, '69 ; 2d class '72. — Paul Tavernier (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Cabanel and Guillaumet ; medal 3d class '83. — Dominique Felix de Vuillefroy (1841- ), Paris: pupil of Hebert and Bonnat ; medal '70 ; 2d class '75 ; Legion of Honor '80. A man of culture, he was attracted from the field of politics, for which he had been educated, by his love of art and animals. THE ORIENTALISTS. Marilhat bequeathed to Fromentin in dying a gift he might him- self have enhanced by living, the charming qualities of his jewelled reproductions of the East. Ten years his junior, Fromentin caught inspiration from his swan song, and echoed its notes for twenty- eight years of this period, which Marilhat, by his early death (1844) Eugene Fromentin was prevented from entering. This influence, (i82o-' 7 6) r La Rocheiie. most apparent from Fromentin's debut in Med. 2d ci. '49; Rappei -57, lg47 to 1850 com5ined with the na t U ral ten- 1st cl. '59 ; 1st cl. '68. l. Hon. 59; of. '69. dencies of both, gave them many traits in corn- Dip, to Dec. Artists '78. mon . those of idealizing, harmonizing, and synthetizing facts; of seeking elegance of line and softened agreement 304 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. rather than contrast of color ; accuracy of eye ; and exactness of study. Both trod a middle course between independence and tradi- tion ; and both rendered landscape in a real but charming reproduc- tion. Fromentin wrote of Marilhat : "His work is the exquisite and perfect illustration of a journey of which he might have written the text, such is his exactness of eye and vivacity of style and expression." Fromentin 's father was a lawyer, and his grandfather a physician who had charge of a lunatic asylum at La Eochelle. The family owned a country house in the suburbs, at St. Maurice, which became the residence of the son, and shared with his studio in Paris the locality of his artistic labors. At nineteen years of age, the young man went to Paris to study law, and, after receiving his diploma in 1843, was led by a fit of illness to become a painter, to which his father yielded a reluc- tant consent. It has been happily said that Fromentin's genius burst at one and the same time from a double chrysalis, that of painting and literature. From this dual natal impulse it maintained what is very unusual, an equal power in two directions, and he became both a fascinating painter and writer ; he was an author of verse in his youth, of poetic prose and painting in his maturity. A delicate spirit of elevated tone, he had two muses. Said Sainte-Beuve : "He paints in two languages, and is an amateur in neither. The two are in per- fect accord ; he passes from one to the other with facility." For the indulgence of the one, he frequented while studying in Paris the soirees of Michelet and Sainte-Beuve ; for instruction in the other he went, in 1843, when his penchant for painting had felt its wings, to Remond, who had a true affinity with the classicists in land- scape ; but Fromentin, being of the epoch and spirit of Delacroix, a year later had gravitated to the more congenial influence of Oabat. Insufficiency of technical instruction, however, was with him always a weakness — a weakness of which he was cognizant, and against which he struggled. His landscapes are complete and sympathetic, but the greater exactness of design required for figures he never fully mastered, and in some of his works he is accused of narration rather than of presentation ; of making the anecdote more important than the sensation, the emotional significance, in a word, of giving a literary turn to his work. One of the three paintings with which he made his debut, A Farm Near Rochelle, is entirely of Cabat's manner. In the others, A Mosque Near Algiers, and A View in the Gorges of the Chiffa, is revealed the source of his true inspiration, Marilhat, the ten- dencies of whose influence had been further developed by intoxicating draughts of the air and hues of the enchanted land, for in 1840 Fro- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 305 meutin had been in Blidah, an Algerian town, to attend the wedding of a friend, an official there. Charmed, he repeated the visit in 1848, pushing on to Constantine and Boskra, and in 1852-3 he testified to the delights this land held for him, by going with his bride to an oasis there for their honeymoon. The Salon of 1849 bore evidence of this in five Algerian pictures, which won, in that year of liberal con- sideration for artists of all schools, a second class medal ; and that of 1850, in eleven pictures of his travels to Boskra : the Revue de Paris, of 1858, published the written description, A Summer in the Sahara ; and the Revue des Deux Mondes, of the same year, his Year of the Sahel. In 1857, nine pictures graced the Salon, and won him a "rappel." In both his "languages" he painted with a certain ele- gance, to which was added a high finish and harmony of color, a power which is innate in all true Orientalists, and makes their works " a luminous page in the French art of the nineteenth century." There is no better interpreter of Arab life than Fromentin. He has a keen instinct of movement, with a profound sense of infinite freedom and space, and the Arab horse and horsemen spring from his brush in a keen delight of action and, indeed, as man and horse moved by one will, suggest the centaur to the fancy ; a subject painted by him with marked effect in 1868. The flying sweep of the horse through a landscape of charming tone is very characteristic of his work. His horsemen support themselves erect in the stirrups or crouch in their saddles, or turn rapidly to this side or that, and, upon occasion, precipitate themselves with a wonderful fury into space. Some of these often-repeated subjects, in more or less action, are : The Algerian Falconer (1863), sold at the Albert Spencer Sale, New York, 1888; an Arab Falconer (1857), owned by Mr. J. H. Warren, Hoosick Fails, Mass.; Arab Falconer (owned by B. Wall, Providence, R. I.) ; Fantasia (1869), with others, all of a kindred treatment : Sirocco (1859). Squall on the Plains of Alfa ; Heron Chase (1865), and Falcon Chase (1874), are of a quiet motion, and sufficiently alike to be pendants to each other — both delightful landscapes, with a far, low horizon. In Arab Chiefs, another masterpiece, the three chiefs skim over the ground on their swift horses with a motion of which the continuousness is an impressive feature. That he could also paint repose well, is seen by his Kabyle Shepherd, carrying in his arms a lamb too weak to walk. Three of his pictures, The Courier, Falcon Hunt in Algiers (1863), and the Country of the Oulid Nayls in Springtime (1861), won a place in the Luxembourg, as did also, subsequently, his Arab Encampment, unfinished at his death. As he died more than ten years ago, these may at any time be 20 306 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. removed to the Louvre. He never attained membership of the Institute, but received in 1876 fourteen votes for admission to its Academy of Letters. He published, besides accounts of his travels, " Observations made for an Archaeological Commission," and in 1863 a romance, " Dominique," undertaken to refute the accusation that a man could do but one thing well. He also wrote " Les Maitres d'autrefois — Hollande, Belgique," a volume of most discriminating and suggestive criticism. He was among the most cultivated and ele- vated men of his generation. A quotation from the beginning of his Year of the Sahel will serve a two-fold purpose in giving a glimpse of his pleasing personality, the source of his pleasing qualities of style, both as a writer and a painter, as well as of the St. Maurice home. Of a red bird which he sets at liberty, he writes : " ' Knowest thou,' said I to it, before restoring it to its destiny, before giving it to the wind which bore it away to the sea, to which I confided it, ' knowest thou on a coast where I might have seen thee, a white village in a pale land, where the bitter wormwood grows on the borders of the hay fields ? Knowest thou a dwelling, silent and often closed ; an alley of lime trees, where one seldom walks ; paths in a sparse wood, where the dead leaves are massed early in the fall, where the birds of thy kind dwell in the autumn and winter? If thou knowest this land, this house in the fields, which is mine, return there, if it may be only for a day, and bear news of me to those whom I have left there.' " George Sand, of whom he was a cherished friend and correspond- ent, thus described him : Small and delicately constituted ; his face striking in its expression ; his eyes magnificent ; his conversation like his paintings and writings— brilliant and strong, solid, colored, full. One could listen to him all one's life. Happy those who live in the intimacy of this man, exquisite in every respect." Among the Orientalists is Charles Theodore Frere, Edouard Frere's brother. He was a pupil of Cogniet and Roqueplan. Two charies Theodore Fre're years after his debut in 1834 he departed for the (1815- ), Paris. East in the Algerian n Expedition, and then, going Med. 2d ci. 48, Med. 65. ^ Egypt, became a painter of Eastern scenes while he still retained a studio at Paris. Of these he had up to 1884 exhibited forty-seven. His Hall of the Arabs of 1850 was bought by the Government, and others of his Oriental pictures are found in the Museums of Laval, Nancy, Stettin, and in New York. Ziem, whose pictures are gems of color, is a painter chiefly of marine and architectural views. He first exhibited in 1849, having J. L. GEROME UNE COLLABORATION THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 307 been educated in the art school of Dijon. He has painted scenes of Constantinople and the Hague, but his favorite sub- Fehx Zie ) m Beau ^ j ec t is Venice, where he had one of his four studios, Med. 3d ci. 1851 -'55 and which he has represented in every form, delight- T Hor» l85 i8 5 7 ; Of 1878 ^S' * n tne reflections caught in its liquid streets. Of these he paints the faintest rippling, and places with skill the architectural structures at their sides. This combina- tion, in affording relief from the firm and constant lines of severe drawing, seems especially adapted to his talent. Ziem "is obliged to hide his insufficient design under an agreeable vapor," says About. Indeed, his indefinite Venices are like memories, or dreams. His observation is not searching nor his sentiment moving, but his impres- sions of nature are rendered in a manner not wanting in some of the better qualities of art, and he has a constant charm. How thoroughly Venice has captured his brash is illustrated by the large number of Venetian pictures among his works in America. His delightful effects are emphasized by his inimitable and far-away skies, the real, vividly blue Venetian sky with a white sail or, at times, the dull red one of some Eastern barque thrown against it, and all duplicated in the reflecting water. As seen in some of his smaller pictures, they make, indeed, jewels of color occasionally verging on the excessive. He was a friend of Rousseau and had a studio at Barbison, and he has one also at Paris. Belly is an Orientalist and also has reputation as a portrait painter. He early had instruction from Troyon, but takes rank among the first of Rousseau's pupils as a landscape-painter, and in color and action is inferior only to Delacroix. His work Leon Adolph Auguste Belly tt; 1 it -i • -1 i (1828-1877). st. omer. possesses solidity, truth, and expressive model- Med. 3d ci. '57, 67. ling- Working with sincerity, reflection, and a Med 5 h™ S \ C 862 6 ' thorough culture, his works have an elegance to which his true touch gives exactness, and his fresh coloring, charm. Of his works, some of which are The Nile (1857) ; Fellahs Tracking a Dahabieh (1864) ; Sirens (1867) ; the one of 1861, Pilgrims Going to Mecca (Luxembourg) is, if not his chef cVmuvre, certainly a masterpiece. "In a defile of men and camels, the end of which is lost in the horizon, Copts, Fellahs, Nubians, Turks, Bedouins, Abyssinians, inhabitants of upper and lower Egypt, all have the characteristics of their race emphatically marked in face and costume. The heat of the tropics is vividly depicted, the vertical rays of the sun being shown by the short and meagre shadows projected by them, and the sun- light itself is arid. An immensity of silence and solitude is also forcibly conveyed, 308 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. as the caravan gravely follows the path made in the pathless desert by the whitened bones of the animals of caravans that have passed in previous years/' (Merson.) The artist ingeniously deepens the perspective and varies the line, by the head of one of the camels in the middle distance, which, entirely unconscious of the double artistic purpose it thus serves in giving the eye a measuring mark, stretches its long neck out to snip a tuft of grass, an act too natural to give a suspicion of artifice, and thus very skilful invention. The artistic qualities of (Jerome have been the subject of much discussion. His rare endowments are a study of great interest. He is an Orientalist of so " in time " a treat- ("aV" 60 )" v^oul 6 ment that that alone would suffice to ren- Med. 3d ci. 1847; ad ei. "48, '55- der him eminent : he has executed great pre" ^cdJdes B.-Arts '6 3 . historic works, that singly might make his Mem. inst. 1865; of. l. Hon. 1867. fame universal : he is so learned a painter f87ra d nd!878 H E 0n u. 867 E ' U ' of the antique that a close study of this com. l. Hon. 1878. department of his work produces a sense of Hon. Mem. Roy. Acad. London. amazed wonder in view of the underlying Med. Sculp, ad cl. 1878, 1st cl. '8i. J & knowledge necessary to afford his signifi- cant touch of motifs, by which he introduces us into family circles arid ( nables us to chat of every-day affairs with the heroes of one and another period : he has applied to incident the classic treatment, and originated a new style, the refined and graceful neo-grec : he has, even at the time when he was one of the closest of nature's students, made harmony of line so prominent a part of his work, that in the difficulty of assigning him to any one class of painting it has been suggested by Strahan that he be termed "a sculptor of canvas : " he has attacked and conquered some of the most difficult problems of art execution ; such as uniting the most finished treatment with great rapidity of movement (as in The Eunners of the Pasha, " the catching of a motion " as it were by instantaneous photography) ; the greatest suc- cess of fore-shortening (as in the flat level of Caesar's dead body and that in the Execution of Marshal Ney) ; and difficulties of design are flung broadcast in his works. So much is learning, and learning of an extended and varied nature, made conspicuous in his pictures, that one at times loses sight of the artist in the savant. It has been repeated of him that " he is not a painter, but un homme d? esprit who paints," but the pictorial qualities in which he presents his learning leave him still an artist of high merit. There is apparent, however, a self-control and self- direction that exclude all suggestion of the artist's abandon, the transport of soul under the divine afflatus. Rather than working THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 309 with an impassioned conception, mind informs and controls his touch ; but it tells a story precise in precious detail, rich in lore, and comprehensive in suggestion. Thus, while Fromentin's East has been called an "idyl" and Delacroix's an "epic," Gerome's has been denominated an "official report." And it is a report so accurate in significant details that one is surprised by its revelations, by which without argument, but with unrelenting certainty, the illusory and imagined charm of the Orient is pierced and dissipated. But it is by presentation of some pictorial instant of time, in a language addressed to the eye, not by any relation in a literary way. Gerome is a nomad, both as to space and time, wandering for his subjects through all epochs and all lands. But having selected his point, he presents it with great concentration of a pictorially dramatic power. But per- haps all his pictures may rather be relegated to the ideal country and epochs of the man of thought. Being an advocate of close focus, his works are of minutest finish ; they make good a claim to most skil- ful technique, except when, as at times, his brush work ends in* finish, and his picture is dry, losing all the soft coloring of fiesh, a con- dition first appearing in his Almeh of 1864. As the son of a prosperous goldsmith, Gerome never suffered pov- erty, nor were his artistic pursuits opposed. On the contrary, his father brought to him from Paris colors, brushes, and one of Decamps's pictures for a copy ; he received lessons at Vesoul, departed for Paris with a letter from a friend of Delaroche to that artist, and was allowed by his family while pursuing his studies one hundred francs a month. His art met besides with an early and emphatic recognition. At seven- teen, having received a regular college education, including Latin and Greek, but nothing of the modern languages, he entered the studio of Delaroche, for whom he always cherished an affectionate loyalty, seeing a value in his teachings which Millet never found there, and went with him to Italy when Delaroche closed his studio in 1844. As through grief at the death of his wife in 1845 it was never re- opened, Gerome after his return passed with Ham on and others of his fellow-pupils, to the instruction of Gleyre. He also, at the earnest desire of his family, having recovered in the fine climate and open air life of Italy from a violent irritation of the nerves, entered the Ecole des Beaux- Arts to compete for the Prix de Rome. He failed in this, but the failure prompted him to thorough study of the life-sized nude, and he produced a picture of which he said to Delaroche, "I paint as I see, but perhaps I do not see aright, for the result is thin and flat." "You are right," said his master, " but you will do better. 310 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING, However, send this to the Salon." This, his first exhibition (1847), won the award of & medal, which set upon his debut the seal of official recognition. It was A Cock Fight, which he thus timidly presented under the urgings of Delaroche, and which, though it had to compete with the Roman Decadence of Couture and The Ship- wreck of Delacroix in the same Salon, surprised the artist himself by winning besides the medal, a place in the Luxembourg. 1 It was hung above the line, but, in its obscurity, had the universally acknowledged sceptre of Gautier's pen extended in favor towards it. That critic wrote : " This year must be marked by a white stone, for a new painter is born to us, who is named Geronie. To-day I present him to you : to-morrow he will be celebrated.'' It also made him the head of a school of painting, the neo-grec. The unimportant incident of this picture, thus immortalized, was placed in the shade of the Acropolis, and treated with that variant of the Greek elevation of style which may be truly called the new-Greek. A youth of beautiful form in an irresponsible, unreflecting manner is thrusting the cocks together as a passing incident of youth's insouciance ; a guileless maiden of even greater beauty sits nonchalantly by on the ground looking on. The supreme expression of the picture is that of young, impulsive life. But it is full of Greek lines of beauty and modellings of form. Ger6me, feeling that this surprising success was owing to sim- plicity and sincerity, that of " an honest young man, who, know- ing nothing, could think of nothing better than riveting himself to nature and being carried by her step by step," he said, now found that his brush inclined towards the classic, then swung slightly towards the allied charm of the religious subjects which had long glorified Italy, but remained constant in neither direction definitely. He exhibited in 1848 the Scriptural subjects, The Virgin and Child, and St. John, and, in continuation of his neo-grec style, Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid, which won him further reputation. This was his first treatment of Anacreon, which is still a favorite subject with him. In 1850 he exhibited A Grecian Interior — Gynecgeum, an audacious presentation that was severely condemned both in public and private. But that he was the successful competitor that year for the commission proposed by Ledru-Rollin for the ideal figure of La Republique (p. 263), a fact which long remained a mystery, was i Personal notes by Gerome himself for a friend. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 311 revealed in 1880 when that picture by Gerome was found in the place to which it had been withdrawn from observation by Louis Napoleon after the Coup d' Etat. It was then given conspicuous position over the desk of the Treasurer of the Municipal Council. He continued to exhibit in every Salon, and soon journeyed to Russia, painted his Russian Musicians, then to Turkey and the Danube (1854), and after- wards travelled in Egypt. His talent now settled into polar direc- tion ; it was responding to its true magnet and theme. He returned with his memory equipped to render him abounding service. On embarking with two comrades for this land of his predilections, he wrote "Happy epoch of youth (he was thirty), of light-heartedness, of hope." He returned to be twice decorated, in about a decade, as Chevalier and Officer of the Legion of Honor. In 1855 he produced for the Universal Exposition The Age of Augustus, to which he had given two years of thought and work. It is an enthronement of that monarch, with the marked men of all the nationalities that gathered at Rome pressing up before him. It thus early showed his power in ethnography, in which it has been said that " he gives a lesson whenever he paints a picture/' The differences of race are emphatically marked by gesture, trait, and costume, and it won for him a decoration. After this, with the exception of five historical pictures, and among them his greatest works, he chiefly painted pictures for which a simple incident or spectacle affords sufficient artistic motif, especially in the attraction of Eastern scenes for the artist. In The Slave Sale, a slight young woman shrinks with a patient tolerance from the hand roughly thrust out to examine her teeth. 1 Some of his Eastern hounds are excellent works of animal painting. Hamerton says : "I would rather have a leash of hounds by Ger6me than by any other painter I know." In The Door of the Mosque the heads of some thirty beys, bloody in aspect, grim in death, of detailed treatment of feature and expression, form a pile that is watched by a guard without surprise or horror. Indeed, the indifference of familiar custom is well con- ceived by the artist. The Turkish Butcher's Boy has in it a clot of blood which the artist has reproduced "as if it were a jewel." Many critics feel that some expression of the revolting impression made by these heads would, but for the coldness of the artist himself, have crept into this picture. But, besides being subordinately a i " The most revolting thing in modern art is the cool indifference of this act," says Hamerton. 312 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. correct representation of the national characteristics, is not the effect sought, the emotion of horror, which also has its reverse side, sym- pathy, greatly enhanced by the picture's supplying no comment on itself, which would, indeed, be wholly superfluous ? This reticent flash of an instant of facts, left to tell all there is to say, is peculiarly Gerome's. This and The Slave Mart, with others of this artist's works that are severely criticised by sensitive judges as of a harsh coldness, become, in their full suggestion, of a nature to produce deep feeling, a thrilling sensation of anger and pity for the wrong depicted. This power is inherent in the wide gamut across which the antitheses represented in them sweep — in the contrast to the absence of all feeling of such extreme provocatives to feeling. The effect, when, as with Gerome, the scene is given with no strain of fact but by simply the revelations of an instant, is thrilling. It is the significant point of these subjects, the one on which, we may conjec- ture, their selection hinged, and evinces a keen appreciation by the artist of the means of exciting emotion. It is also illustrated most powerfully in that selected moment of the Duel after the Mas- querade (1867), when Death grim and relentless, not as a mask easily thrown off, comes among the masqueraders at their invitation, and the victor, in the character of a chief of the Iroquois, and his second, forgetting that he is Harlequin, turn indifferently away, leaving the pallid victim, with his mask of Pierrot dashed aside, to die in the arms of his second, dressed as the Duke of Guise. The horror here is again doubled by the antithesis. Through and through it, in all the contours, in the attitudes, even in the back of the receding victor, is apparent the significance, which Gerome's patient study of nature can so well express. In all his works m#y be traced this clear, direct, epigrammatic presentation. Truly his pic- tures are but "reports" of scenes, acts, incidents ; but in his hands they completely escape becoming a purely literary art. He simplifies them into the presentation of the essential and significant verities, and unconcernedly leaves them to impress as they may. But well may he be confident of the effect, for, with his penetrating feeling, which is a something too susceptibly perceptive to be denominated mere ocular vision, and his wide sweep of the gamut of significant expression, he always touches the exact keys. With all his clear and penetrating insight into the most "intime" qualities of race and individual, however, there is a noteworthy defect in Gerome's "report " of life — a noteworthy failure, in a work otherwise remarkably comprehensive, — to depict any but wholly THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 313 un ideal types of womanhood. Perhaps this proceeds from his satura- tion with the spirit of the Orient. He had, it is true, in 1848, headed a delegation to petition for the abolition of marriage ; but he was then only twenty-four and belonging to the e< Chalet," the occu- pants of which Gautier in playful figures describes at this time as "living like Sybarites, painting from palettes of ivory, crowning their heads with roses," and this was probably but one of the many extravagances of the group. It is nevertheless curious that he should deal with women only in their soulless roles, not even in that of the gentle Undine possessing the potentiality of a soul, never as the preservers of gentle domestic ties, the queens of the home, the impersonation of truly and loftily poetic love. He sees no divinity in them. His most elevated types of women are his Phryne and Cleo- patra, though he attempted the Madonna once in his early art. 1 In his Phryne Before the Areopagus, that Athenian courtesan, of such beauty that Apelles's Venus Anadyomene and Praxiteles's Cnidian Venus were representations of her, and of such wealth that she offered to rebuild the walls of Thebes after their destruction by Alexander, and who had been accused of impiety and brought before the Are- opagus for judgment, is represented just as her defender, one Hyper- ides, puts into action the idea of saving her by revealing her wonder- ful beauty. The universal sway of beauty asserts itself and she is acquitted by the judges. A similar scene is his Cleopatra before Caesar 2 (Mr. D. 0. Mills's Gallery, New York). Another is a type of woman of less elevation of feeling and of less development of intelligence, a representation of one of the customs of the religion which frankly assigns no souls to women, the Dance of the Almeh, a woman dancing in an inn of Cairo. 3 The Eastern slave mart furnishes various others. The Christian Martyrs, The Death of Caesar, The Thumb Reversed, and its true companion piece The Gladiators Saluting Vitellius ("Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant,") 4 form the four great master-pieces of composition, invention, and erudition of all Gerome's works. They deserve a detailed account. 5 1 For other illustrations see Vestals in the Pollice Verso. 2 This won poetic allusion from Browning in his "Fifine," of which the words, " one thievish glance " most truly characterize the picture. 3 Almeh is often used as meaning merely the Turkish woman ; but it is more cor- rectly limited to the signification of a singing woman of Turkey. 4 " Hail Caesar, those about to die salute thee." 5 In this description and that of the Death of Caesar, much has been suggested by Edward Strahan's descriptions (Art Treasures in America), which are of great value in the thorough and keen interpretation and valuable information they afford. 314 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. The sadness of this salute in its implied resignation " to being butchered to make a Roman holiday " echoed down the ages contrasts forcibly with the modern attainments in the direction of justice to all, and is another instance of Gerome's touching the points of comprehensive significance. This is also apparent in the Pollice Verso, or Gladiators, in which the burly Gaul, who has thrown under his feet the lighter net-thrower (Retiarius) of the arena, turns to ask of the emperor and the spectators if he shall show mercy or slay. Every motif of the composi- tion, every factor of the entire picture, such as the imperious gesture of the burly victor, the nervous, despairing clutch of the outstretched hand of the victim appeal- ing for mercy to the emperor and vestal virgins, has intense dramatic significance and force. That to a Roman audience it was no more than a spectacle of the theatre, and not a scene of life and death to a fellow being, the artist has well expressed by all the indications of the temper of the spectators. This finds its fullest expression in the stolid indifference with which Domitian, putting a fig to his mouth, glances from the gay courtesan at his side to the vestal virgins, and they with emphatic gesture, though the victim is even then subdued and earnestly stretching forth his arm in appeal, demand the slaying of the weaker. This clamor for blood from those, not only of woman's tenderer nature, but whose vestal education has constituted them the nuns of that period, and nuns holding official relations to the community, as the representatives and embodiment of its purity, is one of those comprehensive sweeps of the gamut of contrast with which Gerome so often thrills us. 1 All with positiveness, one of hard Roman features, fiercely, and in a brawling manner, demand death to the conquered. Roman blood was coursing in their veins ; they, though Vestals, had an inheritance of the Roman nature, and thus illustrate that in its highest civilization Rome made the death of human beings the climax of an artistic system of pleasure. The Christian Martyrs (1863-'83) is another page of the history of the same people and time. The artist in a letter to its purchaser and present owner, Mr. W. T. Walters, of Baltimore, wrote : ' ' I had a difficult task, being determined not to leave it until I accomplished all of which I was capable. This picture has been on my easel for over twenty years ; I have repainted it from the beginning three times ; have rehandled and rechanged both the effect and the composition, always, however, preserving my first idea." The scene is in the Circus Maxim us, and the moment that when the previously starved lions bound into the arena and the leading one " halts in the middle of the stride," astonished at the sight of the crowd and the bright light contrasting with the dark den just left. A group of martyrs kneel, their only care that they shall be faithful to the last. But as added horror, authority for which the artist takes from Tacitus, who says, "These Christians should certainly be put to death ; but wherefore smear them with pitch and burn them like torches ? " the whole arena is lighted up by these human "torches," burning with the voluminous flames that pitch affords. 1 Seats were reserved at the circus and theatre in Rome for the vestal virgins as representative of Vesta. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 315 Every artist almost had painted a Dante — what moment of the poet's life should Gerome take ? What but the one that instan- taneously comprehends the history of his subject's every day life and his great poem also, a moment when in the streets of his native Florence, the passers-by avoid him and point him out — two lovers, to each other, a mother, to her child — as the man who had been in hell. In this isolation of the great poet the artist comprehends both cause and effect. Is there not here, too, an impressive anti- thesis ? The Death of Caesar (1867) 1 is perhaps Gerome's grandest as it is certainly his severest work. The adequate and impressive conception of the subject, the learned presentation of it, and the skill of technique in depicting it, unite to form its completeness. He gives it in two pic- tures ; in one (1859) the body lies alone, in the other, more dramatic, the senators, one alone retaining his seat, are hurrying away, as by an irresistible impulsion. But the nearly empty senate chamber is full of historic suggestion as it is also of artistic success. In pictorial effect it is as admirable, as in historical accessories it is accurate. These are chiefly the accumulations of Caesar's victories, who never- theless lies dead at the foot of Pompey's statue, with Brutus his murderer. Pendent from the walls are the prows of vessels conquered by this Caesar slain, and from the columns hang the lances of the Britons, the wolf skins of the Ger- man warriors, and the round shields of the Gauls. The overturned curile chair designates the place of authority he occupied, the clerk's seat opposite hastily deserted is filled with official papers in disarray ; the smoke of incense is still rising in front of the statue of Roma Minerva, and the statue of his rival, Pompey, is stained with his blood. This by the shadow into which it is thrown, is artist- ically made to hold a sinister relation to the scene. Brutus, Cassius, Casca, the three conspirators, following the large, majestic forms of the Roman senators, define, by staying to renew their oath to each other, themselves and their relation, and, while thus forming a separate group of differing feelings, are, by a consummate artistic skill, swept into the same wave of impulse, the hurry from the scene of murder, that gives comprehensive unity to the composition. This is also effected by the central point where Caesar lies being indicated by the curving lines of the seats, as it is also by every fleeing form, for each by its dread hurry extends back- ward a weird and impressive though unconscious pointing out of the object fled from. Nor does this detract from the sense of abandonment of the body, that lies alone with the observer without even a backward glance towards it to connect it with the living. This effect is enhanced by the clear space between those press- ing out and the uncared-for body. The body is a marvel of fore-shortening and 1 Originally bought by Mr. John Taylor Johnston. Sold at bis Sale, 1876, for $8,000. 31G A JUS TOBY OF FRENCH PAINTING. perfect flatness of position, which was attained by thorough study in a life size drawing, now in the Corcoran Gallery. The Courtiers of the age of Louis XIV. are favorite themes for Gerome's pencil. In L'Eminence Grise 1 the great staircase of the old Palais Cardinal, later the Palais Eoyal, is reproduced by a careful study. " L'Eminence Grise" was the title given by the wits of the age to the barefooted Capuchin, who while sharing the plans and the power, becom- ing in fact the " alter ego " u of the Cardinal Prince, Richelieu, still retained the humble gris vestments of his order, a strong contrast to the red robes of a cardinal. Their exaggerated obeisance as the cour- tiers meet him descending the staircase, quietly reading his breviary, and the insolent stare they bestow upon him when passed, express the timeserving of the age. In the pictures of the Courtiers, by this subservience and disdain and, in the Roman scenes, by the clamor for blood, the interest in the chariot race, the awe of Caesar's death, Gerome's remarkable use of one dominating emotion to give unity of composition is shown. His Jerusalem, or Darkness Coming on Cal- vary, is a most impressive scene and one of deep sentiment, with the crosses visible only in the three shadows stretching out in almost weird elongation, as if following the executioners from the field. All is epigrammatically expressed in this shadow of the scene. He has recently executed three incidents of Anacreon and Cupid, a frequent subject with him : Anacreon nursing Cupid wet and dishevelled ; the Ungrateful Cupid piercing with his arrow the heart of Anacreon ; and Anacreon old, discovering in the fire before which he sits the Cupid of his earlier years. They, as also The Kiss of the Morning Sun, are full of poetry. In the hush of the early dawn, a caravan lies sleeping in the desert, as the highest peaks of the pyramids and the sphinx are turned to a rosy hue by the first rays, the " kiss " of the rising sun. It is impressively suggestive of the proc- esses of nature continuing, and with their full effects of beauty, whether there be observers or not, even while man sleeps regardless of the rare and passing instant. Gerome has executed some mural paintings : The Plague at Mar- seilles for the Chapel of St. Severin at Paris, and others for the refectory of St. Martin-des-Champs. He produced a most suggestive decorative design for a frieze commemorating the London Exhibition. It illustrates his great ethnological power and is in every way a 1 This and the Breakfast of Moliere are owned by Mr. James Stebbins of New York. 2 He is known to English speaking readers and audiences as the "Brother Joseph " of Bulwer's play of Richelieu. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 317 characteristic expression of the artist. Concordia, Abundantia, and Justitia in the centre receive the offerings of all nations, represented by characteristic groups — America, by a pioneer agriculturist, clear- ing ground, with a gun on his shoulder and a hatchet in his hand. The group of gladiators, the burly Gaul astride over the prostrate Eetiarius, impressed the artist himself so, that by it his powers as a sculptor were illustrated in the Salon of 1878, as well as by a second subject, Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid. G6r6me has received the Grand Medal of Honor three times ; one of the four given to French painters (the other three being Eousseau, Cabanel, and Meissonier, eight being given in all) at the Exposition Universelle of 1867 ; one at the Salon of 1874 ; and the third at the Exposition Universelle of 1878. He also then received a second class medal in sculpture, and one of the first class in 1881. He never took the Prix de Eome, and was elected to the Institute only after his fifth competition. But at the time of his fourth failure, when Hesse was the successful competitor, his appointment to one of the new profes- sorships in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, at the time of Nieuwerkerke's withdrawal of it from the direction of the Institute in 18G3, was received with great satisfaction by the conservative party in art. At last, in 1865, he was elected as one of the fourteen who form the Academy of Painting of the Institute, and thus received the highest honor that could be bestowed upon a French artist in France. He has also been made an honorary member of the En- glish Eoyal Academy of Art, and Knight of the Order of the Eed Eagle. 1 Of his personality M. Jules Claretie writes : " If you see passing upon the boulevard at a gallop a cavalier of nervous man- ner, well seated in his saddle, of a clear eye and gray moustache, followed perchance by dogs . . . salute him ; it is Grerome, and if you wish to speak to him stop him quickly in passing ; he is Parisian only en courant : he will perhaps have departed this evening for the Orient, for Italy, or Egypt. ... He will be at Paestum or Cairo, always en route, always taken with the new, the ' inedit ; ' with travel, with curious customs, with bazaar types, delaying perchance before the rags of some miserable ' santon ' (idiot) crouching before a mosque, after having called forth the Greek antique, with its immortal poesy and its eternal youth." An idea of Gerome's works, of his fecundity, and of the great dignity of much that he has done, may be obtained from the follow- ing approximately complete list of his paintings : 1 His relation of son-in-law to the dealer Goupil has naturally aided greatly iu popu- larizing his talent. 318 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Young Greeks inciting a Cock Fight (Luxembourg), Salon, 1847: Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid (Toulouse); Virgin, Infant Jesus, and St. John; Portrait of M. A. G., Salon, 1848: Greek Interior; Souvenir of Italy; Bacchus and Cupid Inebriated, Salon, 1850: Passtum, 1852: Freize Commemorative of London Exhi- bition; Idyl; Study of a Dog; Salon, 1853: Age of Augustus (Amiens); Flock Tender; Un Pifferaro ; Recreation in Camp (Russian Musicians), E. U., 1855: Egyptian Recruits Crossing the Desert ; Prayer at the House of Arnaut Chief ; Duel after the Masked Ball (re-ex.. 1867); Plain of Thebes (Sphinx in Distance); Memnon and Sesostris ; Camels at Watering Place, 1857: Pifferari ; Ave Caesar, Moriturite Salutant (re-ex. 1867); Arnauts Playing Chess : King Candaules (re-ex. 1867), 1859: Italian Shepherd, 1860: Phryne before the Areopagus (re-ex. 1867, Mr. D. 0. Mills, New York) ; Socrates Seeking Alcibiades at House of Aspasia (for the Saltan Abdul Aziz) ; Two Augurs cannot look at each other without laughing (for the Vanderdonk Brothers of Brussels) ; Rembrandt Etching (re-ex. 1867); Egyptian Straw Cutter ; Portrait of Rachel (in Nouvel Opera, Paris), 1861 : Greek Actors (owned by Mr. Pender, Manchester, Eng.); Louis XIV. and Moliere (re-ex. E. U., 1867, Mr. James Stebbins, New York) ; The Prisoner (Nantes Museum, re-ex. E. U., 1867) ; Turkish Butchers at Jerusalem (re-ex. 1867), 1863: The Almeh (re-ex. 1867) ; Portrait of M. A. T. , 1864 : Reception of Siamese Ambassadors at Fontainebleau (Versailles Museum) ; Arnauts, or Soldiers of Cairo, Smoking; Call to Prayer (second variant*, 1865 : The Muezzin; Cleopatra and Caesar (Mr. D. 0. Mills, New York) ; Head of Rebel Beys at Door of Mosque (re-ex. 1H67, owned by Mr. W. H. Stewart, Paris), 1866: Slave Market (purchaser exam- ining teeth of young girl); Clothes Merchants at Cairo ; Death of Caesar ; Arnauts Playing Chess (Lord Hertford, London), Salon, 1867: December 7, 1815. nine o'clock in the morning ; Jerusalem (Shadow of Crosses on Calvary) ; General Bona- parte at Cairo, 1868: Merchant Walking to Cairo; Promenade of the Harem, 1869: Peasants of the Danube; The Collaboration; The Royal Flute- Player (King Ferdi- nand of Prussia); L'Eminence Grise (Mr. James Stebbins, New York); Santon (idiot) at Door of Mosque ; Turkish Women Bathing, 1876 : Saint Jerome (for decoration of Church of St. Jerome) ; Arab with the Head of his Dying Steed in his Lap ; Turkish Bath ; Bashi Bazouks Dancing ; A Lion ; Return from the Chase; Guard of the Camp (three dogs), E. U., 1878 : Slave Sale at Rome (sold at Mr. Jordan L. Mott's sale, New York, 1888) ; Night in the Desert ; Staff Dance, 1884: Grande Piscine de Broussa, 1885: (Edipus ; First Kiss of the Sun (Mr. George I. Seney, New York); Crucifixion (Mr. T. B. Musgrave, New York), 1886: An Eastern Trumpeter, Ancient Jewish Merchants and Arabs ; Albanians ; Eastern Game of Chess ; Caireme Soldier, or Arnaut, Singing ; The Dispute (Eastern) ; Moorish Bath (nude female) ; Sentinel at the Sultan's Tomb ; Street in Cairo ; The Grand White Eunuch; Horse Dealer (Mr. James S. Mason) ; Arnaut, or Soldier of Cairo; Mademoiselle Lile (portrait of a child) ; Harem in the Kiosk ; Negro Master of the Hounds ; Bispareen Warrior ; Solomon's Wall, Jerusalem ; Circassian at the Watering Trough ; Fellah Woman Drawing Water, Portrait of Jean Leon Gerome; Souvenir of Cairo ; Moorish Bath (second variant) ; Donkey Boy at Cairo (for M. Goldschmidt, Paris) ; Bashi Bazouk Drinking Water at the Road Side ; Egyptian Cafe ; Arabian Warrior Resting ; Medinet el Fayoun ; Arnauts at Prayer ; Bashi Bazouk and Dog ; Slave Holding Horses ; Marco Bozzaris ; Bashi Bazouk Chief : Arabs Crossing the Desert : The Duel after the Masquerade ; Diogenes ; On the THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 319 Desert ; Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer, 1863-'83, Mr. W. T. Waiters, Baltimore : Street Scene in Cairo ; Playing Chess ; Mr. Charles Stewart Smith, New York : L'jEminence Grise ; Moliere Breakfasting with Louis XIV., Mr. James H. Steb- bins, New York : Woman of Syria, Mr. C. P. Huntington, New York : For Sale (a slave market), Mr. August Belmont : The Runners of the Pacha, Mrs. R. L. Stu- art, New York : Abyssinian Chief; Sheik at Devotion, Miss Wolfe's gift to Metro- politan Museum : Moorish Bath, Mr. William Astor, New York : Female Figure, Mr. T. H. Havemeyer, New York : Chariot Race (from collection of Mrs. A. T. Stewart, New York, to Mr. Henry Hilton) : Pollice Verso ; Circus Maximus; A Col- laboration, sold from collection of Mrs. A. T. Stewart, New York : Mosque at St. Borussia, Mr. Henry Hilton, New York : Louis XIV. and the Grand Conde (an order, 1878; ; The Sword's Dance at a Pacha's ; A Bashi Bazouk, Mrs. W. H. Van- derbilt, New York : Egyptian Conscript, Mrs. Marshall O. Roberts, New York : Death of Caesar, Mr. John Jacob Astor, New York : Turkish Butcher Boy (1865) ; The Almeh, or Dancing Woman, Mr. John Hoey, New York : Cleopatra Before Caesar ; Diogenes. Mr. D. 0. Mills, New York : Dante at Florence, Mr. Morris K. Jessup. New York : Muezzin's Call to Prayer, Mr. J. W. Drexel, New York : Pif- ferari in London, Mr. J. C. Runkle, New York : Almehs Playing Checkers, Mrs. T. A. Scott, Philadelphia • An Arnaut Soldier, Mr. W. P. Wilstach, Philadelphia : Sword Dance in a Cafe, Mr. Charles Crocker, San Francisco : Oriental Woman, Sen- ator L. Stanford, San Francisco : Bashi Bazouk, Mr. J. W. Garrett, Baltimore : Arab Seated, Mrs. Paran Stevens, New York : Bull Fighter, Guard of Louis XIV., Mr. T. R. Butler, New York : Prayer in the Desert (1865), Mr. Israel Corse, New York : Arabs in the Desert, Mr. W. Rockafeller, New York : Bashi Bazouk. Mr. Henry F. Cox, Brooklyn : Snake Charmer, sold from collection of Mr. Albert Spen- cer, New York, 1888 : Bonaparte and Staff Riding on Camels in Egypt ; Call to Prayer, Mr. R. L. Kennedy, New York : Seller of Arms, Cairo, Mr. W. B. Dins- more, New York : Treading out the Grain in Egypt, Mr. A. P. Healy, Brooklyn : Ambulant Merchants, Cairo (1869), Mr. Gibson, Philadelphia : Sentinel at the Sul- tan's Tomb, sold from Mr. G. I. Seney's collection, 1885: Vase Seller, Cairo ; Tulip Folly ($6,600): Coffee House, Cairo ($4,800), sold 1886, from Mrs. M. J. Morgan's collection: Circassian girl, Mr. H. V. Newcomb, New York. Every strand of Gerome's complex relation to art leads to its special group. One artist, Jean Jules Antoine Lecomte-du-Nouy (Paris, Medal 1866, '69 ; 2d class '72 ; Legion of Honor, 1876), caught the expression of that master's art in veritable echo. He has also caught, in his Honey-Moon, in which a happy pair float out from Venice in a gondola, the very tone of Gleyre's Lost Illusions. But Gerome's "alter ego" is one of his Orientalist followers. These are : his comrade and fellow student, Gustave Boulanger ; his pupils, F. A. Bridgman, Bargue, and Aublet ; and those developed later by his influence, among whom Regnault, Clairin, Oormon and Benjamin-Constant may be considered. This "alter ego," Boulanger, is of the closest affinities with Gerome ; indeed, falling only just behind him, he affiliates with him 320 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. in most of his tendencies. Born the same year, making his debut Gustave Rudolph clar- at tne same Salon (1847) and thus of the same art- ence Bouianger istic stratum, taught at the same time in the same (.8 2 4-'88), Paris. s tudio, that of Delaroche, he breathed the same Prix de Rome 1849. ' ' Med. 2d cl. f857. atmosphere of art, and was so constituted as to Rap. 1859 ; 1863. assimilate from it the same art-aliment. Thus Med . 2d cl. '78. l. Hon. 1865. his methods — even his enthusiasms — were the same. Mem. inst. 1882. Both artists have the same severity of drawing, the same love of detailed execution, and both give a like impor- tance to minor incident. As to Gerome, so to Bouianger the antique and the East appeal in their remove from common life, the one in its remoteness of time, and the other in its semi-barbarous nature. Together they took in 1872 a tour for sketching along the shores of France and Spain and thence into Africa. But long before, while spending the winter of 1845 in Algeria to recover his health, Bouian- ger s first love had been won by Africa's splendor, and that impression was never effaced. He had previously had the valuable instruc- tion of Jollivet, a distinguished historical painter, and he remained in that master's house even while a student with Delaroche. Upon his return in 1846 he studied at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts and, more successful than Gerome, took in 1849, in competition on the subject, Ulysses Recognized by his Nurse, the Prix de Rome. At Rome, where he again went in 1856, he devoted himself, still like Gerome, to ar- chaeological research and the study of race characteristics. Among his enthusiasms he added to Africa, Italy (especially Pompeii), Greece, and the field through which Delacroix had traced his " brilliant fur- row," Turkey. He exhibited in 1847 A Moorish Cafe, and an Indian Playing with a Panther, and in 1848 Acis and Galatea ; he con- tinued these two classes of subjects, the Eastern and the antique, through his artistic career, during which he exhibited at almost every Salon. In 1869 one of his most important works, the Street of the Tombs at Pompeii, was exhibited ; in 1874 The Appian Way in the Time of Augustus (sold from Mrs. A. T. Stewart's Collection, 1887), made demand for all his wonderfully detailed study and treat- ment of race costumes and customs. He has depicted with great realism this fashionable promenade of old Rome, which gave oppor- tunity for familiar scenes of antiquity, or the antique genre — the treat- ment of the neo-grec. There were often theatrical performances given in the Pompeiian House of Prince Napoleon in the Champs Elysees and at one of the rehearsals of the Flute- Player, Bouianger copied the scenes, painting in their antique costumes the portraits of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 321 Theophile Gautier, Emile Augier, and others of the literary charac- ters who took part. This picture was afterwards copied on the wall of the atrium of the house, where Boulanger also repeated The Wife of Diomedes. The decorations of this, throughout, were purely Pom- peiian. Twenty-two of the forty-one of his works exhibited at the Salons are Eastern scenes ; seven, historical or mythological ; four, historical genre, and one, scriptural, Waiting for their Lord and Master (1872). Upon Boulanger's election to the Institute his pupils presented him with a sword with the dates of the two most important epochs of his career, 1849 and 1882, damascened in gold on opposite sides of the handle. One pupil and devoted follower of Gerome died of want. His short life left but few productions, choice and of exquisite finish, too elaborate to secure for him remunerative prices ; and, ( a -i883), ar pa U rts. after being refused when in ill health an allowance by a dealer who had profited greatly by his works, he fell in a fit at the door and was removed to a charitable institution, to die. He was a superior lithographer, took medals in this depart- ment in 1867 or 1868, and had been engaged with Gerome in " A Course of Designs for Schools." In his paintings a unity and com- pleteness of effect is enriched with a wondrous detail ; from this arises the rare value of his works which, like some of Meissonier's, command literally more than their weight in gold. He never exhib- ited at the Salons. Playing Chess on the Terrace (Mrs. William H. Vanderbilt) is a gem of finish ; the rich antique costumes, the fine interlacing of the boughs that shade the spot are marvellous. It was his last work. Others, The Artist and his Model ; The Almeh ; and The Algerian Guard (a water color), take a rank in the esteem of many connoisseurs even above the Eastern subjects of Ger6me and Fromentin. By Regnault, who died at twenty-eight, the tendencies good and bad of the art of the second empire, with which he perished, are forcibly , _ u d illustrated. One of his pictures alone, Alexandre Georges Henri Regnault r 7 (1843-1871), Paris. Salome (1869), may be said to epitomize Prix de Rome ,866. Med. ,869. them ^ He wag the g0E Q f y ictor Reg . nault, an academician, who was for twenty-five years Director at Sevres, and was there when Hamon was employed in decorating its china with his inimitable grace. Thus unimpeded by poverty young Regnault's precocity won for him the privilege of competing for the Prix de Rome when only nineteen years old. The subject was, Veturia 21 322 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. at the Feet of Her Son Coriolanus. He did not win the prize, however, until his third trial, 1866, the subject then being, Thetis Carrying to Achilles the Armor Forged by Vulcan. After leaving the College of Henry IV. and the Lycee Corneille, where he had shown great pre- cocity, improvising sketches and sculptures, studying in the Jardin des Plantes the most difficult attitudes and movements of lions and tigers, and excelling in dogs and horses, he had entered the studio of Lamothe, the pupil and friend of Hippolyte Flandrin, of the school of Ingres. There the young artist learned to scorn what he afterwards was to revel in — color. Troyon, who knew him as a youth at Sevres, remonstrated with him and sought to counteract the influ- ence of Flandrin, but his suggestions were tolerated rather than adopted. Subsequently Cabanel's instructions formed a transition for him to the bold freedom he finally attained. By nature alive in every fibre to the "modernities" of art, 1 at Rome he rebelled against the sombreness and ancientness of the art of that city, but not until he had shown his power to be, temporarily, as much of a classicist as any of the pupils of the Villa Medici. While there he made twenty- seven designs for the illustrations of Wey's Rome. There, too, he met Fortuny in 1868, and surrendered himself to the charms of the man and his art, with which his whole nature was in sympathy, as Vibert and those who with him formed the school of aquarellists did also at this time. He wrote of him, " Fortuny takes my very breath away. " Morocco and Spain in their splendor of color attracted him for most of the four years now assigned for working out the Prix de Rome. He arrived at Madrid just as the revolution of 1868 had made Gen- eral Prim and his associates masters of Spain in their temporary over- throw of the Bourbons, and he received an order for that general's por- trait. The picture he painted represents Prim with uncovered head on a large Andalusian horse, as just arrived at Madrid, with his forces faintly indicated in the background : when finished, the general refused to accept it, saying, " It is a dirty fellow with an unwashed face." But in the Salon of 1869 it compelled admiration as being "magnificently rendered/' Regnault was greatly charmed with Velasquez, and for the representation of his fourth year's work as a pensioner of the Prix de Rome he copied that master's famous Lancers, or Spinola 1 He was of so great an earnestness of nature, that his father said : " When Henri looks at the delicate porcelain I fear lest he crack it." Violence seemed always im- pending; for him as his element. He was once attacked by assassins at Rome, narrowly escaped death by poison, was nearly killed by being thrown from a horse, and finally was shot in battle. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 323 Keceiving the Keys of Breda. But the place in which the picture should have hung at an exhibition in 1871 of the " envois" of the pensioners of Kome, was occupied with an easel draped in black and decorated with laurel. Judith and Holofernes, in which the tall, resolute woman stands, scimetar in hand, contemplating with a proud disdain her sleeping and nude victim, had been his picture of 1869 ; in the Salon of 1867 he had been represented by a Decorated Panel, and in that of 1868 by a Portrait and two sketches for portraits. He also painted at Rome in 1867 Automedon and the Horses of Achilles (Boston Museum), the horseman nude and in so spirited a struggle as he yokes the horses to the chariot (Iliad x. : vi.) that this picture alone would convey an ample idea of the forceful nature of the young artist. A picture conceived in Grenada and executed in Tangiers in 1870 was Execution without Judgment under the Caliphs. In the foreground on the marble steps of the Court of the Abencerrages in the Alhambra, stands the executioner, absorbed in removing the blood from the bright steel of his yataghan ; wholly indifferent to his victim whose head is rolling away from its trunk. From this flows a stream of blood that forms a pool of red upon the white marble of the steps, of which the wonderfully realistic representation, with the other terrible features, has made delicate women looking upon it in the Luxembourg for the first time faint with horror. (It has now been sent to the Louvre.) As his pictures appeared they met with mingled condemnation and praise — condemnation for breaking away from received standards, praise because so superbly expressing the sentiment of the time. When collected after his death, they commanded great admiration ; what before had been eccentricity now became originality ; objection- able sentiment and lack of the highest order of motifs were lost in appreciation of dramatic energy and vigor of execution. They were, indeed, in number alone an altogether remarkable collection for five years' work — two hundred and seventy-seven pictures, forty-five of which were in oil. His Salome abundantly illustrates the indisputable power of the modern French school in all that makes up perfection of tech- nique : it shows exquisite management of color by harmonies, con- trasts, and accentuations effected by skilful repetitions, a delicate feeling for tone, great accuracy of design, and a loving treatment of detail. The background is a wall-hanging of lemon-colored satin, against which, in a clear definition of outline as well as impressive contrast of color, is depicted the raven-hued, heavy, tousled hair, the blackness of which is emphasized by the 324 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. same color forming the opposite extremes of the figure in the black satin slippers. These, trodden down, receive only the toes slovenly inserted. Between these two emphatic blacks is the fainter black of the gauze robe ornamented with gold, with an exquisite rendering of its transparency of texture, and all of a power of eye and surety of touch that charms in competition with the management of color. The coloring is further enhanced by the lights of the mother-of-pearl coffer, on which she is seated, by the glittering reflections of a copper " charger " in her lap, and by the cruel-looking knife, a yataghan brilliant with chiselling, which lies across it. It is a miracle of sumptuous color. In thought and feeling Salome is characterized as of that lower order of the race made up of folly and stolidity, a wild, untamed and untamable woman, whom Regnault himself described as "a sort of dark pan- ther of a caressing ferocity." This is shown by her heavy, animal head, her indolent abandon of manner, and indicated by attitude, slipshod feet, and clothing falling from her form, which by a well-managed chance leaves neck and shoulders bare for the painter's delineation. As well as the power of technique and the eye for externals of this school, its acceptance of types of a less ideal range of feeling is here illustrated. This wild gypsy of the Roman Campagna, being chosen, it must be granted, for her pictorial qualities, and fully delineated, was christened "Saloine," and thus the sentiment of the picture and its illustrative significance were subordinated to its material features, of which instead it followed the suggestion. The tolerance of, perhaps even a predilection for, scenes of bloodshed and murder is shown in the pleased and careless smile with which she toys with the knife as she awaits the bloody consummation. It is, indeed, an epitome of the art of the Second Empire. Exhibited at the same Salon with the Judith and the Execution without Judgment under the Caliphs, a full representation was offered by Regnault alone, of these qualities in their culmination reached just before the close of this political period. The public welcomed these pictures with avidity ; they had, indeed, many of the most distinguished elements of fine art. The Salome sold at once for £560 and resold to Madame de Cassin for £1,600. The Execution under the Caliphs was placed in the Luxembourg. Regnault was highly and equally gifted with varied powers that often preclude each other. His wonderful sense of color did not prevent a design that reproduced with an accurate, subtle touch all that presented itself to the eye : there was one lack, that of affinity with the more exalted class of spiritual emotions. He executed works in every method of delineation, in oil, water colors, hard and soft crayon, and charcoal, and excelled in all. In portraiture his work was of a high order — color, form, and all that the eye sees being THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 325 gracefully reproduced. Among his notable portraits are two of great power, one of M. Breton, and one of Breton's daughter, to whom the artist was betrothed. Having means and youth he had planned to penetrate even to India for study in his line of Orientalism. In the mean time he had bought a large tract of land and built a spacious studio in Tangiers, in which to paint the dazzling "fetes of the sun," with which Morocco charmed him. But all was to end in the confirmation of a proverb of the nation with which he had become so thoroughly absorbed : " When the house is builded, then comes Death." The name, Henri Regnault, is in French writing almost the refrain of a funereal plaint, so deep was the universal sadness at the sudden blight- ing by death of the young artist's joyous fulness of life. By the eager patriotism that impelled him to sacrifice his life in the defence of Paris in 1870 every heart was touched. At the news of the city's peril he hastened with an artist friend, Clairin, from Tangiers and, although just betrothed to one whom he ardently loved, and exempt from military duty because of his Prix de Rome, disregarding his friends' urging that he should take a less active position, he entered as a private the 60th battalion. When offered a commission he re- plied, "I cannot allow you to make of a good soldier an inferior officer." After a sortie at Buzenville, which had ended in an order to retreat, he was last seen June 19, 1871, as he responded, "One moment more, just to fire my last cartridge." On the 25th, after long search by Clairin, his body was found with a bullet hole in the temple, amid a heap of the dead who had been taken for burial to Pere la Chaise. Among other souvenirs found upon his body were a chain with a medallion attached and a silver tear which had been given him by his betrothed in remembrance of a long and tearful anxiety. She had said, "Take it now I am happy, but the first time you cause me to shed tears I shall insist upon its return to me." It was now returned. He was buried the day of the capitulation of Paris. The friend who saved Regnault's body from an unknown grave classes with him among the painters of African and Spanish scenes, _ . . ... . r . . . which he visited with Regnault and continued Georges Jules Victor Clairin © (1843- )> Paris. to paint after Regnault's death. He was a Med. 3d ol. '82 y 2d ol. '85. pupil of p ico ^ p ilg ^ and of the £ cole deg Beaux . Arts, and is also a painter of history. But it was the originality shown in a portrait of Madame Sarah Bernhardt (Salon 1877) that first gave him distinction. It is now in her studio. It is a concep- 326 A HIS TOBY OF FRENCH PAINTING. tion of that remarkable woman that conveys a wonderfully full idea of the source of the versatile powers she has shown in histrionic art, painting, and sculpture. Surrounded by expressive bric-a-brac, half reclining on a lounge, her long figure loosely wrapped in a lacey de- shabille, the sole of her heelless slipper falling back from her foot, no effect of her entire personality is lost, while her expressive face turned towards the spectator impresses him with the subordinate, incidental, merely ancillary nature of any surroundings. Dress, fur- niture, articles of taste, all seem to be objects of momentary play, to be cast aside at any instant for the real essentials of intellectual power, the ability to perceive which is fully depicted in her physiog- nomy. A second portrait represents her in her r61e of the American adventuress, Mrs. Clarkson, in Dumas's play, " L'Etrangere." Of Clairin's conspicuous Eastern subjects is Entering the Harem, in which the lord of the seraglio, a proud, cold, bilious man, whose coming is of life and death interest to the fluttering life therein, is ushered by a black chamberlain into the harem. The doorway and accessories are of a detailed Eastern magnificence. Other of his works are : 1866, Incident of the Conscription of 1813: 1869, Volunteer of Liberty in Spain in 1868: 1874, Massacre of the A bencerrages; Arab Story-Teller in Tangiers : 1885, Moors in Spain after the Victory. Benjamin-Constant is one of the painters held by the enchantments of tropical sunshine. To quote his own words, " Since that day [of landing at Tangiers] I have had no Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant ,1 i n i (i8 54 - ), Paris. other dream than to be a painter of Med. 3 d ci. '75; ad d. - 7 6 ; 3 d oi. '78 e. u. Oriental scenes ; to lead the life pointed out by Marilhat, Delacroix, and Henri Regnault. I thought to stay only a month and here I am for two years." This was after the Franco-Prussian war, during which he had served in the army, and after which he travelled in Spain, and subsequently joined an embassy to the Sultan of Morocco. His pictures then ran in the level of simple Eastern scenes, the pic- torial qualities of naive poetry and gorgeous coloring forming their claims for commendation. Tropical sunshine and tropical heat are impressive elements of his representations, and, indeed, there is a seeming affiliation between the joyous light and color he loves to paint, and his own geniality, which, united with his artistic merit, places him among the "Salon forty." though of the youngest. He is the son-iu-law of the distinguished Emmanuel Arago. Though / THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 327 a Parisian, he had received from the town of his education the means of study in Paris. He exhibited there in 1870 an allegorical picture, Too Late, in which a poet dies just as Fame and Fortune " come a-knocking " at his door. He has exhibited in eighteen Salons (all but the one of 1877 from 1869 to 1888) more than thirty pictures. The one of 1880, The Last Eebel, is in the Luxembourg. Two of 1886, Judith and Justinian, the latter evidently suggested by Sardou's play, Theodora, won distinguished notice. By critics of the Salon it was pronounced worthy of the Medal of Honor. He, indeed, received in 1885 but a minority of five votes for that award. It is large and startling in color. Its seven figures, Justinian with three Councillors on either hand, all in jewels and highly colored robes, among which are a white, a violet, a green, and enough of golden hues to form an amalgam of all the other colors and give a rich harmony, are placed on couches in a room of marble panelling with mosaic border ; through its tones a ray of light is cleverly made to dart, striking the throne and two of the figures. In 1887 he gave its companion piece, Theodora, arrayed in an unparalled gorgeousness of raiment and jewels, and again the Medal of Honor was assigned to him in expectation, but another Orientalist, Cormon, took it. In 1888 he received ninety-six votes against Detaille's one hundred and eight for the Medal of Honor. He has also painted: 1872, A Riff Pirate's Wife: 1873, A Plaza in Algiers; An Alley in Algiers: 1875, The Women of the Harem: 1876, Mohammed II.'s Entry into Constanti- nople, May 29, 1453, his most ambitious work : and in 1878, his most impressive one, Thirst, or the Prisoners of Morocco. Prisoners fling themselves upon the sand to drink from a puny rill whose hot, steaming waters form a life draught for them; one bottles some, thus indicating a fear of repetition of suffering, while the easy, indolent soldiers on their horses show that a selfish indulgence has secured them on the same journey from the miseries of the thirst of their prisoners. He ex- hibited in 1888 panels for the Sorbonne, Les Lettres and Les Sciences. Cormon, a pupil of Fromentin, is among the younger Oriental- ists. He was also a pupil of Cabanel and Portaels. A characteristic Femand Cormon Eastern subject by him is Sita, in which (1845- ), Paris. represents the languid, aimless exist- Med. '70; 2dcl. '73; 3d cl. '78 E. U. * AI1 , Prix du saion ' 75 . ence of an odalisque at the moment when l. Hon. -so ; Med. Hon. '87. gne j s roused to expectation at the step of a welcome but unseen presence, and she rises, leaning on a Turkish table, to pour the Turkish coffee. He was the second to win the Prix du Salon after its establishment in 1874, and in the later Salons, '87 and '88, has passed up just above Benjamin-Constant in the number of votes received for the Salon-jury, He also is winning honor as an historical painter, and is the most eminent illustrator of pre-historic 328 A HIS TOE Y OF FRENCH PAINTING. man as figured by scientific investigation. Indeed, his genius is comprehensive and varied, even paradoxical in its powers. The Death of Ravana (1875), which was bought by the Minister of the Fine Arts ; The Raising of the Daughter of Jairus (1877) ; Return from a Bear Chase (1884); Breakfast of Friends (1886); The Conquerors at iSalamis (1887), are some of his conspicuous works. His Cain of 1880 (an enormous canvas and most im- pressive work) is in the Luxembourg. Other Orientalists, most of whom are 'Hors Concours,' are : Albert Aublet (contemporary), Paris : medal 3d class '80 ; 2d class Munich '83 ; followed his master Gerome in most classes of his work, in his historic genre by several scenes from the history of the House of Guise. — Jean Joseph Bellel (1810- ), Paris : pupil of Ouvrie ; medal 1st class '48 ; Legion of Honor '60 ; made his debut in '36 and began his Eastern scenes after a trip to Algiers in '56. — G. F. Bust (1823- ), Marseilles: pupil of Loubon and Troyon ; his Banks of the Bos- phorus ('61) is in the Luxembourg. — Felix Auguste Clement (1826- ), Donzere : pupil of Drolling and Picot ; Prix de Rome '56 ; medal 3d class '61 ; medal '67. — Henri de Chacaton (1813- ), Moulins : pupil of Ingres, Hersent, and Marilhat ; medal 3d class '38 ; 2d class '44, '48 ; ceased exhibiting in '57. — Jules Giradet (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Cabanel ; medal 3d class '81. — Eugene Giraud (180G-'8l), Paris: pupil of the old school artists, T. Richomme and Hersent; Prix de Rome for engraving '26; medals for painting, 3d class '33; 2d class '36; and therefore then Hors Concours if the present rules had been in force ; Legion of Honor '51 ; Officer '66 ; took up, after '31, and his son and pupil, Victor (1820- '71), after '67, when his Slave Market was placed in the Luxembourg, the path of Gerome in genre and Oriental scenes ; his younger brother and pupil, Charles (1819- ), Legion of Honor '47, has followed Gerome in another path, genre and antique scenes, as A Fifteenth Century Interior ('63), ditto ('83). — Gustave Guil- laumet (l840-'87>, Paris: medal '65, '69; 2d class '72; 3d class '78, Exposition Universelle ; Legion of Honor '78 ; pupil of Picot, Barias, and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; one of the most realistic of the Orientalists ; has two pictures in the Lux- embourg. — Victor- Pierre Huguet (contemporary), Lude : pupil of Loubon ; medal 3d class '73 ; 2d class '82.