y ) Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 with funding from Getty Research Institute https://archive.org/details/julesbastienlepaOOcart THE PORTFOLIO MONOGRAPHS ON ARTISTIC SUBJECTS EDITED BY P. G. HAMERTON PUBLISHED MONTHLY No. 4 April , 1894 Jules Bastien- Lepage by JUL I A CAR riVR IGHT (Mrs. Henrv London: SEELEY AND CO., LIMITED, ESSEX STREET, STRAND Sold by Paris Librairie Galignani, 225 Rue de Rivoli. Berlin : A. Asher & Co. 13 Ukter den Linden- New York : Macmillan & Co. Price Half-u-crc'iin THE PORTFOLIO. « « m % REEVES’ ARTISTS’ COLOURS. FOR YOUR BEST WORK “USE BEST MATERIAL. “I can speak of them in nothing but the highest terms; they are pure and rich in tint, very free and pleasant in working, and bear the severest test as to permanency." The President of the R.B.A. * CATALOGUE POST FREE. REEVES & SOUS, Ltd. 113, Cheapside, London, E.C. 19, LOWER PHILLIMORE PLACE. ' 8, EXHIBITION ROAD. M % % pianoforte ani) a v |i ^takers to the |!ojia! Jfmmln. 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PRADO, MADRID, VATICAN, ROME, HAARLEM, FRANKFORT, AND THE PARIS SALONS. A LARGE COLLECTION of EXAMPLES OF MODERN FRENCI and ENGLISH ART in SELECTED FRAMES, suitable for HALL! LIBRARY, DRAWING-ROOM, BOUDOIR, &c. THE AUTOTYPE FINE-ART CATALOGUE OI 184 pages, with Illustrated Supplement, containing 68 Miniature Photo graphs of notable Autotypes, post free, One Shilling. Autotype: a Decorative and Educational Art. New Pamphlet— Free oil Application. THE AUTOTYPE COMPANY, LONDON.' Dinneford’s Magnesia FOR REGULARt USE IN WARM CLIMATES (DINNEFORD’S FLUID MAG ME SI A The Best Remedy for The Safest Mild 1 Aperient fot [ DelicateCon stitutions. Ladies, Children, & Infants. Acidity of the Stomach, Heartburn, Headache, Gout, and Indigestion. SOLD THROUGHOUT THE WORLD Caution — See that “ DINNEFORD & CO.” is on every Bottle and Label. \ Jean of- c ire LtJlnt i/uf to ,~Jhe ) c OL CCA . JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE By JULIA CARTWRIGHT (MRS. HENRY ADY) Author of “ Sacharissaf “ Madame &V. LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED, ESSEX STREET, STRAND NEW YORK, MACMILLAN AND CO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES PA GE Joan of Arc (part of the composition) Frontispiece The Artist’s Grandfather to face 16 Sarah Bernhardt ,, ,, 46 Love in the Village 64 ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT Jules Basticn-Lepage. From a Relief by A. Saint-Gaudens 7 Pen and Ink Sketch of the Artist’s Grandfather it The Artist’s Father. Bust in bronze 12 La Communiante 18 Sketch of the Artist’s Grandfather 30 The Artist’s Grandfather 31 Portrait of Madame Lebegue 39 The Artist’s Mother 41 M. Entile Basticn-Lepage 43 Madame Drouet 44 The Potato Gatherers 47 Joan of Arc listening to the Voices 31 The Beggar 55 Sketch for the Death of Ophelia 38 A 2 + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Sketch of Gambetta after Death 61 Sketches for the Burial of a Young Girl 65, 67 The Chimney Sweep . 71 The Artist’s Grandfather 74. Statuette of Orpheus 77 Round the Lamp 78- JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE PART I Qu’il soit done permis a chacun ct a tous de voir avec les yeux qu’ils ont . . . Dans tous les arts, la victoire sera toujours a quelques privilegies “qui se laisserent aller eux-memes, et les discussions d’ecolc passeront comme passent les modes.” George Sand. Birth and early years of the Artist — His home and family — Education at Verdun — Choice of a profession — Paris training and first pictures — He serves in the war — Is wounded in the siege of Paris— Success of “ Mon Grandpere ” — His theories of art and inde- pendent principles — He exhibits “ La Communiante ” — Competes for the Prix de Rome - — Paints “ L' Annonciation" and “Priam.” I The ways ot Fate are strange. One painter attains greatness, almost without an effort, and leads a long and prosperous life, loaded with riches and rewards. Another, gifted with genius as unquestionable, struggles through years of poverty and despair, and after his death the pictures which he painted for bread are sold for thousands of pounds. One master outlives all his contemporaries and goes down to the grave full of years and honours. Another is cut off in the flower of manhood, with a glorious career opening before him and fame and fortune both within his reach. The name of Bastien-Lepage is still fresh in our ears. His works are almost as well known in England as they are in France. The frequent visits which he paid us during his short lifetime had made his presence familiar in London. It seems only the other day that he was 6 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE here with us, and we can hardly believe that more than nine years have already passed away since the winter evening on which he died. Among all the men of genius in this generation who have perished in their prime, among all of those upon whom — “Mournfully grating, the gates of the city of death have for ever closed ” — not one deserved to be more deeply lamented. When Raphael died, and left a name supreme among painters, he was only thirty-seven. But then Raphael was born at Urbino, and lived in the golden age of painting. From the day when he opened his eyes in the brightest of climes to that sad Good Friday which robbed the world of his glory, there was nothing to hinder the development of his genius or to cloud the serenity of his art. Bastien-Lepage belonged to a later day, and his life was led under harder conditions. He was born under gray northern skies, in an obscure village of eastern France. His parents were poor, and he had to make his own way in the world. His boyhood was spent among peasants and bourgeois who knew nothing of art, and had never seen a good picture. In his native village there were no great masters, no duke or duchess to look kindly on his first attempts and send him with letters of introduction to other cities. There were no Popes and cardinals to set him to work on Vatican walls or Farnesina ceilings. He came to Paris as a clerk in the Post-Office and served as a franc-tireur in the war of 1870. The whole of his artistic career covers a period of about twelve years. And both powers of brain and hand were at their height when he was attacked by the cruel disease which brought his life to an untimely end at thirty-six years of age. Great as his actual achievement had been, no one who knew him could doubt that greater things were still to come. But Death stepped in, and hopes and dreams were scattered to the winds. “But the fair guerdon when we hope to find. And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears. And slits the thin-spun life.” “ But not the praise.” That at least endures. In spite of the rapid changes of fashion in modern painting, in spite of the new phase on which French art has entered within the last few years, the name of Bastien- Lepage is still held in high repute in his native land. In that famous Jules Bastien-Lepage . From a Relief by A. S nint-G nucleus , 8 JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE collection of the century’s art which formed so remarkable a feature of the Paris Exhibition five years ago, the works of the painter of Damvillers occupied a prominent place. Among them were two of his finest peasant pictures, Les Fonts , now the property of the State, and Les Ramasseuses de Pommes-de-terre, and many of his best portraits. L' Amour au Village and P'ere Jacques , it is true, were missing, and only one or two of his later drawings