— Edouard Imer (1820-81), Avignon : a self-taught painter of accurately detailed landscape, generally of central France, until after '55, when, having travelled in the East, he took up Oriental scenes ; medal '65 ; 2d class '73. — Charles Landelle (1821- ), Laval : medal 3d class "42 ; 2d class '45 ; 1st class '48 ; 3d class '55, Exposition Universelle; Legion of Honor '55 ; pupil of Delaroche and A. Schelfer, but has become a professor and accomplished Orien- talist, having exhibited about ninety Eastern scenes. — Jules Joseph Augustin Laurens (1825- ), Carpentras : medal 3d class '57 ; medal '67 ; in '47 sent by the state through Turkey. — Hippolyte Jean Raymond Lazerges (1817- ), Nar- bonne : medal 3d class '43 ; 2d class '48, '57 ; Legion of Honor '67 ; paints re- ligious and allegorical as well as Oriental subjects.— Pierre Francois Lehoux (1823- ), Paris: pupil of H. Vernet and Gros ; medal 2d class '33.— T. M. Lenoir (1850-'81), Paris : pupil of Gerome and Jalabert ; medal 1st -class '76. — Louis Maurice Boutet de Monvel (contemporary), Orleans : pupil of Cabanel, Jules Lefebvre, Boulanger, and Carolus-Duran ; medal 3d class '78; 2d class '80; THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 329 besides Oriental scenes, he paints figures. — Antoine Alphonse Montfort (1802- ), Paris : pupil of H. Vernet, Gros, and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; medal 3d class '37, '63 ; exhibited at the age of seventy-nine The Enrollment of 1838 in Syria. — Charles E. V. De Tournemine (1814-'73), Toulon : Legion of Honor '53 for land- scape views of Brittany and Normandy; going to the East in 1854 he became there- after an Orientalist ; he was assistant custodian of the Luxembourg. THE NEO-GRECS. The definite growth of the neo-grec or Pompeian school arose from the Greek treatment of familiar subjects introduced by Gerome. It has been called classicism passing into genre, but was rather genre stepping back to snatch, for a while, a classic garb. With this a group of artists, of whom Gerome became the leader, soon combined opposition to the claims of Oourbet and his followers, that only the actual, tangible, and visible were proper subjects for reproduction in art. "Paint an angel?" Courbet had said. "When did you ever see an angel ?" The original neo-grecs were Gerome, Toule- mouche, Hamon, Picou, and Jobbe-Duval. They were known as the "Chalet," from working and living in common in a wooden house so called, half concealed in lilacs and climbing roses, on the Rue Fleurus. They constituted a kind of apostleship around Gerome of artists of most delicate conceits, and formed in art "a sort of little Athens" in which Theophile Gautier fondly made himself at home. It was a realm, the air of which would not perhaps be sustaining or even perceptible to the respiratory organs of Courbet. Their practice was the opposite of his ; it was to put the common, trivial incident into a graceful rendering, often with a charming poetic sentiment, and by harmonizing contours and evolving grace of line to give to the nude the classic treatment. They had a predilection for the nude. Their treatment differs from the academic classic, in taking the common incident, the familiar and the emotional side of Greek or Roman life, in fact, in painting the genre of the antique, or, a more pleasing if less substantial department of their practice, the genre of fancy ; as in the works of Hamon and Aubert. They also treated subjects of mod- ern life, but it was by poetizing them into the classic, rather than by aggrandizing them into it, as had been the practice of the Davidians. The influence of this school is in some degree perceptible in most of the later French artists. In delicacy of conceit and charm of execution, the chief of the group was the low-statured, russet-haired, half-sailor son of a coast guardsman of Brittany, Hamon, whose volatile fancies must have found 330 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. their early affinities in the spray of the sea, for his youth was spent on the sterile beach in one of those stone cubes appropriated to the jean Louis Hamon coast-guard's use for houses. By the Christian Broth- (1821- 74), piouha. ers, with whom he received all the education of which ^iTci 3 b.°u. ,5 5 3 5 . ne was susceptible, he was designed for the church, l. h. 55. but he fled from the convent. Portraits painted in his native town, on canvases constructed by himself, won for him at the age of nineteen from the Council General of St. Priac, the chief town of the Department, a pension of five hundred francs for the study of art. "Mad with joy," to quote his notes, 1 he hastened to Paris. There his artistic impulses led him to seek at once "the living French artists" at the Luxembourg, and the naivete of the country lad was bewildered and disappointed to find only pictures there. He secured a place in the studio of Delaroche, the great aim of students then. There, one day, he replied that, being poor, he had at times, before his father was a coast-guard, assisted him at shoe- making, and Delaroche disdainfully bade him " go home and make shoes, for be could never paint." Greatly disheartened the youth, as deeply enamored of art as ever, made still greater efforts, and instead of making shoes, produced an art of a " volatile and fugitive perfume," which, as has been said, " has influenced the whole habit of decorative and epigrammatic ornament of this generation." He lived "very moderately." His notes say: "I bought two sous' worth of bread and that was my breakfast. In the evening I ate a plate of soup, six sous, and two sous' worth of bread, and then withdrew to my chamber to meditate and compose." A fellow student, Damery, who had previously won the Prix de Rome, kindly gave him encourage- ment and in the strength of that he persisted. He adopted the custom of writing out his compositions. His notes say : " I wrote until I reached the point of movement. Often I passed the night in thinking and writing without making any design. This served to me for a thorough understanding of the subjects given us to compose. In the studio they laughed at my manner. But on this occasion (The Massacre of the Innocents had been assigned), Delaroche, much pleased, said, * This is a thinker. He has given us a composition, badly drawn, poorly rendered, but there is in it excellent inten- tion and much poetry and thought.' Henceforth I was not utterly desole even if I designed maladroitly." 2 Others soon adopted the same custom. The shoemaker's son had 1 La Jeunesse d'Hamon ; manuscrit publie par Ernest Miuault. 2 Ibid. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 331 become an example. Once, absorbed in thinking out a subject, on being rallied by his fellow pupils, Hamon replied that he was giving " fermentation " to the composition, and " to ferment a subject " from that time was a by-word in that studio. In the atelier of Gleyre, to which he passed with Gerome, in 1844, an affectionate intercourse of sympathy and instruction, based on a congeniality of nature, ex- isted between master and pupil, and from that painter of dreams and lost illusions Hamon's neo-grecquisme took graceful inspiration. Hamon's life with Gleyre and a few years subsequently spent in Italy form two episodes of happiness in his struggle with poverty. By nature he was a ion vivant, fond of pleasantries, of an indolent intel- lect, that in the ten years he lived in Italy acquired no word of the language ; 1 but of a generosity that in his times of plenty never left a friend unaided and, indeed, made him a victim of parasites. Under Gleyre he, Gerome, and Henry Picou, friends, entered as rivals the contest for the Prix de Rome. " Gerome," says Hamon, "inspired one with a love of work, and work done singing and laughing." Hamon at his first Salon (1848) exhibited a frieze of a door and The Tomb of Christ ; in 1849, Equality in the Seraglio, A Roman Placard, and A Paroquet Chatting with two Young Girls. He failed to win notice and patronage, and crushed in his artistic hopes in contrast with Gerome's brilliant debut of the year before, he accepted employment, secured for him by Gleyre, at the porcelain factory at Sevres. He soon delighted in the delicate conceits suitable to that employment, in which the director, Regnault, encouraged him, and remained there until 1853, and there painted his masterpiece — a casket which aroused great admiration both in the London Exposition, 1851, and the French Exposition, 1855, at the former being awarded a gold medal. There he executed, also, his extremely poetical conception of Spring and Autumn — a plate belonging to the Empress Eugenie. The three months of each season are represented by three figures holding each other by the hand ; the first of Autumn has a few leaves in her hair, the second has her head covered by a veil ; and the third is weeping beside a leafless sapling. The first month of Spring has gathered one flower, the second scatters them in profusion, and the third shelters her head from the increasing heat beneath an arching veil. He then visited Naples, Pompeii, and Capri, absorbing every- 1 Out of this ignorance and his humor grew many pleasantries. Before the oft- repeated sign in Italy, Canova di vino (wine shop) he would say, " But no, oh no ! Canova is not so divine as that." Also on seeing in many places the Italian " Ingresso," ("Enter") he said, "These Italians esteem but one French painter, Ingres.^" 1 332 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. where fancies for his pictures. Again, in 1862, having, by the free purse he kept and his constant ill health, been rendered unable to meet his debts, he left Paris for Rome without making known his intentions. Remitting his earnings thence, he had so far remunerated his creditors in 1871 that he returned and married, and thus secured a tranquil and happy home. During this period he painted The Wash- ing of Cupids, representing some still in the water, some hung up to dry ; and the Sad Shore (Salon of 1873), for which he went in 1872 to Luzerne to make sketches. It represents the shore of death on which lovers meet, and on it he placed the famous lovers of history, such as Francesca da Rimini, and the lovers of poets' dreams, as Dante's Beatrice ; Petrarch's Laura ; and Ophelia, a portrait of his own wife con- soled by Cupid himself. 1 This was his last picture. Hamon, though his delicacy is often far above the common apprehension, is the most accredited and the most popular of the neo-grecs. His pictures are charming idyls, of suggestion so pure and pleasing, of outlines so beautiful, of forms so graceful, that the sympathetic observer does not ask " a local habitation nor a name," nor a time for his ethereal fancies, not even consistency, nor freedom from anachronisms, nor even that the enigmas that they often are, shall be solved ; nor color, as Theophile Gautier did in 1855, when he said, " We beg M. Hamon when he paints, to put a little color on the end of his brush." Hamon's coloring, in which he prefers harmonies of grays, has been criticised as false, but by color he and all the neo-grecs do not seek literally to imitate nature, but to express nature's harmonies and relations. In the Elder Sister, Hamon for once used violent colors, an exception in his treatment. " There is the black of ebony, the yellow of the immortelle, bishop's purple, the scarlet of the poppy, enough for twenty pictures, enough for ten years, for all his life," says Merson. His Aurora, in which a floating embodiment of the dawn hangs upon the perfume of a morning-glory, drinking dew from its corolla, a dainty conceit that has been copied in sculpture ; Autumn, Muses at Pompeii, Butterfly Enchained, Image Shop, Evening Twi- light, The Older Sister, who is a little " mamma " asleep whom the infant sister rocks in glee, and the picture, My Sister is not at Home (Salon of 1853) confirm all the claims made for his delicacy of fancy and grace of execution. In the last a youth, with no clothing, only a drapery of grace or courtesy, bears a cage of doves, apparently a gift to the sister of a little girl who, just risen 1 Purchased then and owned now by M. De Foe of Geneva. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 333 from her playthings, forms with her brother a screen, the insufficiency of which she supplements by stretching out the scant skirt of her one primitive garment, to conceal the older sister, who crouches behind. Since the nude youth can hardly be a reality, coming into this home circle, does it represent Love entering and repulsed ? It was awarded a medal of the third class and was purchased for the Emperor, and a replica is owned by Mr. Israel Corse, of New York. The Aurora of 1864 was also purchased by the Emperor, and of this also Mr. Corse owns a smaller replica. Hamon supplies the classical balance of composition by presenting in twos his lovely crea- tions of sweet, irresponsible girlhood, for though he and Gerome sipped their early art from the same springs, their conceptions of woman are as of beings of different worlds — although Gerome, in a late development of poetic feeling, has (in 1888) produced a vision of idealized woman, a group rising from the foam of the sea, of an inspiration not unallied to Hamon's, in spite of its not wholly subor- dinated carnal side. Hamon exhibited in the Salons of twelve years between 1848 and 1873 thirty- one pictures, two of them portraits and one a landscape, The Tomb of Christ. Nantes, the Imperial Factory at Sevres, the Museum at Marseilles, and the Luxembourg possess pictures by him. Eleven are owned in America. Jobbe-Duval mingles a few scriptural scenes among his mytho- logical subjects, but maintains the refined Armand Marie Felix Jobbe-Duval _ (1821- ), carhaix. treatment and quiet tone of color of the Med. 3d ei. 51, '57- group who, with him, were pupils of Dela- roche and Gleyre. This is illustrated by the Betrothal at Corinth (1852, Kennes Museum). Picou's Pompeian brush has found a favorite subject in the varied conditions under which Cupid may appear, and from 1850, Henri Pierre Picou when he produced Waxing Love and Waning (1822- ), Nantes. Love, to 1884 he had presented no fewer than nine Med. 2d ei. 48, Rap. '57. pictures of the child-god whose pranks form so suitable a subject to the neo-grec, such as Love at Auction, Harvest of Loves (1855), Love and Folly (1881), Love is not to be Chained, Love on the Penitential Stool (1882). In 1885 his pictures were Stella, and Love, and in 1887 the Chimsera. Aubert is a charming member of this school, though he some- times verges on conventionally sentimental art. He was a successful engraver, and in that department of art, which he studied under Martinet, was awarded three medals and the Prix de Kome, and 334 A HIS TORI OF FRENCH PAINTING. spent five years in Italy before taking up painting. He engraved t b t several of Hamon's pictures, and subsequently, (.824- ), Paris. having entered the studio of Delaroche, came to Med. 3d ci. 1861. rival in painting Hamon's delicately poetic con- ceptions. His exhibition of 1861 which won him a medal was two portraits. His Approaching Love, of the Salon of 1877, is of marked grace and sentiment. A youth and a maiden together bend over a stream and playfully gaze at the reflection of the maiden's beauty ; in the proximity of the two faces it is made apparent that it is hers rather than his that is gazed at, by. the fine rendering of her semi-conscious, gratified, surprised look, and his interested, persistent regard. A shadowy Cupid in the background, coyly advancing, suggests the result. The Flower is a youth bending in a graceful, though long sweep from a step above to inhale the perfume from a flower at a maiden's throat, who as gracefully wards him off. Both are in idyllic drapery, and the whole is rendered with great harmony of line and suavity of contour. Love, Merchant of Mirrors, and The Lesson in Astronomy, in which the professor gazes into the heavens, and the pupils, a youth and a maiden, gaze into each other's eyes, were exhibited in 1878, and won a second class medal. Others are Cutting the Thread of Destiny, sold at the Lathrop sale for $1600 ; Menu de 1* Amour (1844) : Aurora cooling the Wings of Love (1855): Love on a Vacation; They Wait (1886): Love's Dupes, and Love's Diorama (1887). Lobrichon, a pupil of Picot, is connected with the neo-grecs by the slender tie of a temporary practice of charming but not finan- cially successful work. This idealistic treatment Timoleon Lobrichon . • i • -r\ p r\ • , . (1831- ), comod (Jura), is seen in his Dream 01 Ossian, and m the grace- Med. 1868; 2d ci. '82. f u j nude figures of his early pictures. In one, Morning Vapors, the mists as ethereal nymphs float upward in a beautiful group. These were greatly admired, but he became more conspicuous in his discoveries and successes in that delightful land of art, childhood, of which he has been called " the Columbus." He met with many discouragements in his early life ; he went to Paris, sent from his native Jura at about seventeen to enter commercial life ; these prospects were destroyed by the revo- lution of 1848, and he turned to drawing. Pleased with his first designs his parents straitened themselves at home, that he might receive instruction from Picot, and during this time of struggle he himself took photographs, drew hands and feet for artists deficient in knowledge of anatomy, and finally exhibited in 1869 A Vision of Ezekiel, "a picture terrible in its naif horror." Later he painted a man sitting among the dead and drinking the blood of his enemy from a skull, Hans d'Islande. All attempts in this direction only THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 335 brought further discouragements, but by 1872 he had discovered the unambitious but pleasant field of his success. He supplied subjects for the etchings of Le Petit Monde, giving the comedies and idyls of babyhood. Some of his works are : Once upon a Time, a child reading- to four younger ones in a row, the youngest a veritable baby laughing in mischief ; Mud Pies ; First Love ; Castle on the Sand (1872): A Young Criminal (1873): The Volunteer of one Year; The Red Spectre (1875): Portrait of Mile. S. Henri (1876): The Last Day of the Condemned (1877) : Going to be Washed (1879): Before Guignol; The Punishment of Tantalus (a baby fastened to a high chair stretching for playthings fallen out of reach) (1880): A Box of Letters ; Aurora (1881): Warbling ; Variations on a well-known Theme (1884). In 1874 he painted his amusing Baggage of Croquemitaine, the French bugaboo who carries off bad children. A basket worn in much service and admitting through a hole the little bare foot of one of the unhappy occupants, stands packed ready for transportation to serve for his coming meal, as if left for a moment by the giant. The five chil- dren thus held in durance, form each a type of character as diverse as so many adults, for each unconscious of the fate hanging over him occupies himself in his special interest. Of good coloring and fine drawing, it is a picture of great inter- est. It was sold from the collection of ex-Governor Morgan, of New York, 1886. Though not a neo-grec, Geoffrey, a pupil of Levasseur and „ „ Eugene Adan, follows Lobrichon, as associated Jean Geoffrey ° ' ' (Contemporary), Marennes. with him in that field of absolute monarchy, the Med. 3d ei. '83. domain of the children; but he occasionally paints other scenes of genre, and portraits, such as : First Lessons (1878): Abandoned; Unwarranted Resemblance (1879): Sewing Lessons; Basket Maker (1883): Review of Scholars' Battalions; Washstand (1885) : An Unfortunate (study) ; The Famished (1886) : The Last Drop ; The Palms (1887). GENRE PAINTERS. Meissonier and Gerome are allied in the elevated rank they hold, in a similarity in the effect of their art, and in some classes of their subjects. They, however, differ greatly. Meissonier, departing from jean Louis Ernest Meissonier all classic memories, becomes, by both his real- (1815- ), Lyons. istic treatment and his choice of subjects Id'tt''^ L^Hon.' 4 ^. from the incidents of every day life, a natu- of. l. Hon. -56; com. l. Hon. '67. ralist. He was the first French artist to be- r r, M f , L M H ° n ' 78 p n em /J nS c'n'' come celebrated in miniature genre, and by G. Med. Hon. 55, E. U.; '67, E. U.; m ? ^ •78, e. u. his influence made genre painting the pre- Mem. Munich Acad. >6 7 . dominating art of France. He was for many years the most conspicuous artist of the entire French school, but 336 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. recently his eminence has been somewhat less solitary and sensational. "Make room for the king," however, still exclaim the critics in ap- proaching his works, and the fabulous prices of his pictures still bear evidence to his royalty. 1 The worth of his works lies in the perfection which he carries into all he attempts, and which makes him in paint- ing what the Germans name Eichter in literature, " the only one," happily suggests a Wolff. For this he combines the various powers of the true painter ; drawing, color, fineness of touch, a feeling for the pictorial qualities of his subject, and perfect rendition, in which may be included that of difficult effects of light. But, what counts for much, he brings to his work the power of the man in persevering and detailed labor, in preliminary studies of each item, so extraordinary as to be in itself an interesting study ; and a dignity of conscience that, disregarding the approval of judges, be they the jury, the crit- ics, or the "buyers," compels him to finish thoroughly in order to satisfy his own standard. This he will accomplish even if the labor be prolonged for years, as in the " 1807," or even if the work, never completed, be destroyed. This rectitude also, in later years, when his simple signature would bring a small fortune, keeps him from plac- ing it on any incomplete or negligently executed work. Under such treatment one figure often suffices for a picture. Permeated with expression, it alone suffices to present a rich pictorial idea. Line, ges- ture, which, whether long sought or not, he always finds and makes true and inexpressibly expressive, pose, costume, and highly finished accessories, combine their testimony to the character or the incidental thought to be depicted. The result is a " delicious " presentation of shades of character, even to foibles ; of completeness of surroundings, all too small or delicate for narration, but most telling in his tale. That the effect is increased by the attention being divided by no other figure, might be said if, in the less frequent pictures of two or three figures, the differing roles portrayed did not, so remarkably are the slightest discriminations caught and produced, each enhance the other. The most subtle thought, the most evanescent feeling is 1 The payment by the late A. T. Stewart of $60,000, besides customs duties of $7,000, for " 1807," could have been only for estimated value received, as well as the late W. H. Vanderbilt's purchase of General Desaix and the Peasant for a sum relatively as large. The price of some of this artist's small pictures would cover them several times with gold, or several times outweigh them in that precious metal. Soldiers at Cards, painted in 1860, eight by ten inches, sold at the Johnston sale (1876), for $11,500, and Marshal Saxe and Staff (1866), eight by nine inches, for $3,600. At the Latham sale (1878), The Amused Cavalier, seven and one-fourth by five inches, commanded $3,000. In the Library, a small picture, but a rarely beautiful treatment of color, sold at Mrs. Morgan's sale (March 3, 1886), to a dealer well versed in values, Knoedler, for $16,525. J. F. MILLET DEPART POUR LE TRAVAIL THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 337 fastened by his brush, so that the Bookworm's intense delight, the Smoker's indolent satisfaction, the Chess Player's pleased and trium- phant look of, at a winning move, "Now what ?" the fussy author- ity of the delegated Keader of Military Orders, 1 the charm felt by the Connoisseur in his treasure-trove, are revealed to us with an intensity and truth that compel us to recognize the appeal which the human nature he depicts makes to our owu. But the over-fulness of detail forcibly demanding attention wearies if one looks at many of his works in succession. Nor is it the deepest feelings that he usually portrays. Often the motif 'is merely an attitude, fleeting, but suggestive. He has great mastery over the male figure, and, like Gericault, has thoroughly studied the horse. Also, like Gericault, he has seldom painted women or children, doing so in only about thirteen of all his works, and six of these only are of women of the elevated class. These are : The Arrival, in which ladies meet and welcome guests ; A Lady and her Gal- lant on a Staircase, of the eighteenth century ; a picnic scene of four of each sex, called Sous 1' Ombre des Bosquets ; The Kiss of Adieu, a tender parting of lovers ; A Woman Listening to a Man Playing on the Organ ; and The Embroiderer. The other seven : A Boatwoman ; Two Washerwomen of Antibes ; a barmaid who hands the stirrup cup in The Halt, a finely rendered face ; a tender motherly woman, with a child in her arms, looking out well pleased at the door of The Halt at the Inn ; a woman in a distant window with whom an officer chats while his horse is being shod in The Farrier ; a woman among those passing on the roadside in The Turnebride ; and the woman asking alms, who is simply introduced to supply the motif of the cavalier's drawing rein upon his prancing steed in L'Aumone. The sharp accentuation and staccato treatment of the features, the possible exaggeration given to facial lines in order to render his forceful, effective expression, and his lack of grace are not suitable for the treatment of feminine traits, more than is the absorption by his exact science of tenderness and sentiment. Of these he expressed more in his youth, but they were early lost from his works. His perfect technical skill, his accuracy of detail, is such that his diminutive figures bear the magnifying lens with a result that excites wondering admiration. 2 Great finish of surface is a special quality of his painting. It is said that he constantly sketches in large, to preserve a broad treatment, as he also closely studies every part, for 1 See in L'Ordonnance, or Reading Military Orders, in the Vanderbilt Gallery, each of the three figures ; the general, in every line showing the man accustomed to command ; the hussar who has brought them, passive, patient, ready to receive commands ; and the young officer keenly reading the face of the chief. 2 The mot among amateurs and connoisseurs formerly was : " Have you a Meis- sonier?" "Ah ! yes, I think I have one somewhere in my vest pocket.' 1 22 338 A JUS TOBY OF FRENCH PAINTING. " insignificant details " is a phrase not comprehended by him. From these he makes his little miracles of detail — genre in miniature, charming because speaking in such delicate shades of meaning. The wonder is "that such small heads can carry all they" do. In his Napoleon at Solferino, in heads not larger than a pea, he has expressed the details of the various features ; the folds of the skin ; the warts ; the color of the hair. More wonderful still, he has gener- ally achieved his victories with insignificant subjects. Until his later military pictures — and before then his fame and influence had been great — he depicted no grand historic ideal ; nor had he availed himself of the unconscious charm felt in one's own times and sympathies. On the contrary, he was largely independent of the actual life of his own period, relying on the types of universal human nature common to all ages. Preferring the picturesque costumes of those times, he formerly took his characters chiefly from the eighteenth century, of the last years of Louis XV. 's and the beginning of Louis XVI. 's reign. Except for military subjects, he studiously avoids the unpictorial costumes of his own epoch. But by great skill and study, the personage he paints is made to accord in all respects, physiognomy, bearing, action, with his habiliments and accessories ; and though laces and velvets, ruffles and knee breeches, curled wig and powdered hair, or quaint fur- nishings, may have directed his choice of subject, still everything, even in all his exquisite detail, is kept subordinate to the character. It has been forcibly said that " while with Decamps, man was but an insignificant accessory of nature ; with Meissonier, all nature is in man." He is often compared to Terburg and Metzu ; he surpasses Gerard Dow in expression. Says Charles Blanc : " The most illustri- ous Hollander has not had this tenuity of touch, this religion of the little, this microscopical scrupulousness, this perfection of the invisi- ble. . . . Meissonier has attained the highest style of the art of painting grandly in little." Imagination based on close study, though he is accused of lacking imagination, must chiefly serve in conducting him into the intimacy, the familiar details of the past, the facial lines made by thoughts and feelings different from those of our day, as it must also aid in his keen, delicate characterization of every role in life that he attempts to portray. Meissonier's father was, until late in life, a colonial broker, and at his death, when the artist was thirty years old, left a prosperous busi- ness to another son, one of four children. The artist came in childhood with the family from Lyons to Paris. There, after some hesitation on the part of his father to consent to his taking up art, owing to the THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 339 troubles of the transition just then being made from the long estab- lished authority of the classicists to that of the romanticists, he was placed under the tuition of a relative, Jules Potier, who had had the advantage of the Prix de Rome. But the youth soon became " pupil of Leon Cogniet," who at that time was designing his picture of The Campaign in Egypt for a ceiling in the Louvre, and gave his pupil little attention. But the latter speedily developed the keen power of observation which underlies all his success. All he did was, however, in the intervals of his regular studies at the Lycee Napoleon, for his father insisted that a citizen's education should supplement the Bo- hemian career of an artist. At the advice of Trimolet, the leader of a little group of pupils, companions of Meissonier, all of whom in artistic hope were straggling with poverty, and of whom Trimolet died early of want, he studied the Dutch and Flemish masters in the Louvre. Trimolet was accustomed to say that the French school had lost all originality in following the classic and Italian methods, and could only be reclaimed by the close study of Terburg, Metzu, and Gerard Dow. Thus Meissonier was early led into the Dutch treatment. But he never imitated the Dutch masters, and only took from them direc- tion, "sanction,'' for his talent. Not being able to command the one hundred francs a year required to become a pupil of Delaroche, he was obliged to forego that earnest wish, though he relates that his father, desiring to divert his style into their path, offered him a hundred francs for every copy of the old masters from the Louvre. The story is completed by his exclamation, "That one hundred francs I never managed to gain." With his friend, Trimolet, and for a time in con- nection with Daubigny, from whom he separated to assume the more dignified life demanded by his marriage, he betook himself to the illus- tration of books 1 to eke out the fifteen francs per month which, with a dinner every Wednesday, was allowed him from his father. His father, however, somewhat increased this by an occasional purchase from him of a water color. One of these purchases still exists, The Midnight Watch Finding a Lifeless Body at a Street Corner. After many dis- couragements and rebuffs Meissonier's first success was attained in the designs for La Chaumiere Indienne. In the wonderful minute- ness and excellence of this, his future course was foreshadowed. 2 He 1 " Les Francais, peints par eux-memes," aud Balzac. 2 In a vignette an inch and a half square is represented a room, upon the walls of which are seen two prints whose subjects are plainly discernible, one as the English Doctor thinking of the Pariah, the other, the Pariah thinking of the English Doctor, and between these prints hanging to a nail are the pipes of both, and a ticket attached by two pins says they are from Meissonier's collection. 340 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. also made some etchings which are now very rare, and in 1834 he first exhibited at the Salon an oil painting, The Visitors of the Burgo- master, 1 and at its sale for one hundred francs his father rewarded his success by giving him a holiday in Italy. Meissonier's treatment was as a signal thrown out to the false romanticism then prevalent in the field of art for a halt and a rearrangement of its forces under firmer discipline and into more serried columns, for it was by none other than the forces of romanticism that Meissonier was served, namely : close characterization, dramatic action, expression, light, and color. Later, artists were to recognize this signal as a royal gonfalon, and crowd up to its following; but now, on the contrary, both romanticist and con- servative had each his special dart for its bearer, and in 1835 his pic- tures, The Chess Players, though painted with " baby's eyelashes," as Delacroix said, and The Little Messenger, with Rousseau's, were rejected. But in 1836 by a wiser jury the same ones were admit- ted. Under the appreciation of amateurs he continued, and his picture, A Priest Attending a Sick Man, was purchased from the Salon of 1838 for $100 by the Duke of Orleans, but at the sale of the prince's property in 1852 it brought $800. That year he married the daughter of an artist from Strasbourg, who had brought his family to Paris, and with whose son, Louis Steinheil, Meissonier had formed an intimacy. Pictures of this class followed rapidly, as The English Doctor of 1839 and the Man Reading of 1840. This won him a third class medal for genre. It is a fine specimen of his power of expres- sion. An old man stands near a table covered with books, whose surfaces are repro- duced in accurate stain and shade and lustre even. The reader's attitude expresses his perfect absorption, by giving, from the short distance between his feet, the impression of the last step having been, in his intense interest, unconsciously taken and action involuntarily suspended. This same Salon, in an Isaiah and a St. Paul, passed over in silence, proved the higher appreciation commanded by his genre, and he continued it in The Chess Players of 1841, for which he received a second class medal. Purchasers besieged him and works of this class multiplied. The opposition pronounced them without value, and charged him with painting without thought, with having no grandeur of conception, no element of the grand style. To this he offered the Reading at the House of Diderot of 1851, an improvement upon the 1 This, now owned by Sir Richard Wallace, has on its back the inscription in Meis- sonier's hand, " My first picture, exhibited 1833 or '34." Sold then for one hundred francs to the Society of the Friends of Art, it fell by division to M. Paturle, who kept it till his death, when it was sold to Sir Richard Wallace. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 341 grand style in the very violation of it by expressing delicate shades of feeling. He gave in Diderot and his friends, Grimm, D'Holbach, and D'Alembert, the facial lines, the conscious air of the philosophers of the eighteenth century. He was then accused of being able to paint interiors only : he answered by his Portrait of the Sergeant, an unflinch- ing exterior with its figures bathed in an unsubdued light, and made a charming success, as later, in 1867, by The Halt he demonstrated the possibility of painting in open air under a diffused light that con- founds values and requires the representation of objects at different distances to be made by management of the greater light among lights — the problem of the impressionists. When his detractors further demanded movement, granting his power in quiet, placid figures, he produced La Rixe, in which two athletes at a pot-house, with the violence of anger, strain every nerve to break away from friends, who, with as violent a struggle, hold them from doing injury to each other. In expressing human exertion it is a masterpiece, and Louis Napoleon made of it a royal gift to Prince Albert. (Queen Victoria's Collection.) The campaigns of Napoleon III. made Meissonier a painter of mil- itary scenes. In these he departed from his miniature treatment, exe- cuting some very large works, as The Cavalry Charge of 1867 ; Napo- leon III. at Solferino (the artist was present at that battle), of about thirty figures, for which he dexterously won, as is related by the artist himself, a sitting from all the officers, even the emperor ; and, reverting to the greater glory of the first Napoleon, the " 1807," finished 1875 ; The Eetreat from Eussia ; Napoleon Overlooking a Battle ; Napoleon and his staff ; and " 1814." The last six with two others, the Battle of Locli, in 1796, and Napoleon L, a single figure, form a historical series called by Gautier "The Napoleonic Cycle." Each of the eight merits a chapter to describe the artistic methods by which it conveys the spirit of its subject. They lack nothing of the effect of the actual, of which indeed the artist depicts all the significant details. The Solferino and "1814 " in the Salon of 1864, as well as at the Universal Exhibition of 1867, hung opposite each other, a contrast of defeat and victory illustrated in the Uncle and Nephew, and, curiously, the defeat for the Uncle. In the Retreat the blue uniform of the Emperor in the neglect of defeat, his pale face, fixed look, contracted mouth, buttoned riding-coat, the shading of feeling from the chief to his mar- shals, Ney and Berthier, all serve to impress the story. The "1807 " represents Na- poleon I. at the height of his power, just after his success at Friedland had, in conquering the Russians, destroyed the Russian and English combination against him, and the "1814" in the ebb of his fortunes after his disastrous retreat 342 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. and enthusiasm of the officers and men are, perhaps, the highest expressions of feeling which Meissonier ever achieved. The enthusiastic loyalty of the troops and the trusting reliance of the commander, are strongly portrayed. The colonel of the 12th Regiment of Cuirassiers rises in his stirrups to full height, raises his hat for the salute, and we can almost hear his " Vive 1'Empereur ! " as he dashes by. This 1 gave great opportunity for the artist's skill in painting the horse. But though successful in 2 these, the artist's most numerous and best known works are still his gems of genre — of subjects often only slightly varying, as his several Readers and his many Smokers, of which there are two classes, the respectable and the poor gamblers. Some of his genre pictures represent most charming light from open windows, Rembrandtish interiors of the brighter sort, as A Young Man Break- fasting, and A Reader at the Window, which gives almost as pleasura- ble an effect as Rembrandt's famous Jan Six. Meissonier's qualities 3 made him an excellent portrait painter, but of men only. In this department of art he also made the dress of great importance, as indi- cating character, taste, relation to life, which renders his portraits of value to future generations. He, however, here, as well as in genre, keeps the dress secondary to facial lines and expression of character. While he has been conspicuous in both the second and third art- periods of this century, his merit and fame have been unquestioned in the third, during which his official honors have been awarded, his power as a painter of military scenes developed, and his life's strength centred. He has been the recipient of all the official honors that can be conferred by France upon an artist, and no one has disputed his right to them. He was Commander of the Legion of Honor in 1867; he received the Grand Medal of Honor three times ; at the Universal Exposition at Paris in 1855, in 1867 when only eight were awarded, and in 1878 ; and he was made a member of the Institute in 1861, succeeding to the chair to which that fixed classicist, Abel de Pujol, was appointed in 1835, the very year he was himself excluded from the Salon. This had been occupied besides only by Gros since its estab- lishment in 1816. He attained the height of his career in 1867, when 1 He was fifteen years in painting it, and the price rose as more and more time was spent upon it. Mr. Probasco, of Cincinnati, first contracted to take it for $10,000. He also consented to meet several advances until, considering the last one exorbitant, it was sold to the late A. T. Stewart. 2 It is said that, M. Secretau paid $70,000 for the " 1814." 3 His great accuracy is the result of indefatigable pains-taking. In order to paint Napoleon in his " 1814," it is related that he obtained the famous blue overcoat of the Emperor from the museum, where it is carefully guarded, and had it reproduced exactly by a tailor. To secure the atmospheric effects he put it on, mounted a " lay" horse, and painted before a mirror in an open room on his roof in a snow-storm. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 343 his pictures at the Universal Exposition made him recognized as at the head of French art, and his influence made its chief practice the painting of small pictures of incident. He is a member of the Eoyal Academy, London, and of the Munich Academy. The following is an approximately complete list of his works : Of those owned in Paris : 1851, Lute Players, Soldiers of Louis XIII. Laurent Richard Collection ; La Vedette, Smoker in Black, Seated Reader, Madame de Cas- sin; Flute Player, M. Pastre ; Reader Standing under the Window, M. Malinet ; Under the Balcony, M. Boucheron ; Sentinel at Antibes, M. Charles Leroux ; Man- uscript Reader, M. Edouard Andre ; The Spy, M. Crabbe ; Polichinello, Madame Cottier; The Bravo, Shoemaker, Musketeer of Louis XIII., M. Levy Cremieux ; Wine of the Cure, Difficult Passage, The Secretary, Cuirassiers of 1805, Two Old Friends, The Two Van der Veldes, A Reader, " 1814" (350,000 fr.), M. Secretan ; Amateur in Studio, Vicomtesse de Trederne ; Victor Lefranc (portrait), M. Victor Lefranc ; Halberdier, Smoker in Bed, Baron Gustave de Rothschild ; Amateurs of Painting, M. Leon Say (33,800 fr., 1868, at Khalil Bey Sale); The Barricade, Man Choosing a Sword, Reader near Window, Reader in White, The Breakfast, M. Van Praet ; Sunday in the Village, Due de Narbonne ; Portrait of Owner. Designer, L'Affaire Clemenceau, Alexandre Dumas ; Reconnoissance in the Snow, Madame I. Pereire ; Hussar, Stirrup Cup, Consequences of a Quarrel at Play, M. William Stewart ; Dragoon, Altar of St. Mark's at Venice, Portrait of Madame Meissonier, Portrait of M. Charles Meissonier, Cavalier by the Sea, Washerwomen at Antibes, Ruins of the Tuileries, The Song, Interior of St. Marks, Etcher, Flemish Interior, At the Window, Chess Players, Deathbed of Thiers, M. Ernest Meissonier ; La Vedette, Amateurs of Painting, Due d'Aumale ; Portrait of Owner, Baroness Thenard ; Amateur of Drawings, Baron Hulot ; The Red Umbrella, M. Peronne; The Departure, M. Niven; Cavalier of Time of Louis XIII., Madame Tabourier ; Smoker of Time of Louis XV., Madame Angelo ; Napoleon III. at Solferino, Lux- embourg Museum ; Phoebus and Boreas, M. G. Lutz ; Portrait of Meissonier, Lit- erary Researches, M. Gambard ; Ball Player, Terrace of St. Germain, M. Charles Heine ; The Farrier, M. Bianchi ; Violoncellist, M. E. H. Kraft ; Reader (Gentle- man of time of Louis XIII.), M. Auguste Dreyfus ; Amateurs of Painting, Baron Hottinguer ; Vedette, M. Pierre Duche ; 1865, A Song, Vicomte de Greffuhle ; Un Incroyable, Polichinello, Reading at the House of Diderot, 1855, Baron Ed- mond cle Rothschild ; Guitar Player, Baron Adolphe de Rothschild ; 1 864, Na- poleon in 1814, Ball Player at Antibes (46,700 fr.), The Traveller (30,500 fr.), The Laugher (25,000 fr.), Defoer Sale, Paris, 1886 ; Company of Musketeers (50,000 fr.), Hall of Cavaliers (125,000 fr.), J. W. Wilson Sale, Paris, 1881; Smoker (34,0 .0 fr., Tence Sale, 1881). Of those owned in London : Officer of Musketeers, Color Bearer, Mr. James Duncan : 1857, Reynard in his Cabinet, Mr. David Price : The Confidence, Mr. John Siltzer : Portrait of the Sergeant, Chess Players, Baron Schroeder : 1834, The Visitors ; 1853, The Bravos, Scene from the Decameron ; 1858, Polichinello; 1862, The Halt, Napoleon I. in the Campaign of France, Throwing Dice, Cavalier of Time of Louis XIII., Cavalier of Time of Louis XIV., Musketeer of Time of Louis XIII., Connoisseurs, Gamblers, Sentinel, Foul Play, St. John in Patmos, Sir Richard Wallace ; 1855, La Rixe, Queen Victoria. 344 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Of those owned in other cities of Europe: The Game Won, M. Steengraehl. The Hague ; Portrait of the sculptor Gemito, M. Gemito, Naples ; After Breakfast (Smoker), The Bibliophile, Baron Springer ; Awaiting the Audience, M. Tretiakoff, Moscow; Two Lansquenets, M. Van der Vies ; 1862, In the Anteroom, Stirrup Cup, Standard-bearer, Musketeer, C. A. H. Bolckow, Middlesborough, England ; 1875, Horseman's Rest, Kunsthalle, Hamburg ; Corporal of the Guard (£514, Arbuthnot Sale, 1882). Of those owned in the United States : " 1814 " (1862), The Jovial Trooper (1865 ), Mr. W. T. Walters, Baltimore; The Ante-Chamber, The Stirrup Cup, Marshal Saxe and Staff, Mr. D. 0. Mills, New York; Chaplain of the Guard, time of Louis XIII., The Stirrup Cup, The Game Lost, Ancient Armor (pen drawing), Mr. James H. Stebbins, New York ; Halberdier, Mr. John Hoey, New York ; Chess Player, Mr. August Belmont, New York ; The Captain of the Guard, Mrs. R. L. Stuart, New York ; The Road to Antibes, The Two Van derVeldes, The Sign Painter, Miss Wolfe's legacy to Metropolitan Art Museum; A Trumpeter of Louis XIII., Mr. Charles Stuart Smith, New York; Guard Room, Mr. T. H. Havemeyer; The Smoker, Mrs. Marshall 0. Roberts; " 1807," sold ($60,000) from Mrs. A. T. Stewart's collection to ex- Judge Hilton and presented to Metropolitan Museum ; The Beggar, At the Bar- racks, Reminiscence of Franco-Prussian War, Portrait of the Artist (water color), sold from Mrs. A. T. Stewart's Collection, 1887 ; The Smoker, Mr. William W. Astor, New York ; Arrival at the Chateau, Portrait of the late W. H. Vanderbilt, Artists at Work, Time of Boucher (1857), General Desaix and the Peasant, An Artist and his Wife (an order, 1878), The Ordinance (1866), Man Reading (1856), Mrs. W. H. Vanderbilt ; The Republican Sentinel (water color), Mr. A. J. Drexel, Philadelphia; On the Stair (1879), Mr. John Jacob Astor; A Paris Commissionnaire, Mr. A. J. Antelo, Philadelphia; Travelling Shoemaker, Mr. W. B. Bement, Philadel- phia; Musketeer, Mr. H. L. Dousman, St. Louis; Poetry, Mr. D. W. Powers, Roches- ter; Halberdier, Mr. H. V. Newcomb, New York; Cavalier, Mr. H. P. Kidder, Boston ; A Noble of Louis XIII. Sleeping, Mrs. Paran Stevens, New York; Vedette, Mr. T. R. Butler, New York ; Historiographer, Mr. W. Rockafeller, New York ; Portrait of Owner, Senator L. Stanford, San Francisco : Portrait of Owner's Wife, Mr. J. W. Mackay, San Francisco ; Troubadour (sketch), Hussar, Mr. T. Donald- son, Philadelphia ; The Smoker, sold from Mr. G. I. Seney's Collection, 1885 ; In the Library (1876, sold 1886 for $16,525), from Mrs. M. J. Morgan's Collection to Mr. C. Crocker, San Francisco ; Standard-bearer (1851, $15,000), Vedette 1812, (1883, $15,000), sold from Mrs. Morgan's Collection to Mr. S. P. Avery, New York ; Cavalier, Mrs. M. A. Osborne, New York ; Standard-bearer of Flemish Civil Guard, Musician, sold from Collection of Mr. A. Spencer, New York, 1888. Variously distributed : 1836, Little Messenger ; 1838, Monk Consoling a Sick Man; 1839, Smoker, The Doctor; 1840, Reader; 1841, Chess Players; 1842, Smoker, Violoncello Player ; 1843, Painter in his Studio (11,200 fr. 1861, Lehon Sale, Paris) ; 1848, Guard House, Young Man Examining Drawings, Game of Piquet; 1849, Bowl Players ; 1850, Smoker; 1851, Lute Players ; 1852, Sunday, Incident of Civil War ; 1853, Young Man Studying, Moreau before Hohenlinden ; 1857, A Painter, Mart in Armor, Harquebusier, Art Amateur, Standard-bearer, Man at a Window; 1858, Soldiers at Cards ($11,500 Johnston Sale, New York, 1876) ; 1860, Smoker; 1861, Card Party, The Adieux, Expectation, The Farrier, Musician ; 1867, Cavalry Charge, Napoleon and his Staff, The Kiss of Adieu, THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 345 Cavaliers en route, Retreat from Russia, Dictating his Memoirs, Hetzel ; 1866, White Horse, Chemin Faisant : 1869, Chimney Corner (Renseignment) ; 1873, The Philosopher, Polichinello and the Rose ; 1880, The Traveller, The Adieu ; 1883, Madonna del Bacio ; 1884, Paris in 1870-71, Bad Humor (Cavalier warm- ing his foot). The Embroiderer, In the Shade of the Bushes (a picnic), Frisantson Mousache, Napoleon Overlooking a Field of Battle, The Emperor and his Staff The practice of art is continued in the family by Meissonier's son and pupil, Jean Charles, and by a nephew of his wife, Adolphe Charles Edouard Steinheil. The son follows his father, though not » i i i o u i a J , c+ • u -, with equal steps, and has rank as a genre Adolphe Charles Edouard Steinheil , (Contemporary), Paris, painter, having received a medal in 186(5. Med -3dci. ,882. Steinheii's father, Louis Charles Auguste Steinheil, was a painter of merit of Strasbourg. Young Steinheil is given like his uncle to the subjects of the middle ages and much affects schoolmen and students. His Poor Student who, with his book by his side, and his house-keeping utensils on a shelf over his head, is mending what his half-clothed condition indicates as his only suit, was his first exhibition (1872). Others are : Conversation at the Home of a Painter (1873), and A Lecture of Abelard (1877) ; The Right of Asylum (1878) ; The Amateurs of Engravings (1879) ; The Usurer (1880) ; The Death of Richard Cceur de Lion (1881) ; A Vene- tian Senator, and Playing the Psalterion (1884) ; The Drawing in Blood (1885) ; Painter of Dead Nature (1886). He also is known by flower pieces, some of which were exhibited at Bordeaux while he was yet a student in the College d'Harcourt. Among the close followers of Meissonier are Plassan, Fauvelet, Chavet, and Fichel. These have often challenged comparison with Antome Emiie piassan him in the same subjects, venturing, even at OB.?- ) Bordeaux. the same Salons, upon Smokers and Readers Men. 3d cl. '52. _ 7 r Rap. '57, '59. — Chavet in at least two instances, and Fauve- L - Hon - ' 5Q - let and Fichel in one Smoker and several jean Fauve ^ d Headers. They have, nevertheless, been Med. 2d ci. '48. awarded frequent honors and three of them victor chavet have been decorated. Plassan's picture of ('S"- ), Aix. the Salon of 1859, The Reading of a Ro- R^p. 's^L^on? ^59. 55 E U mance ? that of 1863, Le Lever ; and that of Eugene F,chei 1865 > Going to the Baptism, were bought (1826- ), Paris. for the Emperor and reexhibited in the ^ en 3 , dcl M 57 H ,„ Universal Exposition of 1867, so famous for Rap. '61 ; Med. '69. r > l. Hon. '76. works of "the school of lookers through the small end of the telescope." 346 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. A contemporary rather than a follower of Meissonier, Compte- Calix, in his way a perfect master of his craft, represented in genre with an exquisite rendering the poetic and literary side of art. He . ~. ,. n . n .. reflected the intellectual feeling of his Francois Claudius Compte-Cahx o (1814-1880), Lyons. time, but added to it more than a touch Med.sdci. '44; Med. -57, '59, '63. of the sen timent of love, a suggestion of passion even, and thus is essentially allied to the "peintres galants." His works became the fashion, his name famous and he was a public favorite during the forty years of his work. He escaped the con- demnation with which the Academy visited those great names, Rousseau, Millet, Corot, and others, probably because his was an art of dreams, without much of fact, or much of humanity. But it was of most pleasing subjects and scenes, usually of the refined luxurious- ness of life, painted with a light elegance. It is illustrated by The Song of the Nightingales, to which ladies in rich costumes listen in the moonlight, seated on the steps of a rich mansion embowered in trees ; also by The Parting : In the latter, a refined young- girl charming in simple elegance of attire leaves her hand, as she rises with sorrowful mien from a seat on a stone bench in a garden, in the lingering clasp of a young man, who feelingly bends over it as he retains the seat beside that she has left. Another characteristic work is The Geography Lesson (1872), in which a young man traces outlines on the ground for a deeply interested young girl looking on. Others of his works are The Return of the Emigrants and The Happy Meeting (1841) ; The Fall of the Leaves (1842) ; St. Elizabeth of Hungary (1844); Love in the Palace ; Love in the Cottage (1846); Alone in the World (1848); He Laughs Best who Laughs Last (1852) ; As One makes his Bed so he must Lie (1853) ; The Poor Mother (1857) ; The Road that Leads so Far (two lovers walking); Good Night, Neighbor; Where are they Going ? (1875) ; and twenty-six others exhibited from 1863 to 1880, the last being The Hos- pital Nurse. After " place au roi" and to his miniaturist followers, place must be yielded to the phalanxes of incident painters, whom Meissonier more than any other, Gerome perhaps approximating him, has led into these by-paths of art. But they are also most charming by-paths of nature. For since in the beginning it was given to man to win the mastery of the earth, the delineation of man's character, the story of his life, its every-day incidents, are but the natural course of that conquest associated unavoidably with earth's most significant things. Meissonier's rank and file, the genre painters, have appeared at the Salons in platoons of forties and fifties, all of trained and disciplined hand, and bearing implements ready for skilled work. They may THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 347 handle these in a different manner from the king of genre, but they are of the same class. Forty years after his father's debut, Tony Eobert-Fleury appeared in the Salon (1864) and continued there his father's line of work. His education in the studio of Delaroche had given an impulse in that direction, and a further instruction from Leon (1838- ), Paris. y Oogniet had not deflected his tendencies from histor- Med. '66, '6 7 , '70. \ Cii [ genre. He followed his father too in receiving L e Hon ° n 73 70 distinguished awards, winning with The Last Day of Med. 1st ci. ' 7 8 e. u. Corinth the Grand Medal of Honor in 1870. This was of. l. Hon. 84. selected to illustrate French art in the Luxembourg as well as in the Universal Exposition of 1878. It represents the entrance of the Consul Mummius into Corinth the third day- after the Battle of Leucopetra (Livy ii. 15) when, after pillage, the city was destroyed to the sound of trumpets. Nude women and children implore the statues of the gods, as the legions march on and the smoke of ruin rises. This was preceded at the Luxembourg in 1867 by his Old Women of the Piazza Navona. Eobert-Fleury has shown marked talent for atfairs as chairman of the committee of organization in 1881 of the Society of French Artists to which the management of the Salon is now entrusted. The partial list, Eoman Girl ; Child Kissing a Relic (1864) : Warsaw on April 8, 1861 (1866) : Danaids (1872) : Charlotte Corday in Caen (1874) : Mazarin and his Nieces (1873) Leda ; illus- trates his two lines of work besides portraiture — history and genre. Adrien Moreau, a pupil of Pils, falls into the class of historical Adrien Moreau genre, which he, however, paints with a humorous as Med. 2d cl. '76. well as a skilful touch. A few of his subjects are : End of a Masked Ball (1874) : Jolly Crew (1876) : Wedding in the Middle Ages (187(3) : Gypsies of Grenada ; Minuet (1878): In the Spring (1886). But an older painter, a pupil of Delaroche, H. Vernet, and N. Eobert-Fleury, Comte, is called by Hamerton "the most perfect Pierre charies Comte painter of historical incident in France." By an infu- (1823- ), Lyons. sion of historical interest into common events he makes acTci'.^'-ss. 2, °^ ^he lowliest, one might almost say lowest, incidents 3d ci. 67 e. u. vivid historical pictures, except that his treatment is on the principles of genre rather than of classic painting. Such are Gypsies exhibiting Dancing Pigs to Louis XL (1869), and even " rat-catching," which his Eecreation of Louis XI. when Sick (1863) really is. Comte not only elevated this subject by historical association with that king, but setting aside the theory of the tradi- 348 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. tional historical school which required generalized and restrained effects and permitted reflections only so far as necessary to define the relations of objects, he glorified it by the genre treatment, which allowed him to give it eagerness of expression and to illuminate it by reflected lights until it became a marvellous instance of perfect sunshine in painting. For delineation of delicate shades of character, especially its foibles, and for power of technique, though generally not painting pictures of small dimensions, a number of genre painters — of whom Vibert and Heilbuth are especially prominent, though Heilbuth has an eminent and charming landscape talent as well — fall into the general class with Meissonier. Vibert was a pupil of the Ecole des Beaux- Arts and of Barrias. His strongest title to admiration is his wonderful power of humorous jean Georges vibert characterization and satire, for which he commands a (1840- ), Paris. pleased attention and enduring impression. But he 2d ci. '78 e. u. combines an excellent technique with this faculty. He l. Hon. '70. surrounds his characters with the most delicately painted accessories ; Oriental rugs lie in artistic harmony with wall hangings ; and all forms of bric-a-brac are so related that they express the special delight of the artist in them ; around these he gives well expressed space, light, shade, and perspective successfully treated, and crowns all with the faces, in which are depicted not only the emotions necessary to the moment, but a suggestion of the whole character. He first exhibited in 1863, and for the four years follow- ing, saw the pictures in which he was following his predilections for the grand style accumulate in his studio. He then yielded to the popular demand for genre, produced with great success his Koll Call after the Pillage, a humorous satire, and was decorated at thirty years of age. There is much " story" in all his works. A few principal ones should be described in detail : In the Roll Call after the Pillage tipsy, swaggering men laden with booty form a zig-zag line before their captain, and one staggers out of the inn of the sign of the Lion and Host, the door broken from its hinges, with a decanter in one hand and a pitcher in the other, while from his open mouth comes a drunken halloo. The Cardinal's Menu represents a cook surrounded by the provisions for a feast, awaiting the Cardinal's choice. In the Committee on Immoral Books, two monks of fine embonpoint are burning condemned books ; but they read them first. They sit absorbed, their faces full of amused interest, one unconsciously still holding the lifted tongs, with piles of books around unheeded and yet to be inspected. Schism in the Church represents in the luxurious surroundings of the Episcopal Palace, a cardinal and a bishop sitting back to back in an emphatic manner ; a fierce scowl is upon the countenance of the bishop, who faces the spectator, and the THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. 349 very back or the cardinal speaks wrath. Heavy books with places marked, lying upon the floor face downwards, tell of discussion; and decanters and glasses sug- gest the previous friendly intercourse. The most satisfactory form of Vibert's work is that in which the sub- ject gives opportunity for both satire and esteem ; when a double picture, as it were, is offered. The Holy Collation, or Fasting, represents a bishop feasting with an epicure's joy upon all conceivable delicacies, fine fruit on a cooler at hand giving further promise for the time of dessert ; a young priest partaking only of the aroma of the meal stands by reading to the feaster in genuine earnestness. The Returned Mis- sionary's Story is a most impressive picture of this kind. It is full of the deep sig- nificance which Vibert usually puts between the lines in his works. The earnest worker for the salvation of the souls of his benighted fellow men, full of simple faith, is relating to the church officials incidents of deep interest to him. They, sur- rounded by luxury, strongly contrasted with his supposed usual environment, show by their faces full of derision and amusement 1 at his earnestness, that to them religion is a sham, the salvation of souls a perfunctory work. One picture of Vibert's, A Sacred Concert of Monks, has no levity and no satire. He painted for the Salon of 1878 The Apotheosis of Thiers. For awhile, Detaille assisted upon this, but learning that Meissonier wished this subject to be reserved for his own brush, Detaille's friendship for that artist, his master, led him to cease work. Vibert, however, continued, and the picture became celebrated both for its subject and its treatment. The dead body of the statesman, represented as of noble expression and bearing the Cross of the Legion of Honor, lies on a bier, at the foot of which is France, a noble woman in weeds, weeping, and at the head an allegorical figure of " Glory" in Greek costume. Vibert, with Louis Leloir, Worms, Berne-Bellecour, and Zama- cois the Spaniard, forms the band of five artists who originated, in 1867, the Society of French Aquarellists, and to him as its presi- dent more than all others its success is owing. These artists had a little household at Montmorency, when Fortuny's water colors exhibited by Goupil aroused them to the excellences of that art, and after many attempts they achieved a success, such that at the end of the season Vibert sold to Goupil seventeen drawings. 2 This society bears an important relation to the art of the time, as it estab- lished a higher standard of execution than the Salon : at the same 1 This picture brought $25,500, March, 1886, at the Morgan sale, New York. It was bought by Mr. C. P. Huntington, of New York. 2 But for the moderate sum of 250 francs each. 350 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. time the impressionists were condemning that as being too severe. Nevertheless Dore was an honored member, and Harpignies also, who had been rejected at the Salon of 1863. Manet's delicacies of execution enabled him also to command membership with the aqua- rellists while still of the condemned impressionists. De Neuville, Detaille, Heilbuth, Eugene Isabey, Jacque, Julien Le Blunt, Henri Barron, Louis Eugene Lambert, were other members. From the five closely associated in one domicile, classification by style and character of subject will separate Berne- Bellecour, to take military rank with his confreres ; but Chevilliard. claims the nearer relation of more fully sharing with Vibert his spirit of work. He is even more given to reproduce the humors of church officials than Vibert, but his work has a less biting sarcasm ; he usually treats of pleasantries, and his wit, keen but oaij-" 1 ) h Rascati never bitter, is highly appreciated by the class upon which it is exercised. Like many another he worked some time before finding the field of his success, and then it was incidentally discovered. He was entertaining at his residence at Barbison, the ivy covered cottage sacred to artistic memories, where Rousseau lived, suffered and died, 1 an artist who had brought with him a priest's costume for the draperies of a picture. Chevilliard begged him, when arrayed in it one day, for a sitting. The picture was called An Easy Conscience, and through an English dealer was purchased by the Prince of Wales. Orders soon rained upon Che- villiard, but no one wanted at his hands anything but priests. Perforce he became a painter of the clergy. Quiet humor, a real originality of perception, and a correspondingly subtle rendering, constitute the excellence of his pictures. They are attractive, com- manding attention, however, by some suggestive trifle, and demand only that we be amused with, or at their subject, as, for example, The Salutation, in which a priest simply bows very ceremoni- ously and, with great good humor on his face, makes a very pleasing picture ; or, The Mistake, which depicts the disgust of a priest who has found upon the door-step, instead of the orthodox paper, a radical sheet which he takes in his finger tips and holds at a distance. Though born in Italy Chevilliard was of French parentage and came early to Paris. Picot was his first instructor in art, but he entered the Beaux-Arts in Cabanel's class of 1863. His first pictures, some- times landscapes, sometimes richly-costumed antique figures, were i Chevilliard's pictures of that period have for backgrounds the picturesque corners of the house and garden of Rousseau. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 351 rather conventional, and though of exquisite finish, were without the wit and originality that have given him success in his later class of subjects. He now lives in Paris, and says, in allusion to his sur- roundings of priestly appurtenances, " like the cures I paint so much," writes Henry Bacon. Heilbuth's susceptibility to pictorial impressions of all kinds has given him a facile and sincere rendering through various changes of his field of subjects. At first he painted Ferdinand Heilbuth r (Contemporary), Hamburg. genre scenes of the sixteenth century, but sub- Med. 2d ei. '57; Rap. '59, '6i. sequently he spent several years in Rome, and L. Hon. '6i ; Of. L. Hon. '8i. x , . , , .. . . , there his brush was attracted to the pictorial qualities of the gay coloring and unusual characteristics presented in the streets of papal Rome, and by his many pictures of its church- men, became known as ''the painter of cardinals," though Vibert might well dispute the title with him. He is also a painter of land- scape of fine and tender treatment, in which he shows great harmony of softened tones, and in his figures he reveals a subtle observation of life and manners. In his early works the most trifling subject, even costume, became important under his true sensibility to pic- torial qualities. His pictures of the streets of Rome have proved a fortunate embalming of an interesting presentation of life, which immediately after, by the transfer of political power from the church to the king, and the consequent disappearance of the varied paraphernalia of the church from the daily scenes of the city streets was rendered thence- forth impossible. From 1852 to 1862 his genre, chiefly scenes in artist's biography, approximated to historical painting, for which his large treatment was adapted. Among his works may be cited : 1857, Titian the Younger with his Lady Love (Ravene Gallery, Berlin) : 1859, Luca Signorelli by the Dead Body of his Son : 1861, Watteau and his Sweet- heart ; Absolution in St. Peter's and the Mont-de-Piete (Luxembourg). In the Fields ; The Riverside (Mr. William W. Astor, New York) ; and The Seine illustrate his landscape : and the Cardinal Entering his Carriage ; In his Eminence's Wait- ing-Room ; and the Ante-room of the Vatican, his Roman scenes. Catechizing the Children is a scene on the Pincio. A group of white-frocked boys in their daily walk, superintended by their master, are met by a cardinal in brilliant red to whom it occurs to test their knowledge of the Catechism. Some are crestfallen at their failures, some triumphant at their successes, some are being surreptitiously coached by the master. Subordinate groups, one of children sail- ing toy- boats around a fountain, one of a mother and nurse with young children, show the incidental character of the meeting. The management of the color is charming and the composition most easy and graceful. 