were to be seen. But Jeanne d' Arc ecoutant les Voix, in some respects his finest and most memorable work, was brought back from America for the occasion, and hung side by side with the master- pieces of Millet and of Courbet, under the central dome of the Palais des Beaux Arts. There we saw once more the work of this master who had so much to say, and so little time to say it in. Once more we recognised the boldness and originality of his invention, his uncompromising truthfulness and rare intensity of expression. We were able to trace the effects of his influence upon living artists, not only in France but in England and America, and to realise better than ever before the place which he holds in the art movement of the present age. Mr. Ruskin has told us that the art which is especially devoted to the representation of natural fact always indicates a peculiar thought- fulness and gentleness of character. In the case of Bastien-Lepage, the rule certainly holds good. The personality of the man is as interest- ing as his pictures. The frankness and simplicity of his nature, his affectionate disposition and enthusiasm for his art, gained him many friends. Long after he was dead, his comrades remembered him fondly, and treasured up the bits of advice which he had given them at their work or the careless pleasant words which had dropped from his lips in idle hours. “ Ah ! let us talk about Bastien ! ” wrote the distinguished master, M. Dagnan Bouveret, soon after his brother artist’s death. “ He is always present with me, and whenever I paint a new picture I ask myself if it would have satisfied him.” Fortunately for us, several of his friends have recorded their impressions of the man. In 1885, M. Andre Theuriet, the well-known novelist and poet, published a small volume bearing the title of “ Jules Bastien-Lepage , L' homme et T artiste" and giving a brief memoir of his life as well as several of his letters. At the same time, two articles from the pen of M. de Fourcaud, appeared in JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE 9 the Gazette des Beaux Arts , in which this accomplished critic gave the world some interesting recollections of Bastien-Lepage, which he after- wards published in a more complete form in M. Baschet’s series ot Les Maitres Modernes. To another intimate friend, the sculptor Auguste Saint Gaudens, we owe the bronze relief here reproduced. It was executed in 1880, and inscribed with the words “A Token of Friendship,” and is at once an excellent likeness of the painter and a fine work of art. A glance at Bastien-Lepage’s origin and at the circumstances of his life will help us better than many pages of criticism to understand the full meaning and intention of his works. For his art was the spontaneous outcome of his home life. His impressions of nature were taken from the woods and fields of his native Lorraine, his models were the peasants of Damvillers, the men and women whom he had known from his child- hood, and all his larger and more important pictures were painted in his home— that home to which he clung with a love so passionate and true, and where he sleeps to-day in the green churchyard under the apple- trees. II Jules Bastien-Lepage, the painter of Jeanne d' Arc and of Les Foins was born on the first ot November, 1848, at Damvillers, a village near Verdun, in the department ot La Meuse. Three hundred years before, Damvillers had been a town of some importance. During the reign of Francis I. it was strongly fortified, and was besieged on one occasion by the Lmperor Charles V. In the seventeenth century its towers and bastions were razed to the ground by order of Louis XIV. Now the last remnants of the old walls have crumbled into dust, and apple orchards bloom in the grass-grown trenches. A clear stream, the river Tinte, flows through the green meadows, and vine-clad hills rise in gentle slopes on either side of the valley, where the red roofs cluster round the village church with the low spire, which figures in more than one of Bastien-Lepage’s paintings. But to those who know his works, the whole character of the place wears a curiously familiar aspect. The broad lines of the landscape, the plains bounded by undulating hills, io JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE the very shape of the houses in the village street seem to recall his pictures. A straight road, fringed with tall poplar trees, leads to the market- square, where the little life of the place centres. Here the diligence from Verdun stops in front of the village inn, and here at one corner of the Grande Place is the house which belonged to the artist’s father, Claude Bastien. A roomy comfortable house it is, but as unpretending as any of its neighbours, with the same white walls, drab shutters, and brown tiled roof. The front door opens into a large kitchen, where bright copper pans are ranged along the high mantelpiece, and rows of the coloured earthenware of the district fill the cupboard shelves. Beyond, is the parlour, where on winter evenings the young artist made his first studies with chalk and pencil, while his father read and his mother mended the household linen. Like most of the inhabitants of Damvillers, the Bastiens were small peasant-proprietors, who cultivated their own fields, and lived on the produce. Their home was shared by Jules’ grandfather, old Lepage, a retired tax-collector, whose small pension helped to keep the modest household in comparative ease. They were frugal and thrifty souls, working hard to make an honest living, anxious above all to bring up their two sons well, and give them a good start in the world. But it their fare was plain, and their manner of life homely, their tastes were not without refinement. The father was fond of drawing, the mother embroidered patterns of her own tracing, and the old grandfather took the greatest delight in his garden, which was always the gayest to be seen in Damvillers. When, at a very early age, Jules began to show signs of a taste for drawing, his father determined to cultivate the boy’s talent in the hope of qualifying him when he grew up, for some post in the Administration of forests and highways. So he himself gave Jules his first drawing lessons, and every night before the child went to bed, he was required to make a careful copy of the lamp or inkstand on the table, or any other object in the room. To this early training the painter himself always attributed that habit of close observation and exact accuracy which distinguished him in after years. At the age of eleven he left the communal school to go to the College of Verdun. Here his talent for drawing soon attracted the notice of his teachers, and the college drawing JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE 1 1 master, a professor named Fouquet, one day told him that he ought to be an artist. The idea took possession of the boy’s mind, and soon became a settled determination. At home or at school, he was always drawing, on the margin of his lesson books, on the doors and walls. Even the palings of his father’s orchard, it is said, bore traces of the charcoal sketches in which his early attempts at composition were made. 1 he little albums which contained his first sketches were carefully preserved Pen-and-ink Sketch of the Artist's Grandfather. by his mother. On one page was a drawing of his little brother Emile sitting in a tov cart, which was done by Jules when he was only five years old, on another, a more elaborate attempt to represent Abraham sacrificing