352 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. A Prussian by birth, he could not take arms against Paris, the city of his affections and adoption, and during the Franco-Prussian War lie fled to London. But it was only to return after its close and make himself legally a Parisian and be welcomed as such by warm friends in France, with whom he now is placed in the gallery of living French artists in the Luxembourg. The "dainty Worms" and Vibert are alike in talent. On the basis of his Jewish origin, it has been asserted by an ingenious and eloquent writer that Worms's talent is a Jules Worms 1 (1832- ), Paris. " modern outburst," an Arethusan fountain, Med. '67, 68, '69; Med. 3 d ci. -78. 0 f a jj ne 0 f inheritance continued through generations from a far distant procreation of Eastern source, then unseen and unknown, " now finding expression in his opulent imagination and glittering fancy." But whatever its relation to the past, it is in such accord with modern tastes and enthu- siasms that collectors eagerly demand its productions. Of a family of small Jewish shop-keepers, he became shop-boy to a draughts- man, then a draughtsman himself, for U Illustration and other peri- odicals. He exhibited in 1852 The Country Forge and A Dragoon Making Love to a Nursery Maid. He has made six extensive journeys for study into Spain. But his eyes were formed for different sights there from the bloody one which Eegnault found in the silent, yet speaking, Alhambra or the landscape range of Dore. Wox*ms presents with truth and ingenuousness the humble village life that, uninflu- enced by "progress," still retains its original manners. But he has another class of pictures, in which there is a vein of underlying satire or comedy akin to Vibert's (though not exercised upon the clergy), as seen by his works : Arrested for Debt (1861): Fountain in Burgos; Laval Museum (1863) : Tavern in the Asturias ; Departure of Smugglers (1865) : Kitchen in Valencia ; Race in Valencia (1866): Scene in Old Castile (1867) : Romance a la Mode (1868), Luxem- bourg: Sheep Shearing in Granada (1872) : Sensational News ; A Vocation (1875): Dancing the Vito in Granada (1876) : Public Writer (1882) : Politicians (1883). In one, Expectations from Our Aunt, the central figure, absorbed in her own ailments, is the object of most obsequious attention from relatives: a niece making tender inquiries, a nephew serving her chocolate, all of whom regard with jealousy a priest, who, under the favor of his vocation, sits complacently taking snuff, and all in turn are looked upon with malevolent eye by the servitor, who also has hope of a legacy. Louis Leloir continued the artistic tendency of a father, mother, and two grandfathers, which seems to have culminated for its choic- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 353 est growth in his own talent, and he may be classed with artists of A|exa d L ■ , ■ delicate execution of delicate fancies. A ( l 8 43 -'84), Paris. Homer by his father, Jean Baptiste Au- Med. '64, '68, '70; 2 d ci. - 7 6. guste (1809- ), an historical painter, is in the Luxembourg; his mother, Heloise Colin, was a miniaturist and aquarellist, and his maternal grand- father has left copies of the old masters. In his later works Leloir resembled Meissonier. Having entered the competition for the Prix de Eome, he received the second prize at the age of eighteen, and at twenty he executed religious paintings and antiques drawn from Virgil, exhibiting A Massacre of the Innocents in 1863 which was bought by the state ; at twenty-one, he received a medal for his Daniel in the Lion's Den ; and at twenty-two, his Struggle of Jacob and the Angel was also purchased by the state. He then spent a charmed period amid the treasures of Italy, and returned, deeply imbued with the ideal, to continue his artistic pursuits under all the advantages which the liberty and enlightenment of the third Republic afford artists in France. The Superintendent of the Fine Arts gave him the subject, Baptism of the Barbarians on the Canary Isles, an incident in the conquest by Bethencourt. It won for him a medal in 1868. After that he painted genre chiefly. The Railliement of 1870 made him Hors Concours. He became one of the most attractive and most ingenious of his class of very French artists, a painter of Parisian society, of delicate, fanciful style, and withal a very personal painter. From the instruction of his father, who followed David in design, and his own thoroughness, he was long held to severity and accuracy of form ; but he later burst forth, a butterfly, and, in the confidence of wings, gayly fluttered into every form of the ephemera of modern poesy; everywhere showing, moreover, a great feeling for color. His Zephyr, an airy figure supported on a tree's blossoming twig, with wings large enough to give security to any proposed flight, has all the grace of which such fairy motive may be made the occasion. For his Temptation of St. Anthony 1 (1869) he has given most charming forms to the two sirens who torment the holy man. It is one of his greatest works. His Grandfather's Fete (1875) is a spirited composition of a nobleman's birthday in the time of Henry IV. It is full of pleasing details, containing fifteen figures in the costumes of that period. He had, in addition to his delicate aquarelles, just succeeded with his etchings, when, saying "Life is too short for all," he died, January 28, 1884. He was a man of tender friendship : that i Sold at the Johnston Sale, New York, 1876, for $2,000. 23 354 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. with Hector Leroux, "the painter of vestals," being of conspicuous faithfulness, in which he was always more solicitous for Leroux's honors than his own. His brother, Maurice Leloir, ten years his junior, thoroughly grounded by him in drawing and the fundamental principles of art, is his follower, and, though of a narrower range of work, has individual pictures which are not inferior to his brother's. The eminence as a portrait-painter of Carolus-Duran, a painter of genre and portrait, does not prevent his being classed among genre A . a -i n painters, as portraitists are better classed Charles Auguste Emile Duran * ? r (called caroius-Duran), by their other qualities, in France, at least, m 8 7",« L J" e ', , * fop it where every artist paints portraits on occa- Med. 66, 69, 70; 2d cl. '78 E. U. , " . l. Hon. -72. sion, and what we denominate the " profes- of. l. Hon. '78. Med. Hon. > 79 . s [ ona \ portrait painter" is unknown. Duran has a just foundation of realism, a touch even of impressionism, and a very acute perception of the modern ideal in his style. In forming it he had the discipline of a poverty occasioned by the death of his father in 1855, who had then just removed the family to Paris. He had begun drawing so young that he practised an art of which he had never heard, demanding a pocket in his little " robe de chambre " for pencil and paper, says Claretie. He had had a severe course in draw- ing and had been "pupil of Souchon,"as he now signs himself at the Salons, when he was setting out on foot for Marseilles, en route for the army in Algiers, that forlorn hope of struggling Frenchmen. But upon being offered a room in Paris with rent prepaid for two years he took \x\) life there again, sometimes with a penny's worth of bread for breakfast, sometimes with none, until one day, found ill, helpless, and alone, he was taken by a friend and cared for at his own quarters. He soon returned to Lille and obtained in 1859 a pension of twelve hundred francs for instruction at Paris, and he subsequently gained, notwithstanding some opposition on account of his overleaping of tra- dition in art, the pension of Lille of two hundred francs per month, established by Wicar for study at Rome. The Assassination of 1866, now in the Lille Museum, was his first success. He then spent six months studying art and nature in Spain. His wife has taken a third class medal at the Salon (1875) for A Portrait, one of their two little daughters, whom the father has also modelled in bronze, while the mother he has placed in the Luxembourg as The Lady with the Glove (1S69), a full length life size portrait. For himself, in the last twenty years his history is but a succession of triumphs. The impression left by his art is that of perfect mastery within its THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 355 own limits. Light which is necessary to the management of color, and color which he loves for color's sake, he commands to a most un- usual service. He makes a hue repeat itself in slightly varying tints, red upon reds, green upon greens ; he mingles the varieties of colors in their greatest intensities, and the resultant is vivacity of style. He has sometimes been accused of seeing in his portraits the costume before the head, but this is disproved by the fulness of life which he makes his tones all subserve ; life remains chief. His art has the modern accent of what he calls the " intimes " of life ; that is, its type is based on the realistic experiences of the individual. He gives importance, and with great solidity and surety of touch, to the minute accessories of dress in all its mundanities and modernities ; "he makes arranged portraits in which glitter the lustre of the whites, the fire of the reds, the gold of the yellows, the lazulis of the intense blues, in which satins shimmer and velvets tremble," says an enthusiastic admirer, Olaretie. His own words, in his lessons or " talks," given in the Atelier Duran, show that he holds the principles and hopes of the new generation understandingly and comprehen- sively grasped. These attract large numbers of students, especially of the English and Americans. Two portraits, which are properly pendants to each other, illustrate his treatment ; La Femme Eousse, or The Red Haired Woman, a portrait (1872), is thus described by J. Claretie : " Upon a blue background, with the green reflections of the sea, of which the note corresponds with the green of the carpet, the figure of Madame, seated on a sofa of tobacco-colored satin, detaches itself with an unheard-of mauve color. The head, of surprising intensity of life, borrows a singular and unexpected light from a cherry fan which she holds in her hand. This head is red and common, but unforgetable. . . . The mauve satin of the dress relieved with black and velvet, the bow of yellow silk, the teeth, the grey Suede glove which loosely en- velopes the left arm, all of these details of an astonishing ensemble, only serve to make the light flow and rise to this head, which literally lives, of which the nos- trils move, and which is as powerful and impressive as a Rubens. It is the typical modern portrait, showing the violence of our colors, the height of our civiliza- tion.'' Its pendant is the opposite of this violent gamut. Yet all in it expresses an intense life. The colors are silvered, the light softened. A woman of soft, pale flesh, smiling, clothed in gray silk, holding a vervain in her hand, turns towards the observer. There is a movement and transparency in this artist's work that gives a feeling of reality. Of portraits he may be considered to speak " ex cathedra," for, by the award to him in 1879 of the Medal of Honor for the Portrait of a Lady, he had the official seal set upon his 356 A II I STORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. work of this class. It was a lady in a white satin dress, over which a fur cloak falls, managed with great originality in tones of silver and brown, by which the flesh tints of the face are accentuated. He has been the accepted portraitist of the woman of society, whom he is able to reproduce in her charms and weaknesses, in all her varying phases. His works for twelve years following 1869 were almost entirely portraits of women. Since, there has been an inter- val of genre, and in 1878 he executed upon the ceiling of the Luxem- bourg a Gloria of Maria de' Medici. In his teaching, individuality as well as realism is plainly evident. Having established the general principle that painting is not an imitative art, not a literal translation, but an interpretation of nature and thus of unlimited individuality, for this interpretation can be made only by making use of one's own experiences and aspirations ; also that, if "Tradition," or the precedent of the masters, is ever adopted successfully, it must be " Tradition in the direction of one's aspirations," as that of Raphael by Ingres, he says : 1 "This applies to portraits as well as to compositions, and the true portrait painter interprets characteristics, temperament, and manner of his models, with a perfect self-abnegation, which is the only difference between portrait and composi- tions. Thus, in the portraits of Holbein, Velasquez and Rembrandt, the three greatest of portrait painters, one always feels as if he [the observer] had been long acquainted with the model. " Of other subjects, he teaches : "A subject may be treated heroically or familiarly; in the latter case the artist enters into the life of the personages as human beings, . . . taking account of their impressions, their joys, their sufferings. The heroic manner, on the contrary, expresses but an instant of their lives, when raised to an exceptional pitch, when, as you might say, they are deified, so much do they seem to be ab- solved from the daily necessities of humanity. For this very reason they lose the sympathetic charm we find in beings living, thinking, and suffering like ourselves. Thus, in treating The Flight into Egypt, picture to yourself the incidents of the departure, imagine the scenes at the morning fires, in the glimmering twilight, in the moonlight, or in the bright light of day ; the crying, the laughing, the nursing of the child. This is the only way to find charmingly intime scenes. . . . The travellers have rested in the shade as you might have done, they have had a crowd of emotions, such as you may have felt in your journeys. Call upon your remembrances and apply them so that the personages may be before your eyes, moving, walking, resting, forming a whole with the nature that surrounds them, and of which they reflect the influence. . . . ' ' That which will make celebrity for us will not be our cleverness, but perhaps a little ray of personality." 1 Notes taken in short-hand by one of his pupils. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 357 He has painted* landscape in A Morning at Trouville, and, to prove himself equal to the academic school in the nude, he painted his Dew, which may be considered an illustration of the simile, fresh as the dew. The light is "en plein air," coming from all directions in the most modern treatment. His Future Doge (1881), is an infant of Venice of the sixteenth century ; and La Gloire, a view of the dead bodies and scattered limbs after a battle of 1870 in which the artist's brigade had had part. He also touched the religious in his Evening Prayer of 1865 and St. Francis of Assisi of 1868. Behind these figures in high relief of painters of genre, is, to con- tinue the simile, a background damascened with forms significant if less apparent. The large number of artists who, having early adopted the tenets of classicism, slowly readjusted themselves during the period of romanticism to the changing current, and, in the course of their long lives, after Meissonier and Gerome had placed that once condemned class of art on a high level, became enthusiastic and suc- cessful painters of genre, bears eloquent witness to the force of that high wave of genre influence. Portraiture as a painting of the actual and the unremote, formed a direct path to this result, and no narrow way, but one into which flocked former classicists, pupils of David or of his pupils, Girodet, Gerard, Gros, and Ingres, pupils whose brushes won for them honors in their earlier as well as now in their later style. Through portraiture they arrived at the same result which their sons, who most frequently became the pupils of Delaroche, reached through that master's transition from history to genre. From the course of one, that of all may be learned. Charles Marie Dubufe (1791-1864), the father of Edouard, was a pupil and follower of David. He received a first class medal in 1831, and a decoration in 1837. A partial list of his works furnishes an epitome of the changes effected in art standards from David to the younger Dubufe. 1810, A Roman Dying of Starvation with his Family rather than touch silver entrusted to him : 1812, Achilles taking Iphigenia under his Protection : 1822, Psyche Carrying to Venus the Box of Beauty : 1831, The Silver Merchant, (Medal lstcl.); The Message; The Young Alsacienne ; Malvina; Young Wife in Grief; Two Young Sisters (not one of these of the classic requirements): 1833, Don Juan; Scene of 1814 ; Young Girl Returning from Market ; Youth Reading a Letter ; Little Girl in Prayer ; and sixteen portraits. He exhibited up to 1863, the year before his death, inclusive, in the annual Salons, one hundred and thirty portraits, many of them of the nobility of France. Others well known are : Charles Louis Bazin (1802- , 59) : medal 3d class '44 ; 2d class '46 ; passed from a Dissolution of Parliament by Louis XTV. to A Girl with a Lizard. — Joseph 358 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Beaume : 89 years, from 1796-1885 ; pupil of Gros ; medal 2d class '24 ; 1st class '27 ; Legion of Honor '36 ; passed from the death-beds of royalty, as of Henry III. (1822); Anne of Austria (1835); Charles V. (1838); and the national battles in Gros' style, through Childhood of Sixtus V. (1839) to, since 1870, the practice of genre. — Hippolyte Bellange (1800-66): pupil of Gros ; medal 2d class '24, '55 ; Legion of Honor '34; Officer '61 ; exhibited in every Salon from '22 to 'G6; he took up Hor- ace Vernet's classes of subjects, battles and incidents of the soldier's life, or mili- tary genre. — Rene Theodore Berthon (1776-1859): pupil of David; Legion of Honor; a most talented artist of his school who never proceeded farther on this route than portraits, of which three appeared in his last exhibition, the Salon of 1841. — Antoine Beranger (1785-1867): medal 3d class '39; 2d class '40; Legion of Honor '41 ; an artist of ability, who was hastened in his development of genre by his many years' employment on porcelain at Sevres, to the celebrity of which his skill greatly aided ; his two sons, Emile (1814), medal 3d class '46, 2d class '48, and Charles (181 6— '53), medal 3d class '39, 2d class '40, a pupil of Delaroche, were developed into painters of genre, and a daughter, Susanne Estelle (Madame Apoil) into a skilful painter of flowers and fruit. — Jean Claude Bonnefond (1770- 1860), Lyons : pupil of Revoil and, after study in Italy, his successor as director of the Art School of Lyons. — Alexandre Caminade (1783-1862), Paris: pupil of David; medal 2d class '12; 1st class '31; Legion of Honor '33. — Louis Charpentier (1811— ), Paris : pupil of Gerard and Cogniet and himself for twenty-six years professor at Versailles ; medal 3d class '41 and '51. — Francois Barthelemy Michel Edouard Cibot (1799-1877), Paris : pupil of Guerin, Picot, and Ecole des Beaux- Arts; medal 2d class '36 ; 1st class '43; rappel '59 and '63 ; Legion of Honor '63 ; also painted landscape. — Joseph Desire Court (1789-1865), Rouen: pupil of Gros; medal 1st class '31; 2d class '55; Legion of Honor '38. — Alexandre Debacq (1804-50), Paris : pupil of Gros. — Auguste Hyacinthe Debay (1804-65), Nantes : pupil of Gros ; Prix de Rome '24 ; medal 3d class '19 ; 1st class '31 ; Legion of Honor '61. —Jean Baptiste Delestre (1800-71), Lyons : pupil of Gros and a writer on art, who excelled as a teacher. — Francois Delorme (1783-1859), Paris : pupil of Girodet; medal 2d class '40; Legion of Honor '41. — Paul Emile Destouche (1794- 1874), Dampierre : medal 1st class '19 and '27 ; from being a pupil of David, Guerin, Gros, and Girodet, he became chiefly noted for his genre. — Jules Alexandre Duval Le Camus (18l4-'78), Paris: Legion of Honor '59. — Pierre Duval Le Camus (1790- 1854), Lisieux : pupil of David ; medal 2d class '19, 1st class '27. — Louis Jules Etex (1810- ), Paris: pupil of Lethiere and Ingres; medal 2d class '33 and '38. — Jean Henri Joseph Forestier (1787, Santo Domingo — 1874, Paris); pupil of both David and Vincent ; Prix de Rome '13 ; Legion of Honor '32. — Jacques Victor Fro- ment (1820- ), Paris : Legion of Honor 1863 ; mingled genre with landscape. — Eugene Goyet (1789-1857): a pupil of Gros and son of Jean Baptiste Goyet.— Louis Hersent (1777-1860), Paris : 2d Prix de Rome 1797; Legion of Honor 1819 ; Mem- ber Institute '23 ; Professor '25; is a conspicuous example of this class; during the classic period when he was honored as a member of the Institute his works were from Greek mythology, later they were portrait and historical genre. — Pierre Jules Jollivet (1794-1871), Paris : medal 2d class '33 ; 1st class '35 ; Legion of Honor '51 ; pupil of Gros and De Juinn. — Louis Eugene Lami (1800- ): gained early renown by water color scenes of fashionable life ; medal 2d class '65 ; Legion of Honor '37; Officer '62. — Charles Joseph Emile Loubon (1809-63), pupil and friend THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 359 of Granet ; medal 3d class '42 ; Legion of Honor '55 Exposition Universelle. — Charles Laurent Marechal (1801- ), Metz : a pupil of J. B. Regnault and has had many pupils himself: medal 3d class '40 ; 2d class '41 ; 1st class '42, '55 ; Legion of Honor '46 ; Officer '55. — Alexis Perignon (1806-82), Paris : pupil of his father and of Gros ; medal 3d class '36; 2d class '38 ; 1st class '44 ; Legion of Honor '56 ; Officer '70 ; excelled in portrait.— Fleury Francois Richard (1777-1852), Lyons : pupil of David ; Legion of Honor '15 ; painter to the king '25. — Louis Antoine Leon Riesener (1808-'78), Paris : pupil of his father H. F. Riesener and of Gros; medal 3d class '36; 2d class '55, '64; Legion of Honor '73 —Louis Edou- ard Rioult (1780-1855), Somme: pupil of David and Regnault; medal 2d class '44 ; 1st class '38; 22 portraits by him are in the Versailles Museum. — Gillot Saint Evre ( -1858), Bault-sur-Suippe : medal 2d class '24; 1st class '27; Legion of Honor '33.— Madame Marie Eve Alexandrine Verde-Delisle (1805-66) pupil of Gros. For the last eighteen years, the tendencies of the age to reality, the love of truth for truth's sake, the intense sympathy with the labor- ing classes, so long preached by Victor Hugo, but stifled by the gov- ernment until the greater freedom of the Third Republic, have been reflected in genre subjects of laborers begrimed at work, rather than in holiday attire. The same tendency is seen in the later portraiture, in which the chosen garb is the every-day dress. Things as they are, without softening or pretence, is the sentiment of the age, and is reflected in this art. The stratum of genre immediately preceding this, contemporary with the early semi-classic work of the idealized peasant girls of Hebert and Bouguereau, consisted of the incidents of the lady of society, as Toulemouche's Day after the Ball (1864) ; Rose ; Love Letter (1869) ; and J. E. Saintin's subjects of such suggestion as The First Engagement and, if of work at all, it was The Washer- woman of Fine Linen, or Embroiderer, subjects still continued by that group of artists into the current art of scenes of labor. The later class, however, are not without their poetic sentiment, surely not as represented by Roll in the Stone Masons' Yard of 1884. Of the younger genre painters are : Henri Charles Antoine Baron (1816- ), Besancon : pupil of Gigoux ; medal 3d class '47, '55, '67 Exposition Universelle ; 2d class '48 ; Legion of Honor '59. — Faustin Besson (1821-'82), Dole : pupil of Decamps, Gigoux, and Ecole des Beaux-Arts; Legion of Honor '55. — Alcide Boichard (contemporary), Bourges : a skilful painter of modern life. — Madame Henriette Brown (Sophie de Bouteiller, married (1853) M. Jules Desaux, Secretary to Comte Walewski; assumed the name Brown from a maternal relative (1829- ), Paris : pupil of Chaplin ; medal 3d class '55, '57, '59 ; 2d class '61 ; 3d class for engraving '63 ; she paints many scenes of religious institutions, and some of Algeria and the East. — Jean Francois Bremond (1807-'68), Paris : pupil of A. Couder and Ingres ; medal 2d class '33 ; rappel '63. — Arnaud Cambon (contemporary), Montauban : pupil of Delaroche and 3G0 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Ingres; medal 2d class '63; 3d class '73. — Joseph Caraud (1821- ), Cluny: pupil of Abel de Pujol and C. L. Muller ; medal 3d class '59 ; 2d class '61 ; rappel '03 Legion of Honor '67. — Theobald Chartran (contemporary), Besancon : pupil of Cabanel ; Prix de Rome '77 ; medal 3d class '77 ; 2d class '81. — Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Gerome ; medal 3d class '78 ; 1st class '80 ; Legion of Honor '85. — Pierre Louis Joseph De Coninck (1828- ), Meteren : pupil of Cogniet ; medal '66, '68 ; 3d class '73.— Ernest Delahaye (contemporary): pupil of Gerome; medal 3d class '82; 2d class '84. — Charles fidouard Delort (1814- ), Nimes: pupil of Gleyre and Gerome; medal 3d class '75 ; 2d class '82. — Edmond Louis Dupain (1847- ), Bordeaux : pupil of Cabanel and Gue ; medal 3d class '75 ; 1st class '77. — Theophile Emmanuel Duverger (1821- ) : medal 3d class '61 ; rappel '63 ; medal '65. — Leon Faivre (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Gerome and Boulanger ; medal 3d class '84. — Louis Stanislas Faivre-Duffer (1818- ), Nancy : pupil of Orsel ; medal 3d class '51; rappel '61; also known for restoration of Philibert Delorme's Diana of Poitiers, a ceiling in the Castle of Anet. — Jean Alexandre Joseph Falguiere (1831- ), Toulouse: pupil of Jouffroy ; medal 2d class '75 ; a sculptor of fame and Member of Institute '82. — Henri Fantin Latour (1836- ), Grenoble : pupil of Lecoq de Bois- baudran ; medal '70 ; 2d class '75; Legion of Honor '79; renowned for portraits. —Eugene Faure (1822-'79), Seyssinet: pupil of David d' Angers and Rude ; medal '64; 2d class '72. — Francois Nicolas Augustin Feyen-Perrin (1829- ), Bey-sur- Seille: pupil of Cogniet and Yvon; medal '65, '67 ; 3d class '74. — Eugene Feyen (1818- ), Bey-sur- Seille : pupil of Delaroche; medal '66 ; 2d class '80; Legion of Honor '81. — ^mile Friant (contemporary), Dreuze: pupil of Cabanel; medal 3d class '84 ; 2d class '85. — Nicholas Auguste Galimard (1813-'80), Paris : medal 3d class '35 ; 2d class '46.— Theophile Gide (1822- ), Paris: pupil of Delaroche and Cogniet ; medal 3d class '61 ; medal '65/66 ; Legion of Honor '66; his history is of the nature of genre, as Louis XL surprised at Prayer by his Jester (1877), and his genre chiefly scenes of life in Italian monasteries. — Felix Henri Giacomotti (1828- ), Quingey: pupil of Picot and Ecole des Beaux- Arts; Prix de Rome, '54; medal '64, '65, '66 ; Legion of Honor '67.— Firmin-Girard (1838- ), Poncin : medal 3d class '63 ; 2d class '74 ; a pupil of Gleyre ; has power in giving elegance and brilliancy to inconsiderable subjects. — The elder Glaize, the father, Auguste Barthelemy (1813- ), Montpellier: medal 3d class '42; 2d class '44, '48, '55; 1st class '45; Legion of Honor '55 ; an extreme realist ; pupil of the brothers Deveria ; has treated successfully many mythological subjects, as Cupids at Auction (1857, Beziers Museum), as well as genre, and is represented in the Luxembourg and many of the museums of France. — Jules Adolphe Goupil (1839-83), Paris : medal 3d class '73, '74 ; 1st class '75 ; 2d class '78 Exposition Universelle ; Legion of Honor '81 ; often paints trivial subjects, but they are well drawn and brightly colored, as Trying on a Dress (1864).— Lucien Alphonse Gros (contemporary) : medal '67 ; 2d class '76; a pupil of Meissonier ; follows him in characteristic pictures in excellent drawing, as Pergolese in Vernet's studio (1880). — Gabriel Guay (contemporary), Paris: medal 3d class '78; pupil of Gerome.— Alexandre Marie Guillemin (1817-80), Paris: medal 3d class '41 ; 2d class '45, '59 ; Legion of Honor '61 ; added hunting scenes to genre. — Auguste Herlin (1845- ), Lille. — Felix Armand Heullant (1834- ), Paris : paints pleasing scenes of every-day life.— Alfred Louis Jacomin (1843- ), Paris: medal at Philadelphia (1876).— THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 361 Eugene Ernest Hillemacher (1817- ), Paris: medal 2d class '48, '57; 1st class '61, '63 ; Legion of Honor '65 ; pupil of Cogniet ; follows subjects of Meissonier's genre, but makes them episodes of specially named famous men. — Ferdinand Hum- bert (1842- ), Paris: medal '66 '67, '69; 3d class '78; Legion of Honor '78; pupil of Picot, Cabanel, and Fromentin ; paints finely treated realistic scenes of strong color. — Philippe Auguste Jeanron (1810-77), Boulogne-sur-mer : medal 3d class '33 ; Legion of Honor '55 ; Director Marseilles Museum '63 ; Correspond- ing Member Institute '63 ; he did great service to art as Director of the National Museums, to which he was appointed in 1848 by Ledru-Rollin. — Jean Gustave Jacque (1846- ), Paris : medal '68 ; 1st class '75 ; 3d class '78, Exposition Uni- verselle ; Legion of Honor '79 ; pupil of Bouguereau. — Aman-Edmond Jean (contemporary), Chevry-Cossigny : medal 3d class '83 ; pupil of Lehmann, Hebert, and Merson. — Theodore Jourdan (1833- ), Salon: professor of design in Marseilles School of Art. — Paul de La Boulaye (contemporary), Bourg : medal 3d class '79, At the Sermon (1879, Luxembourg). — Alexandre Lafond (1815- ), Paris : medal 2d class '57, '61, '63; pupil of Ingres.— Marcellin Laporte (1839- ), St. Geniez d'Olt ; medal at Vienna '73 Exposition Universelle. — Charles Hippolyte ]Emile Lecomte-Vernet (1821-74), Paris : medal 3d class '46, '63 ; Legion of Honor '64. — Jacques Joseph Lecurieux (1801- ), Dijon: medal 3d class '44; 2d class '46; pupil in Dijon of Devosge, in Paris, of Lethiere and Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1822-26).— The two brothers, the self-taught Adolphe Leleux (1812- ), Paris : medal 3d class '42 ; 2d class '43, '48 ; Legion of Honor '55 Exposition Universelle ; and Armand Leleux (1818-'85), Paris : pupil of Ingres ; medal 3d class '44 ; 2d class '47, '48, '57 ; 1st class '59 ; Legion of Honor '60 ; the former, presents the outdoor genre of Breton life in a charming landscape, with occasional Algerian and Spanish scenes, and the latter, more frequently, interiors in which he exhibits great power of light and shade. — Madame Madeleine Lemaire (contemporary*, Paris : one of the large number of women who are pupils of Charles Chaplin, exhibits an extraordinary ability and softness of touch, a perception of pictorial qualities and a feminine grace. — Jacques Francois Fernand Lematte (1850- ), St. Quentin : pupil of Cabanel and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome '70 ; medal 3d class '73; 1st class '76. — Eugene Leroux (1833- ): pupil of "le pere Picot ; " medal '64 ; 3d class '73 ; 2d class '75 ; Legion of Honor '71 ; his The New Born Baby (1864) is in the Luxembourg. — Felix Maurice Hippolyte Lucas (contemporary), Rochefort-sur-Mer ; pupil of Pils and Lehmann ; medal 3d class '84. — Charles Francois Marchal (1825-77), Paris : pupil of Drolling and Dubois; medal '64, '68, '73; though thus out of competitions and being honored by his Martha Serving (1864) in the Luxembourg and his Alsace (1872) being often engraved and lithographed ; having lost his eyesight in 1876, he com- mitted suicide. — Mademoiselle Julia Marest (contemporary), Paris : pupil of C. Chaplin and of Geroux. — Princess Mathilde, daughter of Jerome Bonaparte (1820- ), Trieste : pupil of Eugene Giraux ; medal '65 ; paints genre in water color. — Louis Matout (1811- ), Renwez : pupil of art school at Charleville ; medal 3d class '53 ; rappel '57 ; Legion of Honor '57 ; his works are historical and mythological, and more frequently of the character of genre.— Constant Mayer (1832- ), Besaneon : pupil of Cogniet and of lilcole des Beaux- Arts ; Legion of Honor '69 ; has resided in New York since 1857. — Joseph Paul Mesle (contemporary), Saint-Servan : pupil of Bonnat ; medal 3d class '86. — 362 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. fidouard Moyse (1827- ), Nancy : pupil of Drolling ; medal 2d class '82 ; has painted many Jewish subjects. — Celestin Nanteuil-Lebceuf (1813-73), Rome, of French parents: pupil of Langlois and Ingres; medal 3d class '37; 2d class '48, '61 ; medal '67 ; Legion of Honor '68. — Charles Nanteuil-Gaugiran (1811- ), Paris: pupil of Ingres and Gleyre ; medal 3d class '40 ; 2d class '46. — Philippe Parrot (contemporary), Excideuil : medal '68, 70 ; 2d class '72 ; 3d class '78 Exposition Universelle. — Fernand Pelez (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Cabanel and Barrias ; medal 3d class '76 ; 2d class '79 ; 1st class '80.— Octave Penguilly- L'Hartdon (1811-'70), Paris : while passing his life in military affairs, from which he retired on a pension in 1866, he was led to take up art by the admiration some of his pen and ink sketches commanded in 1835, and in a few years became Hors Concours by the medal 3d class '47 ; 2d class '48 ; Legion of Honor '51 ; Officer '62. — Charies Perrandeau (contemporary), Sully-sur-Loire: pupil of Cabanel; medal 3d class '86. — Leon Bazile Perrault (contemporary), Poitiers : pupil of Picot and Bouguereau ; medal '64 ; 2d class '76. — Charles Henri Pille (contem- porary), Essommes : pupil of Barrias ; medal '69 ; 2d class '72 ; Legion of Honor '82. — Victor Florence Pollet (1811-82), Paris : pupil of Delarocheand Richomme ; medal 3d class '45 ; Legion of Honor '55. — Charles Porrion (contemporary), Amiens : pupil of Drolling and Ingres ; medal 3d class '44 ; Legion of Honor '84. — Jean Francois Portaels (1818- ), Vilvorde : pupil of Delaroche ; Prix de Rome '41 ; Order of Leopold '51 ; medal 2d class '55 : Director of Brussels Academy since '75. — Rene Princeteau (contemporary) : pupil of Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; medal 3d class '83 ; 2d class '86. — Louis Priou (1845- ), Toulouse : pupil of Gibert and Cabanel; medal '69 ; 1st class '74. — Eugene Quesnet (1816- ), Paris: pupil of Dubufe ; medal 3d class '38 ; 2d class '43 ; Legion of Honor '78. — Victor Joseph Ranvier (contemporary), Lyons : pupil of Jannot and Richard ; medal '65 ; 2d class '73 ; Legion of Honor '78 ; he also painted landscape. — Augustin Theodule Ribot (1823- ), Breteuil : pupil of Glaize ; medal '64, '65 ; 3d class '78 ; Legion of Honor '78 ; he has a realistic style of genre and also paints history. — fidouard Alexandre Sain (1830- ), Cluny: pupil of Valenciennes Academy, Picot, and Nicole des Beaux-Arts; medal '66 ; 3d class '75 ; Legion of Honor '77. — Jules Emile Saintin (1829- ), Leme : pupil of Drolling, Picot, and Leboucher ; medal '66, '70 ; 2d class Munich '83; Legion of Honor '77. — Gaston- Casimir Saint-Pierre (1833- ), Nimes : pupil of Jalabert and Cogniet ; medal '68 ; 2d class '79 ; Legion of Honor '81 ; he also painted decorations in Cathedral of Oran. — Francis Tattegrain (contemporary), Peronne : pupil of C. Crauck, Lefebvre, and Boulanger; medal 2d class '83 ; also in Munich same year. — James Tissot (1836- ), Nantes : pupil of Flandrin, Lamotte, and in his early work sought examples in the Dutch masters ; later has a studio in London ; medal '66 ; has sent no pictures to the Salon since 1870. — Auguste Toulemouche (1829- ), Nantes: pupil of Gleyre. — medal 3d class '52, '59 ; 2d class '61 ; 3d class '78 Exposition Universelle ; Legion of Honor '70 ; he is a painter of the modernities of current life, delight- ing in silks and velvets, and by his skill gives value to trivial subjects; as Curl Papers (1849) ; First Step (1853) ; A Kiss (1857) ; The Lesson (1855), Nantes Museum. — Jean-Baptiste Jules Trayer (1824- ), Paris : pupil of his father and Leguien ; medal 3d class '53, '55 ; he has The Pancake Seller (1866) in the Lux- embourg. — Jules Emmanuel Valadon (1826- ), Paris : pupil of Drolling, Cogniet, andLehmann; medal 3d class '80 ; 2d class '86. — Paul Vayson (contemporary), THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 363 Gordes : pupil of Gleyre and F. Laurens ; medal 3d class '75; 2d class 79; Legion of Honor '86. — Emile Vernet-Lecomte (1821- ), Paris : pupil of H. Vernet and Cogniet ; medal 3d class '46, '63 ; Legion of Honor '64.— Hegesippe Jean Vetter (1820- ), Paris : pupil of Steuben ; medal 3d class '43, '67 ; 3d class '47, '48, '55; Legion of Honor, '55 ; his Moliere and Louis XIV. (1864) is in the Luxembourg. — Vincent Vidal (1811- ), Carcassonne : pupil of Delaroche; medal 3d class '44; 2d class '49; Legion of Honor '52. — Andre-Charles Voillemot (1822- ), Paris : pupil of Drolling and ficole des Beaux-Arts ; medal '70; Legion of Honor '70. — Achille Zo (1826- ), Bayonne : pupil of Couture ; medal '68 ; Legion of Honor '86 ; Curator of Bayonne Museum. Among genre painters rapidly advancing to the dignity of Hors Concours are : Alfred Pierre Agache (contemporary), Lille: pupil of Pluchaut and Cotas; medal 3d class '81. — Pierre-Marie Beyle, (1838- ), Lyons : aided by Philip- pon; medal 3d class '81. — Adolphe-Gustave Binet (contemporary), La Riviere, Saint Sauveur: pupil of Gerome; medal 3d class '85. — Anatole Henri de Beau- lieu (1819-84), Paris ; a brilliant pupil of Delacroix following that master in scenes of the east and of literature. — Fernand Blayn (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Cabanel; medal 3d class '86. — Maurice B. Bompord (contemporary), Rodez: pupil of Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre; medal 3d class '80. — Henri Brispot (contemporary), Beauvais: pupil of Bonnat; medal 3d class '85. — Jean Eugene Buland (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Cabanel and Yvon; medal 3d class '81. — Charles Alexandre Coessin de la Fosse (1829- ), Lisieux: pupil of Picot and Couture; medal 3d class '73. — Henri Dargelas (1828- ), Bordeaux; one of the Ecouen colony: pupil of Picot; medal '64. — Hippolyte Pierre Delanoy (con- temporary), Glasgow, of French parents: pupil of Barrias, Jobbe-Duval, Bonnat, and Vollon; medal 3d class '79. —Louis Deschamps (contemporary), Montelimar: pupil of Cabanel; medal 3d class '77. — Leon-Maxime Faivre (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Gerome; medal 3d class '84. — Tony Faivre (1830- ), Besan- con: pupil of Picot; medal '64; also decorative painter. — Edme-Adolphe Fontaine (1814- ), Noisy-le-Grand : pupil of Cogniet; medal 3d class '52. — Albert Fourie (contemporary), Paris : pupil of J. P. Laurens and Gautherin ; medal 3d class '84. — Jacques-Victor-Eugene Froment (1820- ), Paris: pupil of Jollivet, Amaury-Duval, and Lecomte ; Legion Honor, '63 ; paints also landscape and his- tory. — Amand Gautier (1825- ), Lille: pupil of Souchon and Cogniet; medal 3d class '82. — Auguste Albert Georges-Sauvage (contemporary), Caen : pupil of Gerome; medal 3d class '79. — Alphonse Louis Galbrund (1810-'85) Paris: pupil of Richomme and J. B. Regnault; medal '65. — Edouard Gilhay (contemporary): pupil of Jules Goupil and Cabanel; medal 3d class '86. — Paul Grolleron (contem- porary), Seignelay: pupil of Bonnat; medal 3d class '86. — Georges Haquette (con- temporary), Paris: pupil of A. Millet and Cabanel; medal 3d class '80. — Alexis- Marie Lahaye (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Pils, Corot, and Carolus-Duran ; medal 3d class '86. — Ernest Joseph Laurent (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Leh- mann, Herbert, and Merson; medal 3d class '85. — Marie-Felix-Hippolyte Lucas (contemporary), Rochefort-sur-mer: pupil of Pils and Lehmann; medal 3d class '84. — Mademoiselle Julia Marest (contemporary;, Paris: pupil of C. Chaplin and Gervex; medal 3d class '85. — Henri Michel-Levy (contemporary), pupil of Barrias 364 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING, and Vollon ; medal 3d class '81. — Antoine Paul Emile Morion (contemporary), Sully-sur-Loire: medal 3d class '85; many of his pictures are historical genre. — Leon Olivie (contemporary), Narbonne: medal 3d class '76. — Pierre Outin (con- temporary), Moulins: pupil of Lecomte and Cabanel; medal 3d class '83. — Jean Baptiste Augustus Nemoz (contemporary), Thodure : pupil of Picot and Cabanel ; medal 3d class '77. — Arthur Francois Thevenot (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Bin, Lequien fils, and Cabanel; medal 3d class '85. — Jean Francois Eugene Tourneux (1809-67), Banthouzel: pupil of Marechal; medal 3d class '43. — Auguste Joseph Trupheme (1836- ), pupil of Cornu, Flandrin, and Henner; medal 3d class '84. RUSTIC GENRE. Landscape with figures, or what is better called, perhaps, rustic genre, was but a further development of the "movement of 1830" in landscape ; to that were now to be added the inspirations of human- ity ; with its light and air and harmonies were to be combined, the courage, valor, and simplicity of the toilers of the fields. This, at length, became an interest of such power that it has led painting into an entirely new field, that of contemporary life in all forms, especially those of labor, and produced an art that in the solemnity of the works of its chief, Millet, suggests that the sentiment of religion, in its escape in France from the modern treatment of traditional subjects, has found a resting-place in that of peasant life. Transcending all others in this was Millet, who, indeed, upon his final adoption of it, based it upon penetrating studies of reality, grasping with profound feeling all the new Os^Strdviiil! capacities for landscape conquered by the Med. 2d ci. '53, '6 4 . French school in following Constable's influ- m i tf Dec A ? rt ley" 0 " 68 ence > ancl > wor king with a dignity, a resigned passion, infused his subjects with a tragic profundity of emotional significance. His works thus of highest artistic quality, became ethical incidentally, sermons by the way. That this is an added value to them cannot be denied, even by those who maintain that to make preaching through painting an aim would destroy it as art — for it is not as in literary and moral painting which inculcates its lesson, and in which emotional impression is derived from the lesson, — the associated thought, and not from the picture. With Millet, the lesson proceeds from the emotion which the picto- rial presentation evokes ; it follows full artistic achievement, is the incidental corollary to it, an aftermath of benefit ; from one point of view, a mere happening of his art, though of course the moral side of his subject in nature must have had much to do with his awaken- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 365 ing to its pictorial potentialities. The effect of all his qualities com- bined often, indeed, rises to sublimity. But whence came into the nineteenth century, and into French life, this man so enamored of toil and the fields, allied to them, indeed, by the very fibre of his nature, whose works are constant confes- sions, sermons of resignation to struggle and toil, to the hard lot of insufficient means, to the patient acceptance of not only the decree, " Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow," but of the fact that the sweat of the brow may not yield sufficient bread ? Millet's work, indeed, was more than this. It was destined to origi- nate a style that, after a long and slow education of the public, first to acceptance and then to admiration of it, was to add to French art the element of spiritual grandeur — the element in which before Millet's day it had been most conspicuously lacking. Millet is found at the age of twenty-three the pupil of Delaroche at Paris, a boon which we have seen Meissonier, one year younger, so wistfully regard in vain. But this artistic privilege found him often suffering from cold and hunger, for, the oldest among eight children, he was living on a limited pension, 1 irregularly paid by the munici- pality of Cherbourg, by which it had been granted to him for study in Paris upon the representations of his teacher there, Langlois. His father was a peasant of sturdy character and worth, which, with the religious spirit of the entire family, inspired Millet, not only with his deep reverence, but with the respectful regard for the peasant life with which his pictures are replete. His father's mother, who watched over his infancy while the family went " afield." a woman of strong character and earnest religious faith, was a prominent object in the clinging remembrances of his early life. " Waken, waken, my little Francois, the little birds have long been singing the glory of God," was the morning greeting from her lips that infused its piety all through his day — all through his life, no doubt. Through the instruction of his great uncle, Charles Millet, a priest, and that of the successive cures of the parish, he had acquired a knowledge that held him before he left home a charmed reader of the Eclogues and Georgics of Virgil, and gave him great pleasure in a Latin Bible, the plates of which he assiduously copied in his rare intervals of leisure. He seems to have been the culminated growth of the family susceptibilities to the elevating influences of nature, a more advanced development of his father, who amid the pressure of 1 It was 400 francs, to which later were added by the Council of La Manche 600 more. Both, however, soon ceased. 366 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. peasant life essayed to model figures in clay for his child, and who directed his attention to the beauty of nature, saying of a tree, " How beautiful ! It is like a flower ; " and of the high qualities of his grandmother's family of four worthy brothers, who were all readers and thinkers. A professor of the high school of Versailles during his vacation in the country, having talked with the lad, said of him, "I have met a child whose soul is as charming as poesy itself." His peasant home, the sorrows and burdens of the peasant life, formed his first artistic inspiration, for, seeing when a boy an old, bent peasant plodding homeward from work, he caught up a piece of charcoal and reproduced the figure with a power that removed from his father's mind all objection to his oldest bom's abandoning the farm to become an artist. While with Langlois at Cherbourg he had been recalled by the death of his father in 1835, and for a while attempted to be the stay of the family, but the grandmother and mother persuaded him that he would fulfil his father's wish in becoming a painter. In Delaroche's studio Millet found Jalabert, Heberfc, Couture, fjdouard Frere, Yvon, Antigua, and among others, Roux, a favorite with Delaroche. The instruction there received was little and its tendencies against the bent of Millet's talent. The conflict engen- dered imparted to him an air of gloomy brooding, for to practice it with sincerity involved a radical change of his nature. It would be the lark abandoning its soaring in the morning light to gain stateli- ness from the swan ; training its wing for a calculated and measured motion ; stifling its thrilling cry to attempt the cadences of standard grace. Millet having absented himself from inability to pay his fee, 100 francs a year, Delaroche sent for him and — " after rolling two cigarettes and offering one to his pupil " — remitted all expense, and solicited him to remain as his aid on his famous Hemicycle. But upon Millet's eagerly entering into competition for the Prix de Rome — even changing his style to work out its academical requirements — Delaroche informed him that, although he was producing a figure of great merit and should have his master's aid the next, Roux was to have it that year. The straightforward youth immediately left the studio : he repaired to the academy of Suisse and Boudin, and spent his evenings in the library of St. Genevieve reading of artists, and also went to the Louvre where he found Lesueur, whom he pro- nounced "one of the greatest souls in French art," and, besides Correggio who served in his earlier development, those affinities of his later natural style and truer growth — Fra Angelico, Michael THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 367 Angelo, whom he designated as "celui qui me hanta si fortement toute ma vie, " and Poussin, of whom he wrote, that he could pass his life face to face with his works. The classic, Poussinesque method was, indeed, at foundation, the same as the rustic style worked out by Millet and despised by the professors of the grand art ; that of a broad and vivid interpretation of nature, boldly simplified and subordinated in all parts to one controlling sentiment. By Michael Angelo, he was impressed with style and significant gesture, and, in Fra Angelico, was touched by the simple earnestness of duty, which he was eventually to make even more profound and of a wider scope than that master's faithfulness to dreamy ecstasy. But for this companionship at the Louvre he would have fled to Gruchy, and given up art, for, as he relates, he was awkward and feared ridicule and spoke to no one. He now sought to live from pictures painted to sell, and even by accepting commissions for signs, as for a sail maker, A Sailor ; for a dry goods dealer, The Little Milk Girl, of the size of life, which still gathers admirers around it in the streets of Cherbourg. He worked upon illustrations and, in his less practi- cal ability, was greatly benefited by the management of a friend, Marolle, who occupied apartments with him. He also turned to por- traits, and, after returning to Gruchy and, Antreus-like, gaining strength by resting his foot once more upon his native soil, painted his mother and grandmother, the latter twice, once with great care and love, saying, " I want to show her soul." In 1840 he sent two portraits, one of Marolle, and one of a relative, to the Salon ; the lat- ter, "the poorer," he said, was accepted. During these ten years — 1841 to '51 — Millet's art, with the exception that in 1849 he produced his great work, The Sower, was in a state of transition from the influences authoritative to him, met upon coming to Paris, to the art attained by his own unaided and natural development. Under the influence of his studies of Correggio he directed his attention to modelling and color ; he painted the nude, and artists themselves called him a master of the nude. Of his (Edipus taken from the Tree (1845) he said, "It is an excuse for practice in the nude and in the modelling of light." The Jews at Babylon (1848) ; Baltheus ; Young Girl made to drink near a statue of Bacchus ; Nude Woman ; Age of Gold (1846), are pictures of this time — beautiful, innocent women and children of a rapid and facile execution. They are numerous, for he had married a second time in 1845 after a painful struggle of two years and a half in poverty with an invalid wife who died in 1844, and the family, that eventually numbered fourteen chil- 368 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. dren, of whom nine survived him, demanded food. He had conducted his wife from Gruchy to Havre, and for a while enjoyed a success in portraits that gave them comfort, and in 1847, with an accumulation of 900 francs, had returned to Paris. There, one day, he narrates, he was furtively regarding his picture, Women Bathing (Luxembourg) in the dealer, Deforge's, window, when he overheard among the bystanders the remark, " This is by that Millet who paints nothing but nude women." The pure-minded, unsuspecting peasant was startled by the implied evil tendency of his pictures. He recalled that his grandmother, upon his late visit to her, had, in her great pride in his talent, solemnly charged him to consecrate it to the high- est service, for for that God must have intended it. On that con- science-prick hinged a great movement, for from it arose a practice by Millet that has turned the course of French art, gradually at first and through struggle and condemnation, but later, by an unstayable cur- rent, to find in the sincere painting of the humble facts of con- temporary life its true inspiration. He at once abandoned works of that character, first winning, however, his wife's acceptance of the struggle involved. He had been refused admission to the Salon in 1842, in 1843 he did not apply, but in 1844 he began regular exhibi- tions occasionally interrupted by rejections. But in 1848 the Jury was abolished and everything was hung. The Jews in Babylon was admitted, and his Winnower was put in the place of honor, the square Salon, and bought thence for 500 francs by the Minister of the Interior, Ledru-Kollin. But he had a rheumatic fever in 1848 that brought him to death's door, which he had to suffer without means to supply the needs of illness, having, in fact, for some time hardly had the necessaries of life. He had risen from it through the strength of youth when the February revolution brought a time of great struggle to all French artists, and, under the influence of his friend, Jacque, 1 he turned to the burin and etching-needle. The autobiographical character of this work has left a record of his sufferings as well as of the transition from his earlier style. He carried into it both his feeling and the touch of his skilful hand. He was without the proper materials ; he made use of the back of an old plate, of odd bits of metal, as he could ; and, without a press, without means to apply to a printer, without ink, he used the colors from his palette, and, by pressing a scrap of paper upon the plate with the bowl of a spoon, made his first impressions. The earliest i Diaz and Jacque, in the playful record of their names upon some of these earlier plates (Nos. 6 and 7), have left testimony to their familiar friendship with Millet. t THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 369 of these was in lithography, and was a design for the cover of a song. Upon offering it to a publisher, "the door was shut in his face." His later and more serious etchings were done when, in another struggle with want, he resumed the needle in 1855. In this need Millet and his wife suffered in silence. Friends among artists who knew their distress, raised a hundred francs, and the thump of Diaz's wooden leg bringing it to them was a most welcome sound. Sensier, his biographer, says : " Millet sat in his studio on a box with his back bent like a man chilled. It was freezing cold in the room. When the money was handed to him, he replied, ' Thank you. It comes in time. We have not eaten for two days, but the chil- dren have had food until to-day,' and calling to his wife, said, ' I am going to get wood, I am very cold.' When the insurrection of June came he fortunately had just painted a midwife's sign, which she seized at the first firing of guns and left him thirty francs in payment. ' On this we lived two weeks,' said he. Such were his struggles that, upon the advice of Jacque, he exchanged six drawings for a pair of shoes, a picture for a bed; sold four portraits, among them those of Diaz and Barye, at twenty francs for the lot, and charming sketches for from one franc to five francs each. " In 1849 the political turmoil and the cholera drove him from Paris. He had fortunately just received payment for his Haymakers, and about this time must have received the official five hundred francs for his sketches of La Republique (p. 263). He and Jacque together went to Barbison, and intoxicated in their love of nature with its proximity to the Forest of Fontainebleau, it henceforth be- came their home. By it Millet was restored to peasant surroundings, the chief source of his inspirations. There he found Theodore Rous- seau, whose slowly but surely formed friendship proved a solace in the penury that followed — penury such that at times credit at the baker's and grocer's ceased. Rousseau's friendship found for him, in one of his times of trial, a purchaser for The Peasant Grafting, at $800 in an " anonymous American," who later proved to be no other than Rousseau himself, and he had also the year before purchased The Peasant Spreading Manure. Millet in 1867 closed this friend's eyes and subsequently superintended the erection of his monument at Barbison. There his new style, fully apparent about 1847, completely crystallized ; there most of his great works were painted, in a dark studio at the end of a garden which he hoed and planted, near the forest of Fontainebleau. In that forest he delightedly rambled, sometimes with Rousseau — who jealously allowed trespassers in that precious painters' land which he had, in a degree, preempted — some- 24 370 A HIS TORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. times with children, of whom his genial nature made him very fond ; or seated on a stone beside his humble cottage he devoted himself, as he wrote, to " the calm, the silence which is so sweet, the gayest thing I know," and on his brain, or rather on his heart, made tran- scripts of nature. " I know nothing which is not a direct impression from nature or from forms of man," said he. Hence he drew inspira- tion for his long pastoral touched with a deeper humanity than Virgil's Georgics, because a more suffering one. It was one long " cry of the Earth," of which some of the changes are : The Sower, The Reaper, The Gleaners, and The Potato Gatherers ; it rose to heroic solemnity in the worship of his Angelus. His memories of Gruchy alone could, however, give models having the earnest traits of character of his peasants, for over those of Barbison, in close proximity to Paris, there had come a taint of the city. His previous work is called his florid style. Now, his color be- comes charmingly subdued and of wonderful appropriateness of tone. He had found his work ; viz., to give expression to the real meaning of rustic life and landscape. He felt a solid foundation under his feet, and trod firmly on, though misunderstood, neglected, and abused. Often now, until 1860, when he contracted with a dealer for all his works for three years at a thousand francs a month, he was reduced to the direst need. 1 But he devoted himself to his rustic subjects with that earnest faith in them and reverence for their true and arduous life that compel us to stand in awe before his characters, be they only Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water (Vanderbilt Gal- lery), as if in the real presence of earnest souls, from whose lives all trivialities have been eliminated, the essentials alone left. These de- monstrate that while the essentials are the most forceful things of life, in a strict comparison they are also the grandest. Those who have no respite from the stern discipline of necessity, derive a culture from contact with its unyielding truths. May not this close grinding polish the soul with a truer lustre than the more gentle contact of even the beautiful things of life could produce ? At least, it gives a texture of soul more susceptible of lustre. Millet's treatment now became largely a subjective one, as every artist's genuine work is — largely a reflection of his own feeling. He eliminated distracting and purely decorative folds from the garments, 1 During these years of great struggle, William M. Hunt, who, living at Barbison, had fallen under Millet's influence and bought in 1853 his Sheep Shearer and The Shepherd, combined with some other American artists, as Hearn, Babcock, Wyatt Eaton, Edward Wheelwright, Will H. Low, and others, to lighten Millet's poverty. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 371 trivial expressions from the faces of his peasants — everything, in fine, but the marks of a deep, earnest life. This gives to them the effect of a concentration upon the duties of their lives, and thus he has pro- duced a race of laborers that, more even than the characters of the early religious painters, make it seem meet that He who bore the importaut mission of the Merciful Father to earth, should have had his origin in that class. The Water Carrier, perhaps more than any other of his pictures, more even than the Sower, impresses us with an earnest presence, in the subtle expression it conveys of a consciousness of the beneficial nature of the woman's work, and is a masterpiece of art. In it the dignity and grandeur of simplicity in worthy duties is forcibly ex- pressed. He wrote of it to Thore in 1860 : " For the Water Carrier I did not wish to portray a servant, but a wife who has just drawn water for her household needs, the water with which to make her husband's soup. I wished to show her as accomplishing with simplicity and will- ingness an act which is, with her other household duties, an every-day part of her life." Peasant life, in the height and depth in which he saw it, is so serious a thing as to give a tinge of melancholy to his works. In a letter to Sensier, he said : " The gay side of life never shows itself to me. I do not know where it is. The gayest thing I know is the calm, the silence, which is so sweet either in the forest or cultivated land, whether the land be good for culture or not. You will admit that it is very dreamy, and a sad dream, though often very delicious. Sometimes in a sterile portion you see figures hoeing and digging. From time to time one rises and straightens his back, as they call it, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. ' Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow.' Is this the gay, jovial work some people would have us believe in ? But nevertheless to me it is true humanity and great poetry." These words, "this is true humanity and great poetry," furnish the interpretation of Millet's truer work. But this spiritual motive he clothed in a superb technique; he gave it an appropriate color, rich even while subdued ; he drew his figures with a masterly, authorita- tive stroke : with full knowledge of perspective he placed them in a landscape, of which they became a part ; and surrounded them with an atmosphere that could be breathed. And besides painting the air, reproducing the light, and "seeing the invisible," he caught expres- sion in its greatest power ; permeated with the sentiment of nature, he united nature and humanity in perhaps closer combination than has ever been witnessed elsewhere. Thus, in his Sower, of the given 372 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. elements, a bare ploughed field and a simple peasant, is made an effective poem, of which the charm, though deeply felt, is difficult of analysis. It is a classic picture in line and form, yet true to the peas- ant's traits, idealized only in abstracting the essentials from trivial accessories. In the rhythmic swing of arm and gait, Millet has expressed the consciousness, on the part of the sower, of the service rendered ; he has made the sky behind this masterful figure, and the twilight air around him, full of, besides all the beauty of their truth, suggestions of the weariness of long continued, but still energetic labor. But, as if by its own momentum, public condemnation continued. In 1861 critics of authority made such comments as : " His mon- strous fantasies are as far removed from the truth in the realistic direc- tion, as the pink and white whipped creams of Boucher, Fragonard and Van Loo, were in the other." But About had more truthfully written in 1857 : " Millet fills his porringer at the same sacred spring whence Lucretius and Virgil drew, and earlier, the divine Homer." Millet himself said that from Theocritus he learned that one was never more Greek than when painting naively his own impressions. Millet and Courbet were classed together as realists, and, though their art was essentially different, it had its resemblances. Both, in the battle excited by their practically avowing that peasants were as worthy, artistically considered, as kings, were heroically firm in their convictions. The predominating expression of those leading works of both which can be brought under this head, is that of hopeless endurance; but in Millet's characters it becomes a resignation ex- pressed by an apparent indifference to all but the duty of the hour, however oppressive, however unillumined by hope. His was a realism of the soul. Suggestions of the patient waiting for the end give to his pictures a religious tone, for thus they have an implication of a hereafter of rest and possible happiness. Both artists were, however, interpreted by the fears easily excited in the uncertain condition of public affairs following 1848. Communistic principles were read in Millet's unintending art. Of the hot contest excited by his Man with a Hoe of 1863, which was considered an audacious venture, Millet soon after wrote : ''Socialistic ? . . . Is it possible to admit that one may have some ideas in seeing a man gaining his bread by the sweat of his brow ? Some tell me that I deny the charms of the country. I find more than charm. I find infinite glories. I see as well as they do the little flowers, of which Christ said: 1 Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' I see the halo of the dandelions, and THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 373 of the sun also, which spreads out beyond the world its glory into the clouds. But I see, as well, in the plain, the steaming horses at work, and in a rocky place, a man exhausted, whose ' Haw ! Haw ! ' has been heard since morning, and who tries to straighten himself a moment and breathe. ... I reject with my whole soul democracy as it is known at the clubs ; I have never dreamed of being a pleader in any cause ; I am a peasant, a peasant ! " The Norman "peasant/' as he called himself, continued his paintings of nature and of life as he had seen it, known it and felt it until it was recognized as the truest rendering of humanity that had been known to French art. To use his own words, his aim was "to paint the soul." In The Harvest of Beans, engraved by Hedouin, he reproduces his cottage home and its tutelary saint, his mother, and in The Angelus, well known through the engraving by Waltner, the religious phase of the pastoral life, the varied forms of which he so sincerely rendered, is most touchingly, reverently given. It is possi- bly his masterpiece, and, certainly, ranks with The Sower and The Water Carrier. The Gleaners has been called almost a religious painting, so deep and earnest was the feeling of resigned, patient life there implied. But in The Angelus this is directly expressed, and Millet's own preference for this picture over all his other works is itself an attestation of the religious nature that conceived it. Its scheme is simplicity itself : At the sound of the distant bell two peasants, a man and woman, with forms and faces of toil and hardship, but of stern integrity, cease their labor and, in the shadows of the coming evening, in a tender landscape of low, level horizon, broken only by the faintly outlined spire of the village church, stand in the hush of silent prayer under which their figures, though but of a simple, rude nature, take a statu- esque dignity. The artist wished to make this still more impressive, Sensier tells us, by conveying the impression of sound, the noises of the country and the distant bell. "If at all, I can do it by truth of expression," said he. The apparent relation of man and wife between the characters, is full of suggestion of the humble home, refined by its religious harmony and strict sense of duty. 1 Millet truly painted life as he felt it, and kept his pictures in his i The financial history of this is of great interest. Finished in 1859, it remained in possession of M. Arthur Stevens, who greatly admired it, without awakeniug others, interest, until finally M. de Praet, the Belgian Minister, bought it for 2,500 francs, says Sensier. It next appeared in the Wilson Gallery, for whieh it was bought at auction for $7,200. At the Wilson sale, 1881, the late Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt had sent a bid of $30,000 for it. M. Georges Petit, the celebrated dealer, secured it for $32,000, and his two customers, who had given him orders, casting lots for it, it fell to M. Secretau, an amateur, who, being much laughed at, resold it to M. Petit for $40,000, but subse- quently rebought it from him at the same price, as was said at the time, but since stated at $60,000. In 1888, says the Paris Matin, M. Rockafeller, of New York, offered for it $100,000. 