Isaac. When, at the age of eighteen, he left college, he informed his parents that he wished to go to Paris and study painting. This startling announcement filled his family with consternation. Elis father was horrified to think that Jules, whom he had destined for an official career, and for whose education many sacrifices had already JULES BAST'IEN-LEPAGE I 2 been made, should throw away all his chances in this reckless way. On the one hand, there was the prospect of a long and expensive training, and, at best, a very precarious means of livelihood. On the other, there was the certainty of an honourable position, with regular pay from The Artist's Father. Bust in bronze. Government, and a modest pension in old age. So Claude Bastien argued, not without a show of reason on his side. The boy s grand- father was entirely of the same opinion. Only the kind mother took her son’s part. In spite of her horror of Paris, and her dread of the dangers to which he might be exposed in the great city, she could JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE i3 not bear to see his ardent hopes disappointed. “ If it is really Jules’ wish,” she pleaded gently. But still his father was inflexible. Fortunately for the painter at this crisis, a relation who held an influential position in the Bureau des Postes, intervened and proposed a plan which pleased all parties and was eventually adopted. By his advice, Jul es passed an examination which qualified him for the post of assistant in the Post-Office, and towards the end of the year 1867, was summoned to Paris as supernumerary clerk. Here he worked hard during the next six months, sorting letters from three to seven in the early morning, and attending the courses of instruction at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in the intervals of office hours. But the difficulty of reconciling the serious study of art with the daily routine of official duties was great and the strain soon proved beyond his strength. He fell ill, and it became plain that he must choose between the two professions. As tar as Jules himself was concerned, the choice had been already made. His friends on their part now saw that further opposition would be useless and acquiesced cheerfully in his decision. His grandfather gave all he could spare out of his small savings, and his mother went out to field work to earn money for Jules. At the same time, the Council-General of the department of La Meuse voted a sum of six hundred francs towards his support. When all was reckoned the young student had barely enough to keep body and soul together. But his native courage and good spirits, together with that invincible tenacity of purpose which was so marked a feature of his character stood him in good stead, and helped him through the trials and difficulties of the next few years. Ill In 1868 Jules Bastien entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts as a regular student, and was received as a pupil in the atelier of M. Cabanel. At that time the studio of this versatile and prolific painter was the most popular in Paris. He was singularly successful in developing talent of the most varied kind, and in the Salon of 1886 no less than 112 exhibitors 14 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE are said to have signed themselves pupils of Cabanel. The experienced teacher soon discovered the talent of the young student from La Meuse, who rapidly took the foremost place among his fellows. But Bastien him- self had little sympathy with the system of the schools, and at the end of a few months he began to work on his own line, and was seldom seen in the atelier. In 1870 he made his first appearance in the Salon. The portrait which he exhibited on this occasion was that of a young architect in a dark-green coat, sitting at work at a table. There was vigour enough in the painting and in the character of the head to attract atten- tion, and the artist would probably have received other commissions had it not been for the war which broke out that summer. He remained in Paris during the siege, and served in a company of franc-tireurs, under the captaincy of the painter Castellani. One day, when he was gallantly fighting in the trenches, he was wounded in the chest by a shell which exploded near him, and on the same day, by a strange fatality, another shell struck his modest atelier in the boulevard of Montparnasse, and made a hole in a picture which he had lately painted, of a nymph bathing her feet in a stream of running water, called La Source. The canvas was ruined and the artist remained in hospital until the end of the siege. When the Peace of Versailles was signed, he went home to Damvillers in a weak and suffering state to recruit his shattered health in his native air. There he remained enjoying the quiet of the country, and painting the portraits of his neighbours for practice, until the close of the year. When he returned to Paris, early in 1872, times were bad, and the struggle for life was harder than ever before. But he persevered with the same unflinching resolution as before. He painted portraits of his friends for small sums, tried his hand at illustrating newspapers, and when he was at his wits’ end for a job, decorated fans and painted signs tor shopkeepers. Many years afterwards, when Bastien-Lepage was a great man, the landlady of a restaurant in the Ouartier-Latin, much frequented by struggling artists, Mademoiselle Anna, by name, would point with pride to a picture hanging over her door, called La Jeunesse doree, representing a green forest glade, where lovers whisper under the boughs, and laughing cherubs flit in and out among the trees. That panel, she told her customers, was the work of Bastien- JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE 1 5 Lepage, who had painted it for her, in payment of a debt ot three hundred francs. One day, a seller of perfumes and cosmetics asked Bastien to supply him with a pictorial advertisement which should help the sale of his goods. After some deliberation, the artist produced a little picture in the style of Watteau, representing the fountain ot perpetual youth, springing up in a green meadow where bright-haired loves gambol, and youths and maidens come hand in hand to drink of the waters which are to make them for ever young and fair. When the work was finished, Bastien asked his employer’s leave to send it to the Salon. The shopkeeper made no objection, but insisted that the name of the cosmetic which he wished to advertise, and the address of his shop should be painted on a coloured scroll in the upper part ot the picture. Bastien declined to agree to this condition and the bargain fell through. The painter lost his money, but his picture was exhibited in the Salon of 1873, under the title An Printemps. The graceful and delicate fancies of Puvis de Chavannes had for him a singular fascination at this period of his career, and his next picture bore marked signs ot this master’s influence. This was another little panel, in the same style as the last, and bore the name of La Chanson du Printemps . Idle subject was a little peasant-girl with a basket of violets on her arm, sitting on a grassy bank at the edge of a wood, listening with wondering eyes to the songs of the dancing cherubs who flutter about her on butterfly-wings and pipe to her of the coming of Spring and the awakening of Love. This time a touch of realism came to mingle with the poet’s fancy. The girl was a peasant-child from the artist’s own village, and