374 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. studio for a long time that he might touch them again and again, until he succeeded in conveying the sentiment of them, " what they had made him feel." The attainment of this often required many attempts, much groping. A picture of The Village Church in Nor- mandy, in which he was christened, was long kept in his studio, and he remarked to a friend (H. Wallis), who thought it completed, " No, there is an impression of this scene, as it struck my imagination as a child, which I have not succeeded in rendering, but which I hope to get some day." Are not his pictures thus sufficiently accounted for ? He assiduously sought in them the impression he had received, an impression necessarily colored by his thought, his sentiment, his knowledge or ignorance, his delusions, if he had any — in fact, himself. A tardy, partial recognition of them had come in 1867, at the Univer- sal Exhibition, when for the first time several of his works were exhibited together. Their subdued coloring, their strength even in scantiness of theme, the grandeur of their absolute simplicity, made all else seem mannered, and a first class medal was awarded the artist. In 1868 Millet sent nothing to the Salon. But absent, he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Thus Millet's art was acknowl- edged. But in 1870 he exhibited at the Salon for the last time. Gov- ernment, so chary of honors to the living Millet, gave a small pension to his widow, however, after his death, and a bronze plaque, con- taining the faces of Millet and Eousseau, was placed in 1885 upon a rock at Barbison at the entrance to the Forest of Fontainebleau as a monument to their memory. Moreover, a movement is now nearly completed for monuments to Millet both at Cherbourg and at Gruchy. The unprecedented $100,000 offered in vain for The Angelus ; the demand for his pictures at any price, especially by Americans who own more than one half of his important works, and of whom Mr. Martin Brimmer of Boston early recognized his merit, buying directly from the Salon of 1853 The Harvesters ; the deep regret expressed by the French at the exhibition of his collected works at the Beaux- Arts in 1887, that so many of his masterpieces were lost to France ; and the concessions of the motto of its meagre catalogue, "Victory should be merciful," prove his case but one of many epitomized by A. Michel : " The cripple, Justice, must be waited for, but hobbling along she will arrive at last. Glory following will, with a sad smile, then bestow tardy crowns on graves." Millet exhibited at the Salons : Portrait of L. M. F., 1840: The Milkmaid ; Riding Lesson (pastel\ 1844 : (Edipus taken from the Tree, 1847 : The Winnower ; Captivity of the Jews at THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 375 Babylon, 1848: Seated Peasant Woman, 1849: Harvesters ; A Shepherd (evening); A Woman Shearing Sheep (was also exhibited at the E. U. of 1867), 1853: Glean- ers, 1857 : W oman pasturing a Cow, 1859 : Woman Feeding a Sheep ; The Wait- ing, 1861 : Shepherd Leading his Flock ; A Woman Carding ; Peasant leaning on his Hoe, 1863: Shepherdess with her Flock (re-exhibited in 1867) ; Peasant Carrying Home a Calf born in the Fields, 1864: Bit of the Village of Greville, 1866: The Goose Girl ; Winter Landscape, 1867 : at the E. U. of 1867 eight pictures, Death and the Woodcutter; Shepherd; Fold of Sheep by Moonlight; Potato Gath- erers ; Potato Planters ; The Shepherdess ; The Gleaner ; and The Angelus: Paint- ing Lesson, 1869: November, 1870: Woman Churning. Some of his works in the United States are : Sheepfold; Breaking Flax; The Sheepfold; Moonlight; The Potato Gathering; Mr. W. T. Walters, Baltimore: Girl Spinning; Fletcher Harper, New York : The Sower (second replica, the larger and more important); Water Carrier; At the Well; Shepherdess ; Plains of Barbison ; The Knitting Lesson; Hunting in Win- ter; Mrs. W. H. Vanderbilt, New York: Pastoral Scene with Sheep; George A. Drummond, Montreal : The Raker; Return of the Laborer; Going to the Fountain; The Naiad; A. E.Borie, Philadelphia: The Milk-Maid; Blanchisseuse ; Farmyard Scene; J. C. Runkle, New York: Feeding Poultry (on step of artist's own house): Mrs. J. G. Fell, Philadelphia: The Milk Jar; H. V. Newcomb, New York: Birth of the Calf, sold in New York 1887 by H. Probasco of Cincinnati ($18,000) ; Ruth and Boaz, 1853 ; Buckwheat Harvest (original painted 1868 ; the oil painting from this, 1874, one of the last upon which Millet worked, sold for 47,000 fr. at the Fred.Hartman sale at Paris, 1881); Coming Storm ; Rabbits at Daybreak; Washer- woman; Knitting Shepherdess; Mr. M. Brimmer, Boston: Knitting Shepherdess; Mr. R. C. Taft, Providence: Women Carding Wool; Mrs. Paran Stevens, New York: Grafting; Water Drawer; Shepherdess; W. Rockafeller, New York: After the Bath (Baigneuse); Mr. Erwin Davis, New York: The Spaders (drawing); Hush of Night; Dog Listening (pastel); View of Farmyard (of artist's early home); Peasant Woman's Toilet (drawing) ; Village Street in Snow (drawing) ; and 20 other pastels or drawings; Scene at Greville; Woman Teaching Child to Knit; Girl with New Born Lamb; Woman Reeling Yarn; Landscape and Hillside; The Sower (first and smaller one); Potato Planters; Old Woman and her Cow ; and 12 other paint- ings; Mr. Quincy Shaw, Boston: Tobit, 1861; H. Sayles, Boston: Women Shearing Sheep, 1861 : Mr. Peter C. Brooks, Jr., Boston: Sitting Shepherdess, Boston Museum : Shepherd ; Mr. W. Hooker, Cincinnati: Brittany Washerwomen; sold from Mr. G. I. Seney's Collection 188"): Shepherd and Sheep (water color, $1,525); Gather- ing Apples ($2,575); Wool Carder ($3,650); Feeding Poultry ($4,000); Dressing Flax (1854, $4,975); Churner ($8,100); Gathering Beans (likeness of artist's mother, $0,300); Wood Cutters ($5,000); Woman in Kitchen ($650); Spaders (a sketch, $3,800); Spinner ($15,000), sold at Mrs. M. J. Morgan's sale, New York, 18^6. One of Millet's younger brothers. Jean Baptiste, became a painter and exhibited in the Salons of 1870, '74, '75 : A Farm, and a Field in Autumn (1876) : A Farm Yard (1877): During the Harvest (1878), and in 1880, A Washerwoman and En- virons of Fontainebleau, all aquarelles. " Francois Millet fils," pupil of his father, as he fondly signs himself, lives in Millet's house at Barbison since 1883, works in his 376 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. st udio, and produces pictures of subdued and harmonious but not rich coloring, the same peasant subjects of a similar sentiment, of more finish and altogether less strength of execution, of a less severe and stern realism — very charming works, but of course always challenging comparison with the great masterpieces of his father. He exhibited in 1884 Une Causerie a Greville. Others of his works are The Tired Spinner, in which a young girl, less deeply in earnest than his fath- er's subjects or she would not fall asleep over her work, sits by the side of the full distaff of flax ; and The April Shower which represents a boy and girl gleefully sheltering themselves close beside a pile of brush, so neatly cut and closely packed as to indicate thrift. Brion, one of a group of painters — Dore, Henner, Steinheil, whose native Alsatian qualities have yielded to a Parisian development, gives an Alsatian phase of Millet's subjects and qualities ; but though never equalling Millet in extent of influence he exceeded him, though ten years his junior, in winning official recognition, obtaining even Gustavfi Brion the Medal of Honor in 1868. The Alsa- (i824-' 77 ), Rothau. tian peasant, in his simple burliness and M^' s ?ci/afdL 5 L'n!' 1 863. E ' U ' strength, afforded to Brion's pencil a Med. Hon. '68. blunter dignity if possible than Millet O, Leopold of Belgium. ^ dignified poetized him and rivalled Millet in the almost classic air he has given to the pastorals of his native land, and the peasants in the edge of the Black Forest. Anion «• his works are : o Tow Path, 1852 : Wood Cutters of the Black Forest ; Potato Crop in Alsace ; Alsatians Threshing, 1853: Brittany Peasants at Prayer (Mr. J. W. Garrett, Balti- more): Marriage in Alsace (Mr. A. Brown, Philadelphia): Charcoal Furnace (Mrs. R L. Stuart, New York). Courbet, the most positive of the naturalists before the impression- ists appeared, maintained that the representative picture of his real- ism, The Burial at Ornans (1850), was the burial of romanticism. He lost sight of the fact that romanticism was itself the basis of realism. Courbet painted figures, landscape, marine pieces, flowers, fruits, and Gustave Courbet animals, but his paintings of landscape genre (■8i9-'78)(ist day), Ornans. are his most important works. Two incidents Ref d used 9 L. 5 Hon 6 'havin g ac- ^ n tne history of his art, the bitterness of attack cepted that of Order of st. upon him in the Salon of 1850, in which no condemnation seemed too severe, no epithet too offensive; and the purchase at a sale at the Hotel Drouot in December, 1881, with great applause from the spectators, of seven of his pictures W. A. BOUGUEREAU PREMIER CHANT PE NOEL THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 377 for the French Government/ show the power that he possessed, and that constituted him the father or chief of the realists. After exclusion since 1844, the free Salon of 1848, in which he presented The Violin- cellist and three Landscapes, had made him known, and in 1849 he exhibited his After Dinner at Ornans without disapproval ; he even received a medal for it, and had another work purchased by the gov- ernment. In great hope he had industriously planned a greater suc- cess for 1850, and, with his wonderful rapidity of execution, had pre- pared nine works for that Salon. They could not be excluded, because of the regulation for exemption to medallists, established in 1849 and remaining unmodified until 1853, and which now enabled the chief of the realists to defy the hostile jury. A storm, however, ensued, and, says a chronicler of the time : " It was like the thunder of a water-spout bursting upon the Exhibition. The clamor was great, continued, irresistible. To discuss, to reason, to present argu- ments drawn from art or history was impossible. No one listened, no one under- stood . Some of the epithets that rained upon him were, "A stranger to all delicacy ! 99 " Un ignorant grossier ! " "A drunken Helot ! " What did it mean that the vile masses, these breakers of stones, the hungry and ragged, should also with Millet's peasants sit down among the ideal characters of art, the divinities of Greece, the heroes of Rome, the plumed knights of the middle ages, the gallants of the day ? It seemed that the battle fought by Gericault for the right of the victims of the shipwreck of the Medusa to claim for their sufferings some of the attention freely given to the griefs of Andromache and Hector was to be fought over again. But, in fact, it was not a battle of art entirely, though fought under its banner, and superficially so con- sidered. It was a battle of politics that burst upon the unsuspecting artist. In 1850 the political reaction had begun that was to destroy the Second Republic, and it was a fear of the power of the masses that led to the severe condemnation of Courbet's art at this time. His single picture of 1849, though affording the same ground for the effect that his critics would find in his art, had not been as aggressive in the Salon as this larger number of works : the Burial at Ornans ; The Stone Breakers ; Peasants Returning from the Fair ; two Landscapes from the Border of the Loue ; four Portraits, 1 At the Lepel-Cointet Sale, The Deer in Cover, 35,000 fr.; The Man with a Leather Belt, 26,000 fr. ; Courbet's Studio, 31,000 fr.; Stag Fight, 49,000 fr.; Deer Calling, 33,900 fr.; Wounded Man, 11,000 fr.; Siesta, 29,100 fr. 378 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. one of himself (since celebrated as the Man with the Pipe), one of Berlioz, one of Francis Wey, and that of Jean Journet with, simply as a fact and therefore an appropriate accessory, his wallet full of socialistic brochures. The socialistic writings of Proudhon (Pierre Joseph, 1809-'65, editor of The Representative of the People) ascribed to his pictures a moral and political significance, and the art- ist's opponents urged against him, that he was teaching through his works socialistic principles. But Courbet was not apolitical philoso- pher ; his intellect, though vigorous, was limited, and, no doubt, his choice of subject had no deep significance, but in that, as in his treatment, he painted what he saw, as he saw it. His realistic repre- sentation, however, had the effect that the incident itself would have had : his motifs of pictorial significance were incidentally of political significance. Thus the features of the scene in The Stone Breakers required and had no comment from him, except the comment which selection of subject itself is and that which a true artist always puts of himself in his work. In its reality it was heart-breaking. The representatives of idealism joined their condemnation to that of political fear, and accused him of painting "nothing but truths brutally true and with brutality." It represented under a declivity, in itself saddening by its bareness, yet over- shadowing all by rising to the top of the picture, two road menders — an old man, in poor, patched garments, his form borne down by age and toil ; and a youth. By their indifference to all interests of converse, to which both have been crushed, the one by long depressing toil, the other by absence of hope, they are isolated though together. The older man stoops over a pile of stones with a hammer, nonchalantly breaking them, his arm, as it were, stiffened to the same task for many years ; the younger carries a heavy basket of gravel. He violated and defied the most cherished rules of the idealists, especially by the Burial at Ornans and the Peasants Returning from the Fair, which, as highly characteristic of his practice in representing the common people realistically treated and with a tech- nique of power, are with Les Demoiselles du Village and The Return from the Lecture, of 1863, his most famous pictures. The last pictures some cures jovial and merry after wine drinking. It was not admitted to the Salon as being an attack upon respect for the clergy. The Burial at Ornans was an interment, into the picture of which the good people of Ornans came each in propria persona and were reproduced in unsoftened portraiture of homeliness of face, feeling, and manners without selection, but with the percep- tion and excellent rendering of the genuineness of grief. Courbet was a strange combination of conceit, blundering, quick THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 379 apprehension, and true artistic qualities, and, albeit a great brag- gart, he painted by his artistic instinct better than he knew, for, though he had the habit of spreading his ten fingers with the satis- fied assertion, " La peinture, c'est la," he had, besides the painter's hand, the painter's eye and temperament, a susceptibility of the senses to all exterior spectacle, and, the doctrines once attributed to them being forgotten, his works have made themselves felt for their true art. The Burial at Ornans was of great force. The group of weeping women Bastien-Lepage was wont to admire greatly, saying it was " reality itself." It was of a treatment which, though wholly innovating, could not be ignored. Instead, it was condemned with a bitterness that drove the big, strong mountaineer to defiance and, possibly, exaggeration. After the exhibition he took the pictures to Besangon, the chief city of his native province, Doubs, and exhibited them with great success, as he did also at Dijon, Munich, and Frank- fort. He, however, bent to the storm, and showed his perception of its source in yielding to his divination that peasant women could not excite political fear in the same degree as men, who might resist being- deprived of their recently acquired vote, and The Demoiselles of the Village Giving Alms to a Cowherdess (now owned by Mr. Wiggles- worth, Boston) appeared in 1852. These figures are placed in a landscape so charming that it has given rise to the criticism, that Courbet's innate love of landscape made it impossible for him not to give it the ascendency, even when intended for a background only. In 1853, Women Bathing was exhibited and illustrated, in the nude back of one of them, the artist's power to delineate delicate modelling with great truth and fineness of detail. The Spinner sleeping lightly by her wheel, in her humble room, made cheerful by a vase of flowers, of 1853, and The Woman Sifting Grain among the piled up sacks in the gray of the mingled dust and flour, of 1855, followed. The polite world liked no better to substitute the stalwart bathers for the accus- tomed Nymphs and Graces, and could not judge the art apart from the characters represented. But as the Second Empire was now established, no longer fearing that Communism would cloud their horizon, they attacked the artist only with mockery and ridicule ; he was not excluded from the Salons, though later in 1872, after his part in the excesses of the Commune of 1871, upon the motion of Meis- sonier, that was accomplished. One of his works of 1855, of most skilful execution, a picture of himself painting a landscape of Franche-Comte and surrounded by friends, visitors, and models, called Courbet's Studio, is now of great 380 A HISTORY OF FRF NCII PAINTING. value for its portraits alone. After this he plunged into the depths of nature and painted The Brook from the Black Well (1865, Lux- embourg), The Buck at Bay, The Hidden Stream — of a verdure so fresh that their sight is as a breath of sweet country air. His native Ornans was in a valley so beautiful as to attract artists thither for its scenery, and it early awakened his innate sense of external nature. It was on the river Doubs, which near its source, so pure is its green, is called the emerald river. The neighboring mountains of the Jura had also roused his love of the chase, and he painted of that experience Le Halali (1869) ; Stags at the Stream ; and The Combat of the Stags. The sea also appealed to an eye that had a keen regard for all things, and at Trouville he painted, in as many days, twenty " Sea Landscapes," as he called them. In most of these the promi- nence is given to the sky. The Wave, in the Luxembourg, presents the top wave of the inflowing tide just as it breaks over into its white cap. It is the grandest and most animated of waves in painting, and is full of suggestion of the artist's feeling in view of it. After attempting the nude in his Bathers he represented it in every form and attitude, in every light, and under every name, as The Sleepers, Les Luxurieuses, Les Indolentes, and his "ten fingers" made it realistic and of a rare success. Some of these are marvels of excellence, showing great power of modelling, but he never painted nymphs or imaginary beings. In 1861 his prestige became such that large numbers of young artists requested him to take charge of a studio in which they might work under his counsel : at last he was acknowledged a chief. He accepted the honor. In his reply 1 he recognized no ideal art. He wrote : " Painting is an art essentially concrete, to which all interpretation of the ab- stract is prohibited. The artist has no right to amplify upon the expression which nature makes of the beautiful. Realism is founded on the negation of the ideal." He did not absolutely seek ugliness, but he held that seeking ideal- ity or beauty of form was an error. Said he : " Why should I seek to see in the world what is not there ? and why should I disfigure by the imagination what is there ? " Again he said to a pupil who con- sulted him about the manner of painting an angel, "But why paint an angel ? Have you ever seen an angel ? No ? Well, then leave this figure and paint mon- sieur, your father, whom you do see every day." A favorite saying of his was the paradox, " The beautiful is the ugly." That is perhaps explained by there being a beauty in the 1 Letter published in Le Courier da Dimanche, Dec. 29, 1861. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 381 genuineness of being frankly and sincerely ugly. With him being natural became an affectation. He accentuated his traits of mountain- eer by carrying them into his dress and life, fastening his clothes with twine, and wearing one winter, though not poor at the time, a bed- quilt for an overcoat. Though of great independence, and choosing strong types, and of an overwhelming force, this artist and the misty Corot, who dreamed out his pictures, worked upon the same principle — that every artist should remain absolutely true to his own impres- sions. 1 This was also the basis of Turner's works. The result, a most varied individuality, establishes the value of this theory in develop- ing that quality. Courbet's eye, artistically speaking, looked lovingly on the just and unjust, and like the rain from heaven, avoided neither, selected neither, but lovingly proclaimed all worthy of reproduction. His love of nature had attracted him to the painting of it from the study of law, for which he was sent to Paris in 1839 by his father, from whom he inherited a fixedness of character which was more than firmness. 2 He had painted here and there, as he might, with no thor- ough course of instruction. His first few lessons were had while in the seminary at Besancon, from one Flageolot, a follower of the class- icists, and with as little sympathy for Courbet's native art as Delaroche for Millet's. Subsequently he went into the studio kept by Suisse, to which Millet had also resorted, where all worked from the living model without instruction. Then he was in the studio of Steuben and Hesse, awhile in each, and longer in that of David d 'Angers. He was accustomed to call himself " Nature's pupil." Thus he be- longed to the clientele of no great master, was wholly by himself and alone was to stand or fall. He stood, and finally refused the Cross of the Legion of Honor, having accepted that of the Order of St. Michael from the King of Bavaria. Personally he was very fine look- ing, " reminding one of the faces of the marble forms of the hand- some Assyrian kings," happily says Silvestre. His " large eye was of a wonderful, mild beauty," and he had a manner "the politeness of which seemed gentleness rather than ceremony." It has been ques- tioned if the true Courbet was not lost by the bitterness of the early attacks upon him, and that which would have been simply originality 1 Hamerton relates that Courbet once, in the climax of earnestness in speaking of landscape, exclaimed : " Put yourself in the presence of nature and paint what you see, Pardieic ! " — excepting the last, Corot's very words. 2 As late as 1882 there might be seen, in the grounds of the Courbet residence, wood cut and piled before the time of the Republic, and left to decay, because the father had said when cut that it should never be sold for less than a price that had never yet been offered. (Dr. T. M. Coau in the Century Magazine Feb., 1884.) 382 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. thus turned to obstinacy. He took the side of the Commune in 1871, aud for a supposed organizing of the attack upon the cher- ished Column of Venddme, made of the cannon taken in the Ans- terlitz campaign and surmounted by a statue of Napoleon I., was sentenced by a Council of War to six months' imprisonment. He was required also to replace the column at his own expense. After his release, he lived a broken man in Switzerland, without friends or sympathy, and much affected by the special decree of his exclusion from the Salon, and without the solace of Millet's last days, that "all's well that ends well." He exhibited his later works at Chaux de Fonds the year before his death. At his death his sister, in a deli- cate spirit of family honor, assumed the unjust debt of replacing the column, then not fully discharged, 1 but was released from it by the Government's cancelling the obligation. Courbet has been recently much appreciated and honored. In 1882, five years after his death, more than a hundred of his works, but only a small portion of the whole number, were collected for an exhibition at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, always an honor, as it can be accomplished only by the established authorities in art. Courbet's practice and announced aim, "to eliminate the ideal," leads the present impressionists, who are stand- ing on the results gained by their predecessors, and endeavoring to attain more subtle impressions of reality, to claim that they are his true posterity. Among his works, besides those mentioned, are : The Wounded Man, 1844: Landscape near Honfleur, Lille Museum; Valley of the Loire; Parishes of Chassagne, 1849: River Loire; Ruins of Castle of Scey, 1850: Salle des Colonnades; Conflagration, 1851: Wrestlers, 1853: Deer Fight- ing; Deer in Water; Huntsman; Fox in the Snow; Rock of Oragnon, 1861: Fox Hunting; Little Fishermen in Franche-Comte; Beggar's Alms, 1868: Deer Call- ing; Siesta, 1869. Charles Ronot (1820- ), Belan-sur-Ource : pupil of Glaize ; medal 2d class '?G ; 1st class '78 ; follows Courbet in similar scenes of common life. A poet, bearing the honor of having his poems {Jeanne and Les champs et la mer) " crowned " by the Academy, and an artist whose canvases, speaking in another language the beauties of the fields and sea, have been " crowned " by both critical 2 and 1 Documentary evidence has since been produced to show that he had no part in the overthrow of the column, and he has been credited with saving the Louvre. 2 Paul Lefort, Rene Menard, Andre Michel, Alfred de Lostalot, Georges Lafenestre and Charles Bigot. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 383 financial 1 estimate, Jules Breton, lives the pleasant life cf suc- cess, highly appreciated for an unusual mental endowment — an en- juies Adoiphe Breton dowment so distinctly marked, indeed, by (1827- ), Courrieres. general cleverness, as, at times, to handicap ^tti^sg 1 '»6r !, 67 Vu. 57 ' n ^ s purely pictorial instinct, in leading him l. Hon. '61 ; of. '67. to address the emotions through the mind Med. Hon '72. rather than through the sense. Moreover, Med. London. © Knight of Order of Leopold '81. the emotion thus evoked is not always of great Mem. inst. '86. depth. In some instances, too, his works fall short of absolute sincerity in a barely perceptible aim for effect. But he is a skilful, a cultivated, and a genuine painter, and has had a history of uninterrupted success, his presentations of nature and hum- ble life making him of an accepted excellence in both landscape and figure. In this estimate he has united the suffrages of all lands : the Germans have decorated him ; England has bestowed upon him a medal ; France, a chair at the Institute ; and Americans make any sacrifices for the possession of his pictures. The pleasing art of this poet and painter was early claimed both by realists and idealists, and though without full attainment of either the poetic or the pictorial ideal, and too given to " story- telling," he was considered to possess the essential truth of both. Thirteen years Millet's junior, he entered at a more susceptible age into the atmos- phere that produced the neo-grec art, and caught from it, or, more truly, perhaps, recognized in it precedent for expressing, by a grace- ful rendering, the sentiment found in the life of the common people. Under it, his manner changed from its earlier, broader outlines to a high finish and softness of contour, and he gave the style of classic line to the actualities of nature, and often made the attitudes of his peasants recognized as but the natural poses that labor takes — as is seen in the superb air of his Gleaner. His incidents are those of uni- versally attaching qualities, as, for example, The First Communion and Plenary Pardon. He places these in scenes of nature with a smoothness of technique that often eludes observation in his perfec- tion, and whose excellence has been especially remarked in his paint- ing of sunshine, which, however, is not after the manner of Fortuny and Regnault. And though his work at times has a descriptive, literary character, and touches the imagination of the multitude only by some mental association, instead of holding the observer 1 His First Communion sold from the Morgan Collection, New York, 1886, for $45,500, which was, with the exception of some of Meissonier's, the highest price known for the work of an artist while living. 384 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. with the significant sensuousness of Millet — which has in it an overwhelming emotional quality, one knows not how revealed, but requiring no mediation of the memory or other mental faculty — his masterpieces are still full of charm. His pen and brush alike — often together — go gleaning in the field of poetry and make similar pictures. His landscape and human incident, always well harmon- ized, are sometimes so united as to enhance the effect of both, as where lie makes the characters in a scene its own charmed admirers. In The Rainbow (bought from the Salon of 1883 by the late W. H. Van- derbilt), a boy with a free gesture calls the attention of a woman to the scene, who, though a peasant and her steed a donkey, rides like a queen from the field darkened by the shower and touched by the light of the bow ; and, as she still hurries on for shelter turning her head with a fine natural movement over her shoulder to look at the " arc-en-ciel" she carries our gaze with hers. His Blessing the Grain (1857, Luxembourg), is remarkable for the golden sunshine that it makes real. This is one of his works in which both realism and idealism found confirmation for their practice. All the figures, from the cure to the humblest peasant, are portraits — the population of Breton's native town marching forth in their own semblance, but the young girls, in white, and in a grace of naturalness and freedom of action which characterizes all his figures, except when fact commands otherwise — as here where his representation of the awkwardness of the men in their unskilfully made and unwonted Sunday suits is even humorous, and of suggestive pictorialness. Connoisseurs fond of the traditional style, of beauty of line, and simplicity of composition, also joined in its praise. It represents the ceremony, sometimes practised in the Catholic countries, of the cure's benediction upon the harvest before it is garnered, and is a realistic mingling of the splendor of church paraphernalia and the homeliness of village life. The kneeling figures are full of artistic merit and truth. His Evening (1861), now in the Luxembourg, is one of his best works. It is exquisite : a peasant girl at sunset, her beautiful head resting in her hand, her eyes betraying the idyl she holds in memory, while her companions form a ring and dance, sits in reverie. The Weed Gatherers (1861), too, is deeply impressive of the loneliness of sun- set: in it five women bend in a row to weed the field, while a sixth, a superb figure, has raised herself to take breath and stands for a moment her hands behind her back, the wind lightly ruffling her hair. The Gleaner (1877), another ample and superb figure, with the grace of free action and abounding strength, carries from the fields on her shoulder, in the fine pose of one arm raised to support it there, the sheaf of wheat she has gleaned. It indicates an experience of the serious earnestness of poverty, but not of its THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 385 depression. Breton was also inspired to verse by this conception, as he was, too, by his Fleur de Sable. 1 His picture of the Salon of 1884 was the First Communion. The young girls in transparent white with lighted tapers go forth under the blossoming trees, the long procession growing less in the distance. Of those near by one delays to receive her grandmother's kiss, and her grandfather's blessing. A companion piece to this is The Plenary Pardon, in which multitudes of men and women fill the canvas and are lost in indefiniteness far away. In both, the pleasing facts of the scene serve as means to convey an idea to the mind rather than to furnish emotion. His picture in the Salon of 1885 was The Last Ray. It represents the farmyard, as the last gleam of the setting sun burnishes it with gold, 2 and the workers return from the field. A little child toddles out from the protection of its grandfather to meet its mother and father, a vigorous man and woman, and eagerly stretches out its arms towards them, affording in the four a scene of concentration of family affection. Breton devotes both the languages in which he expresses himself, to extolling the virtues of his countrymen, to describing the features of the land of his nativity. His youth was spent in the ease of com- petence under the influence of the gentle life of his father and the poetic love of nature of an uncle who, at the death of the mother, leaving three boys, joined the father in caring for the children, of whom Jules, the oldest, was but four years, and Emile, the youngest, nine months old. The family had the respect of their townsmen, the father being elected mayor of Courrieres, as the uncle sub- sequently was, when reverses had aroused his practical ability, and as in this generation the second son, Louis, has also been. Both father and uncle were men of great benevolence, and the uncle pos- sessed an encyclopedic knowledge, by which, combined with his long researches into nature, he delighted and instructed his nephews in their boyish questionings. Two, Emile and Jules, are artists, and Louis desired to be, but when the revolution of 1848 brought ruin to the family fortunes, he, with his uncle, who now displayed unex- pected talent for finance, developed the business of a brewery once owned by the family and now rebought. Jules declared for the artist's profession when but six years of age, although there was no practice of art in his native town, and his only art nourishment was 1 " Ceres de la Gaule, Aux feux de Messidor, Comrae les epis d'or Font bien sur ton epaule ! " etc. —Les champs et la mer, p. 112. 25 2 As in his verse, " Dans le crepuscle que dore Un dernier rayon incertain, Sur l'horizon ou vibre encore La brume chaude du lointain." —Ibid., p. 56. 386 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the bright green paint with which four statues of the Seasons in the garden were yearly restored. The vivid impression of this he has commemorated in a poem. When ten, through the influence of a pious grandmother, he was sent to a religious establishment at St. Omer ; there the lad made a drawing which thus early evinced the sense of humor which has at times appeared in his maturer works. A black dog named Coco, belonging to the establishment, was repre- sented in a cassock, and standing on his hind feet with a book in his paws, and the legend beneath "The Abbe Coco reads his breviary." Being discovered, the master demanded, " Was this done through impiety or to laugh at your master ? " The trembling child chose the vaguer evil and answered, "Through impiety." The quick, severe blows of the whip that ensued, from which the boy sought relief under the chairs and tables, caused his friends to remove him, and he was sent to the college of Douai. He studied painting a while under the instruction of his father's friend, Felix Devigne, at Ghent, and there made the acquaintance of the artist's little daugh- ter of six, whom he afterward married. Going thence to the atelier of Drolling, he was a fellow-pupil with Baudry, to whose chair at the Institute he has succeeded. He worked hard, but was slow in acquiring his art. His early pictures won little notice. The first, Misery and Despair, 1849, was suggested by the civil war that had touched the family so harshly. His success dates from The Blessing of the Grain, of the Salon of 1857, of which the technical skill with which the sunshine was painted could not be gainsaid. His prin- cipal works are : Misery and Despair, 1849 : Harvester's Return ; The Gleaners ; I. Pereire ; The Day after St. Sebastian ; Little Peasant Girls telling Fortunes, 1855 : Plant- ing a Cemetery, (Lille Museum): in the Luxembourg the four, Blessing the Grain, 1857 ; Recall of the Gleaners, 1859 ; Evening, 1861 ; and The Gleaner, 1877 : The Fire ; Weed Gatherers, 1861, owned by the Comte Duchatel: Consecration of the Church of Oignies (owned by M. de Clerc): Haymakers ; Returning from the Fields, 1863 : Vintage at the Chateau Lagrange ; Reading ; Turkey Keeper, 1864: End of the Day ; Blue Monday ; Recall of the Gleaners, 1865 : Spring of Water near the Sea ; Harvest Time, 1867 : Women Gathering Potatoes ; Heliotrope, 1868 : Plenary Indulgence in Brittany, or The Grand Pardon; Bad Grass, 1869: Breton Washerwomen; Woman Spinning, 1870: Girl Tending Cows; The Fountain, 1872: The Cliff; When the Cat's away the Mice will Play, 1874: St. John, 1875 : Village Girl, 1879 : Evening, 1880 : Artois Woman, 1881 : Evening at Finistere, 1882 : Morning, 1883 : Last Ray; Song of the Lark, 1885: The Luncheon ; La Bretonne, 1886 : Across the Fields ; The End of Work, 1887. His daughter and pupil, Madame Virginie Demont- Breton, con- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 387 tinues his landscape and genre, and is Hors Concours through medals of the first class in 1881, and of the second in EmiieAdeiard Breton 2333 f or rp he ^lat Shore, which is also in the Luxem- c!urri6res. bourg. His brother and pupil, Simile Adelard Breton, Med. '66, '67, '68. h as taken rank among the best landscape painters. He Med! '76 at Ph ? n a . infuses into the actual scene the poetry and senti- Med. '73 at Vienna, ment characteristic of his family. He limits his works Orde°of Leopold ^° a narrow an d sombre frame, and chiefly aifects moonlight views and the snowy scenes of winter. His Winter Evening is in the Luxembourg. He was one of the many artists who hastened to the defence of his country in 1870, and with such bravery that his general embraced him on the field of battle. He has exhibited nearly every year since 1861, forty-three pictures altogether up to 1888, of which sixteen are winter scenes. Abandoning his father's business of sugar-making and dis- tilling, in which he was placed after leaving school, Billet fell at once so completely under the influence of Jules (Contemporary), cantin. Breton's work, that he was called an imitator of Med. 3 d ci. 1873. that artist. He first exhibited in the Salon of 1867 The Young Peasant ; but perceiving that he had absorbed his friend Breton's method of seeing nature, he avoided his studio for a while and frequented those of the precise, un- dreaming workers, chiefly that of Meissonier, and in the Salon of 1874, by his Women Gathering Wood, won recognition for his own originality and now takes high rank in the group of younger artists. This picture represents the near view of a wood that shows in the foreground only the trunks of trees. These are delicately wrought out. The receding dis- tance is a luminous perspective. In the foreground four women are taking a rest before beginning work ; one leaning against a tree, and others reclining on the ground, express the fatigue which is often so unmistakable in Breton's peasants. Billet has appeared in every Salon since 1867 except five (from 1877 to '82). His chief works are : 1867, Young Peasant Women : 1868, Consequence of a Game of Cards ; Waiting: 1869, Mayor's Party ; Fisher at Ambleteuse (Bordeaux Museum): 1870, Fishers in Environs of Boulogne (Lille Museum) : 1872, Waiting for High Tide on the Coast of Normandy (Luxembourg): 1873, Return from Market ; Women Cut- ting Grain: 1874, Tobacco Smugglers ; Women Gathering Wood: 1875, In Winter ; Souvenirs of Ambleteuse: 1876, Young Kitchen Gardener ; Fountain at Yport: 1883, Shrimp Fishers : 1884, Marsh at Arleux : 1885, Return from the Sea- shore. 388 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. In 1872 he had already won honorable mention and a place in the Luxembourg for his Time of High Tide, and in 1873 a medal both at Paris and at Vienna for his Return from Market and Women Cutting Grass. Alphonse Legros is a painter of the same general class of sub- jects as Breton. He developed himself amid the drawbacks of Alphonse Legros poverty, with some instruction from Lecoq de Bois- (1837- ), Dijon. baudran, an enthusiastic teacher and close student of all natural effects, and at last found his picture admitted to the Salon in 1857. It was a portrait of his father, and led Champfleury, who at once acclaimed him a realist, to 1 seek him out. He found him a well-poised artist, hopeful and reliant, though only twenty years of age. Still the litterateur's visit was the dawning light to the struggling youth. His later development has led to the designation of him as " an old master belated," for in figures, landscape, and color he goes back to the early artists, and withal has great dignity and distinction. His pictures have become much appreciated by artists and are chiefly owned by them ; Seymour Haden is the possessor of his Angelus, which attracted great attention at its exhibition in 1859. It was followed by an Ex Voto in 1861 and a Mass of the Dead in 1863, when Legros left France for England, where he was made Professor of Etching at the South Kensington Art School, and in 1876 State Professor of the Fine Arts in University College, London. His pictures are found in the galleries of England, where they have met with the favor they for a long time failed to receive at home, but have more recently been abundantly granted, his works now being sought with great diligence for the galleries of France and only obtained with the greatest difficulty. His Ex Voto has been officially purchased for Dijon, Monks at Prayer for Alencon, and for the Luxembourg L'Amende Honorable of 1868. His Tinker (Salon of 1875) owned by Mr. C. A. Ionides, London, is a man of noble presence, capable of serious thought based on integrity of purpose and uprightness of life, who sits under the trees mending his kettle and possibly, like Bunyan, cogitating a Pilgrim's Progress. The strong head expressing depth of character, suggests the artist himself, who makes an original and powerful thought dominate his art-expression, of which he makes use of every form. He has exhibited sculpture at the Grosvenor Gallery. Lhermitte, an artist of incontestable talent, dealing in the main 1 Champfleury had been the first to draw attention to Courbet. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 389 but very differently with the charming subjects of Breton, is allied with Bastien-Lepage in the breadth and feel- Leon Augustin Lhermitte • f hig rea ii st j c treatment, and also has, as (.844- )■ Mont. St. Pere. % . . . , • i i i Med. 3d d. '74. a jusainiste, or worker in charcoal, a leaning 26 cL ' 8 °- to the impressionists' practice. 1 He paints the callous hands and sunburned necks of labor in attitudes and gestures of simplicity and grace, in a style less austere and more varied than Millet's and as villagers rather than peasants, to suggest a distinction more easily apprehended than expressed. As the son of its schoolmaster, who lives to enjoy his son's fame, Lhermitte grew up in close sympathy with the life of his native village, where his grandfather was a vine-dresser. Thus when his inborn talent had been trained through the generosity of a resi- dent near by, who sent him to Paris for study in 1863, he reproduced with sincere feeling the simple country life with its homely joys and scenes of toil. His master at Paris was Lecoq de Boisbaudran who, skilfully developing the individuality of each, made more celebrated pupils than pictures ; as Cazin and Legros, and the two, Lhermitte and Ferrier, who received a decoration on the same day. Lhermitte excels in draughtsmanship, more clearly demonstrated in his skill as a fasainiste. His form of realism is not without ideality, but is simply the result of his innate sympathies, and of his loyalty to nature. It leads him to render her features with truth, and with a senti- ment that presents alleviations in the hardest lot. He fails somewhat in color. His first successes were in charcoal, and now, besides paint- ing large canvases, he is an aquarellist and an etcher. His Supper Time owned by Mr. James T. Tullis, Glasgow, illustrates his manner and his sentiment : In the meagre furnishings of a very humble cottage, on a bare wooden table, is placed the pot of porridge from which the house mother standing serves the family with the directness that recognizes no usages but those of need. The members are gathered with the same informality, the man with his hat on, the young daughter still seeking plates for service from those decorating the mantel. All these material interests are incidental to the tender solicitude which directs all care towards the infant whom its older sister is feeding. The entire family seem to hang upon that mouthful for " the baby." Of about fourteen pictures exhibited up to 1887 The Harvesters Wages (1882), The Haymaking (1887), and The Vintage (Metropolitan 1 In the prevailing practice that finds " the true spirit of charcoal-drawing in inter- preting nature by pure light and shade, without the aid of line," there is an affinity with the impressionists' practice in massing values without outline or chiaroscuro. 390 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Museum, New York) are the most important ; the first was bought by the state for the Luxembourg and the second pronounced worthy of it. Lhermitte has a studio in Paris, but it is in the one in the garden of his house, in the quiet of his native village, that he finds the necessary conditions of his successful reproductions. Lerolle, from painting airy landscapes of beautiful trees, lately has taken up airy interiors of large dimensions, often the broad expanses of the churches of the last centurv. In Henry Lerolle ** (contemporary), Paris, these he does not wholly lose the diffused daylight Med. 3 d ci. '79. G f his whilom landscape, but is enabled to place his "st cl. '8o. . _ i • r figures in a clear, luminous silvermess and to con- tinue his treatment of reflected lights, sunbeams, and shadows, and make an atmosphere felt. To this he adds the interest with humanity by some suggestive incident or situation, and makes impressive and noble works. He paints broadly and solidly, and has a remarkable perception of pictorial qualities, though he admits into his works the unpicturesque modern costumes. This is seen in his exhibition in the Salon of 1888, The Interior of a Church and in his At the Organ in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Being of independent fortune, he paints simply because it is his taste to do so, and there- fore what and in the manner that his tastes dictate, and accordingly he is a very personal painter. Lately somewhat in the style of Millet he has taken subjects from peasant life. His In the Country of 1880 is in the Luxembourg. The Close of the Day of 1886, a masterpiece, of which he has himself made an etching, represents two tired peasants returning from work. It is fall of sentiment enhanced by the intimate relationship between the landscape and the man and woman enveloped in the shadow of the dying day. When the German army advanced upon Paris, one painter was not met in the artists' battalion. Monticelli was at that moment tramping Adolphe Monticelli back to Marseilles, scattering rainbows through the (i82 4 -'86), Marseilles. coun t rv as he went, in return for food and shelter. He had failed lamentably at the capital after having at home appar- ently been placed on the mountain-top of glory by his Provencal countrymen, his fellows of the land of Fragonard, admirers of eccen- tricity and show, and he now fled perforce from Paris. To a class of artists and critics delicately attuned to perceive a " vague magic" in his art, he is the greatest colorist of the century. He used color for color's sake, and his art was reduced to the simple ele- ments of painting sensations, tone and tint. His fantasies in thick- ened pigment, the caprices of a genius under the development of a THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 391 special faculty, the presentations of a singular harmonic tempera- ment, they have afforded to the painters of pure sensations and the lovers of color the highest note in their key, an extreme illustration which merits consideration. He has produced a "painted music," says Henley, in a discriminatingly analytical notice of Monticelli, and like "verses that one reads for the sound's sake only," purely unrepresentative effects. It, indeed, finally resulted that to him naught but color had meaning, and that instead of being representative, it was in itself an end. Through the view of a picture by Delacroix, the incipient growths of his efflorescence of color were touched into life — from innate affinities necessarily — and during a sojourn in Paris, by the influence of Diaz, for whose works Monticelli's earlier ones were often sold, they were further developed into such strength as to super- sede his earlier almost fanatical acceptance, under the teachings of Ray- mond Aubert, of harmony of line as the basis of his melodies in art. In this earlier stage, he was as enthusiastic a follower of Raphael as Ingres had been and, immediately, of that great advocate of the line, Ingres himself. His subsequent impromptu, irresponsible, sensation paint- ing — for after 1870 he improvised and sold for what he could a picture a day — in which there is rarely any undercurrent of appeal to thought, was in accordance with the same characteristic that under- lay Fragonard's grace, a ready, unanalytic apprehending of pleasing effects. Spending the remainder of his life in Marseilles, in his rapid work he loaded the paint on his pictures, until design is hardly perceptible at a near view. But his works command admiration, and have been much sought for, " monnaie comptant." His range of art is shown by his subjects which, figures in landscape, place him in this group, although there is little similarity in his art to that of the other artists placed here. Among his works, many of which are owned in America, are : Landscape with Gipsies (Mr. Daniel Cottier, London) ; Ladies in Garden (Mr. Arthur Sanderson, Edinburgh) ; The Fete (Mr. Daniel Cottier, London) ; The Ravine (a horseman turning to look at two ladies in the foreground) ; Ladies in a Garden by Torchlight (Mr. Thomas Glen Arthur, Glasgow) ; Ladies in Garden ; Ladies in Garden ; Landscape with Ladies ; Autumn (a group of ladies and cupids in a sunlit meadow) ; Ladies and Dogs ; The Gallant ; Landscape with Figures ; The Wedding Procession. Le Poittevin, a pupil of Hersent and of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, who was fully matured at the opening of this period and had then taken all his honors except a medal of 1855, has a range of work 392 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. through the three specialties, genre, landscape and marine, that Eugene Modeste Edmond Le Poittevin renders his classification difficult ; (called Poidevin) ^ although half his recorded (i8o6-' 7 o), Paris; ° . . Med. 2d ei. '31 ; 1st ci. -36 • 2d ei. ' 4 8 ; 3 d ci. '55. works are marines, even they derive L - Hon '43- so much of their value from his keen power of character reading and oftentimes from his sense of humor, that, while his power in landscape would enable him to take rank in that, with the painters of out-door incident is found his truest classification. His subjects are not confined to scenes of France, but are selections from travel on the continent and in England. His last, The Environs of Etretat, exhibited 1870, was appropriated for the Luxembourg, and his first picture, Harvesters (1826), was bought by the Duchesse de Berri. Other painters of out-door genre are : Paul A. Baudoin (contemporary), Rouen : pupil of Gleyre, Delauny, and Puvis de Chavannes ; medal 3d class '82, when he represented The History of Wheat. — Nicholas Berthon (1831- ), Paris : pupil of fecole des Beaux-Arts and Cogniet; medal '66. — Henri Bonnefoy (contemporary), Boulogne-sur-Mer : pupil of Cogniet; medal 3d class '80; 2d class '84. — Julien Dupre (1851- ), Paris : pupil of Pils, Lehmann, andLaugee; medal 3d class '80; 2d class '82. — Leon A. Hayon (1840- ), Paris: medal 3d class '83 ; pupil of Benouville, Picot, and Pils. — Edmond Hedouin (1820- ), Boulogne-sur-Mer : medal 2d class '48 ; 3d class '55, Exposition Uni- verselle '57 ; Legion of Honor '72 ; pupil of Delaroche and Celestin Nanteuil ; won notice at his first exhibition (1844) : besides French and Spanish peasant scenes as The Gleaners (1857 Luxembourg), he occasionally presents Oriental scenes. — Georges Laugee (contemporary), Montvilliers : medal 3d class '81 ; pupil of Pils and Lehmann. — Louis Le Poittevin (contemporary), Veuville : pupil of Bouguereau ; medal 3d class '86. — Alphonse Moutte (contemporary), Marseilles : pupil of Meissonier ; medal 3d class '81 ; 2d class '82. A younger brother of the Orientalist Charles Theodore Frere, fidouard, a delicate and refined nature, well known through the Pierre £douard Frere multiplicity of his works, the popularity of which led l 8 Hon 6 - Pa iS ^° ^ ne ^ r being early engraved, was the originator of Med. 3d cl. '50, '55. what has been called the School of Sympathetic 2dcl -' 52 Genre. He was the pupil of Delaroche, but he caught his inspiration in more lowly themes than that master's his- torical selections, in the homely tenderness of family relation and incident. Thus he is as anomalous a production of the studio of Delaroche as Millet himself. " The stately swan had hatched a wood bird." For a long time, however, he saw only through the teachings of his master and exhibited the resulting works at Paris. But success did not come till by the picturesqueness of its thatched cottages and its THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 393 Chateau, now occupied by the daughters of the Legion of Honor, he was attracted to Ecouen and there developed the note of the "wood bird." In the quiet of this village where at his coming the humble inhabitants, it is said, often shared with him their frugal meal, he painted its simple scenes with a touch of feeling that converted the mechanical skill perfected under Delaroche into works of a charm that led Parisian dealers to seek him out. There, eight miles from Paris, he lived forty years ; and there his attractive character and the popularity of his art drew around him a colony of artists and pupils. To them with their families his house was opened two evenings in the week, besides the regular Sunday night ball of French custom. Like Lobrichon and Geoffrey he was charmed with the children, and this spell he threw over his public. Every budding-forth of human weakness ; the pout of ill-will, the self-absorbing interest of the moment, as well as the tender affection of The Elder Sister's maternal solicitude for the infant brother, even an awkward big brother's care for "the Baby," the pathos of The Orphan's First Prayer, and the self- sacrifice of The Young Workers, are rendered by him with a delinea- tion so truthful and tender that it is seen at once that he and the children have a special tie binding them together. 1 And he has not confined himself to the children : he has given many Burns-like scenes of cotters' families. But with much good work, simple, pleasing, and sincere, he later exaggerated his tendency to sentiment by yielding to the demands of a sentimental public. He first appeared in the Salon of 1843 with The Little Glutton, but his works of an earlier date are now of value, as that of 1835, Preparing for Church, (Corcoran Gallery). He painted with a close study of detailed realities which at the time called forth the ridicule of carica- tures. His industry yielded a large production, much of which Ameri- can collections have eagerly absorbed. But many of his best pictures are in the galleries of England, connoisseurs there being led to appre- ciate them through Buskin's eulogies. In 1855 Ruskin compared his coloring to Rembrandt's, and pronounced him to combine "the depth of Wordsworth, the grace of Reynolds and the holiness of Angelico." When every house at Ecouen was suffering plunder by the Prussian soldiers Frere's was respected and safe. In a eulogy pronounced by Bouguereau over his bier, the fact was stated by which the gentle 1 "I saw the entire village school in his studio on a half holiday romping in their wooden shoes with great noise, while the painter quietly sketched their positions and motions for what became the picture of A School Breaking up." (Henry Bacon, in the London Art Journal for Nov., 1886.) 394 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. artist would probably prefer to be remembered, namely, that his name was inscribed on the Annuaire of the Society of French Artists for the considerable sum of 15,245 francs, a result of his gifts to their charity sales for the relief of artists. The family name is sustained in art by his only child, Charles Edouard, a painter of genre, landscape and por- Charles Edouard Frere . * /» TT (1837- ), Paris. trait, the pupil of his father and of Couture. He Med. 2d ci. '48. h as exhibited almost annually since he was twenty- one years of age and obtained a medal that year. Fortin's Benedicite, or Saying Grace (1855), in the Luxembourg, and the many family scenes he has painted, place him in the group with Frere, whose neighbor he was at Ecouen, 1 (18*5-^5), °Paris. an ^ like whom he had in art a lineal descent Med. ist ci. -49, '57, '59, '6i. from Gros. He received his instruction from that artist's pupil Beaumes, one of the painters of historical genre who form a link between the classicists and the painters of familiar incident. Fortin gave to poverty, which he often represented in his pictures, chiefly of Brittany peasants, a frankly merry tone like some of the Dutch masters. He was also a painter of landscape, in which he was a pupil of Roqueplan. He exhibited first in 1835 and then every year until his death. In the Salon of that year he had the two pictures, A Magpie's Breakfast and A Familiar Scene. His works before 1847 are : Village Barber ; Corner of the Hearth ; Cobbler's Shop ; Return to the Cottage; Rag Dealer; Soldiers Making Merry: 1850, The Country Tailor : 1861, Storm: 1864, Between Two Dilemmas. FIGURE PAINTERS. Jalabert and fidouard Dubufe, fellow pupils with Frere in the studio of Delaroche, while showing in some of their works the sym- pathetic nature of Frere's treatment, through the elevated style of their figure-painting form a connection with, and belong to, a group of artists who, simultaneously with the work of Gerome and his fol- lowers, made use of the classic line and contours in a style of more dignity and grandeur than that of the neo-grecs. While allied to that, it may more strictly be called the academic-realistic or, simply, figure painting. Of this class Bouguereau is the most aca- demic, or historic in style, Cabanel most historic in subject : a sub- division might be formed from it of painters of the ideal, as Hen- 1 Others of the Ecouen colony were Schenk, Veyrasset, Lambinet, Duverger, Seig- nac, Haag, Vernier, and Dargelas. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 395 ner with his idyls, Lefebvre with his practice in the elegant and classical nude, and Cot with his incidents of primeval innocence; but there are also many of the ideal painters in other classes, as Leronx and Puvis de Chavannes among the painters of history. Edouard Dubufe, an eminent painter of portraits and figures, followed his master more closely than Frere did, but still misses Delaroche's " coups de theatre " aud the Edouard Dubufe . ., . . . „ , , , (18,8.-83), Paris. striking impression 01 that master s pic- Med. 3d ci. '39; 2d ci. '40 ; ist d. '44. tures. Dubufe was forming his style of. H L 0n Hln 3; -6 2 9 d ; Med.' 2 U d'cf. 5 E. u. > 7 8. during the breaking up of the calculated culture of the Davidian period, and the bitter contests then imposed upon rising genius of the sturdiest sort (1830 to 1848). His mother had artistic tastes and took a medal for sculpture in the Salon of 1810 at which her husband, Claude, first exhibited. The son's practice began where his father's ended, in portrait and genre. Through the elevated style with which he im- bues his figures, he takes high rank, especially in Scriptural scenes, which from the age of twenty-three to that of twenty : eight he painted almost exclusively. He was a colorist the "rosy hue" of whose can- vases made charming his corner of the Salon. Among his works are : Faith, Hope, and Charity, 1842 : Morning Prayer ; Family Scene of the Fif- teenth Century, 1844 (Tuileries) ; The Widow's Mite ; Maternal Affection ; Filial Affection; Prayer; The Virgin of the Cross; The Prodigal Son, 1867, and one of 1857 of historical importance, The Peace Congress of Paris, March 30, 1856. He sent many portraits to the Salons, sixty-seven up to 1879, many of which are most excellent. Among these have been one of the Empress Eugenie, 1855 ; one of Rosa Bonheur, with an arm thrown over a bull painted by herself, 1857 ; one of Robert-Fleury, 1863; one of Dumas fils, 1873 ; one of Harpignies, 1877 ; one of Rachel for the Theatre Francais, 1 858 ; and by one, the portrait of ISmile Augier, 1876, he won a place in the Luxembourg. His son and pupil, Guillaume Dubufe, who was also a pupil of Mazerolle, continues the art of his father and grandfather, portrait and genre, and is now Hors Concours, having taken a medal of the 3d class in 1877 and of the 2d in 1878. His works are held in high esteem. Jalabert is a painter of portraits which possess great elevation and comprehension of feeling, combined with the delicate grace that n , . c . . . . . gives true distinction in portraiture. He is Charles Francois Jalabert O sr (1819- ), Nis'mes. also a painter of genre, often of the sympathetic alTci 1 3 »5| C,, *«7E u school ; of classical subjects ; and of Scriptural 1st ci. '53, '55 e. u. scenes. After failing to win the Prix de Eome L.Hon. -55; of. L.Hon. 'c 7 . in three competitions, he placed himself for three years under the influence of the art of that city, and then re- 396 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. turned with a picture of Horace, Virgil, and Varius at the House of Maecenas (1847), which won him a medal and was bought for the Luxembourg. He is, like Bouguereau, whom he resembles both in subject and style, the perfect master of his craft. His figures are well grouped, his style graceful. Upon a smoothly scraped back- ground he attains with thin color a finished flatness of surface which gives him great facility in the diffusion of light and the delicate representation of form. In this he excels, his figures exhibiting a play of line that would be appropriate in sculpture, and being among the finest of the entire French school. He has painted with great effect a scene which has fine pictorial capabilities, Christ Walking on the Sea (1863). Other Scriptural scenes are : St. Luke (1852) : The Annunciation (1853) : Christ on the Mount of Olives (1855): and Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me. Other works are : Farewell of Romeo and Juliet ; Raphael at Work on the Madonna di San Sisto (1857) : A Widow (1861) : The Awakening (1872) : Orpheus ; Christian Martyr ; Italian Girl (1853): Portraits. In his Orpheus and the Nymphs (1853, Walters Gallery, Bal- timore), ten or twelve beautiful maidens clothed in idyllic garments, and in various attitudes upon the rocks and ground of a deeply shaded scene, listen with rapt expression to the bard, whom their intentness almost makes us hear. Hebert first found his favorite subjects in the malaria of Italy and made them popular. Thus he won the title of " the painter a + ' a ¥ c tu >. , of disease." About said, "If I had one of Antoine Auguste Ernest Hebert 7 (1817- ), Grenoble. that artist's pictures in my room I should pnx de Rome -39. catch the f eYe r." Hubert, however, has a Med. 1st cl. 51, 55. 7 7 l. Hon. 53. mind of most robust power, and there is no ad ci. '67 e. u. weakness or fever in his art as art. Indeed, Of. L. Hon. 67. ' Com. l. Hon. '74. these statements are the result of the strong Mem. inst., ' 74 . impression made by one picture, and thus Director at Rome '66-'73 ; also '85. , s\ * 1 ■> attest his power. Once seen, in fact, it clings to the memory. In his youth he pursued various lines of edu- cation, and, after winning a University diploma in the Lycee of Grenoble, went to Paris at the age of eighteen and entered the Ecole de Droit for the study of law. He finished the full couise and took his oath as barrister in 1839, but, to the surprise of the other com- petitors, this graduate in law and, as was supposed, only amateur in art (for he had essayed sculpture in the studio of David d'Angers and, at the same time, through the urgency of Delaroche, painted in his studio), took the same year the Prix de Home for painting. The subject of the competition was The Cup Found in Benjamin's Sack. His success was due to independent study in searching out THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 397 the principles of painting for himself, though at the same time re- ceiving friendly advice from Delaroche. His first composition, Tasso in Prison, exhibited also in 1839, had been bought by the government for the Musee de Grenoble. These successes turned the scale for him in favor of a painter's career. He did not exhibit again, however, until 1848, when four pictures won little notice; but in 1850 his Malaria held a crowd before it during the entire Salon, and won a place in the Luxembourg. He had discovered a new realm of art in much-frequented and, as it might seem, well-nigh exhausted Italy. It was a realm of sad reality, that of the Pontine marshes, but he gave it a poetic, dreamy treatment that at once bespoke interest for it. In a boat, on a slow sluggish stream from which the mist rises, a poor family, of pallid features, dark rings encircling the eyes, wrap themselves shiveringly from the almost palpable malaria. Only two of the five, a young man working the pole that moves the boat, and a fair young woman leaning in the carelessness of youthful vigor over its edge, seem free from its baneful effect. They deepen the impression of the terrible scourge imminent in the gray, lowering atmosphere by suggesting the robust health that the other wan and shivering figures have no doubt once possessed. Since that time he has had pictures in every Salon except those of '51 and '76, and by 1881 had exhibited fifty pictures, twenty of which were portraits. Four had won places in the Luxembourg. One of these, The Kiss of Judas, had made a deep impression in the Exhi- bition of 1853. One of the soldiers who have come to take Christ, holds his lantern to discern who is pointed out by the betraying kiss, and thus brings the face of Christ into strong light. It bears an expression of disdain and loathing of this false indica- tion of affection, but it is free from anger and of a marked serenity, austere in a calmness with which the simple folds of his white robe subtly harmonize. It was severely criticised ; it was "not like the old masters it was "an innovation upon the traditional treatment of religious sub- jects," but it was bought for the Luxembourg. After this Hebert returned to his Italian genre. The Girls of Alvita, of 1855 ; The Cer- varolles or Women of Cervara, of 1859, which was also bought for the Luxembourg ; The Young Girl at the Well ; The Morning and Evening of Life, show the artist's characteristic treatment, that of an intelligent and poetic realism, nature seen through his dreamy and perhaps slightly morbid sentiment. His poetic conception gives him the quality of the neo-grecs, and his Girls of Alvita, on their way t 398 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. to wash linen have the grace of antique statues. His works are invariably characterized by distinction; in the lighter ones even, there is always dignity. To sentiment and dignity are added admirable drawing and especially a rich, grave color that is truly Venetian. His work of 1881, St. Agnes, illustrates all these qualities, and to the dignity is added all the saintly suggestiveness of the subject. His second appointment to the rectorship of the Academy at Rome, with his other many honors, indicates the high esteem in which he is held in France. Merle, a pupil of Leon Oogniet, became a considerable rival of Bouguereau in subiect and treatment. His pic- Hugues Merle & . J . r (1823.-81), st. Marceiiin. tures, chiefly Me size, express, however, some- Med. 2d d. '61, '63. what more of the familiar every-day life of the poor, oftentimes with much feeling, though with a distinct leaning towards the conventionally sentimental. His Beg- gar (1862) is in the Luxembourg. The Secret (Mrs. Eobert L. Stuart, New York,) shows two women meeting at the well of the neighborhood and sharing wonder-producing information. He has conveyed the story unmistakably. The little son of one tries fretfully but unsuc- cessfully to draw his mother away, but she disregards all else in avidity for the secret. He exhibited in sixteen Salons, from 1847 to 1880 inclusive, forty-eight pictures, ten of them being portraits. His Hagar and lshmael; Charlotte Corday; Beatrice ; and Ophelia, have enjoyed celebrity. His son, Georges Hugues Merle, follows in this style. Cabanel possesses a thorough knowledge of the theories and science of his art, which has made him one of the most popular and AUv^ro r.K.noi successful teachers at the Beaux- Arts for Alexandre Cabanel (1823- ), Montpeiiier. many years. By nearly fifty years' continu- de J R ° me ' ,845 ; , , _ ance as an artist of an industry begun as a Med. 2d cl. '52; 1st cl. '55 E. U. § J n Med. Hon. '65. pupil, with an absorption and assiduity that Med. Hon. '67 E. u '78 e. u. exc i U( ied rest and society, he has attained, L. Hon. '55; Of. L. Hon. '64. . , . . Com. L. Hon. '84, Mem. Inst. '63. besides great skill, the first rank in portrait- Prof. Ecole des Beaux-Arts '63. ure? an( J a ] s0 J n a gtyle which WaS entirely of the manner of David before 1861, and now may be called semi-clas- sical. His true service to the art of the day, however, resides rather in his pupils than his pictures. Among the former are some of the most famous painters living and recently dead — as Basti en-Lepage. The latter, though including admirable works and of a technical excel- lence bordering on perfection in attaining its own ends, leaves as a whole an impression not un tinged with insipidity. He has been awarded all forms of honor given m art. Beginning at the age of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 399 fourteen with the offer of the professorship of drawing in the College of Pons, he next had conferred upon him by his native town in 1839 the means of education at Paris, where he studied under Picot ; he won the second Prix de Eome in 1845 and because of a vacancy in the first was awarded the pension of that ; he has received countless honors at the Salons, comprising the assignment of four 1 of his pictures to the Luxembourg ; three grand medals of honor, one in '65 and two at the Universal Expositions of '67 and '78 ; he has been decorated with the degrees of the Legion of Honor from Chevalier through Officer to Commander ; and his success culminated in 1863 in that highest of all, being made a member of the Institute and the same year profes- sor in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. To these distinctions may be added appointments to works for the state, and the high rank and wealth of his patrons, the great number of whom in portraiture may truly be considered an honor. Napoleon III. commissioned him in 1865 to perpetuate him to posterity ; duchesses, countesses, marquises, more than can be mentioned, figure among his sitters, where may be seen, too, the face of many an American sovereign. As a portrait painter he is especially the master of every grace attractive to woman: a consummate skill in accessories ; great judiciousness in render- ing what his subtle reading of the human face gives him ; great power and knowledge of hands, to which he ascribes much character; a tendency to poetic interpretation, which leads to his throwing a veil of mystery over the expression, and to giving to all women a tinge of interesting sadness ; he avoids accentuation, even leaving in a soften- ing vagueness the too marked characteristics. As has been remarked, " what Ingres would have made as a clearly cut model of bronze, Cabanel gives in a tender pate. " In the Portrait of the Emperor, that dignitary is represented in the Tuileries dressed in a black court-suit with knee breeches and wearing the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor. It is a subtle likeness, giving in fine modelling the courtly, polished, refined side of Napoleon III.'s character. There was a difficulty about the dress. Should this Emperor be painted in a black coat, and thus that be made a part of a historical painting ? The artist so decided, but represented the imperial robes, with their golden bees thrown over a chair close by. This has been approved in the main, though by some, even those who accepted the greatcoat of Napoleon I. as suitable for a statue, it has been condemned. It won the Medal of Honor. Cabanel's masterpiece in portraiture is perhaps that of the Comtesse de Tonnerre, which excels by its soft, sweet, womanly grace, 1 These are The Birth of Venus, 1863 ; Francesea da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta, 1870 ; Thamar, 1875 ; and The Apotheosis of St. Louis, as early as 1855. 