in the distance behind her were the green meadows and red- roofed houses of Damvillers. This graceful little picture attracted con- siderable attention at the time, and when the Salon closed, it was bought by the State and placed in the Luxembourg. But in that same Salon of 1874, there was another picture by the same hand which created an unexpected sensation. This was the large portrait of the artist’s grandfather which he exhibited under the title of Mon Grandpere , and signed with the name Jules Bastien-Lepage. The young painter had adopted the name of Lepage, out of gratitude and respect to his mother’s family, and from this time he used it in addition to his JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE own surname. During the summer holidays he had conceived the idea of painting the portrait of the old man sitting out-of-doors under the trees of his garden, among the flowers which he cultivated with so much care. With that scrupulous veracity which was an essential part of Bastien-Lepage’s character, he has represented his grand- father in his common suit of clothes, exactly as he might have been seen on any day of the week at Damvillers. The old man wears a faded brown vest and worn gray trousers. His velvet cap is on his head, his spectacles on his nose, and his large horn snuff-box and blue check handkerchief are laid on his knee. His hands are crossed before him, and he leans back in his favourite arm-chair with a satisfied, amused expression on his kindly old face. There is no attempt at pose, no seeking after effect. The picture is painted in clear, ordinary daylight, without any strong contrasts of light and shade, of colour, or of style. Yet the whole thing is instinct with life, and the figure stands out with vivid actuality against the background of pale green leaves and grass, The appearance of this striking portrait by the hand of a new painter was the event of that year’s Salon. On the day when the doors were opened, a crowd gathered before the picture, and the popular interest in- creased, when it became known that it was the work of a young student of the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The next day all the papers were talking of Mon Grandp'ere, and Bastien-Lepage woke up one morning to find himself famous. The novelty of the artist’s conception and his unconventional methods naturally provoked discussion. But the accuracy of the drawing and the power of the painting were beyond dispute, and everyone felt that great things might be expected from an artist who could interpret nature in so vigorous and penetrating a manner. IV M. Theuriet has told us how he met Bastien-Lepage for the first time, standing before his portrait of Mon Grandp'ere in the Salon. Himself a native of La Meuse, the writer hailed the artist with pleasure as a fellow-countryman. He describes Bastien- jf /}as&£rt-Jt///2/7c /ulna#. zfiwwd/n /i/i.sc. JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE i7 Lepage as very youthful in appearance, small and fair, with a slight and boyish but active and muscular frame. His forehead was square, his nose short and flattened, his light wavy hair fell in a thick tuft over his brow, his gray-blue eyes were keen and piercing. Sincerity and determination were written in every line of his face. His speech was as honest and straightforward as his countenance. After the first shyness had worn off, he gave free rein to his natural gaiety and became the best and most sociable of companions. The energy and determi- nation of his character, his scrupulous conscientiousness in his work and scorn of artifice and convention earned for him the name of Le Primitif, which was frequently applied to him by his comrades. The same originality and independence marked all his views of art. “ People pay me compliments about these fables,” he said when a well-known critic, M. de Fourcaud admired his graceful little allegories — “ but I have not yet found the work which I mean to do.” And when his companion pressed him further as to his intentions, he replied without a moment’s hesitation : “ Nothing is good but truth. People ought to paint what they know and love. I come from a village in Lorraine. I mean, first of all, to paint the peasants and landscapes of my home exactly as they are. I will also paint a Jeanne d’Arc, a real Jeanne d’Arc, who shall belong to our 1 coin de terre,’ and not to my atelier. Afterwards, when I have had time to study the people in Paris, I shall try and paint Paris life, but that will not be for a long time to come. My comrades praise my portraits. I am proud of that, for I believe that everything in nature, even a tree, even still-life should be treated as a portrait. You never find two objects which look exactly the same. The work of talent is to distinguish between the two, and to point out what is peculiar to each one. That is my whole theory of art.” He never could reconcile himself to the system of teaching in the Ecole des Beaux Arts, and on one occasion in after years, he expressed himself very strongly on the subject to M. de Fourcaud. “ I have no complaints to make of any one. On the contrary, I retain the most grateful recollection of many persons who owed me nothing, and who gave me a great deal. I learnt my trade in Paris and I have not forgotten that. But, to speak frankly, I did not learn my art there. The Ecole des Beaux Arts is managed by masters whose high B La C ommuniante JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE qualities and devotion I should be the last to ignore. But is it my fault, if I found in their atelier the only doubts which have ever perplexed me? When I tried for the Prix de Rome, the newspapers described me as independent and tree from the bondage of traditions. Alas ! I am not yet as free from them as I should like to be ! When I came to Paris, I knew nothing at all, but at least I was ignorant of the heap of formulas with which you are perverted there. You wish to paint what you see, and instead of this, you are urged to aim at an unknown ideal, that is to say, to imitate old pictures more or less. I made daubs, in the schools, of gods and goddesses, of Greeks and Romans, of whom I knew nothing, which I did not understand and only laughed at. I used to say to myself that this might be great art, and now I sometimes ask myself what good have I got out of all this training. I do not go so far as to say that you ought to paint absolutely nothing but what you see in every- day life, but I do say this : if you take subjects from ancient history, at least let them be represented in an altogether human manner, exactly as you see the same things happen around you. What a pity it is, to be< initiated, whether you like it or not, into certain traditions and a certain routine of work, under pretence of training ! It would be so much simpler to teach you how to handle brush and palette, without telling you of Michelangelo and Raphael, of Murillo and Domenichino. Then you would go home to Brittany, or Gascony, to Lorraine or Normandy, wherever you came from. There you would quietly draw the portrait of your own province, and when one morning, by chance, after reading some book, you were seized with the wish to paint the Prodigal Son, or Priam at the feet of Achilles, or anything else of the same kind, you would imagine the scene after your own fancy, free from recollections of picture galleries, but set in a frame of your own country, with the best models you could find at hand, as if the old story were a thing of yesterday. In that way you would succeed in animating art with a true life, and would make it beautiful and touching for all the world. That is the aim towards which I press with my whole strength. As long as I stay at Damvillers, I think myself sure of my ground, but in Paris there are moments when I can see nothing clearly.” The longer Bastien-Lepage lived, the deeper and more firmly- rooted his convictions on this subject became. One day, when he B 2 20 JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE had reached the height of his fame, a young artist who was a native of a distant province of France, was brought to him by a friend and showed him one or two small pictures which he had carefully imitated from Bastien-Lepage’s own works. The painter was on the point of starting for Damvillers, and replied with a touch of impatience : “You wish me to tell you what I think! Well, you know how to paint, but you are too fond of looking at other people’s pictures, and most of all at mine. You tell me you belong to a village far away from here ? Then, why in the world do you stay in Paris ? Go and pack up, buy some canvas and colours and go home to your own country. Paint your house, your trees, your peasants, your bourgeois, just as they are, and bring your pictures back to next year’s Salon. An artist who belongs to no part of the world is a useless being ! Believe me and go home.” The freedom with which this advice was given might not always prove acceptable, but at least it was honestly meant. To the end of his life, Bastien-Lepage declared that he could think more clearly and paint better at Damvillers than he could in Paris. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that he despised the work of the old masters. He had, it is true, a horror of conventional rules and fixed traditions in art, and always maintained that every artist ought to paint his subjects in his own way and from his own point of view. But he had the deepest admiration for the great art of the past, and some of his happiest hours in Paris were those which he spent in the Louvre. Naturally the great Dutch and German masters appealed to him in a special manner and were the object of his most attentive study. He would grow eloquent in front of Holbein’s portraits and Rembrandt’s Good Samaritan. “That is the way in which Scriptural or historical subjects should be treated,” he exclaimed one day when he stood with M. de Fourcaud before this picture. “ Let us simply try and bring them back to every-day life. A traveller has been picked up, half dead, on a heap of stones. He is carried to the nearest farm and at first the master hesitates whether he will take him in, but the servants come running up ; they see the wounded man in a fainting state. ‘ Come, there is no time,’ they cry. ‘ Let us receive this unhappy JULES BA SL IEN-LEP AGE 2 I stranger and nurse him for he is badly hurt.’ The mule remains standing at the door, faithful beast ! There must be a dog somewhere behind that wall. There you have your Good Samaritan. What is the use of trying to put the clock back, at this time of day ? ” Again, the portraits of the old French master, Clouet, never failed to kindle his admiration. Their fine brushwork and exquisite finish, above all their power ot rendering the expression ot a face by what he called sheer intensity of drawing, were to him a perpetual source ot wonder. The simple directness and sincerity of the old Florentines and Umbrians touched him deeply, and he was tond of saying that it we moderns were ever to do anything in art, it must be by working in their spirit. What pleased him most was the human side of their art, their evident sympathy with childhood, their love for the birds ot the air and the flowers of the field. The roses of Botticelli, the daisies and columbines of Perugino, the tall white lilies which Lippi’s angels bear in their hands, and the starry blossoms which spring up in the grass of Angelico’s Paradise, filled his heart with delight, and he was fond of showing how these simple natural beauties find a place in their representations of the world’s greatest dramas, in front of the manger of Bethlehem and at the loot ol the cross of Calvary. Among modern artists, the French landscape-painters ol the school ol 1830 interested him deeply. But here again his judgments were as independent and as freely expressed as on other subjects. “ Corot,” he said to M. de Fourcaud one day, “ helps you to breathe, but there is more air in his pictures than there is earth or rocks or trees. Fie dreams of the country all the while he is painting it. Daubigny is afraid of nothing. He paints — better than any one else I know— the green meadows, the beautiful fields where everything grows. He adores the running stream and the setting sun and the rising moon. Only he is exactly the opposite ol Corot and does not dream enough.” Good work, however different in practice and theory from his own, never failed to secure Bastien-Lepage’s appreciation. This led him to admire the works of its most widely different artists, and to take pleasure both in the classic grace of Henner’s nymphs and in the crude mastery of Manet’s Bon Bock. For the last-named artist he had the keenest admiration, and always declared that a picture by Manet of a woman in 22 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE white, sitting on a green seat, had been the first really life-like bit of painting which he had seen in Paris. He reverenced Millet as a master who had dared to be true to his own convictions and to paint peasant life as he had actually seen and known it. But of all modern pictures none moved him as deeply as Courbet’s famous Enterrement a Ornans. In his eyes, the group of weeping women seemed to surpass anything of the kind which had as yet been attempted. “ There you have absolute truth,” he exclaimed one day. “ The truth of grief, a truth which we all of us feel. ‘ The emotion which such a sight arouses is enough to make one abjure academic art for ever. There is nothing really lasting, something that will endure, but the sincere expression of the actual conditions of life.’ ” V The theories which Bastien-Lepage poured out so freely in con- versation with his friends, and upon which, at times, he insisted with a vehemence that provoked opposition, soon found expression in his works. His success at the Salon of 1874 brought him fresh orders. M. Hayem, a wealthy connoisseur, whose notice had been attracted by the picture of his grandfather, employed him to paint his portrait. This was exhibited in the Salon of 1874, together with another work of far greater interest, his picture of La Communiante. This portrait of the little peasant-girl robed in white for her first communion, was another step in the same direction as 71 Lon Grandpere, another resolute attempt on Bastien-Lepage’s part to reproduce the life of the present, and the taces of the people about him. Certainly here nothing is idealised. The little dark-eyed maid is seated erect in her chair, wearing a frock of thick white muslin and a stiff white veil, and a wreath of flowers upon her black hair. She holds her missal before her, and her rough hands are stuffed into white gloves, cracked at the seams, in her efforts to pull them on. Yet every line of her figure, every detail in her dress, the conscious primness of her quaint little person, the very awkwardness with which she wears her new clothes, helps us to realise the importance and JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE 23 solemnity of the occasion. The look of innocent pride and wonder upon the child’s face, the seriousness of her brown eyes, make us feel that for her at least this is a day that can never be forgotten. But what surprised the critics who had admired Bastien-Lepage’s former work, was the delicacy and precision with which this little picture was painted. The sentiment was altogether modern, but the careful execution and minute finish recalled the works of the old Dutch and Flemish masters. 