400 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. perfect dignity, and infinite refinement. Among his frescoes the one in the Pantheon, The Principal Events in the Life of St. Louis, begun 1875, is conspicuous for its own merit as well as for forming part of that famous series planned in 1874 by the Marquis de Chen- nevieres. It is a vast work, full of dignified yet graceful sentiment, admirable drawing, of a clear yet sober scheme of color, and marked by the technical knowledge for which Cabanel is celebrated. He also decorated in 1872 the Pavilion of that goddess in the Louvre with a Triumph of Flora, in which she rides across the blue sky in a golden chariot followed by a procession of youthful forms full of all the joy and frolicsomeness that spring suggests. He has exhibited three classes of works : portraits, light classic subjects, and work of the dignified historic style, through all of which is sensible the " perfume of the antique." At Rome he was a charmed student, sending home pictures stamped with study of the old masters ; his first work after his return, a commission of great honor, twelve panels for the Hotel de Ville, representing The Months, was in a large style, but of the most delightful lightness and delicacy. It touched even the unsympathetic nature of Delaroche, who procured another order for the young artist in 1855, The Apotheosis of St. Louis for the Luxembourg Palace, which undoubtedly formed the ground of his selection by Ohennevieres for similar work in the Pantheon. His Birth of Venus of 1863, exhib- ited also in the Universal Exposition of 1867, and now one of the most valuable pictures of the Luxembourg, is the masterpiece of his second style. It is of great transparency of color, masterly drawing, and of perfect line throughout. It made a great impression at the Salon, won for him his three honors of that year, the decoration of the Legion of Honor, Membership of the Institute, and one of the profes- sorships of painting at the Beaux- Arts. He made three replicas of this representative picture, which deserves more than a mere mention. The original exhibited in the Universal Exposition of 1867, now in the Luxem- bourg, is of life size ; one smaller, painted by the order of Mr. J. Wolfe of New York, is in his gallery ; and one still smaller and paler, in Mrs. H. C. Gibson's gallery, Philadelphia. The object of the picture, apparent at a glance, is nothing higher, nothing else, than to give occasion for a rare and peculiar modelling of the nude in lights, it may be said, for it has no shadows, but is simply lights upon lights. In the success of this; in the adaptation of the treatment to the nature of the subject, the first awakening of the offspring of the foam of the sea to the consciousness of the realm of sense, of which she is to be queen ; in the technique adequate to con- vey the appropriate idea of buoyancy, as she still floats upon the foam ; the merri- ment in her own slowly opening, long dark eyes, from which by shading with a playful tossing of her arms she wards off the brilliancy of her new surroundings; in THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 401 the joy and hilarity of the Cupids that float over her, one interestedly watching her coming consciousness, one blowing a happy blast upon a sea shell, one hastening away with the glad tidings that love is born to the world of sense, and others throw- ing up their arras in glad satisfaction ; in the dazzling delicacy of the coloring of the whole figure, a rippling stream of golden hair losing itself in the azure of her soft couch of clear sea water, consists its varied and unique beauty. A picture of 1863, also exhibited at the Universal Exposition of 1867, was Paradise Lost, a commission of King Louis of Bavaria for the Munich Gallery. It is the type of his third style. Cabanel painted it with great care, looking upon it as representative at Munich of the French School, and it won for him the Grand Medal of Honor. Others of his works are Phaedra, which has all of his classical tone ; The Casket Scene in the Merchant of Venice ; and The Florentine Poet, of a charming Greek outline. In the last : A poet seated on a stone bench recites love sonnets, which two lovers in front follow with an eager attention that greatly animates the beauty of the lady ; two youths also listen, and a serene pleasure is depicted on the countenances of all. Pia de Tolmei dying in the Maremma is one of his most impor- tant works. The expiring woman's husband, Nello della Pietra, accused her of infidelity and imprisoned her to die in a castle in this malarial region, and Dante describes her in purgatory. Cabanel wrote of this picture to its purchaser, the late W. H. Van- derbilt: *' 1 consider it not only one of ray best works, but one of the most affect- ing that I have painted. ... I have imagined her upon the terrace of the castle strong in her innocence and defying her evil destiny." CabanePs scholars, through the popularity of his atelier in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, exceed in number the famed list of Leon Cogn- iet. No fewer than 112 exhibitors of the Salon of 1886 signed them- selves " Pupil of Cabanel." These are as varied in style as they are numerous, which is an indication of their teacher's greatness as a master : he develops talent without making slavish imitators ; Bas- tien-Lepage, ] H. Gervex, 1 Adan. 2 Benjamin-Constant, 3 Comerre, 4 Humbert, 4 and Beaume, 2 5 illustrate the individuality of those he has influenced. Seven out of ten is often the, proportion of his pupils accepted to enter into loge for the Prix de Rome. His son and pupil, Pierre Cabanel, born at Montpellier, has exhib- ited in the Salons from 1873 to 1884 the pictures : The Flight of Nero ; The Death of Abel ; Nymphs surprised by a Satyr; Ship, wreck on the Coast of Brittany ; Mowers ; Italians in Paris ; The Prodigal Son ; Young Neapolitan Girl ; Bettina ; and Chiffoniers. 1 Naturalist. 2 Rustic Genre. 3 Orientalist. 4 Genre. 5 Military Painter. 26 402 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. He has never more than distantly approached the power of his father. He obtained a second class medal in 1873. As Meissonier and Ger6me lead the realistic genre, so Bouguereau and Cabanel are at the head of modern academic painting, and, as ....... a ^ i k d leaders, the presidency and the vice pres- William Adolphe Bouguereau " ■ ■ * J r (1825- ), La Rocheiie. idencj of the jury of the Salons are most L e Hon d '59 5 h T Cl " 571 3d Cl ' 67 E ' U " frequently adjudged them by the elec- of. l. Hon. '76; Mem. inst. '76. tors. Bouguereau has been called by Med. Hon. '78 e u ^- admirers preeminently the painter Knight of Leopold '81. 1 . . com. l. Hon. '85. of flesh. " The important point in art Med. Hon. '85; Pres. Inst. '85. fa tQ th(J nude fi gure? " 8a \& Ben- venuto Cellini, and Diderot, the great critic of the eighteenth cen- tury, is quoted by a recent writer as forcibly illustrating this attain- ment of Bouguereau : "It is flesh that it is difficult to render ; that substance unctuous, white, uni- form, without being pale or faded; it is this mingling of red and blue, of imper- ceptible moisture, which forms the despair of the colorist. ... A thousand painters have died without having comprehended flesh, a thousand others will die without comprehending it." Other critics, of more technical leanings, do not agree w T ith this enthusiasm, it should be said. Bouguereau certainly produces in flesh-painting surfaces so smooth that they seem waxed or enamelled. He makes " figures in faience." And if Cabanel and Lefebvre are not in this respect his successful rivals, Henner may be so called. But knowledge, taste and refinement are his constant qualities, and from these he derives a constantly serene elegance of manner. He was early imbued with the value of the classic line and the academic figure, and his skill in composition is always marked. Many of his compositions are delightful considered as pure arabesques. In the sharply defined differences and the hot discussions of principles main- tained during his early years, he was enlisted, through the influence of his teacher of drawing at the College of Pons, on the side of the followers of Ingres before he was old enough to judge of its merits. The thorough instruction in drawing there received ena- bled him subsequently in the drawing school of Jean Alaux of Bor- deaux, though attending only two hours after his daily business, to win the prize from the full-time pupils. These had treated the partial worker with disdain, and now refused to submit to this deci- sion, but, though a riot ensued, the decree was sustained. The lad now felt encouraged to adopt art as his life work. His parents in- formed him that he must, in that event, support himself, as they had THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 403 no means for that purpose. He resorted to Saintonge, where he had an uncle, a priest, and where uo painter had been before, and there, by painting portraits at fifteen francs apiece, he acquired the sum of nine hundred francs, and entered the studio of Picot in Paris until qualified to enter in 1843 the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Here he competed for the grand prize in 1848 and 1849, but failed, obtaining in 1848 only the second. But in 1850 his perseverance was rewarded by his receiving one of the duplicate prizes of Rome of that year, resulting from none having been given the year before, and set out for the Villa Medici with Baudry, to whom the other was awarded. All the tendencies of his art instruction had prepared him to follow in the direction of the great masters. With this influence he combined a decided taste for mythol- ogy, shown by his pictures both then and later. But at the close of his four years' pensionate (1854), he produced The Body of St. Cecilia Borne to the Catacombs. His fame dates from this. It is now in the Luxembourg, where he also has a Birth of Venus, of 1879. But he did not touch the hearts of the people until he painted, or rather conventionally idealized, the country characters of his own land and time. His treatment of these is the very opposite of that of Millet : he introduces elegance into his rendering even of a barefooted peasant. Imposing line, so thoroughly impressed upon him by his training, dignity of bearing, agreeable disposition of masses, enter into all his renderings of these subjects, until " they seem like rustics transformed into princesses " — for it is woman that usually forms bis subject. But this execution imposes itself, and stands between the characters and the observer. This treatment renders his practice somewhat that of the neo-grecs, familiar in incident, classic in execution ; but his qualities are better adapted to less realistic subjects, and with bim, as with Cabanel and others, the renewal in classic forms of the ideal treatment has become, instead of the neo-grec, the more formal aca- demic. In Bouguereau's works it maintains high value. His com- position is always fine, his color clear and fresh, if neither rich nor subtle, his drawing "faultily faultless " — " despairingly perfect,*' sigh his fellow artists, who nevertheless distrust its finish as being for finish's sake. And in sentiment his figures are so placid and sincerely destitute of feeling, that he has often been accused of painting the merely pretty. However, it is not the trivial, and his pictures always possess the charm of that elegance which invariably confers true dis- tinction. His works are very numerous ; among them is every form in which he can present woman and child ; be it a group treated allegorically ; 404 A HISTORY OF FUEXCII PAIXT1NG. a Venus and Cupid ; the Madonna and Infant Christ ; Charity with her foster children ; or, even, a common mortal mother ennobled by maternal love. Charity is often repeated in slightly varying forms. One, Alma Parens (1883, Mr. Gr. L. Blanchard, of New York), repre- sents nine children grouped around a woman, from whom they draw nourishment and whom they fondle with affection, but who, cold, unmoved, seems really only to tolerate them. His Madonnas have charmingly presented four, at least, important phases of the Madon- na's character. One of 1875 gives the blissful content of motherhood: one, A Pieta, of 1876. the sufferings of maternal love; one, La Vierge Consolatriee of 1877, the tender sympathy for a mother bereaved ; at the feet of this Virgin lies the corpse of an infant; the mother, a bride (Bouguereau's bride, for this was an expression of his feeling at the death of his wife and child), has thrown herself in anguish across the Holy Mother's knees, while the sad, sweet face of the Virgin is raised to heaven in tenderness and prayer. The fourth phase of the Madonna's life is given in La Vierge aux Anges (1881), 1 in which she is visibly cherished of Heaven : the Madonna and child are sleeping while angels attend with music and gaze with earnest love at the infant. It is also called The First Christmas Hymn, of which it is a charm- ing presentation. Angels, tenderly and devoutly, with instruments and voices, soothe the Infant and the Mother as they recline — and thus supposably initiate the hymn of coming ages. The Vierge Consolatriee was bought by the government for the Luxembourg, at 12,000 francs. The artist had refused twice that sum from a private purchaser. A Pieta (187G), belonging to Prince Demidoff ; Zephyrus and Flora (1875) ; Maternal Solicitude ; Going to the Bath (1865), Young Woman Carrying a Child ; An Italian Mother and Child ; 2 Woman with a Child ; Fording the Stream ; 3 A Bather ; Woman and Child (1870) ; also A Bather (1875), are other illustrations of this class of subjects. In the Salon of 1883 a figure of Night hovering over the earth suspended in space, was a very beautiful variant. An even more charming one was Love and Youth (1877), in which Cupid rides on the shoulders of a nude and graceful nymph, whose extreme youth is indicated by her delicate and slender figure as the young god roguishly draws back her head to kiss her. A Nymph Combating with Cupid, who has apparently fallen upon her " out of a clear sky," is a - less placid form than usual with Bouguereau. But this same class of subject in an Aurora 3 exhibits a painting of fiesh, beyond which in text- ure, color, and flexibility, skill of technique, from the strictly academic 1 This was sold from the Seney Collection (New York, 1885), for $9,500, but is again owned by Mr. Seney. 2 Property of Mrs. M. A. Osboru, New York. 3 Ibid. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 405 point of view, can no further go. Poetical conception unites in this instance with these to produce a picture of great grace and beauty. In the early light his oft-recurring beautiful woman, as Aurora, a creation worthy of the service assigned her, that of ushering in the morn, is caught at the moment when, floating over a stream from which she is reflected in the perfectness of her existence, she gayly holds aloft with her left hand a filmy drapery, and grasps, with her right, as a mere incident of the moment, the tallest of a group of callas on the bank and gazes into its depths. Biblis gracefully bending over the fountain into which she is changing, Bouguereau's picture of the Salon of 1885, with The Adoration of the Magi, won for him the Medal of Honor. It is in his best academic style. In 1884 he sent to the Salon The Youth of Bacchus, a very large picture, with sixteen nymphs of Thrace, the young god's attendants. Some of Bouguereau's subjects represent a greater power of feel- ing and more animation of style than his sedate, placid pictures of a woman and child, which are, nevertheless, of exquisite modelling though sometimes rather definite in outline. Le Nouveau-Ne, sold from Mrs. Stewart's Gallery, 1887, represents in a tender manner a gentle shepherdess who carries in her arms a newly-born lamb, and. turns to reassure with kind words its anxious mother who follows at her side. Of the painter's classic subjects, The Satyr and Nymphs is perhaps the most charming. In a thickly wooded dell four frolicking nymphs are seeking to pull by arms, ears, horns, and hair, as may be, a Satyr into a stream ; one, clinging with one hand to his hair, turns with a magnificent upthrowing of the other, and halloas to a group of nymphs, quietly seated in the distance, to come to the sport. Here Bouguereau has indeed " comprehended flesh," at least as material for his own expression if not in the color and quality of nature, and in all the varied attitudes the frolic demands, in the sunlight and shade of the situation, has made it palpitating with life. But a critic says justly that "the faces of these spirituelles creatures do not indicate the innocent naiads of the stream or dryads of the wood, but simply a new role for the informed Parisian women of the nine- teenth century." Bouguereau was early a successful decorator. On his return from the Villa Medici in 1854, he decorated the drawing-room of M. Bar- tolomy, then the Hotel Pereire, and the churches of Sainte Clothilde and Saint Augustin. He follows out all his aptitudes in art with assiduity and thus has acquired a wonderful success. So great is this that he may be said to hold the public in allegiance to a style it was turning from, to the classic practice it was condemning, and to 406 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. stay it in its haste to pay fealty to the impressionists and the realists. The honors which are loaded upon him. while he serenely upholds the banner of the classicists, prove that the age still has appre- ciation for the historical and academic style. He is member and president of the Academy of Painting of the Institute, and, in 1885, owing to that section having its turn in precedence, became presi- dent of the entire Institute. This appreciation is also attested by the statement of publishers that be is a " porte-bonheur," or charm of success, that they earnestly seek to secure for their illustrated works. A view of woman, as Chaplin presents her, is " quite other than woman under the pencil of Henner, Lefebvre or Bouguereau," the blonde Parisienne, with a tinge of the eighteenth Charles chapim century in her attitude, her expression, and her (1825- ), Anderlys. J ' Xr > Med. 3d ci. 1851. general aspect. The Louis Quinze traits of his 2d d '52 , Med. '65. women, and the feeling of chivalry of which he L. Hon. '65 ; Of. '67. ' & J has even "forced the note and emphasized the accent," would never suggest that this seeker of beauty, this artist of harmony of color, of an eye for subtle changes of tone and tint, a power of consummate modelling, and of a quick sense of grace, had in his early art, that of 184S and 1849, painted strong, rude figures in sombre tones. Among these works was even a Drove of Pigs of 1851, which in 1886 he found marked Millet, and, feel- ing highly honored, offered to buy, but which the owner prized too highly to part with. Now he has so eminent a gift for fastening upon his canvas the unseizable, fugitive qualities of graceful women in their varying phases and forms, and of catching the lines and poses that give the greatest charms of elegance and fascination to his figures, that his pictures of blonde heads, it has been gravely asserted, greatly stimulated the fashion of artificially producing blonde chevelures where nature has denied them. Chaplin has also been a frequent painter of decorations, for which his qualities are specially adapted, as shown in those of the private apartments of the Empress at the Tuileries. His portraits rise in number into the hundreds. Many women have sought instruction from this master who paints the society woman's beauty with so much enthu- siasm. Madame Desaux (Henriette Brown), Madame Berthe De- lorme, Mademoiselle Louise Abbema, and the gifted Madame Made- leine Lemaire, whose art exhibits the grace of her own feminine qualities with an added masterliness of representation, have learned their technical skill of Chapim. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 407 Lefebvre and Heuner are conspicuous as painters of the figure. Unlike Gerome, they " sing the poem of woman," it has been poetically said, a remark which is especially true of Jules Joseph Lefebvre *L , , . , j J • i-VC (1834- ), Touman. Henner. Lefebvre is an advanced and scientific Prix de Rome 61. student of form ; the anatomical correctness under- L e Hon 5, 7o^of 0, 78. ty m g hi s smooth finish constitutes one of his chief Med. 1st ci. e. u. '78. excellences. He has aimed to paint with true sim- plicity, to make use of a Greek treatment in sub- jects of wholly modern interest, and he thus imparts a subtle refine- ment, a classical outline and sentiment to his figures, and makes them such as could well be repeated in sculpture. He returned from his pensionate at Rome in 1867, and in 1870 produced his masterpiece, Truth, now in the Luxembourg, where is also his Nymph with the Infant Bacchus, of 1886. The former is thus represented : Against dark rocks that indicate the fabled well from which Truth emanates, stands the dazzling nude figure of a maiden, who with resolutely outstretched hand holds aloft Truth's mirror with light radiating from it. Abundant hair flows from her beautiful, firm-eyed, almost stern face ; the superb figure, attitude, and expression impress one with a strong sense of the divinity of a nature that, even in all the stolidity and strength of the figure, " might soar but yet remains " to reflect upon a darkened world light from her mirror. It has been aptly said that Lefebvre sees beauty through a veil of perfection, for he produces his figures with an almost instantaneous completeness. But at one time his art seemed in danger of losing itself in a vague attenuation of form. He painted even a vapor, The Dew and a vapory Dream (1875). This is a fantasy, a figure of great transparency hardly retaining form, as she rests on the mists of the morning and is dissolved into them. Of late years he has returned to the terra firma of a more prosaic treatment. His skilful and deli- cate painting of flesh and his fine characterization render him a dis- tinguished painter of portraits, to which his poetic sense of elegance will, if his subject be a young woman, allow none but graceful, wil- lowy form, and which also he poetizes by a rendering of accessories of conventional forms and significance — setting, for example, a young girl in a. thickly grown daisy field, a more mature sitter among high growing roses. The Toilet of the Bride in the Salon of 1882 was painted in honor of the marriage of the daughter of the owner. The girl bride sits distrait, a classical figure in fleecy white, while of two sisters, one in green at her feet clasps her fingers, and one in robe of old gold together with a brother looks on, while the mother weaves the flowers for fastening the veil. 408 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Lefebvre was a competitor with Jules Breton for the chair of the Institute No. 9 made vacant by Baudry's death in 1886. He has had every award, that of the Grand Medal of Honor having been voted to him that year. When but thirty-four his claims to it disputed those of Corot. They each received an equal number of votes for several successive ballots, when it was determined by Lefebvre's votes being given to Brion. 1 His chief works are as follows : Of sixteen portraits up to 1887, twelve were of women. 1861, Death of Priam ; Christmas Eve: 1864, Roman Charity, Melun Museum : 1865, Pilgrimage to Sacro Speeo; Church at Subiaco ; Girl Asleep: 1866, Nymph and Bacchus (Luxem- bourg) : 1868, Femme Couchee, owned by Alexandre Dumas: 1869, Pasenccia: 1870, Truth (Luxembourg) ; Le Re veil, a ceiling for the bathroom of Madame de Cassin: 1871, The Knitter; Italian Figure; Two Panels of Italians Selling Fruit : 1872, Italian Woman at the Fountain ; The Grasshopper ; Two Panels, an Italian Woman and a Sappho: 1873, A Bacchante; The Daughter of the Brigand ; Italian Woman: 1874, Slave Carrying Fruit (Ghent); Woman Bathing; The Orangery; Portrait of Prince Imperial: 1875, Italian Knitting ; Italian at her Toilet ; Two Panels ; A Dream ; Chloe: 1876, Two Panels for the King of Hol- land ; A Panel, the Lemon Seller, belonging to M. Guillaume Velay ; A Laugh- ing Girl (Amiens Museum); A Hunting Nymph: 1877, Yvronne, belonging to M. VanderHagen: 1878, Odalisque: 1880, Portraits; Esmeralda: 1881, Ondine and Fiammetta: 1882, The Portraits; April Flowers; Fiammetta (Musee de Vienne, Louvre); Psyche: 1883, Two Portraits : 1884, Three Portraits; Magdalena; Aurora: 1885, Laura: 1886, Two Portraits: 1887, Two Portraits ; Morning Glory, owned by M. Knoedler & Co. Lefebvre and Henner were rivals in the competition of 1858 for the Prix de Kome on the subject Adam and Eve Finding the Body of Abel, which as painted by another competitor, Bonnat, commanded much notice ; but Henner won the prize, Lefebvre not succeeding until 1861 with the subject The Death of Priam. It is related that in the competition of 1858, after the loges had been opened and the pic- tures exhibited, Henner, whose pension from the Department of the Upper Ehine had, because of his age, then expired, went to Horace Vernet on the strength of his having commended his picture (for Vernet was the Academician in charge of that year's competition), and requested his signature to a recommendation of a renewal of the pen- sion. Vernet refused, and to the surprised and aggrieved Henner 1 Lefebvre had the largest vote in 1887 from the society of his fellow artists for the jury of admission to the Salon, one thousand four hundred and eighty-six voting for him. Laurens, Bonnat, Breton, Harpignies, Puvis de Chavannes, T. Robert-Fleury, Henner, Bouguereau, and Cabanel follow in order as the first ten of the forty chosen. Lefebvre, Laureus, and Jalabert were that year on the jury for decreeing the Prix de Rome. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 409 explained, "What need of a pension when the Prix de Rome is to be yours ? " Henner's charming rendering of the qualities of flesh and in jean Jacques Henner many instances " Rembrandtish impinging of (1829- ), Bemwiiiers. light," make throughout the large circle they Med. 3d ci° m <5 3 ; 5 Med. '6 5 , '66. form, most winsome acquaintances of his many 1st ci. '78. e.u. Nymphs, subdued Magdalens, sportive Naiads, l. h. 73, of. l. Hon. 78. Reading or Weeping Women. They are like dreams, in which fancy following impression reproduces only what we love to dwell upon. By their beauty, clarified of earthly sug- gestion, his figures entrance us, charm us into lingering around them until we lose sight of the limitation implied in the fact that his brush, having once given birth to such creations, refuses to produce aught else, and that every Salon exhibits from Henner a new nymph, but with, if possible, a new grace. Thus his subjects are not varied, " his Orphan of 1886 seeming to be his Fabiola of 1885 put into mourning," for example, as was remarked at the time it was exhib- ited. Subject is of little importance with him; rendering is every- thing. He is of the most modern accent in art, the realistic ; but he mingles an inspiration of the antique with his truth to nature. This gives him a realism that is truly poetic, made up of the actual physique and the chaste dignity of primeval innocence. " Of what pure snow from the summit of the glacier has Henner formed this beautiful, flaming pate of which he has made a feminine nudity," enthusiastically wrote Roger Ballou of his Magdalen of 1878. His (i pure snow " consists in the accord of tones, the rhythm of lines, and the harmonizing of all, without passion, though of great tender- ness of feeling, which form his creations. For them he has culled the flowers of various nations' attainments in art. His flesh tones are Venetian, his grace is Correggio-like, and he wraps his figures in almost a German reverie. Advancing and improving his system he now in his demi-tints makes use of a shading so slight, that while it serves to model, to develop all the saliences of form, it escapes observation except by a quickened glance, and leaves his figures beautiful creations of form without the means being apparent. He makes skilful balance of parts in giving what seems but the position of natural abandon even in a sleeping figure. Early, even while at the Villa Medici, he acquired the custom of placing a sombre mass of trees in his pictures, which may be distin- guished by this mark almost as by a signature. But, what is more important, it serves as a lower note in his gamut of color. He is very positive, very convinced in his methods, and he always charms. His 410 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Reclining Woman, the second of his envois from Rome (1861), at once gave him rank as a master, and his Alsace (1870) signed, " By an Alsatian of Bernwillers," popularity. But his Idyl (1872) marked the high tide of a success that has known no ebh. Alsace is Exile incarnated ; a woman with a face of grief and power, wearing the French tricolor on the black robes of her mourning. The sentiment given in the words, "She waits," expresses the feeling of the province wrested from France and compelled to pay fealty to Germany. This picture made the tour of Europe and was welcomed everywhere with great interest. In The Idyl, two maidens innocently clothed in an ignorance of clothes, one piping on a reed as she sits by a fountain, one standing to listen, present in the peace and calm of nature the nobleness of antique figures. Here as elsewhere Henner seems to feel the full influence of the natural harmony of the human figure with foliage and open air lights. This, with Susanna (1865) ; The Good Samaritan (1874); and A Naiad (1875), expresses in the Luxembourg the state's recognition of his artistic power. He has also developed fine power in portraiture. His talent was early apparent. At fifteen he painted a portrait of The Bernwillers Carpenter, which he still proudly retains in his studio. His father, contrary to custom, sought to develop his son's artistic tendencies ; he had heard of artists being supported by the government, sent to Rome for instruction, and returning to become great and honored. " And why not our Jean Jacques ?" reasoned he. He bought old pictures " f or Jean Jacques' " instruction, and at his death called his children around him and said, "1 would work with my hands to make an artist of your little brother. Promise me that you will do it for 'le petit.'" They did it; Henner exhibited in 1881, painted in a coarse woollen working garb, the portrait of one of them who still lives in Alsace, and it still hangs in his studio as " My Brother." It is related that he often visited Alsace; comforted his dying mother with most personal attentions, combing her hair and winning from her the exclamation, Ah, my son, what should I do but for you ! " He was a pupil of Drolling, Picot, and the Ecole des Beaux- Arts. Other works are : Bathing Girl Asleep (1863, Colmar): Girl (1866): Biblis (1867), Dijon: Woman Dressing ; Woman Reclining, Mulhouse Museum; Little Writer (1869) : Magdalen in the Desert (1874): Dead Christ (1876): John the Baptist; Evening (1877) : Christ at the Tomb ; Eclogue (1879) : The Fountain ; Sleep (1880) : The Spring ; St. Jerome (1881) : Bara (1882) : Woman Reading ; Nun (1883) : En- tombment ; Weeping Nymphs (1884) : Magdalen (1885) : Fabiola (1885, a head veiled like Carlo Dolce's Mater Dolorosa and, in its way, as beautiful): Orphan; Solitude (1886) : Herodias and A Creole (1887) ; the last was acquired for the Lux- embourg and The Good Samaritan removed to a provincial museum. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 411 Cot, having been first instructed in the School of Fine Arts at Toulouse, entered the studio of Cogniet at Paris and became also the pupil of Cabanel and Bouguereau. Into their style of charming lines, he infused a lightness and grace and pro- (isT^ss^Bedlrieux. duced ideal pictures, regrettably few in number, of Med. '70 ; 2d ci. '72, and great attractiveness. He is as truly a neo-grec as e. u. 78 , l. Hon. 74. a ^ ^ ^ e group just subsequent to 1848, to whom the name is appropriated. " As delicate as Cot's treatment " has become a common comparison. He had all the physical features, black, fiery eyes, dark gypsy face — nor did his mental traits lack the lively imagination — of his southern nativity. At the age of fourteen he had painted a portrait of his grandfather of remarkable drawing and depth of expression. In 1868 he exhibited a scene from Ovid, Salmacis and Hermaphroditus. His Spring of 1876 is a graceful idealizing of the springtime of love in the springtime of life in the springtime of the year, with a great power of technique, that makes the sunshine fall upon and around and behind the forms of a youth and maiden, children in their teens, swinging in a Grecian garden, he clinging to the swing, she clinging to him. It is rendered in the neo-grec manner, i. e., the Greek embodiment of a modern thought and feeling, for, though first love can- not be appropriated wholly to modern life, this picture has in it what we feel and class as modern, even though the regard of the girl intently fastened upon the eyes of her companion, in its unconscious betrayal of how fascinated she is with a taste of the great passion that moves the world, has an element of the ?ia'ivete that is attributed only to primitive idyls. It has directness, simplicity, and none of the coquetry or interested affection of the modern belle. To this is added an idyllic clothing of the figures, as the maiden is wrapped in a transparent gauze full of sunlight; and an idealistic rendering. The couplet, " 0 prima vera, gioventud del anno ! O gioventud, primavera delta vita ! 1 has been -very gracefully appropriated to it. In the Salon of 1872 it created a world-wide reputation and was bought at once by Mr. John Wolfe of New York, and at his sale by Mr. D. C. Lyall of Brooklyn, in whose gallery it now is. Cot's charming renderings are further illustrated by The Storm, begun under the popularity of The Spring. In it a youth and maiden, a veritable Paul and Virginia, hasten to shelter, both under the same improvised cover of an upheld garment. It was immediately bought by Miss Catherine "Wolfe (a sister of the owner of The Spring), and now forms a part of her legacy to the Metropolitan Museum, New York. 1 O Springtime, youth of the year ! O Youth, springtime of life ! 412 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Cot in his late work took up portraits, in which his skill is highly valued, as is shown by the character of his sitters, the Duchesse de Richelieu, Marquise de Cars, Baronne de Lagrange, Duchesse de Luynes, Princesse Blankedet, Due de Sabran, General Pimodan, M. de Colbert, and many others. His Mireille of 1882 is in the Luxem- bourg. At the age of forty-five he died suddenly of a pulmonary disease when at the height of promise and left few works besides portraits. For the Salon of 1882 he exhibited a picture of twenty figures, Elizabeth of Hungary and her Beneficiaries. Those not previously mentioned are : Poverty (1868): Meditation (1870) : All Souls Day at the Carapo Santo of Pisa ; Dionysia (1872) : Magdalen (1875). The particular strength of Bonnat's style tends to bring out in other works, seen beside it, an apparent weakness. His art is extremely realistic, and, though he paints Leon Joseph Florentin Bonnat J . ° x (1833- ), Bayonne. many genre pictures, he may be classed with Med. '61, '63 ; 2dci. -69. those achieving greatness in figure-painting, L. Hon. '67; Med. Hon. '69. , , . ,. , . , • 5 n com. l. Hon, '82. among whom his essential characteristics place Knight of order Leopold '81. him. These are a superb, sculpturesque mod- elling, with a realistic treatment of surfaces ; a rich and often sombre but luminous coloring ; vigor of drawing ; expressiveness of heads and breadth of forceful handling, and they give him, notwithstanding his strong realism, an elevation of style. His work is, however, frequently open to criticism for its violently defined anatomy and intense blackness of shadows, though these are less apparent in his smaller pictures. Bonnat spent his youth at Madrid under the instruction of Mad- razo and of the masterpieces in the galleries there, and on them his art is frankly based and his style is as much Spanish as French. But he went to Paris at the age of twenty-one, as, not a native of Spain, he could not avail himself of the advantages for pursuing art confer- red by the Spanish Government. At Paris, a " pupil of L. Cogniet," he won only the second prize of Rome, in the competition of 1858, but his native town at once assumed his expenses at Pome for the term allowed by the prize. His early works, chiefly subjects from Scripture, were not noticed, but in 1860 the exhibition of his Adam and Eve Finding the Body of Abel, executed in 1858 in competition for the Prix de Rome, attracted the appreciation of artists and was bought by the Government for the Museum of Lille. It was of fine composi- tion and color, but somewhat hard in modelling. Its great interest lies THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 413 in the feeung he has thrown in the face of Eve, who, with the fine robust figure of Abel drawn across her lap, sits wondering at death, not understanding it. He won further reputation by the figure of an Italian girl called Pasqua Maria, exhibited in 1863. It attracted all away from The Martyrdom of St. Andrew, by the same artist in the same Salon, and, having touched the sentiment of the public, led him from Scriptural subjects to painting Italian genre somewhat in the manner of Hebert, but without Hebert's tinge of melancholy. Many of his pictures are illustrations of maternal love in the manner of the simple, e very-day love of the common people. In one of them, Tender- ness, of 1870, the familiar act is best described by the familiar phrase, "a little girl hugging her mother and with her whole heart in it." But a dream of his youth, fostered by his studies in Italy, led him to historical painting simultaneously with the painting of these simple subjects, and, in 1865, he exhibited Antigone Leading her Blind Father, (Edipus. The public, more charmed with the simple than with the grand, turned to his cabinet pictures. In these his method often is of a remarkable delicacy, as in Pilgrims at the Feet of the Statue of St. Peter, of 1864, and Neapolitan Peasants before the Farnese Palace, Rome, of 1866. Indeed, he has seldom equalled in mastery and felicity of expression the works which he produced while in Rome. He paints portraits with great power. Among these are : Thiers (1870), which has been extravagantly eulogized as forming with Ingres's Bertin the two portraits of the century: Victor Hugo (1879): President Grevy (1880): Leon Cogniet (1881), Luxembourg: Hon. L. P. Morton (1883): M. Pas- teur ; M. Delabord, Secretary Academy of Fine Arts (1886) for the Academy: Alexandre Dumas (1887) : Mrs. Edwin Litchfield (1888). His Fellah Woman, 1870, one of six Eastern scenes which fol- lowed an excursion to the opening of the Suez Canal, shows by the modelling that admits the eye to all the recesses of the form — even to pass around and behind the figure — the science which Bonnat commands for his brush, making of it a sculptor's tool. In this way his pictures become above all else real. A mother, whose child clasps her forehead with lean arms, stands hopeless and. aimless in the Egyptian twilight amid the exhalations of the Nile. The artist sketched this figure from nature, and it is of a strong, statu- esque symmetry : every minutia of local perspective is clearly ren- dered. A similar example is a smutty Arab Plucking a Thorn from his Foot (Mrs. W. H. Vanderbilt, New York). Besides several pictures of religious subjects painted for the 414 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Government, Bonnat lias exhibited in sixteen of the Salons, since 1859, twenty-four pictures of various subjects, as : The First Steps of Childhood (1870): A Negro Barber, and Wrestling of Jacob (1876): Christ on the Cross (1874): Fellah Woman ; Streets of Jerusalem (1870): Sheiks of Akabah ; Woman of Ustaritz (1872): Turkish Barber; Scherzo (1873): Job (1880): Martyrdom of St. Denis (1885). His Christ on the Cross, in the Palais de Justice, Paris, is the work for which he is most celebrated and it is most remarkable. It stands as a representative picture of modem realism in art. It was painted from a dead body on an actual cross in the court of the School of Medicine, and it is a body under tortures unelevated by the resignation of a soul in the consciousness of serving a great pur- pose. It seems to be the last effort, and Bonnat's sculpturing brush gives in high relief every filling vein and swelling limb. " Dore demands a volume rather than a paragraph," says a critic, and a compromise between the two must be accorded him. Bonnat's realism serves as a connecting tie with him, an artist by gift of nature, an Alsatian by birth, a Parisian by education, and whose original name, Dorer, was changed by (i833-'83), Strasbourg. hi m to the French form. He is considered of the l. Hon. '6i. French School, but he is of such ingenious inven- Hon. Men. '67, E. U. tion, such varied subject, such versatile thought, such sensuous temperament, such grotesque humor, such erratic plan, such weird imagination, such prolific production, and withal, so unlike others of the French school in the importance he gave to light and shade, in his absence of the color sense, in inde- pendence of academic technique, in his disregard of the French fond- ness for the pretty, and especially in his inculcation of a moral, for which he acquired the sobriquet "Painter Preacher," in London, that, while no other than the French could have produced him, he is hardly of that school, but stands quite by himself. Through some strange atavism, in him seems to have burst forth the old Gothic invention, which in mediaeval times was so fecund in grotesque production. He early began to indulge his artistic propensity. At an exhibition of his works, in March, 1886, lithographs executed by him at fifteen years of age were shown. Yet simultaneously with his inclination to draw all he saw or conceived from reading, the child's histrionic powers, passionate love of music, and attainment in its performance, were such that they precluded all prediction in his earliest years that he would be other than an actor or a musi- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 415 cian. 1 His father opposed 2 his artistic tendencies, prohibited his studying drawing in the schools, incited him by prizes to effort in other directions, and sought to suppress the mother's constant excla- mations that the lad was a genius. But the extraordinary child became the extraordinary artist, and his many impressive characteristics are worthy of deep interest — the more so, as a fundamental difference of the French and English schools of painting is indicated by the one's rejecting and the other's adopting his works. One of three gifted sons of a prosperous civil engineer, who lived during Gustave's earliest years under the shadow of Strasbourg Cathedral, and who took the child constantly with him on his busi- ness expeditions into the pine forests of the mountains, the boy's pro- found love of nature, which eventually developed into a remarkable power of interpreting landscape, and his vivid imagination were thus brought under the influence of the dismantled castles of the Rhine, and constantly nourished by the weird suggestions of its cathedrals. The traits of the man can be traced in the child from his earliest years, and are so integral and of such spontaneity, that it seems diffi- cult to see that Gustave Dore could be other than he was, or do other than he did. Intensity of nature is, perhaps, the key-note to this remarkable man. Passing by the trait of benevolence, which led him at the age of seven, in the depth of winter, to give away his shoes to a boy " whom they just fitted," and return home with bleed- ing feet, and, in mature life, not only to make large donations, but habitually to give his time on New Year's day to amusing the chil- dren in the hospitals of Paris ; also his uprightness ; and taking those qualities more directly connected with his art — though his upright- ness made him the conscientious worker on the cheap illustration, as well as on the more important work — we find from his earliest years an insatiable power of invention and creation, impelling him to an executive performance that all his life kept the public wondering at his achievements. It made his passage through life like a mete- oric shower, for the quickly recurring brilliancy of which those in authority had no time to think of awarding medals and honors. 1 In Dore's drawing-room in Paris, among many other gifts, there was at his death a photograph of Rossini, on which was written : " Souvenir of tender friendship pre- sented to Gustave Dore, who joins to his genius as a painter and draughtsman the talents of a distinguished violinist and a charming tenor, if you please. G.Rossini." — Life of Dore, by Blanche Roosevelt. 2 Dore recalled this when, disappointed of success, he said towards the end of his life, " I was told when hut so high," holding his hands about three feet from the floor, "that painting would be my despair." — Ibid. 416 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Thus, in spite of all his successes, his sensitiveness could not but suffer from the want of official appreciation. This inexorable genius, a kind of demon within, demanding expres- sion for its imaginings, kept the lad writing and illustrating his little tales, as in a series of sketches before he was eight years old, The Bril- liant Adventure of Fouilloux, the dog of Madame Braun, a friend of the family; or playing his violin; or making a theatre at Graff enstad en, the home of his life-long friends, " the Kratz boys ; " or repeating, as a celebration of his teacher's birthday, 1 the fete he had seen at the unveiling of the Gutenberg statue in Strasbourg ; or acting the mimic ; walking on his hands ; or performing some other of the acrobatic feats into which he readily slipped all his life ; 2 or playing pranks 3 and practical jokes that partook of the fantastic. The fantastic, indeed, formed a large element of his inventive pow- ers. This was especially true of his early life. But an invention so pro- lific must needs find its creations in a departure from the prescribed and established. From this inexhaustible invention there followed naturally an originality, marked even to grotesqueness ; versatility ; and readiness in all forms of mental activity, from witty repartee to the most ingenious devices of play. 4 Thus, when he showered his designs upon the public, until it " was petrified with astonishment," none of them could be ascribed to others, for he could be neither imitated nor 1 On this occasion being only eight years of age, he planned a procession of four chariots drawn by some of the school-boys, while others rilled them representing the trade guilds. He dressed himself in a Rubens hat and characteristic costume, and stood as the chief of the glass stainers' guild in miniature, as it were, tossing off among the spectators drawings made on the spot. These they were astonished to find were likenesses of themselves in groups or singly. This in mature life he playfully claimed was his introduction in his profession to the world. Indeed, it was then first conjectured that he might become an artist. 2 Upon the establishment of his mother in the house in the Rue St. Dominque (in which they both died), at the first dinner, he sprang over the table in his joy and thus broke a costly chandelier just placed in position. But the omen of good luck in break- ing glass over the table was gladly accepted. 3 Often at his dinners. At one when he had an Alsatian guest, a large pate de foie gras which he had eulogized as the dish of his native city, upon being opened, released a bird and a guinea pig, both of which were active in their regained freedom ; at others, the claret decanters, to the surprise of the guest and Dore's own great merri- ment upon pouring the wine, assumed the role of music-boxes. — Life of Dore, by Blanche Roosevelt. 4 His ready device was illustrated at one of Theophile Gautier's Thursday evening receptions. He, with a few others, were presenting some tableaux with simply the parlor facilities, when Hebert joined the audience. "I have the word," said Dore, at once, and drawing various ones into position, assumed his own attitude, and called for the curtain to rise. At the first glance the spectators exclaimed, " The Malaria," which, it will be remembered, is Hebert's most famous painting. J. J. LEFEBVRE LE REVE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 417 approximated. But, though seemingly incompatible with a creative power that needs to remember nothing, he had a memory that forgot nothing. 1 This memory aided in the continual compelling to a third expression of his teeming ideas. But while he took no notes, he did instinctively absorb material for memory : he observed. He loved to stand quiet in the streets of his native city, passively sensitive to every impression of their current life. When in the mountains, also, as a lad with his father, or when in after years, on his summer tours with his mother, amid the scenes of greatest beauty he would become quiet, silent, apparently stupid. 2 Earnestness, genuineness, and accom- plishment were necessary results of the fulness of fact and suggestion derived from memory and invention. There was no need of pretences, no room for them. Work, constant work in an absorbed concentra- tion, with a rapidity almost incredible, and once for the entire year of 1854, with an average of only three hours' sleep a day, 3 was required to keep abreast with his never-ceasing flow of ideas. And withal, from his earliest years, he seemed to have an intuitive insight into any matter or thought. Under the influence of this he devoured all knowledge and became without instruction or study 4 an artist famous m all lands, an improvisatore. Through this power of divination, too, he caught the spirit of the authors he illustrated, so that they, de- lighted, accepted his designs as translations, 5 and through these two together, the power and the application of it, he became really accom- 1 Saul Colonel Dudley Sampson : "I was introduced to Dore at a dinner party. After a few commonplace compliments on my part as to the honor of making his ac- quaintance, he said : ' Monsieur, this is not the first time we have met. Three years ago we crossed the Channel together. You stood for the greater part of the crossing talking to a tall man in a long coat, what you call an ulster.' Surprise being expressed at his carrying so trivial an incident in his brain so long, he replied : 1 1 have nothing to do with it ; it is stronger than I. When I have seen a face it never leaves me till I have drawn it, perhaps several times.'" — Life of Dore, by Blanche Roosevelt. 8 Once, after several days of such absorption, a fellow traveller, Daubree, said, " Dore, you should be making sketches. Do you not care for all this beauty ? " " Come, you shall see," replied he. A few days later, after the delay of a rainy day, he invited Daubree to look at some pictures that represented in detail, with no feature omitted, the beauty of the scenery of several days' travel. He had painted them from memory during the one rainy day and the following night. 3 The statement of a member of the family. 4 In later years (1874 about), when in response to the claim of friends that to be a painter he must correct his form by study from models, he had a model come to his st.udio and pose. After a little, she saw that he did not regard her, and after several hours of entire neglect she interrupted his absorbed work. " What, you here ! " cried he. " Do you want anything?" "I have had no breakfast," she replied, and made him at last understand that she was posing as a model for him. 6 Letter of Victor Hugo in appreciation of his illustration of the Toilers of the Sea, et al. 27 418 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. plished in literature, and not unworthy, in some regards, of the appellation of savant. As a result of his mediaeval love of the grotesque, he early exhibited a fondness for demons and the weirdness of the lower regions. When in his boyhood he first saw the opera of Robert le Diable, he was fas- cinated by it, and delighted to repeat it, with the Kratz boys, again and again, especially the scenes of the demons and spirits. Justice requires the statement in connection with this that later (1875-6) the face of Christ held him in a fascinated thrall that led him to paint it fifty times. 1 The truest aspirations of his life were in his later years drawn from religious subjects. 2 To these fundamental characteristics of the boy, the solid educa- tion on which his father insisted was of incalculable value. At nine years of age he was placed in the Lycee of Bourg. There his knowl- edge of history was gained by illustrating it, of the classics by sketch- ing the scenes described, or, naturally, by translating them into his own language. Once when a recital of the Death of Clitus was made to the class, he presented, instead of the French translation required, a drawing which showed that he alone had understood the Latin de- scription. His teacher assigned him first place " for his excellent translation." With this early tendency towards an artistic career, he accompanied his father, when he went to Paris September, 1847, to place the son, Emile, who is now a colonel of artillery, in the Ecole Polytechnique there. 3 Enthralled, Gustave determined not to leave the fascinating city. Consulting no one, he hastened to Philipon, director of the Journal pour Rire, with some illustrations of the Labors of Hercules, hastily made after looking into Philipon's window as he passed one day. Philipon eagerly engaged him at a salary of 5,000 francs per year for three years, the father becoming responsible for the contract made by this legal " infant." Thus at the age of fifteen he began his career, entirely without training, the want of the dis- cipline of which was to be a dark shadow on his life as a painter in France. His chief work now was, however, the continuance of his education, for which he entered as day scholar the Lycee Charlemagne. His father had consented to the one that he might secure the other. Gustave multiplied his designs to meet the multiplied demands created 1 la this presence he dropped his unstudied work, and even made many sketches in seeking to perfect his first conception ; it is a rare, perhaps the only instance of his sketching before painting. 2 See list of pictures. 3 There he formed the friendship of Edmond About and of M. Taine, whose Journey in the Pyrenees he afterwards illustrated. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 419 by his illustrations for the Journal pour Eire, and supplied them to the Journal pour Tous, and to Paul Bry, who issued serials. His mother, a widow in 1848, following him to Paris, urged him to study his art more thoroughly ; his father's friend, Paul Lacroix, earnestly pressed him to study from models. He did not. Has he not shown that he could not ? Ideas, keen insight into the essentials of life and character, withheld him from a devotion to accuracy of form. To that he could not tame himself, and he sped on, relying upon the ability, in which he never failed, to give life, motion, expression. He attained his ends by means which only genius commands ; his deficiencies are those of genius, such as the throwing off all restraints of rule ; success with him required that he should be free. Besides the designs for these numerous journals, hundreds that were not used flowed from his fertile imagination. He now continued, au serieux, the play of his school-days, and illustrated books. The first of these was Paul Lacroix's edition of Rabelais. 1 In this, though begun at the age of twenty, he caught the humor, avoided the grossness, and subtly expressed the quaintness of the characters. " All Paris " was resonant with the associated names of Rabelais and Dore, "the boy illustrator.'' Then followed Pierre Duport's Wandering Jew, and in 1856, with four hundred and twenty-five cuts, Balzac's Contes Drolatiques. This required a differ- ent handling of a theme similar to that of Rabelais ; Dore accom- plished it in a wonderful manner, but he could not elevate the subject. He also established the Musee Franco- Anglais, published in both lan- guages, to illustrate the scenes of the Crimean War. He continued until he had illustrated of English authors, Milton, Shakespeare (The Tempest), Coleridge, Moore, Hood, and Tennyson ; of Italian, Dante and Ariosto ; of Spanish, Cervantes (Don Quixote) ; of French, Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo, Gautier, Saintine, Taine, Montaigne, and La Fontaine ; and he "laid the whole Orient under contribution" to illustrate anew for the nineteenth century the Bible. The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Marseillaise, The 1 Lacroix told Dore one day early in his life in Paris that he should illustrate a new- edition of his works in four volumes, and he sent them to him. In a week Lacroix said to Dore, who called : " Well, have you begun to read my story ? " " Oh ! I mastered that in no time, and the blocks are all ready," and while Lacroix looked on stupefied, the boy "dived into his pocket with his slim hands, and piled many of them on the table, saying: "The others are in a basket at the door; there are three hundred in all." From these blocks so expeditiously done, Du Tacq, the publisher, selected some " fine and exquisite," and had them framed under glass. At this time much of his fine draw- ing was greatly injured by unskilful engravers. Later he instructed some whose ability satisfied him. — Life of Dore, by Blanche Roosevelt. 420 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. German Rhine, The Sphinx, and La Saint Kussie, a highly sarcastic pamphlet, may also be enumerated. In The Wandering Jew the massed landscape, amid which the lonely, preternatural man is impelled by a power beyond himself, is very impressive. Dante's Inferno is the most remarkable of these, and for it he was decorated. 1 It is a wonderful comprehension of the poet's meaning and spirit for a youth, for he began it in 1855, though it was not published until 18G0. He also brought all the drawings to an exquisite finish. Effort is necessary to form an idea of the fecundity of his genius. He had completed fifty thousand designs at the age of thirty-two. Working without preliminary sketches from pictures in the brain he would yet move so rapidly as to lose the appearance of work. Said M. Bordelin, his friend : " 1 have seen Dore earn 10,000 francs ($2,000) in a single morning. With fifteen and twenty blocks before him he would pass from one to another with a rapidity that was amazing. One morning he finished the twenty-first on the stroke of twelve, pushed his pencils from him with a laugh, threw back his head with a gesture that always set his hair waving and gayly said, 1 Not a bad morning's work, my friend ; that would supply a family for a year. Have I earned the right to a good breakfast ? ' " Even at the low prices at which many of his designs sold, it is estimated that he earned in his life-time $2,000,000. So rapidly and effectively did he sweep over chosen art fields, including not only all actual countries, but the domain of the imagination, the celestial and lower regions, and the realm of pure phantasm, that it is impos- sible to follow him. He made use of all the modes of expression that art has pressed into the service of the idea ; drawing, engraving, etch- ing, aquarelle, painting, and sculpture. At the age of eighteen, having already experienced a lifetime of art-thought, achieved several lifetimes of art-work, been made exult- ant with innumerable art-successes, and confident in faculties that he felt could do more than even his friends would believe, he appeared 1 The sentiment of Paris, expressed with great enthusiasm, was that this was the most beautiful of all Dore's works, the most wonderful of his achievements ; but no official award followed. Balloz represented to the Minister of Instruction Dore's claims for honor. " Ah, there are so many candidates, and Dore is so young,*' replied he, for- getting that that formed an important part of Dore's claim. Balloz transported a car- riage load of illustrations to the Minister ; he was astonished, looked them over, and coming to The Inferno, followed the designs to the end in absorbed silence, then said : "This alone says more for him than could a multitude of friends. For Gustave Dore not to belong to the Legion of Honor would be an insult to him and an injustice to the country that gave him birth."— Life of Dore, by Blanche Roosevelt. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 421 in the Salon of 1851 in the oil painting Wild Pines, but his real debut as a painter was made by his more impressive exhibition in the Salon of 1853 of the two pictures, L'Enfant Rose and L'Enfant Chetive and The Family of Saltimbanques. These were characteristically full of significance ; the mother of the wretched, starving child wistfully eyeing the plump and rosy infant, and the poverty of the street per- formers in the tinselled finery of the pinched yet keen-witted chil- dren of the Saltimbanques, were pathetic. The pictures were little noticed, drew no purchasers. Dore was not to be permitted in France to ride on the wave-top of the new sea on which he was launched. Honors were being heaped upon Vernet, whose rapid powers he pos- sessed, only with incomparably greater depth of feeling. But though he now entered upon the field of painting during that period of lib- eral treatment ensuing from the artists' protests of 1847 and 1848 ; though he counted the distinguished critics, Edmond About, Theo- phile Gautier, and Paul Balloz, editor of the Moniteur Universelle, among his warmest friends, and they highly appreciated his art ; though at this moment every author, every publisher, every reviser, was demanding Dore's designs, and "Dore, the illustrator," was the wonder of all Paris, the verdict of the public or rather of the schools was "No technique," "No school." But his friends, among them Gautier, knew what the public did not ; they had seen in his studio evidences of the power that led Dore to persist in believing himself a painter, and to repudiate the application to himself of the term " draughtsman." He had shortly before this shown Lacroix in his studio twelve large canvases representing Paris As It Is, in which with a repugnant realism and detail, but with good technique and excellent drawing and grouping, he had reproduced the vile slums of Paris. Gautier had said of them, " They are too great, too real to be left in oblivion, but too loathsome to be exhibited." Dore exclaimed as he showed them, " What do you think of Meissonier now ?" 1 Refus- ing by his mother's ambitious advice 110,000 francs for them from an American who was to exhibit them in America as Life in Paris, and having no higher offer, they disappeared. He probably destroyed them. Another anecdote is still more remarkable. Lacroix once, when Dore was about seventeen, was praising A Pine Forest in the Vosges which he had just painted from memory and saying, "You remind me of Virgil," quoted a Latin description (iEneid, X. 435). A few days after he exhibited to his friends a landscape two yards long, 1 He could ill brook the renown of Meissonier, though Meissonier, whom he seemed to consider he rivalled in style, was so much older than he. 422 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. and half as high. "Where did you study, for this is nature ?" ex- claimed Lacroix. " Study? that is your hobby. I studied only your words, my friend. I saw their true meaning in my imagination. This illustrates your lines from Virgil." Seeing surprise and delight on the face of his friend he began, as was his habit in happiness, to jump over the tables and chairs. He prepared for the Universal Exposition of 1855 four pictures : The Battle of the Alma ; Evening ; La Prairie; and Eizzio. Rizzio being rejected, he made his fourth appearance in oil painting there at twenty-two years of age by the first three. The critics again gave favorable notices, and the public was astonished at this new achieve- ment of the youth, 1 but no official purchases were made, no medals awarded to Dore. England offered in its high estimate of his paint- ing what should, if anything could, have proved a sufficient balm for the failure of France to give to her loving son rank as a painter. ' 2 His affection for France was depicted in his Alsace after the Franco- German AVar, now owned by the Baroness Burdett-Ooutts. It is a woman broken-hearted at separation from France. In 1868 an exhi- bition was made in London of Dore's paintings, and out of that grew the permanent Dore Gallery at No. 35 New Bond Street, where most of his paintings 3 were collected, many of them having been exhibited in the Paris Salons. 4 Dore had exhibited at the Salons, besides drawings and casts, the following oil paintings : Wild Pines (1851): After the Tempest, Alps (1852): Two Mothers; Family of Saltimbanques (1853): Battle of the Alma ; Evening; Prairie (1855): Torrent, Alps; Tempest, Vosges ; Solitude: Top of Mountain, Alps; View in Alsace; Pasture; Sunset in Alps; Portrait (1857): Dante and Virgil in Inferno; Morning in the Vosges (18(31) : Episode of the Deluge ; Dance of Gipsies at Grenada ; Francesca da Rimini and Paolo Malatesta (1863) : Spanish Gipsy ; Tobit and the Angel (Luxembourg) (1865): Evening in the Country of Grenada; Souvenir of Savoy, landscape, (1866): The Green Carpet: Jephtha's Daughter (1867): Neophyte (re-ex. 1878); Siesta, Souvenir of Spain (1868): Alps: Valley (1869): Alms, land- scape of Savoy, (1870): L'Alsace; Massacre of the Innocents (1872): Les Ten- ebres (of the Crucifixion) ; The Desert ; Souvenir of the Alps (1873) : Christian 1 " At seventeen Dore looked like a lad of twelve, at twenty like seventeen, having a thin boyish figure and a pale face." — Paul Lacroix. 2 Rizzio is now in the Dore Gallery, London. 3 A French amateur of the fine arts in London was invited by an English friend to go to New Bond Street and see the works of " the greatest living French painter, Gustave Dore." " Our greatest painter ! Never," replied be. " Dore is our greatest illustrator ; we never knew he was a painter at all, until the English told us so." 4 There were paid to Dore for the pictures of this gallery over $300,000. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 423 Martyrs (re-ex. 1878); Path, Souvenir of the Alps ; Ruins of Castle of Dreystein, Alsace (1874): Dante and Virgil visiting the seventh Circle; House of Caiaphas; Vagabonds (1875) : Christ's Entry into Jerusalem (1876) : Christ's Condemned ; Daybreak in the Alps (1877) : Ecce Homo ; Moses before Pharaoh (1878) : Sou- venir of Scotland ; Morning in the Alps (E. U. 1878) : Of the pictures collected in the Dore Gallery twenty-eight have been sold to private collectors in England, Scotland, America, and Australia. Those still in the gallery are here mentioned in the order of the time of painting : 1. La Prairie (1855): 2. Rizzio, 8 ft. 6 in. by 10 ft. 6 in. (1855): 3. Le Tapis Vert, gambling table at Baden Baden, 17 ft. (1867): 4. Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, 9 ft. 10 in. by 6 ft. 10 in. (1868): 5. Andromeda Chained to the Bock, 8 ft. G in. by 5 ft. 6 in. (1868): 6. The Neophyte, one row of monks, 5 ft. by 8 ft. 6 in. (1868): 7. The Neophyte, two rows of monks, 8 ft. by 10 ft. 6 in. (1869): 8. The Christian Martyrs, 4 ft. 10 in. by 7 ft. 6 in. (1870): 9. Christ leaving the Praetorium, 20 ft. by 30 ft. (1872): 10. The Night of the Crucifixion, 4 ft. 3 in. by 6 ft. 4 in. (1873): 11. The Dream of Pilate's Wife (Claudia Procula), 6 ft. 4 in. by 9 ft. 7 in. (1874): 12. The Crusaders, 3 ft. 9 in. by 6 ft. 2 in. (1874): 13. The House of Caiaphas (Judas plotting against Jesus), 3 ft. 9 in. by 5 ft. 9 in. (1876) : 14. The Battle of Ascalon, 4 ft. 2 in. by 6 ft. 4 in. (1875): 15. Christ Entering Jeru- salem, 20 ft. by 30 ft. (1876): 16. Moses and the Brazen Serpent, 18 ft. by 29 ft. 6 in. (1877): 17. Ecce Homo, 20 ft. by 13 ft. 6 in. (1879) : 18. The Ascension, 20 ft. by 13 ft. 6 in. (1879): 19. Moses before Pharaoh, 17 ft. 6 in. by 20 ft, 6 in. (1880): 20. The Day Dream (young monk at organ), 8 ft. by 9 ft. 6 in. (1880): 21. The Day Dream, 11 ft. by 6 ft. 8 in. (1882) : 22. Replica of Christ leaving the Pr«torium, 17 ft. by 23 ft. (lacking a few touches at Dore's death) (1883): 23. Replica of Ecce Homo, 6 ft. 9 in. by 11 ft. (1883): 24. Replica of Ascension, 6 ft. 9 in. by 11 ft. (1883): 25. The Vale of Tears, 14 ft. by 21 ft. (1883): 26. A Snow Scene in the Alps; 27. Mont Blanc; 28. A Torrent in the Trossachs : 29. The Falls of the Garry, Perthshire. He was working on The Vale of Tears a few days before his death. The magnitude of these works made them suitable only for large gal- leries and, no doubt, each was begun with a new hope of its being transferred to some public gallery of his beloved France. Of the twenty-eight sold from the gallery, one, The Psalterion, a young man playing on a lute and singing and dreaming of his future, was bought by Queen Victoria in 1870, and is at Windsor Castle. Mr. Duncan, Laird of Benmore, who has a fine collection of Dore's paintings and sketches, bought others. His landscapes give him high rank in the true interpretation of nature. His intensity of character grasps in them the significance of creation, and he renders them under a con- sciousness of the sublime ; they are often wholly ideal, often of a gloomy grandeur, almost always unassociated with human life. The 424 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Triumph of Christianity is called his masterpiece, though criticised for the material force made use of to win the triumph. The Neo- phyte, Christ leaving the Praetorium, and the Dream of Pilate's Wife are even more interesting. The Neophyte made a deep impression at once, as more thoughtful and religious than was usual to Dore's irre- sponsible spontaneity. It is a young novice represented among the older monks, at the moment when, as he sees in his companions, instead of the purity and piety he had pictured, obesity, dulness, selfishness, he has a realization of the full meaning of his vow, of what his life is henceforth to be. It is a terrible disillusioning. The Day Dream is a companion to this, and represents the ecstasy of a young monk who sits dream- ing at the organ. What the dream is, is suggested by the angel floating above him. The Christ leaving the Praetorium represents the moment after condemnation and before taking up the cress. Everything in this complex picture is sub- ordinated to "the one grand, sublime expression of sorrowing pity, that beams out of the divine eyes" of the Saviour of the world under condemnation. This was exhibited with great success in Paris in April, 1872, before being sent to London. There it became the excitement of all classes, especially the cultivated, and ail praised it with wonderful unanimity. The Dream of Claudia Procula is that dream in which she had " been troubled because of this man." She is descending the steps from her chamber in a blaze of light which issues from an open door, and a floating angel whispers into her ear. What he related to her is seen in figures radiant in light, by which are represented incidents of the future history of the Christian church ; the martyrs, the crusaders, the Empress Helena, Charlemagne, distinguished Christians of all times, all in a glory of light and color, and over all a cross of silver stars. Dore is always impressive, always earnest, always has a story full of thought, but it is true that his drawing is often defective, his color- ing unnatural. Nevertheless, though it was not of the kind that bestowed honorable mention, medals, official patronage, there was an appreciation of Dore in France. 1 His Tobit and the Angel was pur- chased for the Luxembourg, and his Battle of Inkerman, of 1857, five metres square, was placed in the Musee de Versailles, whence, how- ever, though Gautier praised it, it was removed before Dore died. But he was not without the most flattering social favors in Paris. He was often the guest of the Emperor and Empress at Compiegne, and was invited by the Emperor twice to join them in an excursion to Suez, which, though an invitation from their majesties was usually regarded as a command, Dore declined. He assigned as a reason that he feared the effect of the fascinations of the Orient upon his i This is proven by the high rank conceded to him by the Society of Aquarellists, which, it will be recalled, was roost fastidious in its requirements, and, as opposed to the impressionists, held that the juries admitted too freely to the Salons. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 425 art. " For I am an impressionable dog/' said he, and, as we have seen, he often found his impressions stronger than himself. In England he was feted and petted, sought by the nobility, honored by a call from the Prince of Wales, dined with His Royal Highness on state occasions, was invited to breakfast with him at Chiswick, and, at a garden party there, was presented to the Queen. He was just completing the plates for his illustration of Shakes- peare when attacked by his last illness, a fit of apoplexy ; he had had but fifty years of life for executing his seventy-five thousand designs, which would be an average of six drawings a day from his fifteenth year. At the time of his death he was also overseeing the casting of his bronze statue of Alexandre Dumas, without an account of his connection with which no sketch of Dore as a man would be complete. M. Yillard, the Municipal Councillor, had found Paul Dubois too busy to undertake the contemplated statue, and was uncer- tain as to the second choice, when he accosted Dore, saying, " You, who have the imagination of the Prince of Darkness himself, ought to be able to work out for us a design for this statue." 1 " It is very easily done," replied Dore, and the next day he exhibited his sketch, which was as follows : A seated statue, smiling rather than thoughtful, and for the base in front a group of readers, men and women, eagerly perusing one of Dumas' books, while a little aside an unlettered workman listens absorbed by the story ; the other side shows a mousquetaire seated sword in hand watching, as it were, over the glory of the author of "Les Trois Mousquetaires," perhaps the most famous of Dumas' countless romances. "Bravo! Bravo!" cried the judges. "Since you approve it," replied Dore, "there remains nothing more but to execute it myself and at my own expense." In less than a year it was all complete for the casting. As Dore's conception, last work, and glad gift, it becomes at once a monument to himself as well as to Dumas. His comprehensive and suggestive conception is so beautifully and fully illustrated by his sculpture, The Poem of the Vine, of the Salon of 1878, that it belongs even to a view of him as a painter. It is a colossal bronze vase of iridescent hues, upon the exterior of which his imagination, matured and informed by the abnormal flights of his winged thoughts, revels in the carnival of life in all the varied forms in which the fruit of the Vine influences it, in its cheer, its love, its intoxication. The Vine itself is there in its graceful curves and clustering fruit, so actual as to suggest its aroma. Serpents glide amid flowers, forming a part of the allegory. 1 Jules Claretie, as quoted in L'Art. 426 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. Generous towards friends, Dore was especially tender towards his mother. Her absorbing love for him had kept him from marrying, and her death left him to a loneliness that in his love of home and simple domestic joys he greatly deplored. He had until her death, within two years of his own, though possessed of ample means and living in a house of luxurious size, slept in a little room within hers, the door between left open for their nightly converse. Of his Christian belief, he said in 1868 to the Eev. Frederick Harford, minor Canon of Westminster, his faithful friend from 1867 till his death: "I am a Catholic, but my real religion is contained in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians," and he repeated word for word the beautiful description of the charity that suffereth long. His idea of earthly glory he expressed in his statue, La Gloire, of the Salon of 1878, under the form of a woman who strains the youthful, supple form of Genius to her bosom, while in her hand under a laurel wreath she holds the poignard with which to deal him a fatal blow. THE LATER HISTORICAL PAINTERS. By artists, like Ingres, unable to stifle their classic intuitions the historic style has been in a degree maintained in this period during the prevalence of genre, and in 1874 official authority made special effort to promote the choice of subjects of history, an influence since continued, as a form of art important to national needs and to which the increasing decoration of public edifices has offered great induce- ment. French artists have not been irresponsive to these influences, and the eminence of figure painting afforded an easy transition to it. There are, however, few who paint history to the entire exclusion of genre, and few or none who confine themselves to historical subjects, or practise it in entire accordance with the theories of the ideal style. Nor was the adoption of the historical style of the early century intended in officially advocating the renewal of historical subject. Indeed, the academic, at one time almost synonymous with the historical, is no longer allowed to furnish formulas for the painting of history. A certain truth of semblance, based on study of the period of the subject and an observance of contemporary realities, is more and more demanded. This too must be rendered a living sem- blance by power to grasp effects, by invention and vigor, and, at this moment, the prevailing observation of external nature leads to intro- ducing landscape effects, even into decorative painting. A number of artists have been chiefly occupied in decoration, but as most of the THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 427 prominent painters of history have executed mural paintings, and classification cannot truly be based on the place of the work instead of its qualities, both classes, though the latter practise the general- izing and simplifying of truth required for decorative work, fall together. Of the latter class, Lenepveu, a pupil of Picot and of the ficole des Beaux-Arts, had received recognition at the opening of this period, having won, after a brilliant debut in 1843 with an Idyl, the Prix de Eome in 1847 on the subject, The (iib'iV- EU ) S A n nge L rs nePVeU Death of Vitellius. His picture so far Prix de Rome '47. excelled those of the other competitors ^ci '6\ that it was enthusiastically crowned, and l. Hon. '62 ; of. l. Hon. '76. the same year his Saint Saturnin won a Mem lnst ' 6g - medal. He has in this period also been made Member of the Institute as the successor of Hesse and a direc- tor of the School at Rome (1872-1878). He is represented in the Luxembourg by Martyrs in the Catacombs, executed in 1855, imme- diately after his five years' pensionate, which, with Pius IX. at the Sistine Chapel and a Fete at Venice of the same year, showed the memories of his Italian masters obstructing his originalities of style. But by 1857 in his Venetian Wedding his own powers asserted them- selves in a poetic feeling, a warmth and vivacity quite unusual, and since 1861 he has stood in the highest ranks of painting. He is seen in The Hours of the Day and Night — decorations of the Paris Nouvel Opera, in those of the Church of St. Sulpice and other public build- ings of Paris, and in works in many of the museums of France. To a fine coloring Baudry unites great elegance and a vein of realism. He became an eminent painter of history and portraits, but his great work is the decoration of the foyer of the Opera at Paul jaques Aime Baudry Paris (1866-1874), which has placed him in (.828-'86), La Roche-sur-Yon. the firgt rank ag a <} ecorat i ve painter. He Med. 1st cl. '57, '6i, '81. 1 l. Hon. '6i ; of. l. Hon. '69. was the third of twelve children, a country com. l. Hon. ' 75 i Mem. inst. '70. i ac ^ roam i n g i n long walks with his father — a maker of sabots, and so true a lover of rustic life, as to rise before the sun to catch the tone of the morning, and for diversion playing the violin under the evening skies. His son, Ambroise, describes him as " a stoic without knowing it, a character antique and of a moral beauty of which he was unconscious." At thirteen Paul took up the pencil. Having acquired training of eye and power of hand under the village artist, Sartoris, that master persuaded the maire and prefect of Baudry's native province, Bourbon-Vendee, to allow him a 428 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. pension for study in Paris. It was four hundred francs a year. There he first applied for instruction to the classicist, Drolling, who, reluctant to receive him, said " Come next week ! " "No, I will come to-mor- row," replied the frank and persistent youth. His letter to Sartoris also recounts that upon Drolling's inquiring if he had the resources necessary to the study of art, he answered that he should become a painter, even if he died of starvation. A determined will enabled him to practise the economy necessary to pay Drolling a fee of twenty- five francs per month. By occasionally not incurring for some one month the expense of instruction, and selling a sketch or copy, and living in a low mansard room, the one hundred francs a year remain- ing of his pension served to sustain him. At an increase of this the next year, taking renewed hope, he wrote, what seemed to him then a daringly ambitious prediction : " Perhaps they will some day say Paul Baudry as they now do Paul Delaroche." In 1847 he entered into competition for the Prix de Rome, disputed it with Lenepveu, and bore away only the second prize. This would have been an empty honor, except as putting him en route for the first and carrying exemp- tion from conscription, had not the Department of Vendee, proud of the attainment he showed, increased his pension to 1,200 francs a year. He worked three years longer, and in 1850 won the first Prix de Rome by Zenobia Discovered on the Banks of the Araxes, and journeyed with Bouguereau to the Villa Medici. There by continuing the earnest work that early won for him the appellation of "dig" he acquired the truly Titianesque, luminous coloring which is a charming feature of his decorations. His " envois " attracted much attention, and of his first exhibition in 1857, St. John, and Eortuna and the Child, a remin- der of Titian's Sacred and Profane Love, found place in the Luxem- bourg, and others of the same year, Burying a Vestal Alive (Lille Museum) and Leda, commanded appreciation. He received in conse- quence a first-class medal. For a few years then he yielded to self- indulgence, his industry flagged, and his art lost vigor. But having won from Garnier, the architect of the Nouvel Opera, the privilege of decorating its foyer, he roused himself, returned to Italy and studied again the Sistine Chapel to strengthen his power of composition, which he felt was not equal to his color and drawing. He also went to London and copied Raphael's cartoons ; he "dug" with his early obstinate persistence to attain by all means this excellence, giving to study eight years in all of what might have been successful work for him. He succeeded. His work in the Opera (1866-1874) is one of the grandest works of this generation. Its exhibition at the Ecole des THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 429 Beaux-Arts in 1874 was popularly pronounced " a festival of French art.'' The pictures were to cover an area of four hundred square yards, consisting of three ceilings, twelve covings, ten architraves, and eight panels. Throughout these thirty -three canvases he secured harmony by the theme which runs through them, Poetry and Music. Ten subjects illustrate the power of music, such as: Orpheus and Eurydice ; Saul Soothed by the Harp of David ; The Inspiration of St. Cecilia by the Music of the Angels ; Rude Warriors incited to Assault by the Clang of Trumpets. Ten large medallions for spaces over the principal doorways represent the musical genius of various nations in groups of aerial spirits. For Greece these make music on the lyre and double flute ; for Rome on the martial trump ; for Egypt on the harp and systrum; for Italy on the tambourine and violin; for Spain on the guitar and castanets ; for Ireland on the harp of Erin ; and for Scotland on the bagpipe. It was urgently proposed in the journal, La Patrie, that these originals should be reserved in some monumental structure and copies be made for the Opera where there might be destroying influences. 1 The whole was eloquent in poetic feeling, radiant in luminousness of color, and clear in unquestionable truth of drawing, and, with all Baudry's study, it was impressed by his own character, his personal charm pervaded his work. While seeking and attaining grandeur of style and thought, he made use of the familiar physiognomy of the life by which he was surrounded, just as Masaccio had done four hundred years before him — a practice with which he has been reproached, and, as was said of the Italians of the fifteenth century, a critic said of the figures of Baudry's Jurisprudence : " Behold in this Justice, my familiar friend, whom I might invite to dinner."' The face of his brother, whom he attracted from the life of a carpen- ter to that of an architect, appears beside Garnier's and his own in the Parnassus of the ceiling of the Opera. While executing this colossal undertaking he painted besides only portraits, of which nevertheless he produced masterpieces. Eighty-four were exhibited after his death, of a style varying in accordance with his developing powers, from the precision of his early studies in Eome to the freer touch contemporary with his decorative work. He painted The Wedding Feast of Pysche and Cupid for a ceiling for the late W. H.Vanderbilt, in which he modified the fable of Apuleius, and represented love in marriage under four different views in an ironical vein touched with his sceptical Parisianism. In a ceiling for Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt he represented the Queen of Night in 1 They have been much injured by the smoke from burning gas, but are now repaired and electric light introduced. 430 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the Constellation of Orion, a composition worked out in only two or three colors. The figure, in a short blue tunic, is boldly modelled, veiled in light, violet drapery, with bare arms and head crowned by silver rays. It is said that the artist had the exact position of the stars marked by the astronomer Janssen, and the terrestrial globe, which supports the knee of the goddess, is shown on the American side. His Apotheosis of Law, painted for the Hall of the Court of Appeals, won enthusiastic reception to the Salon of 1881, and was awarded the Grand Medal of Honor without a dissenting voice, the first time the unanimous award of this medal occurred. Among the most elevated of Bau dry's nude figures is his singularly beautiful Truth. Sitting upon the curb of a well, whence Truth is said to emerge, she is gazing into a hand-mirror, while a child oilers her clothing in which to conceal her splendor, a splendor almost unsurpassed. The harmony of lines, the modelling of the form, the delicacy of outlines, combined with Baudry's special gift of color, make it a figure that once seen lives in the memory. His decorative works gave little time for easel pictures, and a few over twenty comprise all he has painted. Among them are : 1859, Guillemette: 1861, Charlotte Corday (Nantes): 1863, Pearl and Wave: 1865, Diana. Among his portraits are : 1861,Guizot: 1869. Charles Garnier: 1872, Edmond About: 1877, le General de Montauban. About was the schoolmate of the artist's boyhood and friend of his mature life ; in 1857 the author dedicated a book to the artist; in 1872 the artist reproduced the face of his friend of auld lang syne, who fondly called him "Mio Paoluccio," a name by which he was also familiarly known at the Villa Medici. The death of his own rector at Kome, Sclmetz, left vacant the chair in the Institute to which Baudry succeeded in 1870. Full of great projects and strong in hope he died in 1886. An artist of noble birth, thorough cultivation, and competent fortune, known almost entirely by his mural decorations, and who paints in an ideal style, which is, however, far from the previously accepted theories of historical painting, is (1824- ), Lyons. Puvis de Chavannes. It is also so unlike all Med. 2d ci. 61; Med. '6 4 ;3d ci. '67. else contemporary that it seems an interpola- Med. 0 Hon 67 '82 0f H ° n 77 ti° n in the ar fc °f the a g e - ^ nas > however, made for itself a high place in the scale of merit. He has, to express it by the French phrase, and never was that phrase more appropriate, the "I know not what" of power. His THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 431 early works, after study under Henri Scheffer and Couture, suppos- ably under the latter's influence, revealed a taste for color. But his own individuality soon threw off all semblance to others and developed an art of abstractions, devoid of color, as usually understood, but pre- senting the germ of impressive effect which he has since developed into a commanding charm, — " eloquence " says Lafenestre — despite a simplification of forms carried to extreme, attitudes often stiff, and a frequent incorrectness and awkwardness, which, however, have a naivete of pleasing effect. His first exhibition, The Keturn from the Chase in 1859, won little notice, but in 1861 his two large canvases, Peace and War, became the subject of most diverse criti- cism. From these works of a marked grandeur of style his natural bias, for snch it has since proved itself to be, has matured a practice of effecting his aims by a minimum service of color and action, and even of light and design, until, to use the words of Gautier, " He seems just to have stepped out of the studio of Primaticcio or of II Rosso," and to bring thence all the simplicity of the spontane- ous creations of primitive art. His works thus assume a decorative character, and he has been employed chiefly for the public build- ings of Paris, Poitiers, and Marseilles. He does not paint histori- cal realities, but symbolisms, as Work and Rest of 1863, comple- ments of his picture of 1861 ; or he makes poetical abstractions from the antique or from the land of thought peopled only by the idea and which only the "mind's eye" perceives. He thus paints almost exclusively from the imagination and his art becomes purely ideal, except in the single but important quality that it is nourished by the "sue" of reality. Thus, though it is of an unfamiliar world, it has a something allied to modern methods: he has been among the first to introduce landscape into decorations, and, though his phrases are un- finished, and, as Mantz says, "he desires to be understood a demi- mot" it is also true that, born of his own spirit, his art is sponta- neous, fresh, and original. His peculiar dull, dead color, or coloration, as Hamerton suggests it should be called, " as implying artistic purposes not less serious than color, but more compatible with a closer attention to, and a dependence upon, form," has a charm of its own ; his figures, of great severity, become a mere apotheosis of form, and make his style one of very lofty distinction. He justifies, by thus elucidating its possibilities in this age of its rejection, one of the tenets of the classic of the late eighteenth and early nine- teenth centuries : he produces an art to which, as was then claimed, no objective reality is necessary, for which subjective creation suffices. 432 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. But he did not break through all restraint upon his individuality until his work of 1873, Summer, and his powers are fully illustrated by his picture of 1875, The Year 732, Charles MartePs victory over the Saracens near Poitiers, by which that monarch saved Christendom. This was an appropriate subject for the Hotel de Ville, of Poitiers, for which also in 1874 he painted the subject, The Sixth Century, in which Eaclegonde retires to the convent of Sainte Croix, where she gives asylum to poets and protects letters from the barbarities of the age. In 1876 he exhibited at the Salon sketches for some of the scenes of the Education and Pastoral History of St. Genevieve for the decorations of the Pantheon, which were assigned to him by the Director Chenne- vieres's plan of 1874. Public favor until then had not been accorded to him because of his so-called "cold intellectuality," in which he was resolute, and also because of the unsatisfactory impression made by his decorative works beside those of a franker imitation of nature ; and an unsympathetic minority still condemns them as caricature. But their sincerity and simplicity and poetic charm, which are the chief element of his power, are so conspicuous in his works in the Pantheon — though their treatment is so quaint that they have in their high horizons, their flowers and foliage resembling old illuminations, the semblance of ancient tapestries hung on the walls — that they won the heart of the nation, in the main, and it now gives his art an admiration which, however qualified, is very great and very sincere. His work in the Salon of 1886 comprised three decorative panels artificially united by the needs of the exhibition. They were designed to be connected with the panel of the Salon of 1SS4, The Sacred Wood dear to the Arts and Muses for the Museum of Lyons. The centre one was the Khone and Saone ; one wing, Antique Vision, the intention of which was to express the idea of form ; and the other, The Inspiration of Christianity, to give the idea of feeling. In the Vision, noble forms in the attitudes of Greek statues, inhabit an imag- inary landscape of grand lines representing a classic land as we know it in the poets. In The Inspiration are represented the religious painters of the middle ages in Italy ; Fra Angelico and his pupils painting the frescoes, to which answers to their earnest prayers have inspired them. The Rhone and Saone, in two nude figures of substantial reality, in the foreground of an ideal landscape, symbolize the confluence of those rivers, which, the painter announced in the catalogue, also represent the union of Strength and Grace. In 1887 he exhibited allegorical designs for the decoration of the Sorbonne, and in them has indicated that he perceives the proper limitations of simplification. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 433 Luminais, a pupil of Cogniet, spent his earliest efforts on the classic style, but since has taken subjects from the customs and history of Brittany, and lately has ' 'become lost in the £variste Vital Luminais , J J . i (i822- ), Nantes. Merovingian and Carlovmgian period 01 Jbrench Med. 3d ci. '52, '55, '57, '61. history." He renders the stalwart, yellow-haired heroes of that time of physical strength, with a broad, impressive treatment of great vigor of drawing, a solid pate, truth of color, and depth of observation, often humorous, the results of which are conveyed in skilful compositions and with great energy of expression. The character of his history is best indicated by a list of his works, of which some are : Defeat of the Germans at Tolbiac Nantes (1848): Siege of Paris by the Nor- mans The Pirate (1849): Cry of the Chouans (1859): Gallic Revenge (1869): Gauls in S ght of Rome (Nancy, 1879): Scouts (Bordeaux, 1870): The Last Mero- vingian (1883): Death of Chilperic (1885) : Brunhilde (1874). A picture of great power and interest, his Fleeing Prisoner, of 1877, represents a strong Gaul dropping himself by the slight branch of a tree over a precipice, while the pursuing horsemen are seen close at hand. Some of his scenes are pure genre and of great humor, as : Lesson in Church Music (1855): The Shepherd of Brittany (1852): Return from the Fair (1850): Inn Scenes (1859): Vedette Gauloise (1869). A pupil of Picot, but who early earnestly sought to follow Dela- croix and Chasseriau, Gustave Moreau, has become a painter of antique scenes. For these subjects he developed Gustave Moreau an aptitude while studying at Rome. He maintains Med. '6 4 , '6 5 , 69. this with a treatment in which, while it demands L. d Ho n 78 75 U ^he narm0Ii y an( l calm of tranquil lines, and a certain simplicity which makes his works sculpturesque, he takes subjects of struggle, and also gives the modern realistic ful- ness of detail — an idiosyncrasy which is called an inconsistency by Charles Blanc, from whom it evoked the wonder — " . . . that the same artist both pursues the grand and yet inundates him- self with the little, amuses himself with the puerilities of detail and yet raises him- self to the regions where the eye can see only the ensemble. Could we by any possibility know the incrustations of the lyre with which the prehistoric Orpheus charmed ferocious beasts, or the detailed figures on the robes of Medea and Jason? " But with his emphatic poetic taste, can the right be denied to Moreau to imagine appropriate details ? since, under a rare power of 28 434 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. harmonizing them into unity of sentiment, and subordinating them to a suave outline, his accessories, however rich and abundant, can hardly "inundate" but must even aid the clearness of the picture. Nor are his calm and his violence antagonistic. The calm is that of the quiet consciousness of power of the victor, which naturally predomi- nates in the scene, and has its source either in a superlative heroism of spirit if a mortal, or in a higher nature if a god. His Prometheus illustrates the former ; it is not a Prometheus yielding to the agony of the vultures' wounds, nor a Prometheus violently defiant of Jove, but a Prometheus quiet and motionless, heroically surmounting suf- fering through hope, his eye fixed on the horizon of a sky, sombre, but from which must break the coming day. At times he has treated excessive violence, as the horror of Diomedes Devoured by his Horses, in 1866. In rendering all that goes to make up the picture tributary to its sentiment, in his Phaeton Precipitated from his Chariot, for instance, and necessarily dragging the entire zodiac with him, he is necessarily turbulent and tumultuous ; and though fond of color both in its brilliancy and delicacy, he makes use of it as a well-disciplined auxiliary to significance of expression. Having an independent for- tune and disdaining popular applause, he indulges his artistic aim, and from the study and labor devoted to his pictures, stands among the first of the class who elaborate and refine their conceptions. He burst upon the public in the Salon of 1864 with an (Edipus and the Sphinx, challenging the prevailing practice of treating that subject, which had been only in the classic style, for all the energetic romanticism of Delacroix had not made apparent the romantic aspect of classic subjects, though Gerome and his neo-grecs had made roman- tic subjects classic. Moreau painted, issuing from a bluish land- scape of fantastic rock, the enigmatical head which (Edipus seeks to answer. To the memory of Chasseriau, the lustre of whose short- lived art was soon lost in that of Delacroix and Ingres, Moreau inscribed in 1865 a very characteristic picture, The Young Man and Death. It represents youth with the beauty of the mortal body undimmed, and, having just cleared the threshold of Death's domain, proudly bearing a crown on his head and flowers in his hand, while one of the genii of Death carries at his feet a torch with the flame fading out. He was accorded a place in the Luxembourg in 1867 for his Orpheus. In this a young girl, clothed in a blue robe covered with archaic embroidery, carefully carries, laid upon his lyre, the head of the divine Orpheus, which she has picked up among the washings of the tempest on the shores of Thrace. All unite, the THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 435 landscape and the accessories, to express melancholy. Other works are : The Minotaur (1855) : Jason (1865): Prometheus; Jupiter and Europa (1869): Hercules and the Lernaean Hydra ; Salome (1876): Jacob and the Angel ; David; Galatea; Helen (1880). Leroux devotes himself to antique subjects, and in them shows delicate skill and accurate archaeological knowledge in a charming Hector Leroux ideal style. His representative picture in the Luxem- (1829- ), Verdun. bourg is A Funeral in the Palace of the Caesars (1864) TcTci 63 64 ^ n wn i°h a procession descends a precipitous stairway 3d ci. '78 e. u. filled with sunlight; two musicians attend at the L. Hon. -77. right He hag WQn the title u p ainter of V es t a ls," and has, indeed, become a devotee of Vesta through his sympathy with the virgins of that goddess, resulting from a thorough study of their history. This was induced by his gratitude for the success of his first Salon picture, A New Vestal (Verdun Museum, 1863). Of later productions of the subject four are owned in America. As a result of his studies, he wrote to the owner of his Trial of Aurelia and Pomponia, Mr. J. T. Martin of Brooklyn : " Every arti- cle of this barbarous law [ruling these virgins] was death, the method only being varied. Sometimes they were buried alive, again whipped to death. Seventeen girls whose names I have collected perished thus, and two unfortunate heroines, Aurelia and Pomponia, sisters, were condemned to death together in the reign of Caracalla, and buried alive for the violation of their vows." An important one is The Vestal Tuccia (Salon 1874, E.U. 1878), in the Corcoran Gallery, Washington. It enlists all our sympathy with innocence unjustly accused, in the silent protest made, as, on the banks of the Tiber, in a scene of a quiet so extreme as to seem indifference, the accused Vestal earnestly holds up a sieve to the heavens and prays to Vesta that she may prove her innocence. Two companion vestals peer from a corner of a classic structure with an eager interest; other spectators earnestly regard her from various points, some even from the opposite bank. The whole scene is rendered with an exquisite and ideal beauty. Others are the School of Vestals (Mr. John Jacob Astor): and Danaids (Mr. William W. Astor). Laurens after being in 1880 the laureate of the Fine Arts Academy of Toulouse, where he was a fellow pupil with Cot, and after receiving jean Paul Laurens instruction in Paris of Cogniet, and subsequently MedV' F i°s\T>T*' ° f Bida ' madG d ^ bUt ^ Sal0R ° f 1863 L . Hon. '74. with the historical subject, The Death of Cato. Med. Hon. '77; of. l. Hon. ' 7 8. That year, it will be recalled, was the one of readjustment of art relations, and of the height of the reaction against 43 G A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. the classic. He presented the next year the Death of Tiberius, and was then deflected in 1864 into a genre picture, After the Ball. Sub- sequently Bible history chiefly occupied his brush. His earliest art, however, had been cheap frescoes of saints in the churches of the villages of the Alps, for which he travelled in a cart with a company of wandering painters. But at twenty-nine years of age he won the prize in a competition proposed by the encyclopaedist, Larousse, for a picture of The Supper at Beaucaire. In August, 1793, Napoleon I., then only a Captain of Artillery, published at Avignon through the travelling printer-in-chief of the army, Aurel de Valence, a brochure aiming to present the political opinions of the South of France as he had learned them at a chance supper at Beaucaire. At this his companions at table were two Marseilles merchants, a manufacturer from Montpellier, and a resi- dent of Nimes, drawn thither by the annual fair there, of such antiquity that its rights had been confirmed at the commencement of the thirteenth century. Each character is finely conceived in this, and the young artist gave promise of fine powers of composition, which have since been confirmed in his Death of Marceau, which won for him the Grand Medal of Honor and has remained his masterpiece : 1 That republican general, only twenty-seven years of age, has just been killed, and, clothed in his uniform, the handle of his sabre in his hand, lies upon an improvised bed, at the right of which are seated and weeping three of his fellow soldiers, one also a faithful friend. At a door opening at the left, Austrian officers, the enemies of the day before, now grave, respectful, even moved, enter to salute the French officer at his funeral. The various physiognomies are well studied. After the impressionists* treatment of color, Marceau's uniform of green is seen on a red mantle above a figured coverlid, and in the background a yellow screen of good value of tone, but criticised as too important a hue for its place. Laurens is an "intellectual" artist, having a full conception of dramatic effects. In the tragic subjects which he greatly affects and which have given him the title, "painter of the dead," he maintains quiet conservatism ; he exaggerates neither expression nor gesture, and from details, of which he is fond, selects most felicitous combi- nations. He also skilfully forms historic types from popular con- temporary forms, especially of provincial and rustic character. His selections from the gloomier side of history are further illustrated by his works : Separation of Bertha and Robert the Pious by Order of the Pope : Excommuni- cation of Robert the Pious (Luxembourg, 1875); Fredegonde; Francesco di Borgia before the Body of Isabella of Portugal. 1 Owned by M. Turquet, Paris, it was exhibited in New York in 1886, together with some of the representative works of the impressionists of Paris. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 437 Among the younger artists of historical tendencies is F. Humbert, a follower of Puvis de Chavannes, whose St. John the Baptist of 1874 in the Luxembourg, and whose exhibition of 1886, (1842- ), Paris. In Times of War, executed for the mairie of the fif- Med. '66, '69, '69. teenth arrondissement, Paris, are of a beautiful and 3dci. 78, L.Hon. 78. e ff ec tiy e simplicity. His treatment is skilfully real- istic and, among his latest works, The End of the Day, of 1885, in which the laborers are receiving their hire, is a piece of rustic genre of the highest rank. But his previous works are almost exclusively historical, such as : Flight of Nero (1865): CEdipus and Antigone finding the Bodies of Eteocles and Polyniees (1866): Ambroise Pare and the Duke of Nemours (1868): John the Baptist; The Fortune Teller (1872): Christ at the Column (Orleans Museum, 1875): Woman taken in Adultery (1877) : Salome (1880). Leon Glaize and his father Auguste B. Glaize, a fervid romanticist who was his son's instructor before he committed him to Gerome, exhibit since the debut of the younger in 1859 side Pierre Paul Leon Glaize , ., jiioi i •• ijii (1843- ), Paris. °y side at the Salons, each receiving both honor Med. '64, '66, '68. an d censure. The younger has adopted historical subjects. He does not equal his father in facility of brush or power of imagination or brilliancy of fancy ; and his award of a medal in 1864 for The Treason of Delilah was condemned because of the lack of drawing in the picture; but the jury of recompenses, then a severe one, in 1866 repeated it for his Christ and the Ten Lepers (Church of the White Friars, Paris), and again in 1868 for portraits. His work of 1877, The Fugitives, is of distinguished merit and success : Inhabitants of Athens during the siege are being let down from the walls by ropes. Family groups— a mother in whose face anxiety is keenly depicted close to the innocent, happy face of the infant ; a husband about whose neck clings the more helpless wife and beneath whom hangs his armor — are poised in mid air above an unseen depth, with their shadows sharply defined by the moonlight on the wall behind them. It is full of vigor, giving a fine effect with simple means. Barrias, " pupil of Leon Cogniet" and one of the Salon ' 'forty," continues for his own pupils the traditions of his master's tendencies to Feiix Joseph Barrias classicism. He has been commissioned to decorate (1822- ), Paris. in fresco many of the public buildings of Paris, and Med. 3d cL m 47 ' 44 ' has had Pictures purchased for most of the Mu- ist ci. '51; 2d ci. -55. seums of France, as The Fxiles of Tiberias in the Ll Hon - ' 59, Luxembourg, and The Landing of French Troops in the Crimea for Versailles. 438 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTIXG. Merson, the pupil of Chassevant and Pils, with well-developed design and careful study in a very original manner, follows the his- Luc-oiivier Merson torical tendency. He has attracted extended notice p 846 d r Pa, 6 ^ or ^ e P ose m Egypt °f 1879, in which the Virgin Med. ist ci. -73. with the child rests in the arms of the Sphinx, and l. Hon. '8i. which is treated with great realism. The son of a dis- tinguished art critic, his own extended reading affords him a wide field of choice of subjects, and he paints only such scenes as have impressed him with great vividness. Of the younger artists none show a more constant fealty to the muse of history than Rochegrosse, a pupil of Lefebvre and of Boulanger. Georges Rochegrosse His qualities are an acute and intelligent sus- (contemporary), Versailles, ceptibility to the great lessons of history, and adfc'i. 3 "^!' 82 t° all the exaltation of feeling that these arouse, Prix de saion '83. and also an active and impassioned sentiment for living realities ; these lead him to make use of, on appropriate occasions, both the classic tradition and actual nature. In 1887, for example, his picture, La Curia, or Death of Caesar, was taken from Plutarch and treated with classic simplicity, while a Salome gave occasion for all the rich details of Asiatic sumptuousness. In the former, he was enabled by the uncovered Curia to give that pre- ponderance of sun and air that in the contemporary school makes the difficulty of preserving form and modelling so great and, when overcome as here, so effective. Rochegrosse's clearness finely sur- mounted it, and threw into admirable relief a well-defined figure in the foreground. Other works are : Caius Julius Caesar ; Vitellius dragged through the Streets of Rome (1882) ■ Andromache (1883) : La Jacquerie (1885) : Madness of Nebuchadnezzar (1886). Other historical painters, chiefly Hors Concours, are : Camille Felix Bellanger (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Cabanel and Bouguereau; medal 3d class '75. — Louis Beroud (contemporary), Lyons : pupil of Gourdet, Bonnat, and Lavastre ; medal 2d class '83. — Francois Leon Benouville (1821- ), Paris: pupil of Picot, and brother of the landscape painter; Prix de Rome '45; medal 2d class '52, '55 ; 1st class '53; Legion of Honor '55. — Hippolyte Dominique Berteaux (contemporary) : pupil of H. Flandrin, Galland, and Baudry ; medal 3d class '83 ; 2d class '85.— James Bertrand (1825- ), Lyons : pupil of Perin and Orsel ; has true grace of style and imparts a deep religious sentiment to many of his works ; medal 3d class '61. '63, '69, and '78 Exposition Universelle; Legion of Honor '76. — Paul Albert Besnard (contemporary), Paris : Prix de Rome '74; medal 3d class '74 ; 2d class '80 ; pupil of Cabanel and J. Bremond.— 13. J. B. P. Bin (1825- ), Paris : pupil of Gosse and Cogniet ; Prix de Rome '50 ; medal '65, '69 ; Legion of Honor '78 ; has chiefly decorated buildings both public and THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 439 private. — Charles Adolphe Bonnegrace (1812-'82), Toulon : pupil of Gros; medal 3d class '39 ; 2d class '42 ; Legion of Honor '67. — Paul Emile Boutigny (con- temporary), Paris : pupil of Cabanel ; medal 3d class '84. — Alfred Henri Bramtot (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Bouguereau ; Prix de Rome '79 ; medal 3d class '79; 2d class '85.— Pierre Andre Brouillet (contemporary), Charroux : pupil of Gerome and J. P. Laurens ; medal 3d class '84. — Armand Berton (contemporary), Paris : pupil of A. Millet and Cabanel ; medal 3d class '82. — Romain Gazes (1810-'81), St. Beat: pupil of Ingres; medal 3d class '39, '63; Legion of Honor '70. — L. J. R. Collin (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Cabanel ; medal 2d class '73; Legion of Honor '84. — Edmond Lechevalier-Chevignard (1825- ), Lyons: pupil of Drolling ; medal 3d class '57 ; rappel '63 ; Legion of Honor '85. — Louis Courtal (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Cabanel ; medal 3d class '73, '74 ; 1st class '75.— Gustave Courtois (1852- ), Pusey : pupil of Gerome ; medal 3d class '78 ; 2d class '80 ; Munich '83. — Leon Lucien Couturier (contemporary), Macon : pupil of Danguin and Cabanel ; medal 3d class '81. — Joseph Edouard Dantan (1848- ), Paris: pupil of Pils and Lehmann ; medal 3d class '74; 2d class '80.— Jules Joseph Dauban (1822- ), Paris : pupil of A. Debay ; Director of School of Fine Arts at Angers ; medal '64 ; Legion of Honor '68. — Albert Pierre Da want (contem- porary), Paris : pupil of J. P. Laurens; medal 3d class '80 ; 2d class '85. — Michel Dumas (1812- ), Lyons : pupil of Ingres ; medal 3d class '57, '61 ; 1st class '63. — Pierre Dupuis (1833- ), Orleans: pupil of H. Vernet and Cogniet ; medal 3d class '84. — Francois Flameng (1859- ), Paris : son of the engraver, Leopold Flameng ; pupil of Cabanel, Hedouin, and J. P. Laurens ; medal 3d class '77 ; Prix du Salon '79.— Emile Foubert (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Bonnat, Busson, and H. Levy ; medal 3d class '80 ; 2d class '85. — Jean Michel Prosper Guerin (1838- ),Paris: medal '67 ; pupil of P. Flandrin.— Adrien Guignet (1816-'54) : medal 3d class '44; 2d class '48 ; somewhat naturalistic. — Nelie Jaquemart (1845- ), Paris : medal '68, '69, '70 ; 2d class '78 ; decorated the church at Suresne, near' Paris, in 1864, and excellent in portraits. — Ange Louis Janet-Lange (181 5-'72): medal 3d class '49 ; pupil of Ingres and Horace Vernet, whose style and subject of military inci- dent he very much affected and rendered with great sentiment. — Louis Jaimot (1814- ), Lyons: medal 3d class '45 ; 2d class '59, '61 ; pupil of Orsel in Lyons and of Ingres in Paris. — Paul Louis Jenoudet (contemporary) : medal 3d class '83; pupil of Boulanger and Lefebvre. — Pierre Lagarde (contemporary), Paris: medal 3d class '82; 2d class '85. — Joseph Seraphin Lay raud (1834- ), Laroche-sur-Bois : medal 2d class '72 ; Prix de Rome '63 ; pupil of Loubon and Cogniet.— Julien LeBlant (contemporary), Paris : medal 3d class '78; 2d class '80; Legion of Honor '85.— The vigorous pupil of Cabanel, A. P. Lehoux (1844- ), Paris : medal 2d class '73 ; in '74 took a first class medal, the Prix du Salon, that being the first time that it was awarded, and had a work, The Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, placed in the Luxembourg. — Francois Joseph Aime de Lemud (contem- porary), Thionville: medal 3d class '44, '63; Legion of Honor '65.— Jules-Louis Mnchard (1839- ), Sampans : pupil of Bailie, Signol, and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome '65 ; medal 1st class '72 ; 2d class '78 Exposition Universale ; Legion of Honor '78 ; his historical painting is chiefly from mythology, and is as gracefully treated as that of the neo-grecs. — Albert Maignan (contemporary), Beaumont: pupil of Noel and Luminals ; medal 3d class '74 ; 2d class '76 ; 1st class '79 ; Legion of Honor '83 ; paints somewhat like Luminais. — Diogene Ulysse Napoleon 440 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Maillart (1840- ), Chaussee-du-Bois-de-l'Ecu : pupil of Cornu, Laemlein, and Cogniet ; Prix de Rome '65 ; medal 70 ; 2d class '73. — P. N. Maillot (1826- ), Paris : pupil of Drolling and Picot ; Prix de Rome '54 ; medal '67 ; Legion of Honor '70.— Henri Guillaume Martin (contemporary), Toulouse : pupil of J. P. Laurens; medal 1st class '83, by Paolo diMalatesta and Francesca da Rimini. — Paul Mathey (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Pils and Cogniet ; medal 3d class '76 ; 2d class '85. — Eugene Hedard (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Cogniet, Gerome, and S. Cornu ; medal 3d class '79 ; 2d class '86 ; paints also genre. — Lucien Melingue (1841- ), Paris : pupil of Cogniet and Gerome ; medal 1st class '77 ; Legion of Honor '80 ; his Stephen Maral and the Dauphin (1876) is in the Luxembourg. — Jules- Joseph Meynier (1826- ), Paris : pupil of Delaroche, Gleyre, and Bridoux; medal '67 ; 2d class '77 ; also paints genre. — Charles Henri Michel (1817- ), Fins : pupil of Ecole des Beaux- Arts; medal 3d class '61; medal '65, '67. — Georges Moreau de Tours (contemporary), Ivy-sur-Seine : pupil of Cabanel ; medal 2d c ass '79. — Aime-Nicolas Morot (1850- ), Nancy: pupil of Cabanel and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome '73 ; medal 3d class '76 ; 2d class '77 ; 1st class '79 ; medal of honor 1880 by exhibition of his Good Samaritan ; one of the Salon ;t forty" and a son-in-law of Gerome. — Fjlie Nonclercq (contemporary), Valen- ciennes: pupil of Cabanel ; medal 3d class '81. — Claudius Popelin (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Ary Scheffer and of Picot ; medal '65 ; Legion of Honor '69. — Jean- Andre Rixens (contemporary), Saint- Gaudens: pupil of Gerome; medal 3d class '76; 2d class '81. — Lionel Royer (contemporary), Chateau-du- Loire : pupil of Cabanel; medal 3d class '84.— Charles Auguste Sellier (1830-'82), Nancy; pupil of Leborgne and Cogniet ; medal '65 ; 2d class '72 ; Conservator of Nancy Museum. — Marie Anne Rosalie Thevenin (contemporary), Lyons: pupil of Cogniet and Joseph Paris; medal 2d class '49 ; rappel '59; rappel '61. — Eugene Romain Thirion (1839- ), Paris : pupil of Picot, Fromentin, and Cabanel ; medal '66, '68, '69 ; 2d class '78, Exhibition Universelle ; Legion of Honor '62 ; excels in modelling and color. — Fjdouard Toudouze (1844- ), Paris : pupil of A. Leloir, Pils, and the Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome '71 ; medal 3d class '76 ; 2d class '77.— Adolphe Web- ber (1842- ), Boulay : pupil of Marechal, Cogniet, and Cabanel ; medal '67. — Jean J. Weerts (1847- ), Roubaix: pupil of Pils and Cabanel ; medal 2d class '75; Legion of Honor '84. The following are historical painters who, having lately received the 3d class medal, are rapidly sn route for Hors Concours : Adolphe Aze (1822-'84), Paris : pupil of Robert-Fleury ; medal 3d class '51, '63. — Jules-Cyrille Cave (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Bouguereau and Tony Robert- Fleury ; medal 3d class '88. — Alphonse Fjtienne Dinet (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Galland, Bouguereau, and Tony Robert-Fleury ; medal 3d class '84 ; also paints landscapes. — Leopold Durangel (contemporary), Marseilles : pupil of H. Vernet: medal 3d class '86. — Jules Ferry (1844- ), Bordeaux : pupil of John Lewis Brown and Cabanel ; medal 3d class '86. — Paul Grolleron (contemporary), Seignelay: pupil of Bonnat; medal 3d class '86. — Paul Alexandre Alfred Leroy (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Cabanel ; medal 3d class '82. — Antonin Mercie (contemporary), Lyons: pupil of Falguiere, and well known as a sculptor ; medal 3d class '83. — Victor £mile Prouve (contemporary), Nancy: pupil of Cabanel ; J. BAST I E N- L E PAG E LA SAISON D'OCTOBRE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 441 medal 3d class '86.— Alfred Paul Marie de Richemont (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Bin and Michel ; medal 3d class '86. — P. Leon H. Ruel (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Pils ; medal 3d class '86. — Stanislas Torrents (contemporary;, Marseilles : pupil of Couture; medal 3d class '75.— Gabriel Tyr (1817-68), St. Paul de Mons : pupil of Victor Orsel, whom he assisted in the decoration of the Chapel of the Holy Angels at Notre Dame de Lorette (begun 1836). — 3Mouard Vimont (1846- ), Paris : pupil of Cabanel and Maillet ; medal 3d class '8Q. — Pharaon Abdon Leon de Winter (contemporary), Bailleul : pupil of Cabanel, J. Breton, and Colas ; medal 3d class '86. The following are painters of history and genre : Paul Joseph Blanc (1846- ), Montmartre (Paris) : pupil of Bin and Cabanel ; Prix de Rome '67 ; medal '70 ; 1st class '72 ; 2d class '78 Exhibition Universale ; Legion of Honor '78 ; his Perseus (1870) is in the Luxembourg. — Edouard Theo- phile Blanchard (1844-'79) : pupil of Picot and Gros ; won Prix de Rome in '68 after being second in the competition of '67 and third in that of '66 : medal 2d class '72 ; 1st class '74. — Pierre Nicolas Brisset (1810- .), Paris : pupil of Picot and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome '40 ; medal 2d class '47, '55 ; Legion of Honor '68. — Jean Charles Cazin (contemporary), Samer : pupil of Lecoq de Bois- baudran ; medal 1st class '80 ; Legion of Honor '82.— Albert Edouard (1845- ), Caen: pupil of Cornu, Gerome, Cogniet, and of J. E. Delaunay; medal 3d class '82 ; 2d class '85.— Etienne Gautier (contemporary), Marseilles : pupil of Chantigny ; medal 2d class '73 ; 1st class '78; Legion of Honor '71. — Francois Desire Laugee (1823- ), Maromme : pupil of Picot ; medal 3d class '51 ; 2d class '55 ; rappel'59; medal 1st class 61 ; rappel '63; Legion of Honor '65. — His son and pupil, Georges Laugee (contemporary), Montiviliers : pupil also of Pils and Lehmann : follows J. Breton's subjects ; medal 3d class '80.— Alexis Joseph Mazerolle (1826- ). Paris: pupil of Dupuis and Gleyre ; medal 3d class '57, '59, '61 ; Legion of Honor '70 ; Officer '79 ; paints chiefly historical and mythological genre. — Ernest Barthelemy Michel (1833- ), Montpellier ; pupil of Picot and Cabanel; of great promise and talent ; Prix de Rome '60 ; medal '70 ; Legion of Honor '80. — Dominique Papety (1815-49), Marseilles: pupil of Cogniet and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; Prix de Rome '36. — Anatole Vely (1838-'82) : pupil of Valenciennes Academy of Signol in Paris and of Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; medal 3d class '74 ; 2d class '80. — Marcel Verdier (1817-56), Paris: pupil of Ingres and Ecole des Beaux- Arts ; medal 3d class '37 ; 2d class '48. THE MILITARY PAINTERS. Military painting is classed as a form of the historical. The Franco-German War of 1870-71 supplied the incentive which, find- ing technical skill developed to hand, created a class of strong military painters of the last years of this period giving themselves entirely to military subjects. For the entire century France had not been with- out distinguished painters of battle scenes. David, Baron Gerard, Baron Gros, Gericault, Carl and Horace Vernet had illustrated the military achievements of the Republic and First Empire, as Meissonier more recently had turned back to do, and Yvon, Protais and Armand- 442 A HIS TOBY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Dumaresq recorded the achievements of Napoleon JIL, but this was but one of their several classes of subjects. Now, young painters threw themselves into battle, and from their painful personal experience depicted with great realism battle scenes and army life. A large number of artists indeed, as Bastien-Lepage, Detaille, Vibert, Jacquet, Cuvillier, De Neuville, Regnault, Clairin, Leroux, Barrias, formed an Artists' Battalion. Contemporary military painting is greatly modified by the con- temporary demand for accuracy of detail. Since the truth of each assumed historical statement must be assured before attention can be given to pictorial effect, less extended representations are given ; but these realities of detail produce most impressive effects. The magni- tude of modern warfare has also led to the representation of side issues, of incidents of soldier life, of skirmishes, rather than, as by Gerard and Gros, of the panoramic display of the entire battle. Con- spicuous among modern military painters are Detaille, De Neuville, Berne-Bellecour, Protais, and Dumaresq, while the brush of Philippo- teau is still wielded with his wonted skill. Of these the younger ones, fresh from the battles of 1870 and 1871, now have the greater prominence, Detaille, the youngest, leading all ; but in an historical account they must give precedence to earlier painters. Philippoteau, a "pupil of Cogniet," belongs to the generation just passing away. He did not entirely confine himself to battle scenes, Henri Emanuel Feiix the numD e r of them he painted is very large, philippoteau In 1875 he exhibited a Charge of the French Cuiras- Med.'afcL^y' siers at Waterloo > and in 18 ? 6 Charge of English Med. 1st cl. '40. Heavy Cavalry at Balaklava, now in the Royal Aca- l. Hon. -46. demy ^ London. His Louis XV. on the Battlefield of Fontenoy is in the Luxembourg. Yvon, a pupil of Delaroche, was a painter of history and portrait at the opening of this period, and took a first class medal at its first Salon, having but three years before exhibited his first picture other Adoiphe Yvon than portrait, Christ Expelling the Merchants (18,7- ), Eschwiiier. f rom the Temple, of 1845. Post Relays in Rus- M ed' Hon. '57. ' * ° ' 55 ' sia, which he had studied from the reality the 2d ci. 67 e.u. year before ; Russian Peasants' Dance ; Tartars l. Hon. 55, of. l. Hon. 6 7 . ^ Lubianka making Tea ; and drawings of the personified qualities, Anger, Luxury, Avarice and Gluttony from Dante's Inferno in the elevated style required, showed for the two Salons of 1848 and 1849 diverse powers and two distinct styles, the allegorical and the naturalistic. In 1850 these were again manifested THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 443 by figures of the nine Muses and the continuation of designs from Dante ; Envy, Pride, and Indolence, with the Battle of Koulikorom, 1378. This revealed his aptitude for military painting, and won for him, at once, official commissions for the gallery of Compiegne. The First Consul Descending Mount St. Bernard appeared in the Salon of 1853, and by the painting of Marshal Ney in the Retreat from Russia and Le Telegue Russe of 1855 he won a decoration and the appoint- ment to join the army of the Crimea to paint the incidents of that war. Of these are his three greatest works, pictures then of unusual dimensions ; they were warmly applauded by the public, for they memorialized what had been first, their solicitude, and then, their joy, the conquering of the key to Sebastopol ; but they were much discussed by the critics, all of whom, however, pronounced them of wonderful composition and invention. They were of the natural- istic style of Horace Vernet, and in them, as in Vernet's works, impor- tance is given to seeming trivialities. They won for the artist the Grand Medal of Honor. They were The Capture of the Malakoff (1857): The Gorge of the Malakoff (1859) ; and The Wall of the Malakoff (1859). Ivon gave, in 1857, two representative pictures of the Battle of Inkerman, painted from sketches taken on the spot ; one is a series of the actual incidents of the strife, and though therefore not a conventional battle-piece, gives the impression of an actual battle ; the other is the Russians in Retreat, in which the Muscovite columns that in the first picture drop down in torrents from the mist-enveloped hills, are flying in the same November air before the victorious arms of the allied forces. An immense canvas, The United States of America (Salon 1875), ordered of Yvon by the late A. T. Stewart and covering one end of the ballroom of the Grand Union Hotel, Saratoga, illustrates his other style, the symbolical. Twenty-four figures, representing the States, are grouped around a central one representing the Re- public. Armand-Dumaresq, after instruction in Couture's studio, through Charles Edouard Armand-Dumaresq accompanying in 1854 the army to Algiers (1826- ), Paris. an( j Italy became a painter of military l *Hon d . 'i; oi/u Hon. '81. genre. Before that time he had painted of. st. Maurice '59. chiefly religious history, as : Christ (1850, church of Dole): St. Bernard Preaching a Crusade (1852): Martyrdom of St. Peter (1863, Cathedral of Caen) : He then appeared (1855) with, besides The Attributes of the Arts and Sciences, two military pictures, The Second Zouaves in Ambush, and Death of General Hirgener. 444 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. From that time almost every year he has exhibited a military piece, twenty-six in all, such as : The Battles of Solferino (1859 and 1865) : Day before Solferino (1869) : Day before Austerlitz (1869). Since the recent movement of the impressionists he is counted in their ranks. His military inspiration has been broad enough to lead him back to the American Battle of Saratoga (1879), and the Surren- der of Yorktown (1875). He also in 1873 painted The Signing of the Declaration of Independence. Protais is the annalist of the Crimean and Italian Wars, to both of which he followed the French armies, as well as of the more recent Franco-German contest. His Morning before the Attack and The _ , A , n , Evening after the Combat, in the Salon Paul Alexandre Protais o 7 (1826- ), Paris. of 1863, and also in the Universal Ex- Med. '6 3 ; l. Hon. '65; of. l. Hon. < 77 . Mbition of 1867, are two of his most Med. 3d cl. '78 E. U. ' important works. 1 He is full of gentle feeling, shown in both his choice of subject and in his treatment, as in his Burial in the Crimea ; his Female Sentinel of 1861 and his Sol- diers' Night March of 1870, in which no movement of the weary limbs for aught but dire need is made as the figures pass in a ghostly, weird way through the shadows of night. He presents soldiers in a manner which makes us feel the common humanity which they share with us ; the relations of the individual not being lost in the clamor and confusion of battle. He shows them as men in their need of rest, their efforts for shelter behind a hill or tree, and as soldiers in their quick alacrity to reform for the march on to the battle front. His Square Battalion was purchased by the Government from the Salon of 1886. Berne-Bellecour formerly painted landscape and genre, but now paints modern warfare in its actual incident, and often gives pictures of _ — dm a battle in which but one army is Etienne Prosper Berne-Bellecour J (1838- ), Bouiogne-sur-M^r. visible, as is frequently the fact. Med. '6 9 ; .st ci. -72 ; 3 d ci. - 7 8 e. u, l. Hon. -78. In Le Co up de Canon, a picture of this class, the men and officers are peering through the smoke to see the result of the firing of a gun. He painted a picture of The Engagement of the Artists' Brigade at Malmaison, in which he gave many portraits of the artists ; Cuvillier is supported by companions ; Leroux is wounded ; Jaquet eager to fire a last shot. By his accu- rately painted earth-works and barricades, and his backgrounds painted 1 The Emperor paid §25,000 for the two from the Salon of 1863. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 445 from miniature models, made from pen and ink sketches taken during the war, he supplies the truth of detailed accessories demanded by the age. In the Salon of 1881 he gave The Attack on the Chateau de Montbeliard, in which the surprised Prussian sentinel lies dead in the foreground, and the French creep up in a long file towards the fortifications. Of the two close competitors for the leadership in the later mili- tary painting, Detaille, ten years the junior, somewhat surpasses De Neuville, who has now, moreover, dropped out of the ranks (1885). Detaille entered the studio of Meissonier in 18G5, immediately after receiving the degree of Bachelor at the Lycee Napoleon. He was in full sympathy with that master's Jean-Baptist £douard Detaille <> -, . -i • • i n (i8 4 8- ) Paris. l° ve °* detail, and is, indeed, conspicuous Med. '69, '70; 2d ci. '72. t among the painters fond of microscojnc m , H °u ' 73i QQ ° f ' L " Hon * ' 8l ' * treatment. His work responds to the eye Med. Hon. '88. r - ; "like the famous general, who, upon the eve of battle, said : ' We are ready, quite ready ; we do not miss a gaiter outton.'" But, using infinitesimal finish only as a means, Detaille aims at and achieves a far broader artistic result than many others of the photographic painters. When, in 1870, he took up arms in aid of his invaded country, he served as secretary to General Appert, who was making topographical plans of the seat of war and the positions of the Prussians. But Detaille, mindful of his art, would even, when drawn to fire upon the enemy, be seen a moment after sketching inci- dents or scenes of his surroundings. Before the war he had exhibited : A Nook in Meissonier's Studio ; Crusaders Shoeing their Horses on the Eoad ; Halt of the Infantry (1868), and Kepose During Drill in Camp St. Maur (1869). The last, painted at twenty-one, gained for him his first medal ; high praise from those critics of authority, Theophile Gautier, Edmond About, and Paul Mantz ; and more orders than he could execute. It confirmed the military tendencies of the pencil sketches of his school days, which had ended but four years before. It showed a photographic exactness of reproduction, missing no line nor mass of light or shade, and a great ability in depicting both horse and man. But, as yet, there is no skill of com- position, no balancing of parts, no gradation of significance — simply reproduction. The officers during the rest light their cigars, arrange their accoutrements ; the privates stand by, or sit on their knapsacks, smoke their pipes, refresh themselves from their canteens, or take a bite of soldiers' bread. Thus the war found Detaille in skill of tech- nique, and by bent of talent ready for the vivid depicting of its events 446 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. so personal to every Frenchman. Fact did not allow him to paint vic- tories for the French ; feeling did not permit him to paint them for the Prussians. It suggested a series of sarcastic but truthful pictures of exact finish, correct color, and artistic composition, and though maintaining always his great qualities, sobriety, precision, and simple dignity, keenly characterizing the nationality of the soldiers, and de- picting the faults and foibles of the conquering army. These found most welcome reception by the people. Our Conquerors, of 1872, one of them, won him a medal. Lean horses draw a four-wheeled cart loaded with pillage — furniture, pictures, and bric-a-brac. From this, Prussian soldiers are making sales to the Jewish traders who have followed them out of Paris. So much had this feeling impressed him that for the graceful decoration required for a fan he designed The Disappearance of the Clocks, and represented a swarm of Prussians growing smaller as they recede into the distant sky, with winged heels and a clock under each arm. His war scenes, which comprise all his art since the war, imply rather than represent the activities and suf- ferings of battle, being preparation for it, or the consequences of it, or times of rest from it. Of this restrained and suggestive treatment his Salute to the Wounded, of 1877, the chivalry of the French to the Germans, owned, like many of his best canvases, in this country, is an implication of the horrors of battle ; his Movement of Troops, of 1873, is a representation of the gay starting out, and implies battle to be, rather than depicts battle that is. His Passing Kegiment, of 1875, is not only famous, but, in its widespread reproductions, universally familiar (Metropolitan Museum, New York). Having become Hors Concours and an Officer of the Legion of Honor, Detaille does not seek the Salons. Of his later productions The Evening of Resonville, August 10, 1870 (1884), a landscape of great truth, of detail, presents, in a picture ten or twelve feet long, a village street after a battle. The light of the setting sun crimsoning the peaks and windows of the houses, and the incidents of vegetation quietly continuing unchecked by the shock of battle, wonderfully enhance the impression of the disturbing nature of war. His Defence of Champigny (December, 1870), pronounced by him- self his masterpiece, hangs with the 1807 — Friedland of his beloved master in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the gift of Mr. Henry Hilton. The Soldiers' Dream, of 1888, won for him the Medal of Honor, and this award of his fellow artists was bestowed by his esteemed master's hand, a cause of mutual gratulation. The enemy, in its venerable chief, the Emperor William, yielded, if not to French THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 447 arms, to French art, as represented by him and the lamented De Neuville, and had in his bedroom, the only pictures there, engrav- ings after these two artists, and under one of them his Majesty had written, with his own hand, "Homage from the victor to the van- quished." De Neuville was an ' e etat-major attache " during the war, and so, no more than Detaille, depended upon abstract conceptions for the aspects . . K , ... of battle, but for himself saw an inexhaustible Alphonse Marie de Neuville (1836- 85), st. omer. variety of episode, every detail of the sad history Med. 3d ei. '59 ; 2d cL '6,. f nat i 0 nal defeat. Destined by his family for a L. Hon. '73 ; Of. L. Hon. '81. J J post in the civil administration, he received a diploma for Bachelor of Arts, but his predilection for the artist's pro- fession led him unhesitatingly to forego the comfortable and easy life his home would have afforded and, without resources, seek the art privileges of Paris. He there took counsel of Yvon and Bellange, and upon the recommendation of Bellange entered the studio of Picot. He had already acquired skill in drawing, manifested in a Naval School (for a time he had planned to be a sailor), and been told by his Professor of Drawing that he would never be anything but a painter. The support illustrations now afforded enabled him to wait to learn his profession carefully, and then with dignity also, although the professional painters taunted him with being only an illustrator, to await purchasers. Guizot's History of France, The Tour of the World, and Jules Claretie's History of the Flag are among his works of illustration. He made his debut in the Salon of 1859 with The Fifth Battalion of Chasseurs, and won a third class medal. Success thus greeted him at the portal of his career. But it became a strug- gle, whose effects the great success of his last fifteen years never fully effaced, to remove the impression that he could not exceed the limi- tations assigned to an illustrator. Energy and industry resulted after- ward in an abounding production, in which he was further encour- aged by the purchase for the Musee de Dijon of his Attack at Magenta (1864). The Bivouac Before Le Bourget (1872, Vanderbilt Gallery) is of great merit. That hamlet near Paris had fallen for the second time into the hands of the Prussians, when there was found in a church a band of about twenty French soldiers, with eight officers, still resisting. The picture represents the survivors carrying out in a chair their wounded commander. The figures are all portraits. The general tone of the picture is gray, but very effective, showing a grasp of pictorial elements combined with the personal expression of the artist. 