'This style, so utterly unlike that broader brushwork of his former portraits, marked a new departure in his art. La Communiante was, in fact, the precursor of that long series of small portraits, all marked by the same uncompromising sincerity and exquisite finish which were to prove one of Bastien-Lepage’s most enduring titles to fame. But for the moment, other schemes absorbed his thoughts. That summer he entered the lists to compete for the Prix de Rome. The subject for the year was the Annunciation ot the Nativity of Christ by an Angel to the Shepherds of Bethlehem. Here was an opportunity for carrying out one of his favourite theories, and representing an historical scene exactly as it might have happened at the present time, and as in all probability it did actually happen. In this respect the theory of this independent young French artist agreed with the principles, openly professed by the English Pre-Raphaelites, some thirty years before. They too, in the words of their champion Mr. Ruskin, had tried honestly “ to represent things as they are or were or may be, instead of, according to the practice of their instructors and the wishes of their public, things as they are not, never were and never can be : this effort being founded deeply on a conviction that it is at first better, and finally more pleasing, for human minds to contemplate things as they are, than as they are not.” This conviction it was which prompted young Rossetti to paint the youthful Virgin waking out of her sleep on her little white bed by the sudden vision of the Angel-messenger, and Holman Hunt to spend months at Jerusalem working at his The Scapegoat , and The Shadow of Death. The picture which Bastien-Lepage sent to the Palais des Beaux Arts that summer time was not unworthy of a place by the side of these great and serious works. His Annunciation to the Shepherds has never received the attention which it deserved, but whatever its defects of composition or technique may be, it was 24 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE undoubtedly a remarkable performance for an artist of six-and-twenty. His treatment of the subject, as might be expected, was absolutely unconventional. Yet there is a dignity and beauty in his rendering of the Gospel story, which lifts the actual event above the realm of the commonplace, and glorifies it with a touch of mystic poetry. In the darkening twilight, we see the group of brown-skinned peasants resting on the ground, by the fire which they have kindled on the open hillside. The ruddy glow of the firelight falls on their bewildered faces, as they wake out of sleep, startled by the angelic vision. One gray-headed man, sinking on his knees, adores the heavenly messenger ; another younger and more eager, bends forward with parted lips and outstretched arms as if seeking to know the meaning of this sudden apparition ; while a third is seen crouching in the background, apparently still overcome with drowsiness. Close by them on the dusky hillside the angel stands, a gracious figure in robes of white and a golden girdle. His face is fair and youthful, his form is human, only the shining aureole round his brow is there to remind us of his celestial birth. The words of the divine message are upon his lips, “ Fear not, tor unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord,” and as he speaks he points to the far horizon where the light is breaking over the distant roofs of Bethlehem. When the doors of the Palais des Beaux Arts were opened on that July morning and the crowd rushed in, eager for the first sight of the ten competing works, Bastien-Lepage’s picture was hailed with a burst of applause. All day long people pressed round the place where it hung, and there was a general impression that he had won the prize. Unfortu- nately the jury with whom the decision rested, thought differently. Bastien-Lepage’s Annunciation only received the second prize, and the Prix de Rome was awarded to Comerre, an older and more con- ventional artist. But that evening the art students who met at Mademoiselle Anna’s well-known restaurant in the Quartier Latin crowned the picture of Bastien-Lepage which hung there with laurel wreaths in honour of the painter who was felt to be the true hero of the hour. The next morning a palm-branch was found fixed in the frame of his Annunciation by the other competitors and in silent acknowledg- ment of their rival’s supremacy. And at the same time a laurel bough JULES BA ST'IE N-L E PA G E 2 5 was placed there, by the hand, it is said, ot Madame Sarah Bernhardt. Bastien-Lepage felt the disappointment keenly, but he soon recovered his equanimity and resolved to try his fate once more in the following year, less for his own satisfaction than to gratify the parents, who had made so many sacrifices for his sake. But the subject for 1876, “Priam at the feet of Achilles,” was less congenial to his taste, and he once more failed to win the prize. Yet the vigour and originality of the picture which he produced impressed the critics profoundly, and in the opinion of more than one of the best judges, deserved the prize. This time, however, the painter himself was comparatively indifferent as to the result. Other dreams were filling his brain, and with a sigh of relief he shook off the trammels of the schools and felt himself once more a free man. As a matter ot tact, his failure on this occasion was the best thing that could have happened to him. There are painters for whom the sight of Italy is a necessity. Claude and Corot both found inspiration in the luminous skies and broad horizons of the Campagna. Bastien-Lepage’s genius was cast in a different mould. Like Millet and Rousseau, his work lay nearer home, and he needed no other theme than the landscapes and the peasants ot his native France. For him the woods of Reville and the meadows along the Tinte were more eloquent than the enchanted regions of classic story. Flad he won the Prix de Rome and gone to study at the Villa Medici, his impressionable nature might easily have been diverted from its natural aims, and it might have been long before he found his true vocation. As it was, he went back to Damvillers that summer to work out the cherished dream of his youth and become the painter of peasant life in La Meuse. PART II “Paint these Just as they are, careless what comes of it, God’s works — paint any one, and count it crime To let a truth slip.” — Robert Browning. Bastien-Lepage as a peasant-painter— Tour in Argonne — “Zd Absent ” — u Les Foins ” — Portraits of his parents and brother — of Sarah Bernhardt — Albert LVolJf- — Madame Drouet — the Prince of Wales — -Visits to London — “ Jeanne d'Arc " — “ Saison d'Octobre ” — Success of “ Le Mendiant ” and of “ P'ere Jacques"- — ■ Plans nezu pictures — “ Amour au I Wage" — Illness — Visit to Algiers — Marie Bashkirtseff — Death — Exhibition of his zvorks in 1885 — General characteristics of his art. I For some time past, the rustic life of his country home had been absorbing Bastien-Lepage’s attention. When