448 A HIS TOE Y OF FRENCH PAINTING. De Neuville does not equal Detaille in design, nor is he a partic- ularly fine colorist, but he excels in depicting dramatic aspects. His treatment differs from Detaille's in toying with no suggestions, but portraying the thick of the fight when battle is so intense that there are no salutes for the wounded, no regard for the dead, nor even care for the dying. Events compelled him, like Detaille, to depict cour- age in misfortune. He was a thorough Frenchman, and allowed his national sympathy to express in caricature the grim fierceness with which he characterizes the Prussian soldiers. He said, " I have not painted the Germans of gentle mien and manners because they were not so ; the thought makes me shudder," and he caught with remark- able power almost undefinable national characteristics. His keen study of their soldiers led even the Germans to appreciate his art. The Last Cartridge, painted in 1873, showing the wounded soldier supported against a wall to fire a last shot, was full of the sentiment of heroism in defeat, and it, with Le Bourget, formed two impressive pages in honor of soldiers when vanquished : a " gloria victis." His Defense of Rorke's Drift is an incident of the Zulu war painted on an order from the Queen of England. It is full of action, the English, in their red coats in the foreground, a surgeon dressing the wounded at one side. An Incident of the Franco-Prussian War, painted 1883, shows a band of the conquering Germans cutting the wires of the telegraph (owned by Mr. D. C. Lyall, Brooklyn). One stands upon his horse, which is steadied in its place by several others, and deals doughty blows with a sword upon the two lines passing in either direction from the top of the pole. It is the last blow, for the last wire is parting. Groups and individuals of the country people look on, showing satisfaction or chagrin according to their nationality. De Neuville died, May 20, 1885, a very painful death, preceded by partial paralysis. His marriage with Mile. Mariechal, a beautiful and brilliant actress, who had left the stage for him and shared all his struggles for twenty-five years, took place on his death-bed. He and Detaille were always on most brotherly terms, and painted together in 1881 the most celebrated of those gigantic optical illusions, the circular panoramas, the subject being the Battle of Champigny. Other military painters, chiefly of the early part of this period under Napoleon III., are : Jean Adolphe Beauce (1818-'75), Paris : pupil of C. Bazin ; medal 3d class '61 ; Legion of Honor '64. — Jules Vincent Alfred Rigo (1810- ), Paris: pupil of Cog- niet ; medal 3d class '57 ; 2d class '59 ; rappel '61 and '63. — Ange L. Janet-Lange, who besides history also painted very touching incidents of battle. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 449 Among painters of the later battles are : iSmile Antoine Bayard (1837- ), La Ferte-sous-Jouarre : pupil of Cogniet; Legion of Honor '70 ; also paints genre. — lStienne Beaumetz (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Cabanel and Roux ; medal 3d class '80. — Eugene Bellanger (1837- ), Rouen : pupil of his father, L. H. Bellanger (1810-66), the historical painter, and of Picot.— Henri Louis Dupray (1841- ), Sedan : pupil of Pils and Cogniet ; medal 2d class '72 ; 3d class '74 ; Legion of Honor '78 ; stands high in the modern school ; paints, like Detaille, no actual engagements. — Gaspard Gobaut (1814- ), Paris : medal 3d class '47 ; Legion of Honor '71 ; also paints landscape. — Jean Charles Langlois (1789-1870), Beaumont-en-Ange : pupil of Girodet, Gros, and H. Vernet; painted chiefly in the early periods of the century, but in this, at the age of eighty- one, was made Commander of the Legion of Honor ; he became a colonel in the army 1839. — Also others with whom history predominates, as Le Blant and Bou- tigny (v. Historical List). LANDSCAPE AND MARINE PAINTERS. By the high quality of its landscape with figures and animals, the continuing power of the French school in landscape might be shown, were it necessary to turn from the many artists of pure landscape, worthy products of the impulsion of the preceding period, which has been ceaselessly developing a feeling for the beauty of external nature and its changing phenomena. To them the liquid, melting scenes of Corot have furnished a terra firma, the disputed ground of Rous- seau has become a firm foothold from which they reach higher for more extended effects. Retaining the aim of unity of impression, and with simplicity making artistic effect their purpose, the present painters of landscape are far advanced in the true artistic spirit of art for art's sake, in an appeal to the sympathetic imagination rather than by any conquest of technical difficulty. But landscape proper at the Salons, notwithstanding the charming synthetic effects even then attained by the French landscapists, took a place secondary to rustic and other forms of genre, as a surrounding to which, during the high tide of that class of art, pictures of landscape were chiefly hung. It is far otherwise now : conquering Nature not only rules at the Salons in landscape proper, but the touch of her sovereignty is seen in every form of art. A " sensation of landscape " prevails there. Bougue- reau shows his Aurora hovering over a scene of the morning all suffic- ing in itself. Besnard makes the nature that night offers in its starry sky the background of his decorative work, The Evening of Life. Even allegory and portraiture seek some contributions from nature : her sky, her sunset, her foliage, her flowers, or her waves. Under this power new theories are rapidly developing and most subtle 29 450 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. analyses maturing the treatment of light in art, the most marked being that practised by the impressionists. Besides Emile Breton and Emile Bastien-Lepage, an architect, but also an occasional painter of landscape, whose works, in connection with those of their brothers, go to prove that the truthful interpretation of nature is a gift in these families, there are many pure landscapists. Fifteen at least were chosen by the Commission for the Decoration of the Paris Hotel de Ville (May, 1887), for works upon the panels of the grand stair- cases. They are : Bernier, Binet, E. Breton, Busson, Charnay, Delahaye, Demont, Gosselin, Hanoteaux, Lelievre, Emile Michel, Pointelin, Ralfaelli, Yon, and Zuber. But amid all the tendencies to pure impressionism in landscape, attempts are being made to renew the Prix de Rome for Historical Landscape, abolished in 1863. To the urging of this by the Superior Council of Fine Arts in 1885, the Minister pleaded the lack of finances, and in 1887 twenty thousand francs were contributed for that purpose by a private citizen, M. Haumont. Binet is so close an imitator of nature as at times to give the very victor j b b Binet tone °^ reality, as in his Morning at St. Aubin (cont.), Rouen. (1885) ; La Pluie and Summer Morning (1886) ; Med. 3d ci. -82; *d ci. -86. Afternoon of September at St. Aubin (1887). But he does not forget the appeal to feeling above all realism as such simply. Busson, a pupil of Francais and Remond, has since 1846 exhibited forty landscapes of great power, of which The Gamekeeper Returning Charles Busson (1866) is in the Luxembourg, and a charm- (, 822 - ), Montoire. j Before the Shower was in the Salon of Med. 3d cl. '55; rap. '57, '59, '63. Med. 67; 1st ci. ' 7 8. 1883. His qualities are breadth and freedom l. Hon . '66 ; of. '87. 0 f execution and marked power of inter- preting nature's sentiment. With this he maintains close and alfec- tionate alliance by living in his native village the greater portion of the year, and reproducing its picturesque scenes. Le Poittevin, called Poidevin, has been distinguished in landscape and marine, as well as in genre. A full account of his work is given under Rustic Genre. Harpignies, a pupil of Achard, made his debut in 1852 in the line Henri Harpignies of poetic landscape, and soon demonstrated his (1819- ), Valenciennes. worthiness to stand in the first rank as an Med. '66, "68, '69; 2d cl. '78. . ■ . _ ._ . l. Hon. '75; of. '83. artist both m water color and oil. As such Med. Phiia , Pa., ' 7 6. he appears in the Luxembourg in six works, Evening on the Campagna (1866), which also commanded a medal ; THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 451 The Wolf's Jump (1877), of which there is a replica in the Orleans Museum ; The River Aumance and A Benevolent Public (1874); The Valley of the Aumance and Oaks of Chateau-Renard (1875). Only three years before this distinguished purchase by the government this now highly honored artist appeared in the first exhibition of the Salon of the Rejected, but was so much incensed at the occasion as to destroy the refused picture. His landscapes are broadly treated, with great firmness of touch ; are full of truthfulness, light, and great vigor of color. One of his most poetic landscapes, a Moon- light, is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He is "le pere" of the jury both in age and the respect he commands in that body. Sege, a pupil of Flers, painted with a sober execution in large Alexandre stgt pictures luminous compositions, such as Furze in Med'-e 85 -"^ ci • Blossom (1876, Luxembourg), and The Moor (1883), Med. 3d ci. '78 e. u. which the pink and yellow tints of the heath and l. Hon. '74- furze contrast with the gray of the barren rocks. He rendered with great truth the poetic gloom and impressiveness of the moors of lower Brittany in simple and attractive style. Yon, the pupil of Leguien, paints since 1876, before which he Edmond Charles Yon was a wood engraver, those dreamy pictures which ( mT d } ' | Montmartre ' the French synthetical treatment of landscape ena- Medi 2d ci. '79. °l es hi m to m &ke of the environs of Paris. Such L Hon - ' 86 is his River Eure (1882) in the Luxembourg. His Montmartre (to which district of Paris he clings) of 1870 was one of his most impressive works. " The painter of Normandy scenes," Pelouse, wins all suffrages for his talent, which produces charming landscapes with trees of great Lion g. Peiouse accuracy of drawing, and while his clouds are (cont ), pierreiay. sometimes cold, they are emphatically the clouds Med. 2d. cl. '73 1 ist cl. '76. ' J . . r f. ... 2dd. '78 e. u. of the region. After giving much time to the L - Hon Chevreuse Valley, which competes with Barbison for painters' favor, he has developed a devotion for Brittany, where he has now settled. He has Cernay in January (1879) in the Lux- embourg. Bernier, the pupil of L. Fleury, has exhibited since 1876 about camiiie Bernier thirty landscapes of great merit. In them he (1823- >, comar. evinces a sympathy with the poetry of the marshy Med. -68, '6 9 ; 2d ci. - 7 8. « landes " of Brittany rather than with the scen- L. Hon. '72. J . ery of his native Alsace. January in Brittany (1872) is now in the Luxembourg. 452 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. Hanoteau was a pupil of Gigoux, and is one of the most skilful of Hector Hanoteau the detail-loving realists. He has exhibited (1823- ), Decize (N.evre). in all the Salons since 1855, and has become Med. '64, '68, '69; L. Hon. < 79 . ^ ^ ^ Qf Luxembourg by his pictures, The Village Pond, of 1870, and his Frogs, of 1875. He has occasionally exhibited portraits. Guillemet is a pupil of Corot and Oudinot. Though his first appearance was in 1872 his picture of 1874, Bercy in December, found Jean Baptiste Antoine Guillemet ft P laCe in the Luxembourg. He illustrates (contemporary), oise. very happily what a pupil of Corot was ac- Med. 2d oi. '74, '76; l. Hon. ' 8 o. customed to say> name i y? that that master's practice was to make his first aim tonality, and when all the tones had fallen into true relations, he considered the picture substantially finished. Other pupils of Corot who follow more or less his poetical style are : Louis Auguste Auguin (1824- ), Rochefort, but lives at Bordeaux: pupil of Cogniet and Corot; medal 3d class '80; 2d class '84; medal at Vienna '73.— Pierre Emmanuel Damoye (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Corot, Daubigny, and Bonnat ; medal 3d class '77 ; 2d class '84. — Alexandre Defaux (1826- ), Paris: medal 3d class '74; 2d class '75; Legion Honor '81, — CamilleH. Delpy (contemporary), Joigny: pupil of Daubigny and Corot; medal 3d class 1 -'84. — Leon Flahaut (1831- ), Paris: pupil of L. Fleury and Corot; medal '69; 2d class '78; Legion of Honor '81. — Paul Dominique Gourlier (1813-69), Paris: close follower of his master Corot ; medal 3d class '41 ; Honorable Mention '55. — Gaspard Jean Lacroix (1810-78), Turin: medal 3d class '42; 2d class '43, '48; had ability and skill. — Eugene Antoine Samuel Lavieille (1820- ), Paris: medal 3d class '49; medal '64, '70; Legion of Honor '78. — Marie Guillaume Charles Leroux(1814- ), Nantes: medal 3d class '43; 2d class '46, '48, '59: Legion of Honor '59 ; Officer '68.— Alphonse Alexis Morlot (contemporary): pupil of Henner as well as of Corot; med. 3d class '85. — Jules Masure (contemporary), Braine: medal '66 ; 2d class '81 ; paints marines. — Francois Nazon (1821- ), Realmont: pupil of Gleyre, but paints in Corot's style ; medal '64, '66 ; his Banks of the Aveyron in Autumn is in the Lux- embourg. — Emile Louis Vernier (contemporary), Louis-le-Saulonier: also follows the style of Corot in which he has taken medals in '69, '70. Nine landscapes were bought by the state from the Salon of 1888. They were by Cartier, P. Colin, Desbrosses, Harpignies, Isenbart, Leyendecker, Nozal, Pointelin, and Watelin. As all artists of the higher forms of landscape have the same aim, and the differences are those of a personal treatment of the same sub- jects, individual descriptions would necessarily be of great sameness. The list which follows classifies them : THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 453 Louis Hector Francois Allemand (1809- ), Lyons: is of the modern realistic school of art, which he learned from nature and the works of the great masters of landscape; Ruysdael, Hobbima, with a touch of Claude Lorrain. — Auguste Allonge (1833- ), Paris: his paintings in oil are less famous than his marvellous execution in fusain. — Ernest Baillet (contemporary). Brest: pupil of Pelouse; medal 3d class '83.— Achille Jean Benouville (1815- ), Paris: pupil of Picot ; won Prix de Rome for landscape '45; medal 3d class '44: 1st class '63; Legion of Honor '63. — Auguste Francois Biard (1801-'82), Lyons : pupil of Revoil; medal 2d class '27, '48; 1st class '36; Legion of Honor '38; his work covers a great extent of time and space; he exhibited for over fifty years ('31-'82) landscape and genre full of sentiment and humor, drawn from travels extending from Africa and the East to Greenland and Spitzbergen. — Leon Bellee (contemporary). — Eugene Victor Bourgeois (con- temporary), Paris: medal 3d class '85. — Jacques Alfred Brielman (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Lavieille; medal 3d class '82. — Alfred Casile (contemporary), Mar- seilles: medal 3d class '85. — Martin Leonce Chabry(died before April, 1883), Bor deaux: medal 3d class '79. — Charles Charlay- Pompon (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Rapin; medal 3d class '85. — Jean Maxime Claude (1824- ), Paris: pupil of Galland; medal '66, '69; 2d class '72. — Charles Emile Dameron (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Pelouse ; medal 3d class '78 ; 2d class '82; Philadelphia '76. — Emile Dardoize (contemporary), Paris: medal 3d class '82. — Edouard Van Dargent (1825- ), St. Gervais, Finisterre: Legion of Honor '77. — Adrian Louis Demont (contemporary), Douai: pupil and follower of E. Breton. — Leon Victor Dupre (1816- ). Limoges: brother and pupil of Jules Dupre; medal 3d class '49: Phila- delphia '76. — Alexis Dalige de Fontenay: medal 3d class '41; 2d class '44: rappel '61, '63.— Regis Gignoux (1816-82), Lyons; pupil of Lyons Acad., Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and Delaroche. — Andre Geroux (1801- ), Paris: Prix de Rome '25; medal 2d class '22; 1st class '31 ; Legion of Honor '37; exhibited as late as 1874. — Charles Gosselin (1834- ), Paris: pupil of Gleyre andBusson; has caught the charm that lies in the realistic ; medal '65, '70; 2d class '74; Legion of Honor '78. — Eugene Grandsire (1825- ), Orleans: Legion of Honor '74; has Canal at Treport (1881) in Luxembourg. — Jacques Guiaud (1811-79), Chambery: pupil of Watelet and Cogniet; medal 3d class '43; 2d class '46. — Gaston Quignard, (contemporary), Bordeaux : medal 3d class '84.— j\dolphe Irenee Guillon (1829- ), Paris : pupil of Noel and Gleyre; medal '67; 2d class '80. —Alfred Guillou (contemporary), Concar- neau: medal 3d class '77; 2d class '81. — Ernest Victor Hareux (1847- ), Paris: pupil of Busson, Pelouse, Bin, Trottin, and Levasseur; med. 3d class '80; 2d class '85. — Frederick Henriet (1826- ), Chateau-Thierry: Secretary to Count Nieuwerkerke, also author of The Landscapist in the Fields (1866); Chintreul's Life and Works (1874); Daubigny and his Engravings (1875). — Leon Herpin (1841-'80), Granville, Normandy ; medal 3d class '75 ; 2d class '76 ; pupil of Daubigny, J. Andre and Bus- son,— Louis Godefroy Jadin (1805-'32\ Paris: medal 3d class '34; 2d class '40; 1st class '48; 3d class '55 E. U. ; Legion of Honor '54. — Louis Aime Japy (contempo- rary), Berne, Doubs: medal '70 ; 3d class '73; pupil of Francais. — Pierre Alexandre Jeannoit (1826- ), Champlitte, Director of School of Fine Arts at Dijon. — Pierre Georges Jeannoit (contemporary) : son of preceding ; medal 3d class '84. — Roger Joseph Jourdain (1845- ), Louviers: medal 3d class '79; 2d class '81; also paints genre —Felix Hippolyte Lanoue (1812-72), Versailles: Prix de Rome '41 ; med. 2d class '47, '61 ; Legion of Honor '64 ; from a pupil of Bertin he became 454 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. later a landscapist of the naturalistic school. — Louis Emile Lapierre (1817-'86), Paris; medal 2d class '48, '63; Legion of Honor '69; pupil of Bertin, — Emmanuel Lansyer (1836- ), tie de Bouin: pupil of Courbet, Viollet-le-duc, and Harpignies: medal '65, '69 ; 3d class '73 ; Legion of Honor '81 ; gives in fine drawing and charm- ing color views of the neighborhood of Bordeaux and of Brittany. — Charles Lapost- olet (1824- ), Velars: pupil of Cogniet; medal '70; 2d class '82; works in broad treatment of fine and pleasing effect. — Edmond Lebel (1834- ), Amiens: medal '72; A Vow at San Germano (1872) in the Luxembourg; pupil of Cogniet. — Victor Leclaire (1830-85), Paris: medal 3d class '79; 2d class '81.— Charles Joseph Lecointe (1824- ), Paris: Prix de Rome '49; medal 3d class '44, '55, '61 ; has The Barren Fig Tree (1855) in the Luxembourg. — The self-taught Adolphe Leleux (1812- ), Paris: medal 3d class '42; 2d class '43, '48; Legion of Honor '55; paints a few Algerian and Spanish scenes with many of Brittany; his Wedding in Brittany is in the Luxembourg. — Gustave Maincent (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Pils and Cabasson; medal 3d class '83. — Adolphe Charles Marais (contemporary) Honfieur: pupil of Busson, Berchere, and Cesar de Cock: medal 3d class '80. — Francois Emile Michel (contemporary), Metz : pupil of Marechal and Migette ; medal '68 ; has Autumn Sowing (1879) in the Luxembourg. —Frederic Montenard (con- temporary) Paris: pupil of Dubufe, Mazerolle, Delaunay, and Puvis de Chavannes, medal 3d class '83. — Alfred Mouillon (1832-86), Paris: pupil of Delestre ; medal 3d class '80— Victor Na valet ( -'86), Chalous-sur-Marne: pupil of his father; medal '67. — Alexandre Nozal (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Luminals; medal 3d class '82 ; 2d class '83. — Marcelle Ordinaire (contemporary), Maizieres : pupil of Courbet and Francais ; medal 3d class '79. — Camille Adrien Paris (contemporary), Paris: pupil of A. Scheffer and Picot; medal 3d class '74. — Laurent Joseph Pel- letier (1813- ), Eclaron: medal 3d class '41; 2d class '46; in 1855 was appointed Professor of Drawing in School of Metz. — Edmond Petit-Jean (contemporary), Neuf- chateau : medal 3d class '84 ; 2d class '85.— Auguste Pointelin (1839- ), Arbois: medal 3d class '78; 2d class '81 ; Legion of Honor '86. — Paul Emmanuel Peraire (contemporary), Bordeaux: pupil of Isabey and Luminais: medal 3d class '80. — Alexandre Rapin (contemporary), Noroy-le-Bourg : pupil of Francais, Gerome, Gleyre, and Lancrenon; medal 3d class '75; 2d class '77; Legion of Honor '84. — Amedee Rosier (1831- ), Meaux: pupil of Cogniet; medal 3d class '76. — Simile Renard (contemporary), Sevres: pupil of Cabanel and Cesar de Cock; medal 3d class '78. — Arsene Rivey (contemporary), Caen: pupil of Picot, Couture, and Bon- nat; medal 3d class '80. — Henri Saintin (contemporary), (1846- ), Paris: pupil of Pils, Sainte-Marcel, Sege, and Cointepoin; medal 3d class '82. — Hippolyte Victor ValentinSebron(1801-'79),Caudebec : pupil of Cogniet, and earlier a pupil and assist- ant for sixteen years of Daguerre; medal 3d class '38; 2d class '40; 1st class '44; 2d class '48 ; Legion of Honor '67 ; views in France, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Italy and United States, as Niagara; Broadway, New York; etc., illustrate his panoramic work. — Joseph Francois Desire Thierry (1812-66), Paris: pupil of Gros; became later a decorator, medal 3d class '44 ; Legion of Honor '64. — fitienne Adolphe Viollet-le-duc (1817-'78), Paris : pupil of Leon Fleury and Francais ; medal 3d class '52, '61, '70. — Louis Victor Watelin (contemporary), Paris: pupil of Diaz; medal 3d class '76. — Edmond Yarz (contemporary), Toulouse : medal 3d class '84. — Jean Henri Zuber (1844- ), Rixheim (Alsace) : pupil of Gleyre; medal 3d class '75 ; 2d class '87 ; Legion of Honor '86. TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 455 Among painters of landscape of great promise who, haying received a third class medal recently, are en route for Hors Concours : Laurent Guetal (contemporary), Vienna: medal 3d class '87. — Marie Ferdinand Jacomin (contemporary), Paris: son and pupil of J. M. Jacomin (1789-1858) ; medal 3d class '83. — Maurice Lelievre (contemporary): pupil of Dubufe, Mazerolle, Har- pignies, and J. P. Laurens; medal 3d class '86. — Paul Sain (contemporary) Avig- non : pupil of Gerome ; medal 3d class '86. Marine painting in France has been practised by few artists of great qualities. The son of the famous miniature painter, J. B. Isabey (1767-1855), adopted marines after abandoning genre, and has stood at the head of marine painting in France for nearly a century, but he achieved his official honors almost entirely during the second period. He was the royal marine painter of the expe- Eugene Louis Gabriel Isabey . . . nrtr T i j -i • -i m (i8o 4 -'86), Paris. dition to Algiers m 1830, and at his death, Med. istci. '2 4l '27; l. Hon. '32. ig86, still stood first among painters of ma- Med. 1st cl. '55 ; Of. L. Hon. '52. . » ^ nnes. His sixty-two years 01 work, after receiving a first class medal in 1824, left representative works at the museums of fifteen of the cities of France ; those at the Luxem- bourg being The Embarkation of De Ruyter and De Watt (1850) and The Roadstead at St. Malo. Theophile G-autier summarizes his qualities thus : "He has a warm color, a sparkling facility . . . his smallest sketch, his roughest design, reveals the true artist and has no need of a name to be recognized ; every brush stroke is a signature. . . . He is original and creates a microcosm of all his pieces in which he displays his talent. Isabey takes the first motifs at hand ; a stile, a stone, a yawl, painted by him has a spiritual air: his rapid and nervous touch has the certainty of dash of a sweeping hand." Gudin early threw off the influence of Girodet, who was his first master and the earnestness of his nature led him to become an impet- uous romanticist. Under this impulse, his early landscapes and „ .. marines became reyelations of his high sifts Theodore Jean Antome Gudin . ° ° (1802- 80), Paris. as a colorist and of his power of rapid touch. Med. 2d ci. '24; 1st ci. -48, ' 55 . But a conventional and factitious manner of L. Hon. '28 ; Of. '41 ; Com. '55. great monotony ensued. From 1830 to 1840 he exhibited a large number of works, besides eighty undertaken for Versailles ; but under a feeling of indisputable superiority induced by his successes and the special favor of Louis Philippe, he disdained all criticism or counsel, and the greater part of his works at Versailles are pronounced caricatures of genre, and caricatures, moreover, of colos- sal proportions. For earlier works he obtained a medal at twenty- two and a decoration at twenty-eight years of age, and through the 456 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. prestige of being made marine painter to the Courts of Louis Philippe and Napoleon III., has maintained an honored position during the third art-period of this century. Besides his commissions for Ver- sailles, he was appointed by the Emperor to paint for his gallery in 1862, The Arrival of Queen Victoria at Cherbourg. While at the height of his reputation he married a daughter of Lord Hay of Scot- land and thus entered a circle of distinguished relatives. The early marine painters are : Auguste J. M. Jugelet (1805-'74) Brest: pupil of Gudin ; medal 3d class '36 ; Legion of Honor '47 : has been distinguished in both the second and third periods of this century. — Charles Louis Mozin (1806-'62), Paris: pupil of Leprince; medal 2d class '31 ; 1st class '37. Others are : Pierre Alfred Bellet du Poisat (1823- ), Bougoin : pupil of Drolling and Flan- drin and Nicole des Beaux- Arts (1845), following the Dutch style of marine painting and landscape ; he earlier painted in the style of Delacroix. — Hubert Eugene Benard (1834- ), Boulogne-sur-Mer : pupil of Claudius Jacquand; bronze medal, .Rouen, 1860. — Pierre Emile Berthelemy (1818- ), Houen: pupil of Rouen Art School and at Paris of Cogniet and Ecole des Beaux- Arts; painted naval battles, but since 1848, chiefly more quiet marine scenes. — Eugene Berthelon (contemporary), Paris: pupil of E. Lavieille and Berne-Bellecour ; medal 3d class '86. — Eugene Boudin, "the poet of the sea, " the impressionist (contemporary), Honfleur: medal 3d class '81; 2d class '83. — Maurice Courant (1847- ), Havre : pupil of Meissonier ; medal '70 ; painted landscape also. — Vincent Joseph Francois Courdouan (1810- ), Toulon : pupil of Paulin Guerin ; medal 3d class '48, '44 ; 2d class '47 ; Legion of Honor '52. — Auguste Delacroix (1809- ), Boulogne-sur-Mer : through paralysis of his right hand, he painted the works of his last years with his left hand. — Jean B. Durand-Brager (1814-79), Dol: pupil of Gudin and E. Isabey; medal 3d class '44 ; Legion of Honor '44 ; Officer '65 ; he took part in many expeditions of Government; was with the fleet that removed the body of Napoleon from St. Helena in 1840; with the expeditions to Tangiers, Mogador, Madagascar, and the Crimea; accompanied Louis Napoleon to Algiers as his artist, and was artist the same year in the service of the combined French and English fleet at Cherbourg — Marie Flameng (1843- ), Metz, Lorraine : pupil of Dubufe, Mazerolle, E. Delaunay, and P. de Chavannes: medal 3d class '81; also paints landscape. — Frederick Montenard (contemporary), Paris: medal 2d class '83 : a pupil of Vollon who has caught the secret of his master's rich color. —Jean Baptiste Olive (contemporary), Marseilles: pupil of Vollon ; medal 3d class '85 ; 2d class '86.— Hjmile Renouf a 845- ), Paris: pupil of Boulanger, Lefebvre, and Carolus-Duran ; medal 2d class '80 at Munich, 1st class '83 : comprises in his scope landscape, marine, and genre ; sometimes all three in a single picture ; his Helping Hand is a charming piece of marine genre, in which the rough struggle of the heavy yawl and the sturdy hand of the boatman on the heavy oar enhance the puniness of the hand of the child, who is smilingly complacent at the thought, in which the father indulges her, that she is helping THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 457 him in sending the boat over waves that are raising its bow high above their heads ; views near Honfleur represented him in the Salons of '70, '72, '73, '75 and '77. PAINTERS OF STILL LIFE. Still life is seen in great abundance at every Salon. It does not, it is true, demand the highest spiritual traits in the artists, but it requires a sense of color and a sense of quality, and in the perfec- tion reached in it by such different painters as Desgoffe and Vollon, becomes, in reality, high art. Desgoffe, a pupil of Flandrin and the nephew of A. Desgoffe, the landscape painter, makes c< precious copies of precious things." Unlike Blaise Desgoffe the marvellous painting by the Dutch masters of kettles, (1830- ), Pans. k eer b arre i s an d. bottles, his subjects are the priceless Med. 3d cl. '6i. " x Med. 2d ci. 63. onyxes, enamels, porcelains, crystals, rare and ancient L Hon 78 stuffs, and jewels of the Louvre artistically grouped and copied with a finish of detail, beyond which finish can go no further. He has produced effects of great elegance, has, as it were, " added a perfume to the violet," or, more literally, " gilded refined gold." By patient, careful, sincere study and imitation, he has mastered all ex- cellences of exact reproduction, chiefly those of technique. Thus, in rough surfaces, instead of reproducing that roughness by a texture of paint, he represents the texture in the object by a scheme of light and shade, such as is seen in photography. The reflection of an unseen window on the facets of a rock crystal, he paints not by a dash of white, but by a patient and truly Dutch reproduction of the panes of glass on the curving surface. " Desgoffe is the most skilful imitator of near objects alive," says Hamerton, and he confines himself to this class of work. He has two pictures in the Luxembourg and many in America. But Desgoffe does not go beyond exact imitation, while Vollon, a pupil of Ribot, in treating, with somewhat of the feeling of Chardin, the more homely objects of still life, has not only come more closely to the hearts of his public, but his public is the public of connoisseurs who care not for any tricks of "trompe l'oeil," but for art. Though a distinguished painter, moreover, of landscape, marine, (I833-" 6 ), Lyon*. genre, and flowers, his impressive still life serves as a Med. '6 5 , 68, '69. distinctive mark of his talent, as its other forms are a L^Ho'rf '70 ' 7 o'f 78 more common possession. In his Fish of the Sea, of 1870, two common fish are made by his appreciative touch worthy of enshrinement in the Luxembourg. Self-taught, but under the spur of native pictorial insight and susceptibility to historic 458 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. association, his first works sent him to Paris, while yet in his teens. In one of his earliest exhibitions, in which he, unknown and nervous, was watching for the effect his A Bunch of Grapes would produce, to his despair he heard the artist, Philippe Rousseau, exclaim, "Ah ! those grapes make me ill." He was reassured when Rousseau added, ''I could not paint them to save my life." 1 There, though once, at first, rejected at the Salon, he has won many honors, " par la force de la Vollon-te" a punning confrere says in allusion to his persever- ance, and is represented at the Luxembourg also by Curiosities (1863), and The Helmet of Henry II. (1878). Other works are The Kettle (1872) ; Kitchen Interior (1864); Pot au Feu (1863); and his Fisher Girl by the Sea is one of his gems. He now is often elected to the Salon "forty." His Port de la Joliette (1887) should, it was maintained by such critics as Paul Leroi, have won the Grand Medal of Honor. It was a calm expanse of sea, full of air and light and also of sentiment. Vollon is very far from being an imitator, but invests his subjects, even of still life, with every pictorial suggestion, ambient air, rich and luscious color, and vivid expression. In a word, he does not copy, he expresses himself, and his still life subjects, from their air and light, have been called ei interior land- scapes. " His Salon picture of 1888 was The Farm Yard, and in it his rendering had not lost the suggestions with which it elevates to high charm such humble themes as even a pile of refuse. His son, Alexis, won at his debut, at only twenty years of age, Honorable Mention at the Salon of 1885, by a portrait of his sister. He is a close student of nature. Other painters of still life are : Joseph Bail (contemporary)), Limonest: pupil of J. A. Bail; medal 3d class '86, and a worthy follower of Vollon. — Dominique Rozier (contemporary), Paris: pupil of A. Vollon; medal 3d class '76; 2d class '80; his picture of that year, The End of Supper, was bought by the State. — Charles Armand Thomas (contemporary), Paris : pupil of Leclaire ; medal 3d class '86. Painters of fruits and flowers are : Mile. Henriette de Longchamp (contemporary), Saint-Dizier: medal 3d class '47; 2d class '48. — Joanny Marsiat (1824- ), Lyons: pupil of Henrich Lehmann ; medals '64, '67; 2d class 72. — Francois Martin (contemporary), Paris: medal 3d class '81. — Madame Euphemie Muraton, nee Duhanot (contemporary), Beaugency: medal 3d class '80. — Ernest Quost (contemporary), Avillon : medal 3d class '80; 2d class '82; the picture of that year, The New Season, was acquired for the Luxem- bourg. — Jean Regnier (1815-'86), Lyons: pupil of Lyons School of Art; medal 2d 1 Pierre d'Igny iu Art and Letters, June, 1888. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 459 class '48; rappel '61; Legion of Honor, '63. — Simon Saint-Jean (1808-60), Lyons ; pupil of Art School at Lyons and of Thierriat: medal 3d class '34; 2d class '41, '55: Legion of Honor '43 ; is called the modern Van Huysem. Auguste Mathieu (1810- ? 64), Paris : medal 2d class '42 ; Legion of Honor '59, took his high rank as a painter of architecture. THE IMPRESSIONISTS. Still another world of art has arisen out of the common origin of the nineteenth century's special forms of aesthetic expression, namely, the close study of nature and external phenomena. Only recently so recognized, "impressionism" is a legitimate development, closely related with that signal one of 1830, though for a long time regarded but as a meteor destined to go out with a flash. For a time it was, indeed, nebulous, unformed, and indefinite. This new world of art has been created from broader views of the actual ; from motifs how- ever humble deriving value from quality of tones if rendered in a sin- cere interpretation, tones fully and frankly given in open air ; it is, indeed, a world of new relations to the sun and atmosphere : they freely stream into it over all barriers, which are, however, chiefly those of tradition and convention. From year to year it has assumed more and more precision of movement, until now its orbit and its direction are recognized as established. 1 In its highest forms, this latest prod- uct of the feeling for external phenomena initiated by ''the men of 1830," is accepted, and the names of many of its artists are continu- ally seen among those elected judges of art, the jury of the Salon. But while this recognition has been accorded by force of the vast amount of talent working in this field, and while the great influence the movement has had is undeniable, the end, the ultimate result, the final estimate to be placed upon an art still savoring of eccen- tricity, is yet a question. It is not an art of thought or dreams ; it disdains the imagination, though often its perception of the harmonies » of realities is most delicate and moving. Is the result to be that sentiment and fancy shall be crowded from art, except the fancy inherent in luminous impression? Or in their own line is it to be demonstrated that, in art, man is but a patch of color with out- lines melting into air ? The Salon of 1887 showed the disarray of forces at its height, and, while it did not present great achievement i " As to the painters, whatever their class, specialists or not, behold them all or nearly all captivated by this current of open air and of light." — Georges Lafenestre ; Kevue des Deux Mondes, June, 1887. 460 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. in master-works, showed the nature, tendencies, and great vitality of the movement in its present stage, which is that of a subtle analysis of luminous phenomena. A history of struggle for its initiators and leaders had preceded this and, in the individuality its sincerity of interpretation allows, its varied practice has a varied value. The claim of its followers to reproduce exactly what is seen at the moment of sight — the fugitive aspect of things — and therefore to present a true realism, takes importance in their further claim, that painting this aspect of objects supplies the sensation that forms the basis of, and is necessary to just that emotion which nature and actuality produce. Thus it limits painting to its true province, picturesque appearance, and excludes that in which it recounts, romances, disserts, or dissects. Its practice differing much in different artists, but in all having the common merit of luminous harmony, gives the color in patch (" tache ") against the horizon with little definiteness of outline, little or no relief, and, by many of the artists, no cognizance is taken of what four centuries ago was considered so great an achievement in the progress of art — perspective. Perspective is the great difficulty of their strong lights, and model- ling can hardly be effected without gradations of shade. It is, indeed, a difficult problem with which they struggle, for unyielding Science does not supply to artists the colors of nature. Implacable, she imprisons them within limits, affording them neither nature's height of lights nor nature's depth of shadows. This reduced scale, this lowered key, renders absolute reality of colors impossible to paint- ing. But it softens harshnesses and sharp brilliancies, and leaves the essential expression, the reality of impression, still attainable. Struggling for this in a higher degree, perhaps, than these manacles of science will allow, many of these artists show all the qualities required for true art. In rendering their subjects, they are both moved and moving, impressed and impressing, and have a knowledge of the laws of color, of even its contrasts, complements, and irradia- tions, and, under a sky dulled by cloud or fog, often produce unques- tioned effects. But colors in full sunlight are baffling to them. They see and reproduce blues and violets in the shadows, and in many of their landscapes light blue and purple become the predominating hue; but it is true that at the requisite distance all falls into place, the blues become mist or simply distance, the pinks, light tinged by some refracting medium, and all is, indeed, a pleasing landscape. They have been greatly influenced by the methods of color of Japanese art. Their advocate, Theodore Duret, says : THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 461 ' ' Before the arrival among us of the Japanese picture-books, there was no one in France who dared . . . put side by side on his canvas a roof frankly red, a white-washed wall, a green poplar, a yellow road, and blue water. The painter told nothing but lies. Nature with its fresh hues put out his eyes . . . and we saw on his canvas only faded colors drowned in a general half tone. . . . The impressionist paints without hesitation upon his canvas water which has this, that, or the other hue. The sky is overcast, ... he paints water that is milky, heavy, opaque ; the sky is clear, he paints the water sparkling, silvery, with an azure sheen. The wind is stirring, he paints the reflections broken by the ripples. The sun goes down and darts its rays along the water, the impressionist . . . dashes upon his canvas yellow and red. . . . The winter comes . . . the impressionist perceives that in the sunlight the shadows thrown upon the snow are blue, without hesitation he paints blue shadows. . . . Certain clayey soils in the country take on a lilac tone, the impressionist paints lilac land- scapes. Under a summer sun in the shade of green leafage, the skin and clothes take a violet tint, the impressionist paints violet people in the woods. Then the public lose all self-control and the critics shake their fists. . . . They do not take the pains to see if what they see painted corresponds or not to what the painter has really seen in nature. . . . The impressionist's work does not look like the work of the painters that went before him. . . . Therefore it is bad." 1 The strangest effects are seen in their figures and portraits, in the sacrifice of form, which color given in " patch " involves. After the discontinuance in 1874 of the Salon for Rejected Pictures, they, on account of the alleged illiberality of the jury of the Salons, organized exhibitions of their own (1877). They announced these under the names, Impressionists, Independents, and Intransigeants (1879), but the more truly descriptive one, the first, still clings to them. These exhibitions were continued until 1882, when dissensions destroyed further organization. They were for some time the butt of derision, the objects of caricature in the comic journals and at the theatres. Their work seemed the most unreal of realisms, and to the unaccus- tomed eye, what were called accords seemed most discordant. The failure to perceive any true art in the movement was aided by the extremes adopted by some in accentuating the most extravagant forms of the new faith and exaggerating its already strange effects. The fact that they accept a synthesis of effects, the modifications of each tone by its connection with all, as more mature results now indicate, goes far towards proving the derision and rejection of their work to be but a reenacting of the fealty to tradition and habit of eye, of the illiberality that crushed Rousseau and Millet in their early works and left Corot unappreciated. The impressionists claimed this, and i Introduction to Catalogue of Works of the Impressionists of Paris, New York, 1886. 462 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. asked only for time to prove the merit of their art. They urged, what was the fact, that it was a further evolution of the naturalism for many years being wrought out in the French School ; that Corot and Courbet were their real ancestry ; and that their art was only, as was due from posterity, an advanced attainment in the same line. The result which as yet, it must be admitted even by their partisans, shows tendencies rather than completed achievement, has nevertheless in- fluenced the color of the entire French School, has broadened the artists' views of the actual, and by protesting against hard outlines, which certainly do not exist in nature (however valuable they may be in that " correspondence" to nature which art is), but masses instead, they have unquestionably developed the present study of values, that is, the relative intensity of light or dark that colors possess inde- pendently of their hues. In their personal interpretation Pissaro has a tendency to see blue everywhere, Caillebotte ignores conventional perspective, Claude Monet, with an abnormal eye for complementary tints, paints delicate symphonies in violets, Gervex plays with color and makes light serve him with a seductive charm, and Besnard gives originality and feeling to historic works, as shown in his decoration for the Hall of Marriages of the Second Arrondissement of Paris. For this in 1887 he con- cluded a history of marriage by The Evening of Life, in which an aged couple sit upon the steps of their home and, reflectively drawing together, look out upon an evening sky, but one full of stars. Some paint, without any details, the impression in the simple values of the large masses, in substantiation of the claim that that is all that one sees. However this, in a varying degree in different artists, requires also a detailed finish in parts that fall directly under the eye, as is illustrated in Duez's Around the Lamp, which represents a young man and his wife playing chess, while the mother-in-law sits by knitting ; the man's face, resting on his hand as he contemplates a move, is in full light and is of a highly detailed finish, while the wife, seen in profile against the light, in shadow, is very sketchily treated. Another form is that of a peculiar truncated composition, that is, a fragment of an object or objects placed in the foreground. This has the aim of concentrating attention on some special detail and emphasizing the artist's intention, as in Degas's pictures of ballet girls, of whom some- times only a truncated portion is presented, cut off by the falling curtain. But in it is centred a graceful rhythm of motion, and thus is assured to the spectators that special delight of the impressionists, the momentary, incidental view. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 463 Impressionism is an elastic term so far as it is to be applied to a so-called "school." Rigidly applied it is misleading. There are, it may be said, two kinds of impressionists. Henry Houssaye said in 1882 : "Impressionism receives every form of sarcasm when it takes the names Manet, Monet, Eenoir, Caillebotte, Degas ; every honor when it is called Bastien-Lepage, Duez, Gervex, Bompard, Danton, Goeneutte, Butin, Mangeant, Jean Beraud, or Dagnan-Bouveret." There is cause for this different estimate. The latter painters have a nicety of finish, a delicacy of treatment wholly unknown to the former, which they carry out under the impressionists' doctrine of light and color. Others are : Pissarro, Sisley, Eugene Vidall, Ralfaelli, Forain, Gauguin, Rouart, Vignon, Zandomeneglai, Boudin, Desboutins, Auguste Flameng, Melin, Huguet, D. Langee, Armand Dumaresq, Fleury-Chenu, Roll, Henry Chenu, Besnard, Fautin, Montenard, Guillaumin, Serret, Signac, Benassit, Seurat, Morizot, Lepine and John Lewis Brown, a Frenchman, but of English name, 1 representing various degrees of the special practice, from pictures that, for lack of perspective, are without form, being apparently the spectrum's hues in every combination thrown together at hazard, to those simply brightened by very luminous tones. Every class of subjects is treated, landscape, out-door genre, history, and portrait. Many names of note, it may be seen, grace the list. Bastien-Lepage is the " glorious master," but Manet was the pre- cursor of this movement : he bore the odium of its initiation ; his , followers are reaping the advantages of the riper views Edouard Manet " " G r (i833-'83>, Paris, of both the public in judging and the artists in practis- l^h 2d,C 8 81 i nnova ^ on - But this arcn innovator first drew breath under the very eaves of what was then (1833) the rigid sanctuary of academical art, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, against whose teachings he was to have a life-long struggle, and during which he was to be pursued so nearly to the death as to be well-nigh excluded, after previous admissions, from the last Salon of his life, that of 1883. After making, at the age of seventeen, a voyage to Rio Jan- eiro as a sailor, to which he was forced by the determination of his family to secure him to commercial pursuits, but in studies of which he has left many indications of his artistic tendencies, he travelled in Germany and Italy. He was fascinated with Venice, whose art was, however, but a shade dearer to him than that of Spain as he then 1 Pictures by the last twenty-one, together with others by Manet, Renoir, Degas, Caillebotte, and Pissaro, were exhibited as works of The Impressionists of Paris in New York, April, 1886. 464 A HISTORY OF FRENCH FAINTING. saw it at the Louvre. He studied with Couture six years (1851-'57). But masters had little influence upon the young man, who, from the first, discarded all tradition and made his view of nature his sole guide. The result was as expressed by Duret in announcing the exhibition of impressionists' works in 1886 in New York : " It may be said without exaggeration that criticism has gathered together all the insults it has emptied on his predecessors for the last fifty years to throw them in a heap on the devoted head of this artist." But having a private income which guaranteed him against risk of starvation, he coura- geously persisted in his convictions, adopted the motto based upon his name " Manet et manebit," 1 and still advocated and practised paint- ing what the moment of vision saw in nature, uninfluenced by tradi- tions or by what mere habit of eye had taught. This momentary vision could take in but a portion of a scene, the rest was reproduced in the confusion of indirect vision. All his excellences and defects are due to this fundamental aim, to paint the exact vision of the moment. He pursued it through partial failures, and succeeded — in pointing out a way to others. Fascinated with a clue which he undoubtedly grasped, observation in itself became the aim of his study, and subject was of value only as it afforded opportunities of observation, chiefly in a luminous arrangement of patches. His first sketches were always of great power, but he seemed so to delight in the first impression, that he desired to go no further ; he was so susceptible to sensation that its repetition wearied, especially as all opportunity for observa- tion in that special case was then exhausted. Being refused at the regular exhibitions, he appeared in the Salon of the Rejected while it continued, and in 1867, being excluded from the Universal Exposi- tion, exhibited his works by themselves, as Oourbet, who strangely looked askance at the new art, also did the same year. Both his merit and the public estimate of it grew until in 1881 the jurors of the Salon (some of them, it is true, younger painters who had been under his influence, as Gervex, Roll, Duez, Butin), voted him a medal, and termed it " a Medaille de Reparation for twenty years of effort." Bravely as he had borne abuse and condemnation, he had been somewhat depressed by the accumulation of unsold pictures in his studio, and now derived great satisfaction from this mark of extraneous approval. Further acquaintance on the part of the public had then also established that he was not a merely sensational painter, but one of sincere convictions, and that he had, also, the culture of a man fond of and esteemed by society. Manet always divided the critics 1 It is here, and will remain THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 465 into friends and enemies — none remained indifferent ; when his name was now called for the distribution of the awards, the applause of his friends led to the hissing of his enemies. In 1882 he was also deco- rated by his early comrade in the studio of Couture, Antonin Proust, who was now the Minister of Fine Arts, and now, too, Chesneau was found making the claim : ''Manet has a rare power of just vision of objects; in their coloring, their luminous vibration, their appearance, undulating, fugitive, passing. Far from rendering his forms motionless, he seizes them in all their mobility, and leaves an impression of movement in his pictures, not more arrested than is that of actual movement." He accomplished this expression of movement, of life, which, with luminousness of tone, constituted his personal achievement for art, as Millet did that of sound in his Angelus, by his truth to detailed realities, the close following of the indications of movement, and by a simplification of his subject. In this he made constant progress. He had early won supporters and partisans. Delacroix recognized his power, and his sincerity won him friends among men of letters. As early as 1861 Gautier saw in his Guitar Player "much talent, a valiant brush, and truth of color." Zola was his earnest admirer, and pro- nounced a eulogy upon him at his funeral. After his death there was accorded to him what, in his early artistic career, would have seemed beyond possibility, an exhibition of his works in the Palais des Beaux- Arts. It illustrated the entire growth of his art from his attempts under Couture, through a period when he was influenced by Velasquez, then, as he pursued simplification of subject, to finally his works of "plein air" following 1866. It numbered 120 canvases, 22 etchings, 31 pastels and some aquarelles, and so much had he won the adhesion of the public to his principles, that his work commanded high appre- ciation and in very many instances even extreme admiration. He had become an important influence in the history of art, but its effect in relation to his own accomplishment is well described by Honore Dau- mier, in saying : "Manet has rendered distasteful to me the compli- cated painting of the schools, without winning me to love his own : " he had demonstrated principles now more or less accepted, as concerns light, by all the younger painters, but had not perfected results. His Race Course will illustrate the practice of the school in partial finish: The horses, in their full speed, have every sinew strained, their limbs stretched forth in lines continuing horizontally those of their bodies, the minutest detail of speed is reproduced, as well as a high finish given to every portion of their struc- 30 400 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. ture. This part of the picture is made, as in the actual, the point upon which the eye is supposed to fall. All else, even the grand stand of spectators, is mere dashes of paint of various colors; no faces, ho forms. A Dead Man (1804), which is the matador of his picture The Bull Fight, much criticised and finally destroyed, together with the Child with a Sword; a portrait of Adolphe Belot, called " Bon Bock," from the foaming glass upon the table ; The Spanish Ballet ; and the Guitarist (1801), are all of great charm of luminousness. Some of his most remarkable pictures are an Olympia (1805), a young woman in flat white, with a cat in flat black at her feet, a contrast quite frequent with him, and a Nana which, though of a grace and elegance unusual with him, was excluded from the Salon of 1877, as being also of great indelicacy. Monet has been less extreme in the adoption of the peculiarities of the impressionists than those associated with him in this classifica- tion. Renoir's figures of portraits or fancy are in flat tints, entirely without relief, all of the same tone. Monet's use of complementary tints is often exaggerated. With his fine artistic powers, his pictures vary. Under a subdued light they show great excellences, as his Views at Rouen ; Scenes in Holland ; and Low Tide ; and justify the admiration felt for him by a small band of amateurs. It is bright skies that give him trouble, though these, at distance, "at the requisite point," as he would say, take a semblance to a far-off scene viewed from a window or the impressions of passing travel. Caillebotte and Degas only out-Monet Monet, and in presence of their pictures one is saddened; feels a desolation as if by some uncanny influence set back in civilization into an unsympathetic world, amid the tentative efforts of Byzantine art, with figures that have not yet learned their relations to the hills and trees; and has an urgent desire to look upon Rous- seau's landscapes with genuine green foliage and long ranges of dis- tance, instinctively reechoes the exclamation of Paolo Uccello under the fascination of its early practice, 66 How sweet a thing is perspective "! But Bastien-Lepage, respiring with his infantile breath that sen- timent from nature which was yielded even in increasing measure to his maturing penetration of her truths, and whose infantile hand was trained by paternal affection, solicitous that he might be equijDped to obtain position under the administration, to Jules Bastien-Lepage ± , (i8 4 8-'84), Damviiiers. an exactness of reproduction, a " probity ot Med. 3 d ci. '74 ; 2d d. ' 75 . representation, won not only approval, but 3d cl. '78 E. U.; L. Hon. '79. r , ' ' . J . . , touched the heart of the public, by the simple, earnest pictures which, full of the poetry of common things, were THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 467 afforded by both his brush and his life. "Soyez poetes," wrote Bonlanger in his brochure " &, mes eleves" in 1885, opposing "this modern tendency " " based on vulgarity," " an emanation of the bour- geois mind," "a personal treatment," "without precedent in history." But in practising it, Bastien- Lepage culled from nature the most delicate flowers of poetry in their most fragrant bloom. Poetic suggestion with vigorous reality forms the foundation of his work. Most of the acconnts of him by his French contemporaries would give as a summary : " His pictures were sincere and penetrating interpretations of nature ; he is dead, cut off in youth and hope ; we loved both him and his art." His life gives touching instances of filial regard and grateful memory of parental sacrifice in his early struggles ; one, his taking to the silk marts of Paris that he might array her, even against her humble protestations, in its richest fabrics, his "brave little mother," who had earlier gone "afield" that she might send to him the hire of another thus saved ; another, the crowning of his octogenarian grandfather with the honors of his success by incorporating with his own, his name, Lepage. His brush presents views of the fields, woods, and sunlight of his home in the land of the Meuse, and of the simple life around it, learned "by heart" as thoroughly as ever was Millet's. " I acquired my trade in Paris .... but I did not learn my art there," he wrote in 1875. 1 His art, in its best forms, was virtually the opening of windows into the Salon through which streamed the sunshine and "plein air" and with them the bright, too bright for the unaccus- tomed eye, coloring of nature. Like a veritable Giotto he exercised his native tendency to copy at the age of five all things of the wayside, and this tendency was developed by his father's requirement that he should copy in the winter evenings some object of the household. The facility thus acquired, added to his gifts, enabled him to bear off at eighteen several prizes for drawing at the College of Verdun. He had been sent there at great sacrifice to the family, whose resources had also to supply the education of a younger brother, always very dear to Jules. He then announced his desire for an artistic education, which proved a cause of great sorrow in the family to which, including the wise old grandfather, art did not seem a sufficient career. At last maternal love first made a step towards yielding and timidly ventured, says his friend Theuriet, " However, if it is Jules's desire " — and Jules went to Paris in 1861, bravely undertaking for six months the double life of a 1 Theuriet, also Fourcond iu the Gazette des Beaux-Arts. 468 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. postal agent by night and an art student by day. Finding this impracticable he resolved to trust to the ravens for bread and secured art instruction by entering the studio of Oabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The ravens responded. The grandfather, Lepage, aided, as he could, from the small pension upon which he had retired from a clerkship in the imposts, and the family contributed, as they might, a monthly sum to swell the pension of 600 francs accorded by the Council General of the Meuse. In the war of 1870, as a volunteer in a company of francs tireurs, his disregard of life was evident. Being wounded, his commander, the painter Castellani, detained him in the hospital until the war was over. Thus saved to art, he presented at the Salon in 1874 his first pictures that commanded attention, as that of the preceding year, Spring, had been hung too high to be seen. They were : one, a semi-allegorical, semi-realistic treatment, adapted to decoration in the style of Puvis de Chavannes, w T hom he greatly admired, The Song of Spring ; and the other, The Portrait of my Grandfather. This was signed Jules Bastien-Lepage. The former was acquired by the State, and the latter won a medal for the artist of twenty-four years. Thus his first success was achieved under the grateful adoption of his grandfather's name, and under it he also first appeared in the critiques of the Salons. He was at once dubbed a revolutionary, for this was a picture in "open air," little like a portrait, as he had not posed his model of " Socratic head," but surprised him in a familiar act, with his snuff-box in his hand, and had painted him from the " vision of the moment," in the garden of the house at Damvillers. But its full lights served only to reveal great accuracy of drawing and an intense penetration into the life of the model, and his advocates declared that he was in the true line of tradition, even that of the sixteenth century. Commissions for portraits ensued. At the next Salon he exhibited that of the banker, Hayem, which appealed more to the public by its broad and conscientious execution, and The Communicant, more to connoisseurs and artists. The latter in its originality showed some elements in common witli Puvis de Chavannes — a naif awkward- ness, a knowledge and sincerity, and, withal, the modern senti- ment. That year too he had competed for the Prix de Eome. The subject, The Annunciation to the Shepherds, was a scene of the country, and in open air, all in the line of his tendencies. It was strongly conceived, and executed in his personal manner, and with his susceptibility to truth of impression, he had given to it in a marked manner the impression of a Bible narrative. Crowds w r ere THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 469 attracted to it, to the entire neglect of the nine competing pictures. The shepherds are startled, as they sleep around a fire in the open air, by the angel, who points to Bethlehem in the distance surrounded by a miraculous aureole. The poetry of legend and the sentiment of reality were combined. Its reception was a seeming augury of its success ; the verdict of all presaged it ; Sarah Bernhardt placed a piece of laurel in the frame — but Comerre won the prize. 1 Madame Baskerscheff, a Russian and mother of one of his pupils, bought it. The next year he made another attempt, but not in sympathy with the subject, Priam Demanding the Dead Body of Hector, and seeking to conform in his treatment to the accepted standards, he failed to express the poignancy of emotion demanded by the incident. He thus escaped, it may be said, four years of further academical art, for excellent usually as fundamental work, it could only have post- poned his success in his own direction, until the maturer strength of his tendencies should have restored him to his true poise after such a deflection. He painted portraits for support and, subdued in feeling, analyzed the cause of his failure, and by it attained to a comprehen- sive view of the value of art tendencies, and, more fully convinced, returned to his light and air, to the nature that he loved. Of this he now became even a more patient, conscientious, and delighted student. During his life of thirty-six years' struggle he always, to whatever artistic result or pecuniary need it might lead, worked in absolute sincerity. Thus he became the painter of the peasants of the Meuse in their rustic surroundings. His next important picture was The Hay Makers (Les Foins), 1878. His own pen picture of it in writing to Theuriet, presents it to us : " . . . Of faint tones ; hay half dry, and hay in flower, all in the sun resembling a stuff of pale yellow woven with silver, bouquets of trees bordering the stream and the field, giving vigorous spots, a Japanese aspect." It presented laborers, habituated to work from infancy and of peas- ant face, form, and dress, rendered with deep insight of character, now in the heat of the day taking a moment's rest under the fatigue 1 That evening the friends of the two were supping at the restaurant of Mile. Anna, when an American artist, having been raised upon the shoulders of others, crowned with laurel a picture hanging there, painted by him to whom the artists had judged the prize properly to belong, Golden Youth. This, a scene in a forest with cupids hovering over young lovers, had been painted by Bastien-Lepage, in his time of poverty, to cancel a debt of 300 francs to Mile. Anna, whose restaurant was hung with pictures by the needy young artists of the Latin Quarter, for to them she was an indulgent creditor. After he became famous, many times this sum was offered for it but steadily refused. 470 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. of a forenoon's work. It was much discussed at the Salon, became an influence in art, and won many converts to the open air cult of Bastien-Lepage. But in the main, his pictures still remained unsold in his studio, while portraits furnished his support, though at the death of Gambetta, in 1882, he was employed to design the funeral car. From his studies of peasants, by a growth so natural that it might almost have been predicted, he conceived a picture of that greatest of peasants, Joan of Arc Listening to the Voices (1880, Boston Museum), of which the background was still the garden at Damvillers. The critics having breathed the air of his Hay Field and of its pendant, The Potato Harvest, or October, of 1879, complained of a lack of atmos- phere in this, and also condemned the representation of the inspiring voices, which are a subdued " materialization of spirits ; " and its want of gradations of shades. From others it won enthusiastic admiration. The young girl is a poetic figure, in peasant's dress, listening with dilated eyes. The artist set high value upon it, and hoped for the Medal of Honor. That was awarded to Aime Morot, and Bastien- Lepage absented himself in London and there conceived an Ophelia from Shakespeare, but never completed it. One hundred drawings, and more than two hundred of his paint- ings, all, except the Joan of Arc, exhibited at the Salons of the last ten years, were, after his death, collected for the first time, and exhibited in Paris in March, 1885, at the Hotel de Chi may, an annex of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Conspicuous ones besides those already mentioned were : The Beggar ; Le Pere Jacques ; Village Love. All of them were scrupulously real, but full of poetry, a mingling found so charming in many of the younger French artists' works. He is extolled for his portraits, " before them one inevitably thinks of Hol- bein ; " he i( pursued a likeness with an intensity of drawing," as he himself observed of the portraits of Clouet, and his friends called him " le primitif." He painted portraits of Hayem (1873) : Wallon (1876) : Lady L., the only full-sized standing portrait by the artist, and Mes Parents (in the garden at Damvillers, 1877) : Andre Theu- riet; William Klotz (1878): Madame Sarah Bernhardt; Emilo Bastien- Lepage (1879) : M. Andrieux (1880) : Albert Wolff ; the Prince of Wales (1881): M.W.; and Gambetta on his Deathbed (1882). That of Madame Drouet (1883), the friend of Victor Hugo, was one of his latest. As she was suffering with a cancer, and was struck down with her fatal illness at one of the sittings, the artist, when he came to die of the same disease, could never be divested of the idea that it had been communicated to him while painting this portrait. His last THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 471 drawing was a likeness of himself, made in black lead in bed during bis last illness ; his last painting, Moon Eise in Algiers, whither he bad gone seeking health. Duez's natural bent for the study of art attained its aim only when he was of the mature age of twenty-seven, after having patiently accepted the family decree that he should enter a silk 0 843-* A )" Paris!" house f° r business, and remaining there three years. Med. 3d ci. 74- He then was allowed to go to Pils for instruction, and L^Hon* -8° 79 ' was also a pupil of Carolus-Duran. With all his im- pulses prompting to fineness of detail and developing an exquisite technique, he was, nevertheless, caught by the principles of Manet, and became a conspicuous impressionist. He had felt his way through several stages, the historical while with Pils, then by a Dead Christ, of 1868, the religious, and he is most accurately classed now as a painter of genre ; but it is a genre of " open air," as is illus- trated in his Honeymoon and his Accouchee, a woman resting in a corner of a garden and looking upon the sea. He also paints portraits and landscape. The beauty of the face of woman, and the flow of her draperies, mingled with the depth of sky and wide sweep of horizon that the sea carries with it, furnish his affinities and his suc- cesses, as in his Beach of Villerville. He had won no notice until he adopted Manet's principles of painting in patch and in the diffused light of open air, his first success being his Honeymoon, of 1873. He, however, keeps his outlines correct, although he makes them slight by enveloping them in atmosphere. Splendor and Want (1874), two full length figures, courtesans, in the same frame, established his reputation. Although criticised, condemned, accused of being merely sensational, it was at once purchased by an English amateur, who refused to allow any reproduction of it in any form. His Legend of St. Outhbert (1879), in winning a place in the Luxembourg, gave him officially acknowledged rank, which all the penetrating thought of Dore won with great difficulty. This is a triumph of realistic art, and far removed from the traditional treatment of religious subjects. The legend represents the Saint as receiving bread from an eagle, and the scene of this miracle was the rocks just above Villerville. The picture represents a spirited and powerful eagle outlined against the sea. Was it its relation to the sea rather than its religious motive that dictated this choice of subject ? It is cer- tainly totally devoid of religious fervor. In a series of portraits, as Butin (1880) and De Neuville, it is related that Duez insisted upon having all sittings in the open air, 472 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. even in storm and wind. In the Salon of 1888 his work was Virgil. Butin, a pupil of Picot and of Pils, was a painter of the sea and its associations. Like Duez, he had a studio on the beach at Viller- , . . _ 4 . ville, and while Duez makes the errand waters Ulysse Louis Arynole Butin 7 ° (i838-'83), st. Quentin. the backgrounds, the support, of his little family Med. 3d d. '75 i ^d ci. - 7 8. and soc i e ty scenes, Butin affected the sea itself L. Hon. '8i. . and the life of the sea. Scenes of this kind he rendered in a broad treatment with depth of feeling and in a vein of sadness, as, in the Luxembourg, The Fisherman's Funeral, of 1878. In the door of the humble dwelling, comrades of the fishing village and peasants from the surrounding country, collect about a coffin, above which tapers burn and around which the weather-beaten men kneel. A Sailor Wife Sculling a Boat, of the Salon of 1879, is a well-conceived, well-rendered, statuesque figure, with a vigorous hand controlling the boat, slightly swaying in the water. The gray atmosphere softens all, but also imparts a melancholy tone to the picture. His last picture (1883) was The Launching of the Boat. Others are : Mussel Boats at Viller ville (1874); Saturday at Villerville (1875); Women at Cap- stan (1876) ; Departing (1877). A group of younger artists, Gervex, Roll, and Jean Beraud, have carried painting into new fields of contemporary life : the two latter into the grimiest and hottest of its labor, while Ger- Henn Gervex ° 7 (1848- ), Paris. vex has chosen for 1887 The Clinique of Dr. Pean, into Med. 2d ci. '74, '76. which he has allowed all the impressionists' light of L. Hon. '82. the skies to stream upon the figures of professors, stu- dents, and attendants, given in portrait. Roll and Beraud have also recognized the claim of the Boulevards and Paris Alfred Philippe Roll to (Contemporary), Paris. streets to be represented among the pictures of Med. 3 d ci. '75 ; ut ei. '77. contemporary life. In his Funeral at the Madeleine L. Hon '83 (Salon 1879), in a clever characterization without derision, but in simple observance of facts and manners, Beraud has jean Beraud s tyly represented the accompanying simula- (Contemporary), St. Petersburg, tion of grief. On the Boulevard, In the but of French parentage. Champs Elysees, and The Boulevard near Med. 3d cl. '82 ; 2d cl. '83. . the Cafe Anglais, are other illustrations. Roll, through his comprehension of lucid sunshine and keen and breathable atmosphere, loves all forms of open air scenes. He chose The Street Crier, Marianna Offrey and Roubey, Cimentier, for the Salon of 1885. But, be it in interiors or in the open air of the street, he gives, usually on large canvases, with deep and simple sympathy, F. BRACQUEMOND LA TERRASSE THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 473 without false sentiment, the severe forms of popular labors, popular sufferings, and, at times, popular joys, with a keen penetration of actual movement, and bears well the test that an artist's measure is his discernment of the characters he represents. His picture of 1888 was a landscape with accessory figures, full of the air and light and life of spring. Felix Bracquemond (contemporary), a painter-engraver, Paris ; medal 1866 ; Legion of Honor, 1882 ; and who took in 1884 the Medal of Honor for engraving, affords the illustration of the impres- sionists' effects, here given, better than any reproduction of the work of the pure painters of the school proper could do. Of the twenty-nine terms of the office since 1666 the fifteen Sec- tors of the French Academy at Rome for the nineteenth century have been : 1801, Suvee. 