he went back to Damvillers, after his first successes in Paris, the old scenes seemed to him full of new and deeper meanings. Here he felt was his true vocation. These fields and orchards in all the varying aspects of the changing seasons, these peasants with their rough hands and coarse clothes, were more interesting and attractive to him than all the tales of “old, unhappy, far-off things,” which he had been asked to paint in the schools. Born and bred among the peasants of La Meuse, he was intimately acquainted with their ways and thoughts. Every detail of their lives was familiar to him. Their joys and sorrows, their fears and hopes, their times of labour, their hours of rest, he could tell them all by heart. He knew their characters and tempers, their slowness of speech and their awkward manners. And he knew, too, how deep down underneath the homely features and the stammering tongues, JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE 27 lay hidden a poetry and a pathos of which the world never dreams. The strong attachment to the soil which brings the peasant who left home as a boy back to end his days in his native village, the pride of the labourer when he becomes the owner of a few acres, the lifelong devotion of one man to one woman, mutely expressed in the downcast eyes of the awkward lad and enduring through years of good and evil — these things were all well known to him. And he was determined to make others understand them too. The critics might sneer at his choice of subjects and call his types vulgar if they chose, they might have said the same of many an old master. “ Most of Holbein’s heads,” he said one day to his friend Theuriet, “are not beautiful in the plastic sense of the word, but none the less they are singularly interesting. For, underneath their very ugliness and vulgarity, we find the thought and feeling that glorifies everything. The peasant, he too has his own fashion of being sad or joyous, of feeling and of thinking. It is that particular fashion which we must try and dis- cover. When you have found out and represented that , it matters little if your personages have irregular features, clumsy manners and coarse hands. They cannot fail to be beautiful because they will be living and thinking beings. The patient, conscientious study of nature — that is the only thing worth having ! ” If only he could go deep enough down into the life of these simple folk, lay bare the thoughts of their hearts, and show the world that they were thinking and feeling men and women, moved by the same passions, and stirred by the same emotions as other human beings, he knew that his pictures must become interesting. For this would be true poetry and great art, and could not fail in its appeal to humanity in every age. But to make others feel what he felt, he must reproduce the actual scene, the light and colour of the landscape, the very atmo- sphere in which his people moved. He must make others see the flowers in the long grass, and the shadows on the sloping hillside, feel the burning heat of the sun drying the hay and ripening the corn, realise for themselves, in fact, some of those thousand different sensations of which he himself was hourly conscious. And to do this would demand years of patient and continual labour, the concentration of his whole faculties upon the work before him. This then was the task to which the young painter brought his powers JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE of hand and brain, matured as they had been by his Paris training. He made himself an atelier in a garret of his father’s house in the Grande Place at Damvillers, but most of his painting was done out of doors, in the garden or the meadows. He wandered up and down the fields and lanes, taking note of all he saw, and learning some fresh lesson at every step. Whatever the time of year might be, he was never idle. Each season in turn supplied him with new subjects for pen or pencil. In the spring he sketched the trees bursting into leaf, the gardens with their opening flowers and their young plants shooting out of the ground, the apple orchards laden with their wealth of rosy blossom. When the summer came he painted the tall seeds and grasses in the meadows, the haymakers and the reapers at their work. In autumn there was the vintage and the potato-gathering, in winter the hoar frost and the snow. Endless was the variety of subjects with which he filled his sketch-books, during the quiet months which he spent at Damvillers. The mowers sharpening their scythes under the hedgerow, in the half-mown meadow, the shepherd taking shelter under a spreading beech tree from the blazing heat of the noonday sun, the vine-dresser digging the ground between the rows of vines, all find a place in these pages. On one sheet we see a pecheur de grenouilles wading up to his knees in the marshy swamp on the edge of the rush-grown pond, on another we see a fire which has broken out at midnight in the village, and has brought the whole population out into the street. He shows us the peasant going to visit his field in his leisure hours on Sunday, and paints the village street at the evening hour when the tired labourer wends his way slowly home and the lights are twinkling in the window of the house where the good wife is busy preparing her husband’s supper. Sometimes he sketches the women at work in the kitchen, or washing their clothes in the river. Sometimes he paints them kneeling devoutly at their prayers, or else some fleeting ray of sunlight on the roofs, some chance reflection in a clear pool of water has caught his eye, and he stops to jot down the colours of the bright clouds chasing each other across the sky at early dawn or the mysterious effect of the evening shades descending over wood and field. In one study we see a mass of rolling white clouds, floating across a deep blue summer sky, with a plough standing in the foreground and a wide stretch of brown arable land beyond. In another, the graceful boughs JULES BASE IEN-LEP AGE 29 of a slender ash tree are clearly defined against the midnight sky, under a long trail of luminous cloud. But whether he gives us sunsets or moonlight effects, studies of sky or landscape, the forms of hill and cloud, and the character of trees and plants are alike indicated with the same close observation. The simplest incidents often supplied him with subjects. A beggar standing at the hall door, a little peasant-girl watching her cow graze by the side of the road, a man crossing the meadow and leaving the track of his footsteps in the long grass, a child crying or a ragged boy at play- these are some of the impressions which he records with a few strokes of his pen, or a hasty dash of colour. Sometimes he sketches a wounded stag which has come to die on the edge of a reedy pool in the heart of the autumn woods, sometimes a boar-hunt in the forest, sometimes merely a bunch of spring-flowers or a dead robin. But in the summer of 1876, Bastien-Lepage’s thoughts were already occupied with his picture of Les Foins , and many were the studies which he made of haymakers either at work or else resting from their labours in the noonday heat. Often the same woman appears in half-a-dozen different attitudes, lying in the grass or leaning upon her rake, looking towards us or turning her back on us. One of his best-known drawings which has often been reproduced under the name La Faneuse , is that of a peasant-girl walking home through the meadows with her rake on her shoulder, and turning round