1828, H. Vernet. 1865, J. N. Robert-Fleury. 1807, Paris, architect (par interim). 1835, Ingres. 1866, Hebert. 1808, Guillon Lethiere. 1841, Schnetz. 1873, Lenepveu. 1817, Thevenin. 1846, Jean Alaux. 1879, Cabat. 1822, Pierre N. Guerin. 1852, Schnetz. 1885, Hebert. THE PRESENT CONDITION OF FRENCH ART. That French art stands high in the estimate of the nations is evi- dent from the facts that America eagerly gathers French pictures at any price ; that London keeps a permanent gallery of Dore's work and another for temporary exhibition of new works of French artists, an appreciation which English art cannot win French artistic taste to reciprocate. France, indeed, has few English pictures in her gal- leries, only within a short time (since 1872) opening a small gallery for them in the Louvre, where, in that year, there were but five pictures, one by Bonington and four by Constable. Art production in France is prodigious in amount. But one necessity of the Frenchman's nature, his need for food, meets a fuller practical recognition than his need for art, the business of restau- rant-keeping being the only legitimate business in Paris that exceeds that connected with art. Almost any surmise of what this interest, traced into its ramifications must be, is confirmed by facts, such as the multiplicity of exhibitions, of sales, and of art societies; the amount and quality of art literature, and, as we have seen, the Gov- ernment recognition of art, in laws and tax budgets. The appropriation in the budget by the Municipal Council of Paris for the Fine Arts in 1887 was 300,000 francs, it having been the same in 1885. The 474 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. entire appropriation by the State for art purposes was in 188G 13,603,000 francs, and in 1885 only 15,000 less. In 1884, 300, 000' francs were accorded by the Chamber of Deputies to the Provincial Museums. The number of these Museums had increased by that year to two hundred and eighty from one hundred and seventy- seven in 1870. and one hundred and thirty-three under Napoleon III. in 1865. Lyons has its Prix de Paris, as Paris its Prix de Rome ; and some provincial cities, as Lille, have even their Prix de Rome. The place for the sales of works of art, the Hotel Drouot, is owned and controlled by Government, and, though not solely for art works, it has become an art centre and the locality of many art exhibitions, as all art sales take place there. Throughout France art blossoms almost continually into exhibi- tions. An exhibition is the popular method of redressing a wrong done to an artist in the Salons, of commemorating his death, of sup- plying funds for the victims of an inundation, of establishing a hos- pital, or of raising a statue to a hero ; all may be done by an appeal to the Frenchman's artistic sense. In 1887 sixty-four exhibitions were given. Important exhibitions are those of the large number of Artists' organizations, as : The Association of French Painters, Architects, Sculptors, Engravers, and Designers, sometimes known as the Association Taylor, from Baron Taylor, the founder, having Bouguereau for president ; 1 The Union of French Artists ; The Society of Young Artists ; The Society of Aquarellists ; The Society of Women Painters and Sculptors, which reached, 1887, its sixth annual exhibition ; and vari- ous art clubs, one of which, " Le Cercle de 1' Union Artistique," commonly called "les Mirlitons," founded in 1860, and in 1888 composed of over two thousand members, is the most important. Painters form but a part of it. To " Les Amis des Arts," requiring an admission fee of one franc, Baron de Rothschild belongs. The chief art organization is the one officially recognized by the Government, and to which it has delegated the entire management of the Salon. This organization decreed (May 12, 1883), in order to prevent longer being confounded with the Association Taylor, to take instead of the title, The Association, that of The Society of French Artists. It is open to all French artists who have once had a work admitted to the Salons or Universal Expositions. Its object is chiefly, " To represent and protect the general interests of French artists, notably, by the organization of the annual Salons" (Article 1), and, " To lend aid to its members" (Article 2). These number nearly 2,500 (2,345). Its revenues are derived from annual assessments of its members and the fees of entrance to the Salons, from which it 1 For 1886, as reported by its secretary, its income was 191,300 francs, and expenses 188,897 ; it bestowed in pensions 85,694 francs, which sum was raised to 87,636 francs by temporary aid rendered. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 475 meets the expenses of all the awards. It announced a sum of 612,202 francs in its treasury in 1887. It annually distributes in aid of artists about '^5,000 francs. Bailly, the architect, has been its president since its formation. Its exhibition, the annual Salon, occupies thirty rooms of the immense Palais de l'lndustrie and alone is magnificent testimony of the great artistic interest of the nation. In 1887 the surplus for the benefit of the society was 323,100 francs. The expenses are, for the awards, three medals of Honor, one for each of three departments, 12,000 francs ; for forty medals of three classes, the number in each class to be determined by the jury ; for the 1st class medals 700 francs each, for the 2d class 500, and for the 3d class 300 ; all amounting to about 60,000 francs ; the Prix du Salon is of 3,000 francs and the purses for travel 3,000 francs each. In the first Salon of the State (1883) so great was the crowd, the notice was posted that the right was reserved of closing the doors at any moment. Of so vast a production, the work that wins distinguished notice, as well as the honors now decreed by the body of French artists, instead of official authority, must not only represent the qualities of the art of France at this moment, but since it portrays the tendencies of both executant and judge, that of so much of the future as to make it no uncertain history. All the honors, once slightingly termed "official," now awarded by the free vote of the body not politic, but artistic — some directly, others indirectly — can but be an expression of the prevailing artistic sense, and therefore of value in art history. Those to whom the Grand Medal of Honor, now decreed by the recompensed artists, has been for the last quarter of a century awarded, are : 1865, Cabanel: 1867, E. U., Cabanel, Meissonier, Gerome: 1868, G. Brion: 1869. Bonnat: 1870, Tony Robert Fleury: 1872, Jules Breton: 1874, Gerome: 1877, Jean Paul Laurens: 1878, E. IT., Cabanel, Bouguereau, Meissonier, and Gerome: 1879. Carolus-Duran: 1880, Aime Nicolas Morot : 1881, Paul Baudry: 1882, Puvis de Cha- vannes: 1883, no absolute majority given to anv one: Lefebvre received 180 of the 186 votes necessary to a choice : 1884, no majority : 1885, Bouguereau (but not by an absolute majority, a change of the requirement to only a relative majority of the votes then occurring): 1886, Lefebvre: 1887, Fernand Cormon : 1888, iMouard Detaille. Thus the painters of figures in the more elevated style have most fully met the artistic sense. There is not a pure landscape painter in the list, though Jules Breton's landscapes, it is true, vie in excellence with his figures. The severer study of drawing required for the human figure and of design for compositions into which the figure enters, seems to have been made the test of merit. The First Class Medal, which was pronounced in 18S0 so exceptional 476 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. an award as to be removed from among the requirements of becoming Hors Concours, has been given in the last five years but once — to Henri-Griiillaume Martin (1883) for his Francesca da Eimini. Those who have been assigned to the chairs of the Institute, which assignment is made by the vote of each Academy, approved by the executive, in the last twenty years indicate the same estimate. (Table, facing p. 133.) Moreover the Prix de Rome is oftenest awarded to pupils of the painters of figures allied to historical painting, and the subjects assigned to this competition are always classic. That this may be, on the part of those responsible, a strenuous effort to form an anchorage by which to hold French art to the forms authorized by ages of acceptance, to keep it from floating quite away, even into "pleinair," or from dashing itself against the rock of extreme realism conspicuously in its way, makes it no less an evidence of the present French valuation of the ideal. This effort has effected much ; in the Salon of 1S86, nine hundred pictures of antique subjects exceeded in number those of any other class and occupied a space of 3,297 yards, an average of about two and a half square yards each. 1 Is this a measure of the hope of a purchase for some museum by the State ? Thus the qualities judged worthy of highest honor in France are left in no uncertainty. Taking a broader list of those elected by the body of artists to form the " Salon forty," the jury of admission and recompense (identical since 1870), we find that for nineteen Salons of the last twenty years, beginning with that of 1868, those acting have been : Cabanel, Vollon, 17 times; Jules Breton, Bonnat, 2 16 times: Baudry, Henner, Bernier, Busson, 14 times; Lefebvre, G. Boulanger, Bouguereau, J. P. Laurens, 13 times ; Franqais, 11 times ; Delaunay, Puvis de Chavannes, 9 times ; Cabat, Harpignies, Robert-Fleury, Fromentin, Luminais, Gerome, Hanoteau, Benjamin- Constant, Roll, Tony Robert-Fleury, Duez, Rapin. Guillaumet, Lansyer, De Vuil- lefroy, Detaille, Guillaumet, Guillemet, De Neuville, Lalanne, 8 times ; Carolus- Duran, Ribot, Feyen-Perrin, Dubufe, Van Marcke, Barrias, Humbert, De Chen- nevieres, Pils, H. Levy, Laugee, Bonvin, Ziera, Amaury-Duval, Pelouse, Chaplin, Ziem, 7 times; Meissonier, Pille, Philippe Rousseau, Gervex, H. Leroux, Maignan, 6 times; Benouf, Brion, Cormon, Yon, Protais, Pils, Hebert. 5 times ; J. Dupre, Gleyre, Lavieille, Cazin, Butin, Saint-Pierre, Cot, Daubigny, 4 times ; Bastien- Lepage, Bin, Vayson, Aime Morot, Jalabert, Bida, Compte, Corot, Fj. Levy, L. Leloir, 3 times. 1 Paris Journal, as quoted in Art Journal, July. 1886. 2 In 1888 Bonnat had the highest number of votes ; in 1887, Lefebvre, viz., 1,436 ; in 1886, Bonnat 1,253 ; 1885, Henner 1,313. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 47? These results are again confirmed by the qualities of the fifty who constituted the proportion of painters in the first Honorable Council of Ninety forming the administration of The Society of French Art- ists, and elected by the artists every three years : Bouguereau. Lalanne. Roll. De Vuillefroy. Pille. Barrias. Vollon. Butin. H. Levy. Bonnat. Duez. Guillemet. J. P. Laurens. Pelouse. Feyen-Perrin. Lefebvre. Lavieille. Protais. Harpignies. Lansyer. Fantin-Latour. Butin. Luminais. Ribot. Francais. Cot. Morot. Boulanger. Puvis de Cliavannes. Corraon. Henner. Hanoteau. Bernier. Humbert. Lerolle. Mazerolle. De Neuville. Cazin. Dupre. Tony Robert-Fleury. Rapin. Benjamin-Constant. Detaille. Bin. Van Marcke de Lummen. Busson. Carolus-Duran. Bastien-Lepage. 1 Cabanel. Gervex. But though, so great is the interest in works of humanity and con- temporary life, pure landscape does win only a minority of these honors, the recent tendency of French art to landscape effects, and to the study of external phenomena, is made apparent in all forms of art at the Salons ; in decorations, allegories, anecdotes, interiors, and portraits. Moreover, under all inducements to the ideal treatment, the tendency to realism is conspicuous ; rampant in the younger artists, it has made its touch felt by all, even by the painters of the historical style. Indeed, a summary of the art of the nineteenth century would furnish the comprehensive sweep from an Olympian apotheosis to an apo- theosis of the actual ; the traversing of a path from the warrior heroes of Greece to the peasant heroes of France, from the fabled labors of Hercules to the real labors of Jean and Jeanne. The vast difference of treatment, too, is epitomized by the antithesis of David's requirement of a type, the man type, the woman type, and the later standard, that of individuality as presented in the words of Bastien- Lepage : " There are no two things alike : talent consists in untan- gling and rendering what is special to each." From each artist this realism has taken a personal quality, as true realism must. Thus in Gerome, we find it clear and acute ; in Meis- 1 Elected January 12, 1881. Official reports in Catalogue of Salon. 478 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. sonier, true and exact ; in Courbet, solid ; in Millet, spiritualized ; in Breton, cheery and sunny ; in Lefebvre and Henner, generalized ; in Oabanel, irrepressibly graceful ; in Bonnat, overpoweringly strong ; in De Chavannes, Luminais, and Gustavo Moreau, a consciousness of the present in dreams of the past ; in Bargue, a necessity of deli- cate accuracy : in Frere, an appeal of facts to sympathy ; in Rosa Bonheur, a portrayal of objects loved as they are ; in Merson, the humanizing of Scriptural characters ; and in Decamps, simple impres- sions of sunshine. A disposition to substitute, even in the decoration of public build- ings, the familiar figures of modern life for historic subjects has been everywhere apparent. Baudry did it, as it was done, but not with the frankness of the present practice, in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in Florence. Then it was under the pretext of a religious subject, the custom against which Savanarola's invective was directed. So in Holland in the seventeenth century, under the cover of illustrat- ing some event or poem, real personages were grouped in actual por- traiture. The dreamy Lefebvre has used mythology as a pretext for a presentation of actual beings, and even the inexact forms of dreams have not escaped the realistic treatment. Realism is, in truth, based on the positive, clear-seeing, intellectual character of this scientific age, which demands definite facts, and it, therefore, has a sure exist- ence. Lefebvre, with the charming Henner and the poetic Hebert and others of the idealistic realists, give to this naturalism a kind of exalta- tion ; they take their impressions direct from nature, and prove that the ideal and the real are, indeed, but the two sides of the same thing. While these artists seem thus to give to their flights an anchorage, Millet, on the contrary, seems to take reality into an atmosphere of idealism, or, perhaps more truly, to look at nature with an eye that perceives its highest truths, which, indeed, are what constitute the ideal ; he catches the gold that the sunshine pours into nature, the significance that expression takes from jt, the grandeur that arises from it even in its rudenesses. In his idyls the earnestness or feeling is rendered only the more powerfully, because he has observed exter- nals closely and reproduced them with realistic detail, with differen- tiating exactness. Minute observation in character- reading, like close study in science, is the only method of learning truths, or represent- ing the individuality that vivifies a raconteur's presentation, be it in words or colors. That " idealist who makes real," offers a glimpse of the attainment which the two principles, not really conflicting, may together work out for French art. As Minister Fallieres said in THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 479 his address of presentation of 1884 : " Has the respect for nature in art or in letters the effect of destroying the ideal ? What greater poet than Homer and yet what poet more natural?" The natural is in truth the basis of the ideal. Does not, then, the coexistence of these principles truly give art in its highest forms ? Idealistic realism, realism in its unstrained sense of truth, not uncouthness, will become the inevitable result. True art then is not a fashion or a caprice, but a permanent reality. There is a changeless under the changing ; under the seeming, a real. Whatever has been true art in the past, still is true. By the same talismanic influence have artists of different periods been charmed into creative power, but they have not woven the same textures nor moulded the same forms. New art is like new music, the old notes in new combinations, which still, however, make vibrate the same chords inherent in our nature. For the future, then, may we not anticipate a perfected art composed of tones tested and approved ? Imagination may listen for that art's French melody. In it, above the buzz of all trivialities, will be heard the sweet and happy tone of Oorot, Daubigny's songs of nature, with the constant and true forest note of Rousseau. May there not be there a chant to woman, rich in tfye mingling of Henner's high, clear tenor, with some note of Cabanel's Grecian harp, of Lefebvre's vague air, of Hebert's subdued plaint, and Bouguereau's mother song, while also, in an undertone, will come a vibration from Carolus-Duran's brilliant touch with the patient field plaint or har- vest song of Breton, Lhermitte, Adan, and Bastien-Lepage ? And may there not be heard in this, perhaps, an apologetic echo of the penetrating tones of Gerome and his followers ? The deep bass of Courbet's realism, the distinct truths of Meissoniers staccato treat- ment, the finer notes of all of those giving delicacy and truth of detail, as well as the more robust choruses of Roll will be audible. With the graceful strain of Prudhon and others of this century's first decade and of the later neo-grecs will be combined the childhood's prattle of Frere and Lobrichon, gleeful or plaintive as may be ; the humble fireside warble of Greuze and the unconscious poetry of Chardin, Vollon, and the painters of the gentler genre ; the thrilling resonance of Delacroix and Gericault's feeling ; the young warrior-artists' sharp, combative, yet saddened echoes of the late battle sounds, mingling with the clarion notes of Vernet and Yvon ; the color harmonies of Diaz and Monticelli ; something of the impressionists' shrill cry for light and " open air ;" a faint sound of the majestic march of David, set in a tenderer key by Puvis de Chavannes. 480 A HISTORY OF FRENCH PAINTING. And, though rich and varied the symphony may be, imagina- tion hears in the whole gamut of French art but faint upswelling of organ notes, few cathedral tones of religious power and elevated emo- tion : there may again faintly vibrate the earnest feeling of Oham- paigne and Lesueur, the reverent one of Flandrin, in unison with even a deeper solemnity of religious theme yet to be aroused. Up through this, the sacredly sincere hymnal of Millet's " painted sound " of prayer and praise will certainly lift its chant and make conspicuous amid all, even in the art of the race that seeks primarily beauty and glory, the earnest, elevated, religious qualities of humblest human nature. INDEX. See also Alphabetical Lists: of Artists of XVTIth Century, 70 ; of XVIIIth Century, 122-3 ; Landscape Painters of XVIIIth Century, 121 ; of XlXth Century : Classicists Contemporary with David, 155-6 ; David's Pupils and their Contemporaries, 172-3 ; Painters of Genre of Classic Period, 181-2 ; of Landscape of Classic Period, 189 ; of Historical Style of Romantic Period, 121-2 ; of Landscape of Romantic Period, 256-7 ; of Landscape and Animals of Romantic Period, 261 ; of Semi-Classical style during Third Period, 292-3 ; of Landscape and Animals during Third Period, 302-3 ; of Oriental Scenes during Third Period, 328-9 ; Artists passing over to Genre Painting, 357-8-9 ; Painters of Genre, "Hors Concours," 363-4; of Genre, others, 326-4; Rustic Genre, "Hors Concours, 1 ' 392; History, "Hors Concours," 438; History and Genre, "Hors Concours, " 441; Military Subjects, "Hors Concours," 448,449; Landscape, pupils of Corot, 452 ; Landscape, 453-4 ; Marines, 456 ; Still life, 458 ; Fruit and Flowers, 459. A. Abbema, Madame L., 406. About. E., 396, 418, 421, 430, 445. Academies, Provincial : Amiens, Bor- deaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Dijon, Do- nat, Marseilles, Metz, Nancy, Pau, Rheims, Rouen, Toulouse, 83. Academy, French, at Rome, 29; regula- tions of, 29; rectors of, list for XVIIth j century, 30 ; rectors of, list for XVIIIth century, 123 ; rectors of, list for XlXth century, 473 ; regulations of under Napoleon I., 128; location of, 60, 128 ; regulated under Napoleon III. in 1863, 266, 267. Academy of Painting, founding of, 17, 19, 28 ; exhibitions of, 24, 5, 6, 7, 8, 83 ; regulations of, 21, 8 ; advantages of, 24, 6 ; disadvantages of, 26, 7 ; finances of, 27 ; expulsions from, 25, 30 ; membership regulated, 80 ; kings its protectors, 80; loosely administered, 81 ; regulated by Louis X Vlth in 1777, 81 ; given fixed lodgment, 82 ; abol- ished, 83 : membership in XVIIIth century, 83. Academy of St. Luke, 21. 82, 97, 98. Academy of St. Luke at Rome, 9, 21. Achmet I., 34. Acquisitions for National Galleries by Francis I., 15 ; by Louis XIV., 17, 18; by Louis XV., 74; by Louis XVI, 77 ; by Napoleon L, 88, 126 ; by Louis XVIIL, Charles X., 138 ; by Louis Philippe, 197; by Napoleon III., 270, 271. Adan, L. E., 401, 479. 31 Admissions to Salons, unlimited, 83. Age of Louis XIV., 16-72. Agincourt, Seroux d\ 143. Agnes, Mother, 47. Aid to artists after Revolution of 1848, 263. Aime Thome, 146. Alaux, J., 264, 402, 473. Albano, 71, 75. Alexander, Czar, 45. Emperor, 157, 193. the Great, 191. VII., Pope, 62. Algerian war, 177. Algiers, attraction of, 228-9. Alignv, C. F. F. C. d\ 187-8, 237, 238. Amaury-Duval, E. E., 438, 476. " Anciens, The Twelve," 22, 23. " Fourteen," 23. Angelico, Fra, 3, 343. Angiviller, D', 77, 79, 80. Animal painting in XVIIIth century, 122. Anne of Austria, 27, 48. " " Brittany's Prayer Book, 7. Antin, Due d', 74, 84. Apelles, 217. Arago, Emmanuel, 326. Archimedes, 83. Archives de l'art francais, 22, 49. Armand-Dumaresq, 441, 443, 463. Arnauld, Robert, 47. Art, L', 61. Art of the Revolution, 78. Art personal to Napoleon I., 128. Art, the true aim of, 193. Art under Convention, 83. Association Taylor, 474. Astenus, bishop of Amadis, 1. 482 INDEX. Aubert, E. J., 217, 287, 333-4. R., 391. Aublet, A., 319. Audran, 92. Auvray, Louis, 85. Avolara, Anna, G2. B. Babutv, Gabrielle; Madame Greuze, 115. Bachelier, J. J., 122, 124, 125. Backhuysen, 110. Bacon, Henry, 297, 351, 393. Bailly, A. N. President, 475. Bailly's Catalogue, 17, 18, 52. Ballou, Roger. 409. Balloz, P., 420, 421. Barbison, 253, 357, 452. Bardin, 149. Bargue, C, 319, 321, 478. Barrias, F. J., 348, 437, 441, 477. Barron, Henri, 350. Barthelemy, 58, 166. Barthellemv, 84. Bartholdi, 240. Baskercheff, Madame, 369. Bastien-Lepage, J., 251, 398, 401, 441, 453, 466-71, 476. 477, 479. Bastien-Lepage, Emile, 450, 467. Baudouin, P. A., 106-7. Baudraud, General, 212. Baudry, P. J. A., 403, 427-30, 475, 476, 478. Bayle, St. John, 89. Bayre, 196. Beaume, 401. Beaumes, 394. Beauvais Tapestries, 104. Bellange, 447. Belly, L. A. A., 228, 307. Benasset, 463. Benezech, Minister, 86. Benjamin-Constant, J. J., 228, 319, 326-7, 401, 476, 477. Benouville, A, J., 187. Bentivoglio, Cardinal, 44. Beraud, J., 463, 472. Bernardin de St. Pierre, 11, 230. Berne-Bel lecour, E. P., 349, 444. Bernhardt, Madame Sarah, 325, 469. Bernier, C, 450, 451, 466, 476, 477. Berri, Due de, 39. " Duchesse de, 257. Berrier, Paul, 253. Besnard. P. A., 449. Beule, 19, 267. Bida. 470. Bidault, 84. Bienaime, 84. Bigot, C, 382. Billet, P., 387. Bin, J. B. P. E., 476, 477. Blanc, Charles, 54, 63, 91, 120, 151, 167, 200, 203, 205, 223, 258, 260, 273, 338, 433. Blanchard, Prof. Jacques, 34. Boisfrement, M. aids Prudhon, 154. Boissiere, Samuel, 59. Bonaparte, General, 162, 163. Jerome, 178, 286. Joseph, 252. " Madame Josephine, 162, 174. Lucien, 197. " Marie Louise, 155, 178. Bonheur, Auguste, 294. " Germain, 295. Isidore. 295-7-8. Juliette Peyrol, 295. Maria-Rosa, 183, 257, 294-8. Raymond, 294, 295, 297. Boninston, 204, 230. Bonnat, L. J. P., 408, 412-14, 475, 476, 477. Bonvin, F. S., 176. Boucher, Francois, 76, 99, 102-6, 109, 112, 114, 141, 145, 271. Boucher, Juste, 107. " Madame, 107. Bouchot, 225. Boudin, E., 368, 463, 476, 477. Bouguereau, W. A., 359, 393, 394, 402- 6, 408, 449, 474, 475, 476, 477, 479. Boulanger, 103. Boulanger, Gustave, 217, 319-21, 438, 476, 477. Boulanger, Louis, 208, 243. Bourdichon, Jean, 5, 6. Bourdon, S., 21, 58, 60. Boutheme, 33. Bouzonnet, Ciaudine, Francoise and An- toinette, 42. Braciano, Duke of, 32. Brantome's Chronicles, 11. Brascassat, 195, 249, 257-8, 264. Braun, Madame, and her dog, 416. Brentano. Louis, 6. Breton, E. A., 387, 450. Breton, J., 159, 246, 257, 382-7, 408, 475, 476, 479. Brevetaires, or Privilegies, 20. Bridgman, F. A., 319. Bril, Paul, 44. Brion, G., 408, 475, 476. Brochures at the Salons, 81. Brouer, A., Ill, 271. Brown, Madame Henriette (Madame de Saux), 406. Brown, John Lewis, 463. Brv, Paul, 419. Bulet, 20. Bureau of Fine Arts established, 271. Burgundy, Duchess of, 92. INDEX. 483 Burgundy, Duke of, 67. Burns, 115, 190, 230. Busson, U. L. A., 463, 464, 471-2, 476, 477. Butler, G. B., 292. Buzeau, Marie Jeanne, 106. Byron, 190. C. Cabanel, A., 245, 268, 289, 322, 327, 350, 394, 475, 476, 477, 479. Cabanel, P., 401-2, 468. Cabat, N. U, 232, 251-2, 260, 473, 476. Caillebotte. 462, 463, 466. ('allot, Jacques, 34-37. Camilio, 39. Canova, influences David, 142 ; friend of Prudhon, 152. Caracalla, 435. Caraffe, 163. Caravaggio, 32, 74, 75. Cardon (engraver), 95. Carignan Gallery, 74. " Prince de, 99. Carolus-Duran, his modern accent, 354 ; early taste for drawing, 354; struggles, 354; success, 354; power in color, 355; teachings, 356; scope of subjects, 357; Medal of Honor, 475 ; on jury, 476 ; committee of ninetv, 477, 479. Carracci, 33, 62, 65, 71, 75. Carreau, the poet, 48. Cars (engraver), 102. Cartier, 452. Castellani, 468. Catalogues of Salons, 27. Catharine de' Medici, 9. Cazes, 111. Cazin, J. C, 389, 441, 476, 477. Caylus, Comte de, 80, 94. Celiini, Benvenuto, 73. Central Museum (Louvre), established, 87. Chalet, The, 313, 329. Chalgrin, 140. " Madame, 175. Champaigne, Philippe de, 16, 36, 46-7, 282, 480. Champaigne, J. B., 47. Champfleury, 388. Champmartin, C. 199, 208, 243. Chanavard, P., 238-9. Chancellors of Academy, 22. Chantilou, De, 28, 37, 75. Chapel of Carmes, 43. Chaplin, C, 406. Chardin, Pierre, 114. Chardin, S., 77, 78, 107, 108,109,111-14, 115, 116, 117, 171, 211, 479. Charlemagne, 2. Charles L, King, 17, 31. Charles II., 67. Charles IV., 1. Charles V., 1, 10. Charles VII., 6. Charles VIII., 6, 7, 9, 15, 71. Charles IX., 13. 15. Charles X., 161, 181, 227, 257. Charlet, 165, 185. Charlotte of Savoy, 9. Charnay, 450. Chartreuse at Paris, 53, 54, 55, 77. Chasseriau, 433, 434. Chassevant, 438. Chateau de Reuil, 32, Chateaubriand, 140, 158, 190, 230. Chavet, V., 345. Chavignarie, Bellier de la, 166. Chenier, Andre, 144. Chennevieres, Marquis de, 400, 432. Chennevieres on jury, 476. Chenu, 117. Chenu, Henri, 463. Chesneau, Ernest, 167, 184, 185, 465. Chevalier, Etienne, 3. Chevilliard, Vincent, 350-1. Chintreuil, A., 241, 268. Christina, Queen, 59, 75. Churches. Carthusian, Termini, Sicily, 97; Neuwiller in Alsace, 2; La Tri- nite, Paris (Francais), 251 ; Le Mans, 2 ; Madeleine, Paris (Zeigler), 216; Montauban Cathedral (Ingres), 169; Nantes Cathedral (Flandrin). 286 ; Notre Dame de Lorette (Deveria), 208 ; Notre Dame de Paris (May Pic- tures), 36, 49, 55, 57 ; Rouen Cathe- dral (Deshays), 106 ; St. Eustache, Paris (Couture), 292 ; St. Germain des Pres, Paris (Flandrin), 286 ; St. Martin d'Ainay, near Lyons (Flan- drin), 286 ; St. Martin des Champs (Gerome), 316 ; St. Paul at Nismes (Flandrin), 286 ; St. Peter's, Rome (Subleyras), 97 ; St. Paul's, Paris (Lebrun), 51 ; St. Severin, Paris (Flan- drin), 286; (Gerome), 313, 316 ; St. Sulpice (Delacroix), 205-6, (Lenepveu), 427; St. Vincent de Paul, Paris (Flandrin), 286 ; White Friars, Paris (Leon Glaize), 437. Clairin, G. J. V., 319, 325-6, 441. Clairville, Chevalier de, 64. Claretie, Jules, 294, 317, 354, 355. Classic art of late XlXth Century, 192, then true art, 193. Classicism, 78; recognized by Govern- ment, 86; period of in XlXth Cen- tury, 130-89; as practised by David, 138-9; tyranny of, 139; influence, 140 ; sources, 140. 484 INDEX. Claude Lorrain, 42-6, 231, 243. 260. Clement V., 9. Clouet, Frangois, in portraits from Fran- cis I. to Charles IX., 12. Clouets, the four, Jehan, Jean, Frangois, and " the brother of Janet," 10-13. Coan, Dr. T. M., 381. Cochin, engraver, 92, 95, 115. Cogniet, Leon, 186, 194, 220, 264, 306, 400, 412, 433, 436. Colbert, 22, 26, 28, 47, 48, 51, 63, 71, 74, 85, 129, 264. Collections— Andre, M. Edouard. Paris, 343 ; Angelo, Madame, Paris, 343 ; Antelo, Mr. A. J., Phil., 341; Arthur, Mr. T. G., Glasgow, 391; Ashton, Sir Samuel, London, 210 ; Astor, Mr. J. J., New York, 319, 344, 435 ; Astor, Mr. W. W., New York, 319, 344 ; 435; Astor, the late W. B., New York, 351; Aumale, Due d', Chan- tilly, 106, 154, 207, 215, 343; Ayen, Duchesse d\ 211 ; Baring, Sir T., London, 95 ; Barker, 106 ; Belmont, Mr. August, New York, 319, 344 ; Belvoir Castle, 41 ; Bement, Mr. W. B., Philadelphia, 344 ; Berri, Duchesse de, 392; Bianchi, M., Paris, 343; Blanchard, Mr. G. R., New York, 403 ; Bolckow,Mr. C. A. H., Middles- borough, Eng., 343 ; Borie, Mr. A. E., Philadelphia, 375; Borely, Cha- teau, 97; Boucheron, M., Paris, 343; Brimmer, Mr. Martin, Boston, 375; Brooks, P. C, jr., Boston, 475; Brown, Mr. A., Philadelphia; Buckingham Palace, 95, 96, 159; Burdette-Coutts, Baroness, 422; Butler, Mr. T. R., New York, 319, 344 ; Carlisle, Earl of, 12 ; Cassin, Madame de, Paris, 343 ; Castle Howard, 12; Chevalier, E., 106 ; Co- lonna Palace, Rome, 43; Corsini Pal- ace, Rome, 42, 43, 45 ; Corse, Mr. Israel, New York, 319, 333 ; Cottier, Mr. D., London, 391 ; Cox, Mr. H. F., Brooklyn, 319 ; Crabbe, M., Paris, 343 ; Cremieux, M. Levy, Paris, 343 ; Crocker, Mr. Charles, San Francisco, 319 ; Davis, Mr. Erwin, New York, 475 ; De Foe, M., Geneva, 332 ; Dev- onshire House, 43, 45, 56 ; Demidoff, Prince, 404; Dijon, Hall of Bur- gundian States, 151 ; Dinsmore, Mr. W. B., New York, 319 ; Dousman, Mr. H. L., St. Louis, 344; Dreyfus, M. Auguste, Paris, 343 ; Drexel, Mr. A. J.. Philadelphia, 344 ; Drexel, the late J. W., New York, 319; Drum- mond, Mr. G. A., Montreal, 375 ; Duchatel, Comte de, 386 ; Duchayla, Madame, 157 ; Duche, M. Pierre, Paris, 343 ; Dudley, Lord, 12 ; Dumas, M. Alexandre, Paris, 343 ; Duncan, Laird of Benmore, 423 ; Duncan, Mr. James, London, 343; Eaton, H. W., M. P., 215 ; Ecole des Beaux- Arts, at the, 95, 108, 160, 273, 274 ; Egmont, Masse, 106 ; Eugenie, Empress, 297, 298 ; Fell, Mr. J. G., Philadelphia, 375 ; Fodora, M., Amsterdam, 211 ; Gam- bard, M., Paris, 343 ; Garrett, Mr. J. W., Baltimore, 319, 376, 400 ; Gemito, M., Naples, 344; Gibson, Mr. H. C, Philadelphia, 319 ; Gobelins, 57; Gold- schmidt, M., Paris, 318 ; Greffuhle, Vicomtede, 343; Harper, Mr. Fletcher, New York, 315 ; Hatfield House, Lon- don, 158 ; Havemeyer, Mr. T. H., New York, 319, 344 ; Healy, Mr. A., Brook- lyn, 319 ; Heine, M. Charles, Paris, 343 : Hertford House, London, 318; Hilton, Mr. Henry, New York, 319,349, 446; Hoey, Mr. J., New York, 319, 344; Hooker, Mr. W., Cincinnati, 375; Hottinguer, Baron, 343 ; Hugo, Vic- tor, 233; Hulot, Baron, 343; Hunting- ton, Mr. C. P., New York, 319; Ioni- des, Mr. C. A., London, 388 ; Jabach, 18 ; Jessup, Mr. M. K. , New York, 319 ; Kennedy, Mr. R. L. ,Ne wYork, 319 ; Kidder, Mr. H. P., Boston, 344; King of Holland, 408 ; Kircheloff, Count, 210; Kraft, M.,343; La Caze, 95, 270, 271 ; Lefranc, M. Victor, Paris, 343 ; Leigh Court, 56; Leroux, M. Charles, Paris, 343; Lutz, M., Paris, 343; Lyall, Mr.D. C, Brooklyn, 411, 448; Malinet, M., Paris, 343; Marjolin, Madame, 211; Marseilles Hospital, 142; Martin, "Mr. J. T., Brooklyn, 435; Mason, Mr. James, New York, 318; Mazarin, 18; Meissonier, M.J.L.E., Paris, 343; Mur- cille, M., 151, 155; Musgrave, Mr. T. B., New York, 318; Nancy, Town Hall, 149; Narbonne, Due de, Paris, 343; Narvaez, 106; Newcomb, Mr. H. V., New York, 319, 344, 375; Niven, M., Paris, 343; Nouvel Opera. Paris, 318; Orleans, Duchess of, 211 ; Orleans, Duke of, 123, 215, 340; Osborne, Mrs. M. A., New York, 344 ; Pastre, M., 343; Paulinier, M., 258; Pender, Mr., Manchester, Eng , 318; Pereire, Ma- dame I., Paris, 343, 386; Peronne, M., Paris,* 343 ; Pompadour, Madame de, 104; Price, Mr. David, London, 343 ; Queen of England, 211, 218, 341, 343, 423; Raucune, M., Berlin, 292; Rich- elieu, 18: Roberts, Mrs. M. O., New York, 218, 319, 344 ; Rockafeller, Mr. W., New York, 319, 344, 375; Roths- child, Baron Adolphe de, Paris, 343 ; INDEX. 485 Rothschild, Baron Edmond de, Paris, 343 ; Rothschild, Baron Gustave de, Paris, 343 ; Rothschild, Baroness James de, 188, 210 ; Runkle, Mr. J. C, New York, 319, 375; Sandwich, Count- ess of, 218 ; Say, M. Leon, Paris, 343; Sayles, Mr. H., Boston,375; Schroeder, Baron, 343; Scott, Mrs.T.A., Philadel- phia, 319; Secretan, M. Paris, 343, 373; Sevres, at the Porcelain Factory, 332 ; Seney, Mr. G. I., New York, 228, 318, 404 ; Siltzer, Mr. John, London, 343; Smith, Mr. 0. S., New York, 319, 344 ; Springer, Baron, 344 ; Stanford, Sen- ator L. , San Francisco, 319, 344 ; St. Cloud, 152, 255 ; Steengraehl, M., The Hague, 344 ; Stebbins, Mr. James, New York, 316, 318, 319, 344: Stevens, 106; Stevens, Mrs. Paran, New York, 319, 344, 375; Stewart, M. Wm, Paris, 319; Stuart, Mrs. R. L., New York, 319, 344, 375, 398 ; Sultan Abdul Aziz, The, 318; Sutherland, Duke of, 215 ; Tabourier, Madame, Paris, 343; Taft, Mr. R. C, Providence, 375; Thenard, Baronne de, Paris, 343; Theatre Fran- cais, 395 ; Trederne, Vicomtesse de, Paris, 343 ; Tretiakoff, M,, Moscow, 344; Trudaine, M. de, 143; Tuileries, 255, 395; Tullis, Mr. James T., Glas- gow, 389; Turquet, M., Paris, 436; Vanderbilt, Mrs. W. H., New York, 319, 321, 335, 336, 344, 370, 375, 384, 401, 413, 447; Vanderdonck, MM., Brussels, 318 ; Vander Vies, M., 344 ; Van Praet, M., 337, 343, 373 ; Van der Hayen, M.; Wall, Mr. B., Providence, 305 ; Wallace, Sir Richard, London, 95, 102, 106, 210, 211, 215, 292, 340, 343; Walters, Mr. W. T., Baltimore, 218, 242, 287, 314, 319, 344, 375, 390. 396 ; Warren, Mr. J. H., Hoosick Falls, New York, 305 ; Wigglesworth, Mr., Boston, 379 ; Wolf, Mr. J., New York, 400, 411. Colin, P., 412, 452. Colonna, Francesca, 53. Comerre, L. F., 411, 469. Commune Generale des Arts, 83, 84. Communists in 1870-1, 271. Compte-Calix, F. C, 346. Comte, P. C, 347-8, 476. Conditions of XVIIIth Century condu- cive to genre, 91. Constable, 226, 230, 242, 247, 248, 249. Constant (v. Benjamin-Constant). Constitutional, Le. 200. Cordav, Charlotte, 144. Cormon, Fernand, 319, 327-8, 476, 477, 478. Corneille, Michel, 33. Corot, J. B. C, 186, 188, 231, 232. 233, 234-41, 242, 245, 246, 252, 254, 255, 258, 381, 452, 476, 479. Correggio, 74, 75, 101, 150, 366, 367. Corsini Palace, 42. Cot, P. A., 220, 395, 411-12, 435, 475, 477. Cottier, 240. Couder, 264. Counsellors of Academy, 22. Courbet, G., 195, letter of 1850, 196, 207, 376-83, 462, 464, 478, 479. Courrier de Dimanche, 380. Courtois, 36. Cousin, Jean, 10, 13-14, 30. Couture, Thomas, 195, approved by Gros, "trapu," of vigorous talent, but incomplete plans, 290 ; masterpiece, 291 ; works, books, pupils, 292, 394, 431, 443, 464, 465. Coypel, Noel, 60, 89, 112. si Antoine, 60, 75, 76, 89. " Charles Antoine, 60, 98, 101. Coysevox, 69. Crimean War, 177. Crozart, De, 94. Cure Besson, 150. Cuvillier, 441. Czar of Russia and Vernet, 180. D. Dagnan-Bouveret, 463. Damerey, 330. Damerez, 287. Dan, Le Pere, 15. Dance of Death, the Chaise-Dieu in Au- vergne, 3. Dante, 2, 199, 315, 401, 442, 443. Danton, friend of David, 144, 175. Danton, 463. Dargelas, 394. Daubigny, C. F., 231, 251, 254-5 ; artis- tic inheritance, love of color, and water scenes, 254 ; rendering of values, vegetation, goes to Italy, success, 255. Daubigny, K. P., 256. Daumier, H., 465. David, J. L., 78, 83, 84. 95, 102, 118, 119, 121, 125, 128, 129, 141-8; first style, 142 ; third, 144 ; fourth, 145 ; influence, 147 ; in exile, 143 and 148 ; children, 148 ; works, 148, 160, 161, 162, 163, 175, 182, 200, 201, 206, 214, 218, 357, 441, 479. David, pupils of, 156-171. David d' Angers, 381, 396. Debret, 166. Decamps, A. G., 195, 222-8, 231, 243, 249, 260, 279, 296, 300, 338, 478. 486 Decennial Prize, 131, 106. De Charmois, 24. Decoration of Order of St. Michael re- newed, 134. Decorations of Legion of Honor under Bourbons. 134. Decret, Paul, 69. Delacroix, Eugene, 97, 161, 167, 171, 198 207, 214, 218, 221, 222, 223, 228, 243, 247, 249, 252, 253, 254, 278, 290, 304, 307, 309, 357, 391, 434, 465, 479 Delaroche, Hippoiyte, 165, 181, 214-18, 285, 287, 330, 333, 334, 381, 392, 394, 395. Delorme, Madame B., 406. Del Sarto, Andrea, 10, 74, 75. Demarne, J. L., 114, 186. Demont, 450. Denon, 126, 127, 169. Deon, Horsin M., 14. Derwent, Charles, 44. De Saux, Madame (Henriette Brown), 400. Desboutins, 454. Desbrosses, 241, 452. Desforges, 253. Desgoffes, Alexandre, 186, 187. Blaise, 112, 457. Deshays, J. B. H., 106. Desmoulins, A., 183. Desportes, 101. Desvoges of Dijon, 83, 151. Detaille, 327, 349, 350, 442, 445-7. 448, 475, 476, 477. De Thou, 13. Detournelle, Secretary, 84. De Troy, Francois, 60, 66-7, 89, 118. " " Jean Francois, 97, 98, 108. Deveria, E. F., 207, 271. Achille, 207. De Vuillefroy, D. F., 403, 476, 477. Diaz de la Pena, Emile. 254. Diaz de la Pena, N. V., 196, 231, 233, 247, 249, 251, 252-4, 260, 391, 479. Diderot, 99, 100, 104, 110, 115. Dinant, 103. Directors of Academy, 22. Distemper. 2. Domenichino, 39, 75, 126. Domenico, R. G., Claude's only pupil, 45. Donat, 83. Dore, G., 350, 376, 414-26, 471. Dore Gallery, London, 422, 423. Dore, fimile, 418. Doria, Duke of, employs Poussin, 32. Dorigny, 34. Dow, Gerard, 338, 339. Doyen, G. F., 102, 170. Drolling, Martin, pere, 156. Drolling, Michel Martin, 156, 159, 410. Drouais, G. J., 161. Du Barry, Madame, 125. Dubois, Paul, 425. Dubreuil, T., 14. Dubufe, C. M., 357, 395. " Edouard, 357, 394-5, 476. " Guillaume. 395. Due, takes prize of the Emperor, 268. Duchesne, 16, 36, 46. Ducornet, 173. Duez, E. A., 463, 464, 471-2, 476, 477. Dufresnoy, C, 64, 65-6. Dufresnoy, President of Convention, 84. Dughet, Anne Marie, 38. Dumas, 326, 425. Dumoustier, 30. Dupre, Jules, 191, 231, 232, 239, 240, 242, 245, 247, 248-5C, 252, 260, 476, 477. Du Quesnoy, 39, 51. Durameaux, his catalogue, 74. Duret, Theodore, 460. 464. Du Tacq, keeps Dore's blocks under glass, 419. Du verger, at Ecouen, 394. E. Early native Art, 1. " school of Art, 10. ficole des Beaux-Arts, 24, 29, 71 ; estab- lished in XVIlth Century, 27 ; regu- lations under Napoleon I. and Louis XVIII. (in 1819), 134.156 ; renovations under Napoleon III. by Nieuwerkerke, 266-7 ; rules, building, 273. Edict of Nantes, 16. Elizabeth of Austria, Princess, portrait of, 13 Elle, Ferdinand, 36. Encouragement of Fine Arts in Third Republic, 271-2; instruction, 272-4; recompense, 276-8. " Envois," 29, 30. Epernon, Due d', C>5. Errard, Charles, 28, 30, 44. Este, Countess of. 117. Estrees, Cardinal d', made offer for Claude's Liber Veritatis, 45. Eugenie, Empress, 287, 298. Exemption, 195, 26:!, 268. 269. Exhibitions by the Academy in XVIlth Century. 24-8; first in Louvre, 28; in XVIIIth Century, after 1725 be- came Salons ; only two in forty-two years, 99. Exhibitions, International : of 1851, 316, 331; of 1855, 181, 228, 239, 265- 6, 270, 288, 311, 318, 331 ; of 1867, 239, 245, 270, 318, 400, 401 : of 1878, 341, 435. INDEX. 487 F. Faitpoul, 162. Fallieres, Minister, 478. Fantin-Latour, H., 360, 471. Farnese Palace, 62, 65. Fautin, 463. Fauvelet. Jean, 345. Fesch, Cardinal, 32. Fete-day of the Louis, date of opening Exhibitions, 26. " Fete of Supreme Being," 143. Feyen-Perrin, F. N. A., 360, 476, 477. Fichel, Eugene, 345. Fielding, 230. Figure Painters, 394. Flageolet, 381. Flaineng, Auguste, 463. Flandrin, Hippolyte, 170, 218, 221, 264, 267, 283-7 ; affection for Ingres, re- ligious feeling, 283 ; struggles, 284 ; wins prix de Rome, at Rome with Ingres, 286, portraits, mural paint- ings, 286; death, 287. Flandrin, J. P., 189, 260, 279. Flemish artists at Luxembourg, 16. Flemish influence in XVIIIth Century, 96. Flers, C, 250. Fleury, Chenu, 463. Fleury, L., 451. Fodora, M., 211. Font de St. Yenn, 74, 87. Fontaine, architect, 194. Fontainebleau, 10, 14, 30, 31, 48, 61, 63, 99. Fontainebleau Forest in art, 233. Fontevrault, Abbess de, 64. Forain, 453. Forbin, Comte de, 177, 185. Fortuny, 322, 349, 383. Fouquet, Jean, 4-6. Fouquet, Minister, 48. Fouquieres, 38. Fragonard, E., 109. Fragonard, J. H., 84, 106, 107-9, 117, 141, 154, 390, 391. Francais, F. L., 241, 246, 250-1, 260, 476, 477. Francis I., 7, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 28, 71. Francis II., 13, 15. Francisque, 46, 121. Freminet, M., 14, 30-1, 36. French Academy at Rome, 16. Frere, E., 302, 366, 392-4, 478, 479. " Charles Edouard, 394. " Theodore, 306. 392, 396. Friends of Art, Society of, 124, 474. Frochot, M., befriends Prudhon, 152-3. Froment, N., 4. Fromentin, E., 228, 229, 231, 303-6 ; in- fluenced by Marilhat, 303 ; had two muses, teachers, weakness, 304; travel in Algiers, interpretation of Arab life, 305 ; author, character, 306, 476. Fronde, The, 20. Fuseli, 40. G. Galleries. — Belvedere, Vienna, 12, 56 ; Bridge water, London, 40, 215 ; Carig- nan, 74 ; Cassel, 45 ; Corcoran, Wash- ington, 211, 316, 393, 435 ; Dore, Lon- don, 422, 423 ; Doria, 62 ; Dresden, 37, 115 ; Dulwich, 49 ; Ghent, 408 ; Hampton Court, 12 ; Hermitage, St. Petersburg, 40, 41, 56, 95,97,114, 147; Imperial, Vienna, 37 ; Kunsthalle, Hamburg, 267, 344 ; Lichtenstein at Vienna, 56 ; Louvre, 13, 14, 15, 18, 34, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 47, 49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 57, 67, 69 ; opened as a museum, 87, 88, 89, 93, 95, 97, 101, 102, 106, 109, 111, 112, 113, 116, 118, 120, 124, 127, 136, 137, 138, 142, 143, 147, 152, 153, 154, 160, 161, 163, 169, 170, 171, 174, 178, 183, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 203, 205, 207, 208, 210, 211, 212, 214, 215, 233, 258, 260, 286, 300, 323, 408 ; Luxembourg, 16, 36, 46, 56, 74, 110, 127, 178, 189, 203, 208, 210, 211, 221, 223, 234, 249, 250, 328, 330, 333, 343, 347, 351, 352, 353, 354, 369, 380, 384, 386, 387, 388, 390, 392, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 400, 403, 407, 408, 410, 412, 413, 422, 424, 427, 428, 434, 435, 436, 437, 450, 451, 452, 457, 458, 471, 472 ; Madrid, 41, 44, 95 ; Munich, 401 ; Pinacothek, 56; National, London, 33; 37, 40, 42, 106, 230 ; Orleans in XVIIIth century, 75 ; Palais Royal in XVIIth century, 18 ; Palais Royal in XVIIIth century, 75, 76; Ravene, Ber- lin, 261, 267 ; Sans Souci, 76 ; Tria- non, 57 ; Ufflzi, Florence, 168 ; Ver- sailles, 56, 69, 74, 106, 118, 120, 146, 147, 149, 150, 158, 179, 180, 181, 197, 205, 209, 215. Galloche, L., 96, 98, 111. Gambetta, 470. Gambinet, 260. Ganguin, 463. Gautherot, 166. Gautier, T., 207, 229, 251, 282, 313, 329, 331, 421, 431, 416, 445, 455. Genre, 76-7; little esteemed, 129; fa- vored by Napoleon, 129 ; at height, 279 ; painters in Third Period, 335; won from classicism, 357; in sympathy with labor, 359; rustic genre, 364. Gerard, Baron, 84, 150-8 ; portraits, personal influence, 157 ; works, 158 ; 160, 173, 192. 488 INDEX. Geoffrey, J., 335, 393. Gericault. 153, 156, 161, 169, 178, 182- 6, 198, 199, 201, 214, 314, 337, 441 ; in Salon, 1812, 183; his Medusa, 184, 179. Ger6me, J. L., 217, 245, 208, 279, 282, 287, 289, 308-19 ; varied endowments, 308 ; early study, 309 ; first exhibition a success, 310 ; travels in Russia and Egypt and finds his true magnet, 311 ; strength of antitheses, 312; his women without souls, 312 ; Phryne, 313 ; works, 314-19 ; honors, 317; follow- ers, 319. Gersaint, 91, 92, 95. Gervex, H., 401, 463, 464, 474, 476, 477. Gigoux, 251, 452. Gillot, 91, 96. Giotto, G., 467. Giradon, Madame, 25. Giraud, on jury, 84. Girodet, A. L., 158-9, 165, 184, 218, 220, 257. Glaize, A. B., 437. Glaize, P. P. L., 382, 437. Gleyre, C. G., 287-8, 331, 333, 476. Gobelins, 48, 51, 53, 57, 58. Goeneutte, 463. Goethe, 190. Goncourt, 102. Gosey, Elizabeth de, 69. Gospels of Charlemagne and his wife, 2. Gosselin, 460. Goubaut, 67. Gousse, Genevieve, 53. Thomas, 53. Government influence during classicism, 130-8. Government Officials in Fine Arts to be Members of Academy, 82. Grand Maison, M. de, 6. Grandon, 117. Granet, F. M., 156, 159. Greuze, 77, 78, 109, 114-18, 119, 120, 159, 271, 479. Greuze, Madame, 116. Grey, Lady Jane, 5. Gros, Baron, 143, 148, 156-60, 161, 165, 166, 1*3, 191, 199, 200, 214, 218, 220, 357, 394, 441. Guay, Jacques, 103. Gudin, F. J. A., 455. Guercino, 71. Guerin, P. N., 156, 161, 166, 182, 183, 191, 199, 214, 237. 473. Guernier, Susanne, 59. Guibert, H., 102. Guido, 50, 71. Guillaumet, G., 328, 476. Guillaumin, 463. Guillemet, J B. A., 452, 476, 477. Guillet de Saint Georges, 83. Guillon-Lethiere, 473. Guimard, Madame, 141. Gutenberg Statue, 416. H. Haag, 394. Hamerton, P. G., 43, 167, 257, 259, 279, 280, 284, 311, 347, 381, 431, 457. Hamon, J. L., 329-333, 334. Hampton Court, 12. Hanoteaux, H., 450, 452, 476, 477. Harford, F., Rev., 426. Harpignies, H., 260, 268, 350, 408, 450-1, 452, 460, 476. Harrenger, The Abbe, 94. Haumont, M., 450. Havermann, Catherine, 25. Hazlitt, 40 Hebert, A., 359, 366, 396-8, 413, 416, 473, 476, 477, 478. Heilbuth, F., 348, 350, 351-2. Heim, 264. Heine, 201. Hemicycle of Fine Arts, 216, 273. Henley, W. E., 391. Hennequin, 163, 184. Henner, J. J., 159, 376, 402, 406, 407, 408, 409-10, 476, 477, 479. Henry II., 11, 15. " III., 13, 15. " IV., 15, 16, 30, 31, 32, 60. Hersent, 191, 264, 391. Historical Painters, The later, 426. Hobbima, 249. Holbein, 11, 356. Homer, 191, 469. "Hors Concours," 268, 269. Hotel Drouot, 245. 272. Hotel de Ville, Paris, 271. Houssaye, A., 94. H., 463. Hue, 127, 163. Huet, Paul, 186, 226, 232-3, 243, 260. Hugo, V., 190, 207, 417. Huguet, 463. Humbert, F., 401, 437, 476, 477. Hunt, Wm. H., 292. Husson's statue to Lesueur, 56. Hyre, Laurent de la, 20, 34. I. Ictinus, 217. Illuminators, 2. Imperial War, The, 177. Impressionists, The, 459-73 ; list, 463. Ingres, J. D. A., 156, 161, 166-71, 174, 178, 179, 180, 191, 192, 194, 195, 200, 201, 206, 207, 209, 227, 228, 252, 267, 268, 279, 289, 357, 391, 399, 4»2, 426, 434, 473. INDEX. Innocent X., 62. Institute, National, of France; organized in 1 795, 85 ; under the Directory, 85 ; first membership, 86 ; under Napoleon I., 130, 132, 134; costume of members, 132; under restored Bourbons, 133, 134; under Louis Philippe, 191. Insurrection of Artists of, 47-8, 194, 195. Invalides, Les, 102. Isabey, J. B., 204, 260, 350, 455. " E. L., 455. Isenbart, 452. Italian Artists at French Court, 10. J. Jabach, 50. Jacques, C, 247, 298-300. Jacquet, 442. Jalabert, 217. 366, 394, 395-6, 408, 476. James II. of England, 67. Jannin, General, 148. Janssen, 430. Jeanron, 269, 270. Jeurat, E., 114. Jobbe-Duval, 329, 333. Josephine, Empress, 45. Jouvenet, Jean, 57-8. Noel, 36, 89. Julienne, Jean B. de, 80, 94, 95. Julius II., portrait of, 75. Junot, General, 163. Jury of the Salons under Louis XV. Established 1748, 80, 82 ; under Louis XVI. , 82 ; under Convention and Di- rectory, 83, 84, 85 ; Napoleon I., 132 ; Louis XVIII. and Charles X., 134 ; Louis Philippe, 194, 231 ; Napoleon III., 264, 268 ; Third Republic, 275. K. "Kratz boys," 416, 418. L. Laberge, C. de, 234. La Blancherie, Palien de, 82. Laborde, 2, 8, 10, 11,43. Lacroix, Paul, 419, 421. Lagrenee, J. G., 102. J. J., 102. Lafayette, Marquis de, 213. Madame de, 68. Lafenestre, G., 382, 431, 459. Lalanne, 476, 477. Lallemont, G., 36. Lambert, Madame de, 68. L. , 350. Lambinet, E., 250, 394. Lamartine, 195. La Montagne, 91, 94. Lammerville, 84. Lamothe, 322. Lancret, N., 96. Landscape in XVIIIth Century, 121; under Classicism, 186 ; Romanticism, 229 ; in Third Period, 449. Landscape and Animals of XlXth Cent- ury: of Romantic Period, 257, 261 ; of Third Period, 294. Landseer, E., 257, 294. Langee, 468. Langlois: J. M. B., 156. 171. Lansyer, E., 268, 476, 477. La Patrie, 429. Largilliere, Nicholas de, 60, 66, 67-8, 89, 271. Larousse, 436. Laugee, F. D., 441, 476. Laurens, J. P., 408, 435-6, 475, 476, 477. Lavielle, 452, 476, 477. Lawrence, 230. Law's Scheme, 70, 73. Le Blant, 350. Lebrun, Charles, 19, 20, 21, 28, 47-52, 55, 56, 57, 63, 67, 97. Lebrun, J. B. P., 120. Lecompte-du-Nouy, 319. Lecoq de Boisbaudran, 388. Ledru-Rollin, 195, 265, 288. Lefebvre. J.,' 402, 406, 407-9, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479. Lefebvre, Philippe, 80. Legion of Honor established, 131, 438. Le Fort, 103. Legras, Auguste, 213. Legros, Alphonse, 388-389. Lehmann, K. E. B. H., 289-90. Leigh Court, 42. Lelievre, 450. Leloir, L., 348, 353-54. " M., 354. Lely, Sir Peter, 35. Lemaire, Madame M., 406. Le Mercier, 38. Le Moine, F., 96. 98, 100, 102. Le Nain, the Brothers, 95. Lenepveu, J. E., 427, 473. Lenoir, Alexandre, 88, 129. Leonardo da Vinci, 8, 10, 75. Lepicie, N. B., 114. Lepine, 463. Le Poittevin, E. M. , 391-92. Leprince, J. B., 114. Lerolle, H., 390, 477. Leroux, H., 395, 435, 442, 476. Lessing, 142, 145. Lethiere, G. G., 171, 184, 191. Letrome, 246. Lesueur, E., 17, 20, 21, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52-57, 283, 366, 480. 490 INDEX. Lesueur, Pierre, Philippe and Antoine, 53. Levy, E., 476. Levy, H. M., 388, 476, 477. Lhermitte, L. A., 388-90, 479. Liber Veritatis or Inventium, 45. Lobrichon, T.. 334-35, 393, 479. "Loge," 132, 276. Longhi, 162. Lorrain, Claude, 40, 42-6, 74, 75, 121, 186. 235. Lorraine, Henry, Duke of, 44. Lostalot, Alfred de, 382. Louis XI., 2, 6, 8, 9, 347. Louis XII., 7, 45. Louis XIII., 16, 31, 32, 37, 42. Louis XIV., 16, 17, 48, 49, 50, 57, 61, 64, 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, 73, 90, 91, 96. Louis XV., 69, 73, 82, 97, 101, 103, 107, 118. Louis XVI., 56, 74, 77, 78, 82, 107, 117, 118, 119, 125, 289. Louis Philippe, 165, 179, 181, 183, 190, 193, 204, 213, 288, 455, 4,6. Louvigny, 64. Louvois, 51, 64. Luminais, E. V., 433, 476, 477, 478. Lyons, Academy of Painting, 71. M. Mabuse, 11. Madrazo, 412. Maignan, A. , 439, 476. Maintenon. Madame de, 48, 66, 73. Maison, Mile., 286. Maitrise, 63. Maitrise of St. Luke, 19, 20, 21, 24, 51, 78. Malmaison, 45. Manet, E., 268, 350. 463-6, 571. Mansard, 28, 30, 44, 66. Mantz, Paul, 431, 445. Marat, 144, 366. Marc, Antonio, 36. Marie Adelaide of Savoy, 67. Maria Theresa, 61, 63. Marigny, Minister, 27, 82, 103, 110, 114, 116. Marilhat, P., 228, 229, 231, 243, 303. Marine Painting early in Century, 172. of Third Period, 455. Marino, 32. Marjolin, Madame, 211, 213. Marly, 48. Marolle, A. J.. 395, 441, 477. Martin, Abbe, 2. Martinet, 333. Mary of Burgundy, 9. Massena, General, 102. Massini Library, 39. Mattei, Cardinal, 88. Matthieu, A., 459. Maximilian, 9. Mayer, Constance Mile., It8, 154. " May Picture," 36, 49, 50, 55, 57, 59. Mazarin, 18, 22, 47, 48; 61, 62, 63. Meade, Dr., 94. Medals : instituted, 84; regulated under Napoleon III., 265 ; under Third Re- public, 275. Medici, Cardinal de', 62. Catharine de', 15, 16. " Maria de', 16, 31, 36, 46, 74, 92. " Villa de', 128. Medusa in England, 185. Meissonier, J. L. E., 124, 220, 245, 279, 335-55 ; allied to Gerome, first artist in miniature genre, 335 : eminence in financial esteem, qualities, dignity of conscience, 336 ; broad treatment under lens, 337 ; student of Dutch masters in Louvre, illustrated books, 339; first exhibition, 1834; rejected in 1835; married, 340 ; met varied criti- cism, Napoleonic cycle, 341 ; honors, works, 343. Meissonier, J. C, 345. Melin, 463. Memling, 5. Memmi, 9. Menageot, 119. Menard, Rene, 240. Mendelssohn, 114, 179. Mengs, Raphael, 129. " Men of 1830," 279. Mereville, Laborde de, 76. Merle, Hugues, 398. " G. H., 398. Merson, L. 0. pere, 307. " fils, 43s. 478. Metzu, 338, 339. Meunier, Gen., 148. Megnier, 84, 166. Michael Angelo. 37, 75, 162, 183, 200. Michallon, A. E., 186, 188, 238. Michel, Andre, 248, 374. Michel, A, 450. Michel, Georges, 256. Michelet, 184. Mignan, 255. Mignard, N., 60, 61. Pierre, 11, 21, 51, 60, 61-6. " Pierre the younger, 61. Paul, 61. Millet, Francois, 375-8. Millet, Jean Francois (Francisque), 46. Millet, Jean Francois, 158, 194, 196, 207, 217, 225, 231, 245. 247, 251, 260, 279, 288, 299, 364-375; profundity, ethical incidentally, 364; originates a style, religious spirit of his family, 365; INDEX. 491 peasant life his inspiration, studies, 866; appreciation of old masters, transition, second marriage, 367; ill- ness, suffering, etching, 368; aid through Diaz, new style, friendship with Rousseau at Barbison, 369 ; " Cry of the Earth," qualities of new style misunderstood, contracts with dealers, 370; earnest character of subjects, 871; Angelus, 373; success in 1867, pension to widow, 374 ; works, 374-5, 377, 382, 383, 384, 387, 461, 465, 467, 477, 480. Millet, Joseph Francois, 121. Military Painting, 441. Miniature Painting, 13. Moiiere, 63. Monet, C, 462, 463, 466. Moniteur Officiel, Le, 268. Montespan, Madame de, 66, 180. Montesquieu, 71). Monticelli, A., 390-2. Montpensier, Mile, de, 197. More, Peter, 60. Moreau, Bishop of Macon, 152. " Adolphe, 198. " Adrien, 347. Fanny, 175. " Gustave, 433-5, 478. Morel-Darlieu, 84. Morizot, 463. Morot, Aime N., 440, 475, 476, 477. Motteville, Madame de, 68. Mural Decorations in Public Buildings : licole des Beaux- Arts, 216; Fontaine- bleau, 30 ; Hall of Court of Appeals, Paris, by Baudry, 430 ; Hall of Mar- riages of 2d Arrondissement, Paris, by Besnard, 462 ; Hotel des Invalides, by Van Loo and Doyen, 101, 102 ; Hotel de Ville, Paris, by Lehmann, 289; panels by Cabanel, 400 ; by Delacroix, 205 ; by fifteen landscape painters, 405 ; Hotel de Ville, Poitiers, by Puvis de Chavannes, 432 ; Louvre Ceilings, by Deveria, 208 ; by Cogniet, 220, 339 ; by Couture, 292 ; by Delacroix, 205 ; by Lebrun, 50; Luxembourg, by Roque- plan, 250 ; by Delacroix, 204 ; by Cabanel, 400 ; by Carolus-Duran, 356; Marly, by Lebrun, 48 ; Nouvel Opera, Lenepveu, 427 ; by Baudry, 227-8-9; Palais Bourbon, by Delacroix, 204 : Palais Royal, by Delacroix, 202 ; by Coypel, 75 ; Parlement Chamber at Rennes, by Jouvenet, 57 ; Pavilion of Flora in Louvre, by Cabanel, 400 ; Pantheon, by Gros, 164 ; by Cabanel, 400 ; by Puvis de Chavannes, 432; Tri- bunal of Commerce, Paris, by Robert- Fleury, 221 ; Tuileries, by Vouet, 34 ; by Chaplin, 406 ; Versailles, by Le- brun, 48, 50, 57. Museums. — Ajaccio, 158; Alencon, 388; Amiens, 128, 250, 316, 408; Am- sterdam, 87; Angers, 189, 241, 300; Antwerp, 12; Autun, 128; Basle, 287; Berlin, 50, 102, 106; Besancon, 250; Bordeaux, 56, 106, 120, 127, 233, 251, 258, 387, 433 ; Boston, 375, 469 ; Bourg, 241; British, 43; Brussels,, 1.8; Caen, 233; Cambrai, 250; Chalons- sur-Saone,300 ; Dijon, 102, 128, 160, 189, 388, 410, 447; Dresden, 87, 95, 157; Epinal, 251; French Monu- ments, 88; Geneva, 128; Grenoble, 56,128, 397; Konigsberg, 96, 215; Laval, 306, 352; Le Mans, 128; Liege, 169; Leipsic, 218, 261, 428; Lille, 106, 127, 141, 142, 147, 173, 196, 205, 261, 286, 354, 382, 386, 387, 412; Lisieux, 286 ; Lyons, 56, 57, 159, 189, 286, 432; Macon, 241; Marseilles, 56, 102, 128, 158, 189, 333; Mayence, 128; Melun, 408 ; Mende, 241 ; Metro- politan, New York, 226, 292, 302, 319, 344, 389, 390, 411, 446; Mon- tauban, 56. 286 ; Montpellier, 186, 202, 233, 250, 258, 259 ; Nancy, 102, 106, 127, 205, 306, 433; Nantes, 56, 107, 189, 251, 258, 286, 333, 430; Nismes, 106. 215; Orleans, 102, 233, 437; Plombieres, 251; del Prado, of Madrid, 45; Rennes, 128, 3^3; Rheims, 241 ; Rouen, 56, 127, 647, Stettin. 306 ; Stockholm, 106 ; Stras- bourg, 127 ; Toulon, 106 ; Toulouse, 127, 158, 171, 205, 318; Tours, 128, 205, 251; Versailles, Historical Museum of, 51, 187, 102, 106, 118, 120. Museums under Napoleon I., 126, 127, 128 ; under Louis Philippe, 1 87 ; Pro- vincial, 87, 127, 128. Musee Napoleon, 136 ; restored to owners, 137. Murillo, 77, 270, 271. Musset, Alfred de, 207, 219. N. Nargeon, 84. Napoleon I., 72, 76, 78; acquisitions for Louvre, 88, 118, 125, 126, 142, 146, 165, 166, 169, 181, 190, 269, 436. Napoleon III., 181, 240, 260, 268,269, 270, 285, 286, 399, 456. Napoleon, Prince, 288. Narbonne, Chanoines of, 75. Natoire, 119. Naturalistic Schools of Romantic Period, 222 492 INDEX. Neo-grecs, rise, aims, characteristics of, 329. ^ Neufchateau, Francois de, 85. Nicholas V., Pope, 34 Nieuwerkerke, Comte de, influence on art, 264-82, 289 ; additions to Louvre, 329. Neuwiller, Church of, in Alsace, 2. Nev, Marshal. 308, 341. Novers, 28, 38. ' Nozal, 452. 0. Oppression of Academy, 26. Orient, The, in French painting, 228. Orientalists in Romantic Period, 222. " Third Period, 303. Orleans, Charles of, 9. Orleans Gallery in XVIIIth Century, 75. Orleans, Philippe II., Duke of, 75-6. Orleans, Louis, Duke of, 75, 76. Louis Philippe, Duke of, 76. ' ' Philippe Joseph, Duke of, 76. " Louis Philippe, Duke of, 178. " Louise of, 90. Ossian, 191. Oudinet, 452. Oudry, 103. P. Painters atfected by Italian influences, 13. Paintings on furniture, 1, 2. '' •' garments, 1. " " glass, 1, 2. " " panels, 1, 2. " " tapestries, 1. " " walls, 1. Palais de l'lndustrie, erected, 262. Palais Royal, gallery, 17, 116. Pantheon, 164, 288. Papal Nuncio. M. Defini, 17. Paris (architect), 413. Paris an art centre, 278. Pater, J. B., 96. Pattison, Mrs. Mark, 13. Pan de Saint Martin, A., 242. Payson, Pierre, 12. Pecoul, Mile., 142. Pelouse, L. G., 451, 476, 477. Pensions by Louis XIV., 28. Pereal, Jean, 5-6. Pericles, 216. Perigord, Madame, 177. Periods, Three, of Art of XlXth Cen- tury, 129. Perrault, 47. Perrier, F., 34. Peter the Great, 58. Petition of Artists, 194, 195. Petits Augustins, Les, Convent of, 88, 136, 273. Petrarch, 9. * Phidias, 2, 7. Philip of Burgundy, 3. Philip IV. of Spain, 44. Philipon, 418. Philipoteaux, H. A F., 442. Philippe Auguste, 9. Picot, F. 155, 264, 310, 377, 403, 410, 433, 447, 472. Picou, 287, 331, 333. Pignaniol de la Force, 20. Pillage of Abbeys and Palaces, 88. Pille, C. H., 362, 476, 477. Pils, I. A. A., 268, 281, 472, 476. Piombino, Princess of, 32. " Sebastiano del, 75. Pius VII., Portrait by David, 146. Place Dauphine. 110, 113. Planche, 225, 244. Plassan, A. E., 345. Plutarch, 39, 438. "Poidevin," 450. Pointelin, 450, 452. Poissonier, Dr., 105. Pommereul, General, 123. Pompadour, Madame de, 79, 101, 103, 104, 105, 110, 114, 118, 123. Pompeii, influence of excavations, 140, 142. Pont Neuf, 102. Portaels, 327. Port Royalists, 47. Potier, Jules, 339. Potter, Paul, 75, 260. Poussin, N., 11, 28, 30, 35-42; works, 40, 43, 46, 49/50, 74, 75, 78, 158, 186, 260. Poussin, Gabriel, 51. " Caspar, 42. Pozzo, Cavaliere di, 37, 38. Praslin, 48. Present condition of French art, 473-8. Prieur, 187. Prilly, Madame, burns king's portrait, 61. Primaticcio, 14, 99, 431. Princess Marie's regard for Ary Scheffer, 213. Prix de Rome — established in XVIIth century, 29-30 ; under Louis XV. and XVI., 82, 96; continued by Conven- tion ; under Napoleon I., 128, 135, 139; under Restoration, 135; changes of 1863, under Napoleon III., 267; established for classical landscape, 136; abolished, 267. Prize of Due d'Antin, 98. " of the Emperor, 260. " of M. Tournehem, 80. INDEX. 493 Procession of Napoleon's trophies of art. 89. Professors of Academy, 21, 22. Protais, P. A., 441, 442, 444. 447. Protector, Vice- Protector of Academy, 21. Protectors of XVIIth Century, 23. Proust, A., 465. Provincial Museums, 87, 127, 128. Prudhon, P. P., 118, 150-5, 166, 200, 201, 479. Prudhon, P. J., 378. Psalter for mother of St. Louis, 2. Pujol, Abel de, 156, 159-60, 177, 195, '225, 250, 264 Puvis de Chavannes, 395, 408, 430-2, 468, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479. Q. Quai, Maurice, 140, 145, 156. Queen Marie Amelie, 213. Quentin de la Tour, 113. R. Recamier, Madame, 147, 157. Raffaelli, 450, 463. Ranc, 68. Raphael, 54, 74, 75, 89, 126, 142, 151, 167, 170, 192, 285, 351, 352, 391, 428. Rapin, A., 454, 476, 477. Raymond, legend of, 54-5. Rectors of Academy of Painting, 21. Redoute. 84. Regent, the, 74. Regnault, J. B., 119, 149, 160. Henri, 202, 321-5 ; precocity, 321; "envois" of 1871 draped with crape, 323 ; his Salome alone illustrated the age, 323-4 ; varied powers, 324 ; betrothal, enlistment, death, 325. Rembrandt, 74, 75, 77, 89, 170, 231, 254, 260, 271, 350, 393. Remond, 187, 304. Rene of Anjou, 1, 3, 4, 9. Renoir, 463. Renouf, E., 456, 476. Republic of America, 78. Republic, Third, 271. Residences : Cassin's, Madame de, by Lefebvre, 408 ; Colonna Palace, Rome, by Gaspar Poussin, 42 ; Corsini Palace, Rome, by Gaspar Poussin, 42 ; Farnese Palace, Rome, by Mignard, 62, 65; Guimard's, Madame, Temple of Terpsichore, by Fragonard and David, 140 ; Hotel Bullion, by Vouet and Blanchard, 34 ; Hotel Pereire now Bartelemy, by Bouguereau, 405 ; Hotel Lambert de Thorigny, by Lebrun and Lesueur, 55 ; Napoleon, Prince, Pompeiian House of by G. Boulanger, 320 ; Hotel Breton viliers, by Lesueur, 59 ; Hotel de Longueville, 65 ; Pompadour's, Madame de, Chateau Bellevue, 103 ; Sceaux, by Lebrun, 48 ; Vanderbilt, Mr. Cornelius, by Baudry, 429 ; Van- derbilt, Mrs. W. H., by Baudry, 429; Villa Borghese, Rome, by Gaspar Poussin, 42 ; Vaux Vicomte, by Le- brun, 48. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 40, 77, 105, 393. Ribera, in La Caze Collection, 271. Ribot, A. F. , 362, 457, 476, 477. Richelieu, 16, 21, 32, 34, 40, 47, 48 ; gallery, 18-19. Riches of French Art passing to Ger- many, England and Russia, 88. Rieux, 58. Rigaud, Hyacinthe, 60, 66, 68, 70, 75, 89, 271. Rivalz, Antoine, 97. Robert, L. L., 163, 218-20, 235. " Aurele 220—1 Robert-Fleury,' J. N.j 200, 220-1, 264, 347, 473. Robert-Fleury, Tonv, 347, 408, 475, 476. Robespierre, 83, 142, 143, 175. Rochegrosse, 438. Rohan, Duke of, 181. Roll, A. T., 359, 463, 464, 472-3, 476, 477, 479. Romano, Giulio, 75. Romanticism, period of, 190-261 ; causes, 191 ; aim, 193 ; artists of, 197 ; Orien- talists of, 222 ; landscape painters of, 229 ; painters of landscape and ani- mals of, 257. Ronot, C, 382. Roqueplan, 166, 186, 250, 259, 260, 306, 394. Rosso, II, 10, 431. Rossini, 415. Rouart, 463. Roux, 366. Rousseau, J. J., 288. Theodore, 194, 195, 220, 231, 232, 235, 241-48 ; poetical realist, edu- cation, 242 ; paints view of Auvergne instead of subject assigned, 243 ; offi- cial hostility, goes to Barbison, 243; " father " and proto-martyr of modern landscape, 244-45; reaction in his fa- vor, 244 ; defines finish, versatility, 246 ; insanity of wife, 247 ; intensely French, 248 ; price of works finally, 248. Rousseau, Philippe, 458, 476. 494 INDEX. Rubens, 16, 36, 74, 89, 92, 93, 126, 183, 200, 203, 218, 271. Rusk in, 43, 393. Ruysdael, 249. S. Sacchi. Andrea, 58. Saci, De, 47. Sainte Beuve, 304. Saint-Fargeau, M. Lepelletier de, 144. Saint- Pierre, G. C, 362, 476. Saintin, J. E., 359. Sales— Arbuthnot, 1882, 342 ; Blondel, 1776, 95; Charles I. of England, 175U-3, 318 ; Defoer, Paris, 1886, 343 ; Gsell, 91 ; Hartman, Paris, 1881, 375 ; Ja- bach, 18 ; Johnston, New York, 1876. 207, 226, 287, 315, 336, 353 ; Khalil Bey, Paris, 1868, 343 ; Latham. New York, 1878, 334, 336 ; Lathrop {erra- tum for Latham). 334 ; Laurent-Ri- chard, Paris, 1873, 248, 343, 452 ; Le Bas, 1783, 114; Lehon, 1861, 343; Lepel-Cointet, 1881, 377; Mason, 1868, 227 ; Morgan, Mr. E. D., New York, 1886, 335: Morgan, Mrs. M. J., New York, 1886, 248, 319, 335, 344, 349, 375, 883; Mott, Mr. J. L., New York, 1888, 318; Nilsson (erratum for Wilson), 1873, 249; Paris, Patereau, 1857, 95; Probaseo, New York, 1887, 242, 248, 475; Robert, Hubert, 1809, 95 ; Seney, Mr. G. I., New York, 1885, 309, 344, 475 : Spencer, Mr. Albert, New York, 1888, 305, 319, 344 ; Stewart, Mrs. A. T., New York, 1887, 319, 320, 344, 405; Tence, 1881, 343 ; Ward-Brown, New York, 1886, 207, 236 ; Wertheimher; 344 ; Wilson, J. W. , Paris, 1881, 343, 373 ; Wilson (erratum for Nilsson), 1873, 249. Salons. — So named, 79 ; under Louis XV., 77 ; under Louis XVI., 77-81 ; advantages of regularity of, 98 ; con- trol by Directors of Buildings in XVIIIth century, 79 ; under Conven- tion, Directory, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87 ; that of 1793, 83 ; under Napoleon I., 132 ; under Restoration, 134 ; that of 1819 historic, 194 ; under Louis Philippe, 191, 194 ; that of 1831 historic, 194 ; that of 1848, 196, 262; under Napoleon III, 262-6, 268 ; under Third Repub- lic. 274-6 ; of the Rejected, 268; entire number and catalogues of, 27. Salon de la Correspondance, 82, 118. Sampson, Colonel D., and Dore, 417. Sancv, Baron de, 31. Sand, George, 199, 243, 306. Sandrart, 44. Sarrasin, 20, 23^ Sarto, Andrea Del, 10, 74, 75. Sartoris, 427-8. Savoy, Duke of, 30. Sceaux, 48. Scheffer, Ary, 199, 202, 209-13, 243, 290. Scheffer, Henri, 213. Arnold, 213. Schenck, A. F. A., 302, 394, 431. Schiller, 190. Schnetz, J. V., 156, 160-1, 191, 235, 430, 473. School at Paris, early, 7. " Tours, " 7. Secretary of Academy, 22, 23. Sege, A., 451. Seignac, 394. Serret, 463. Seurat, 463. Sforza. Galeas Marias, 9. Sigalon. X., 199, 214. Signac, 463. Silvestre, 381. Simiane, Madame de, 92. Simoneau, 55. Sirois, 94. Sisley, 463. Snyders, 101. Societe republicaine et populaire des arts, 84. Society of French Artists, 474. Socrates, 144. Somers, Christine, Madame Van Loo, 100. Sorbonne, 126, 153. Sorel, Agnes, 6. Souchon, 354. Stael, Madame de, 157, 193. Steinheil, A. C. 345, 376. Louis, 255, 340. L. C. A., 345. Stella, Jacques, 42. Still-life, Painters of, 457. St. Bruno, 53, 54. Stuart, Marie, 11. Subleyras, M., 97. P., 97. Suger, Abbott, 2. Suisse, his studio, 366, 381. Sully, 16. Summary of Art of XVth Century, 7. <■ " '< XVIth Century, 15. " XVIIth Century, 71-2. " XVIIIth Century, 123-5. Superior Council of Fine Arts, 357, 272. Suvee. wins favors for Prix de Rome, 128.' System of Honors under Napoleon III., 268. INDEX. 495 T. "Tache," 202, 459, 460. Taine, H. A., 282, 418. Talleyrand, 242. Talma, influenced by David, 143. 1*sissi -A. 44 Taun'ay, N. A., 160, 163.186. Teniers, 75, 111, 271, 473. Terburg, 338, 339. Thackeray, 232. Thevenin, 166, 191. Thevenin, Catherine (Madame Cogniet), 220. Thibault, 84. Thiers, 200, 204, 213. 214. 349. Thirty, The, privileged of the Academy, 22. Thomassin (engraver), 95. Thore, 196. Thorwaldsen, 179. Titian, 65, 74, 75, 203, 271. Toulemouche, A., 288, 339, 359, 362. Tournehem, Minister, 84. Treasurer of Academy, 22. Trianon, The, 37, 87. Triennial Salon of 1883, 249. Troy on, C, 257, 258-61, 294, 307, 322. Tudor, Mary, 5. Turner, 387. U. Uccello, Paolo, 466. University of Paris, its early influence, 9. Urban VilL, Pope, 32, 44, 62. V. Val de Grace, 63, 65. Valenciennes, 186, 238. Valentin, Le, 35, 42, 142. Valois, Margaret of, 11, 88. Van Dyke, 74, 75, 89. Van Eycks, 11. Van Loo, Carl, 78, 80, 99-102, 103, 112, 114, 145. Van Loo, Caroline, beauty of, 100. " family of eight painters, 99. L. C.'B., 102. "Vanlooter," 102. Van Marcke, Emile, 301-2, 376, 377. Mile. Marie, 302. Varin, Quentin, 34, 36. Vasari, 75. Vaux, le Vicomte, 48. Vaux Villars, 48. Vayson, P., 362, 476. Villars, Duke of, 82. Velasquez, 62, 271, 322, 356, 465. Verbruck, 103. Vernet, Claude Joseph, 103, 109-11, 120, 186. Vernet, Carl, 32, 84, 163, 166, 173, 182, 191, 441. Vernet, Horace, 32,169, 173,176-82, 185, 214, 228, 264, 279, 347, 408, 441, 443, 473, 479. Vernet, Mile. Louise, 216, 219. Veronese, 31, 50, 74, 203, 204. Versailles Museum established, 87. Versale, Andrea, 37. Veyrasset, J. J., 300-1, 394. Vezzo, Virginia di, 32. Viardot, 38, 65. Vibert, J. G., 348-50, 442. Vidall, Eugene, 463. Vien, 11, 84, 85, 103, 105, 118-20, 141, 163. Vigee-Lebrun, Madame Elizabeth, 120- 1, 161. Vignon, 463. Villard, M. and Dore, 425. Villot, 18, 27, 32. Vincent, F. A., 84, 119, 148, 163, 176. Virgil, 200, 421. Vitet, 207. Vitruvius, 39. Vitry, Marechal de, 62. Vollbn, Antoine, 457-8, 476, 477, 479. " Alexis, 458. Voltaire, 54, 56, 288. Volterra, 75. Vouet, Aubin and Claude, 34. " Jacques, 34. " Laurent, 31. " Simon, 17, 19, 30, 31-4, 36, 38, 45, 47, 51, 52, 53, 54, 61, 62, 63. W. Waagen, 96. Wales, Prince of, 350, 425. Wallis, JEL, 374. Walpole, 90. Wals, Godfrey, 44. Watelin, 452. Watteau, A., 76, 77, 90-6, 98, 101, 105, 111, 113, 186, 271. Watteau, F. G. J., 95. G. J., 95. School of, 96. Wellington, Duke of, 136, 137, 157. Wicar, 354. Wille, 69. Winkelmann, 132, 142. Wlenghels, 94. WoJfl, Albert, 240, 245. Women in Academy of Painting, 25. Wordsworth, 236. Worms, Jules, 349, 352. Worth, 282. I Wouverman, 75. 496 INDEX. Yon, E. E., 450, 451. Yvon, A., 441, 442-3, 447, 479. Z. Zaraacois, 349. Zandomeneglai, 463. Zeigler, J., 216. Zeuxis, 54. Ziem, 228, 303, 476. Zola, 465. Zuber, 450. Zurburan, 54. GETTY CENTER LIBRARY 3 3125 00128 3205