to look at the other haymakers at work and at the loaded waggons under the poplar-trees by the river. Her face is turned away, we only see the back of her head and the tresses of hair loosely coiled together, but the whole figure is admirably expressive. In this finely-grown, strongly built young woman, with her thick wrists and ankles and her short homespun skirts, we have a true type of the Meuse peasant, sturdy of frame and stolid in nature, accustomed to hard labour from her youth, but not without a certain dignity and consciousness of honest independence in her bearing. In these early days, Bastien-Lepage painted the portraits of his father and mother, which were exhibited in the Salon of 1877. Both of his parents took the greatest pride in his work, and were never tired of telling their friends that Jules’ name was in all the Paris papers, although the boy himself declared that this meant very little and was not worth talking about. His father liked to watch him at his painting, and generally had 3 ° JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE some criticism to offer. Even the old grandfather had his opinion to give, and would leave his work and pause before Jules’ easel for a few minutes to see how the boy was getting on, and then go back to his flower-beds. The freedom of this country life exactly suited the painter. Often, on his return from visits to Paris, he would ramble about the fields and woods for whole days with his hands in his pockets, and drinking in the fresh air, the coun- try sights and sounds. On winter days he would take long shooting expeditions accompanied by his favourite dogs, and hunt the deer in the woods of Reville, or stroll along the river in search of wild duck till nightfall. Then he would set to work and paint for days together with the whole energy of his being. In the evening the family met round the parlour table. Jules and his brother Emile were busy with their pencils, while their father read the papers, their mother sewed and the favourite cat dozed on the knee of the old grandfather. Then Bastien-Lepage would put down ideas which had struck him in the course of the day, or divert him- self and his companions by making careful studies of a copper candle- stick or a felt hat, or any other object at hand. Often too, he would draw caricatures of his brother, representing him in a dozen different attitudes, each more comical than the last. Or else, like Leonardo before him he would cover whole sheets of paper with grotesque heads, talking and laughing all the while. Many were the pen-and-ink sketches which he made of this JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE 3 1 happy family party, sitting round the table with the lamp in the centre ; many the clever portraits which he took of his old grandfather, reading The Artist's Grandfather. the newspaper in his arm-chair, or resting his elbows on the table or else lying fast asleep on his couch. 32 JULES B AST I EN- LEPAGE The friends who came from Paris, Andre Theuriet or Charles Baude the engraver, and saw Bastien-Lepage in his home used to say that there were two different persons in him, the man of Paris and the man of Damvillers. The one they describe as grave and silent, impatient of interruption and occasionally hasty in word and manner. The other, they said, was gentle and charming, full of kindly forethought for his friends and parents, and brimming over with fun and laughter. They saw him at home the life and soul of the family circle, they went with him on his country walks and shared his delight in the beauty of trees and flowers. They tell us with what genuine pleasure he would hunt for the first spring violets or delicate wood anemones, or listen to the carol of the March blackbird. Often he would stop to pick the chicory or hemlock plant, the field daisies, and blue cornflowers, which he loved to set in the foreground of his pictures, or point out the decorative forms of some bud or leaf. “ Ah ! how beautiful ! ” he exclaimed, one spring day, when he had found a plant of the wild Christmas rose growing in the woods. “ How I should like to make a careful study of these finely-cut dark green and brown leaves, with their green stem and cluster of pale flowers tinted with rose pink. What exquisite shapes, and what a variety of tender shades ! That is what they ought to give the children of our drawing-classes to copy, instead of that eternal and detestable Diana of Gabii ! ” II In the autumn of 1876, M. Theuriet paid a visit to Bastien-Lepage at Damvillers, and took a walking-tour with his two brothers in the picturesque district of Argonne. Together they visited the ancient glass-works of les Islettes, founded by a guild of artists as far back as the fifteenth century, and explored the forest of Beaulieu. They saw the street of Varennes where the ill-fated Louis XVI. and his family were stopped in their memorable flight, and they penetrated through narrow valleys and rocky gorges to the ruined Abbey ot La Chalade. Finally they reached the hermitage of Saint Rouin, the Irish Apostle JULES BASLIEN-LEP AGE 33 who had evangelised the district of Argonne in the seventh century and lies buried in this secluded spot in the heart of the forest. Here they witnessed a pilgrimage, and, much to their amusement, narrowly escaped being taken up as Prussian spies. The German invasion had made a deep impression on the simple folk of the district, and the presence of these strangers, who quoted German phrases, and discussed Goethe, had already aroused suspicion. In one village where Bastien- Lepage took out his paint-box and brushes, an old woman had asked him in a voice of terror if he was going to bring the Prussians back again. But he had only treated the notion as a good joke and had never dreamt of any serious trouble on this score. Now, the sight of the assembled crowds at the open-air mass in the meadow at Saint Rouin moved him to make another sketch. An altar bearing a silver cross and candles and decorated with green boughs and flowers had been raised on the grass under the forest-trees, and a bishop in purple robes “ exactly like a magnificent violet iris” was officiating, attended by scarlet acolytes. The effect of all this rich colouring and the play of sunlight and shadow on the picturesque groups of pilgrims kneeling or standing on the grass with their banners charmed the painter’s eyes, and as soon as sermon and mass were over, he set to work to reproduce the scene on canvas. But when the procession of priests and choristers had left the spot and the pilgrims were dispersed, a crowd collected round the artist and malignant whispers were heard among the country people. A report had already got about that these strangers were Prussian spies, who were making plans of the country, and the village authorities were prepared to take active measures. Presently a forester stepped forward, and in the name of the law, demanded the gentlemen to produce their papers. An animated discussion followed, during which Bastien-Lepage alone kept his presence of mind and continued his drawing. But the friends, unable to produce anything but their cards, were on the point of being arrested as suspicious characters, when fortunately one of the party was recognized by an old acquaintance, who hailed them as compatriotes . So the adventure ended happily and Bastien-Lepage was allowed to carry off his sketch in triumph, much to the disappointment of the in- habitants, who thought they had made an important capture that would redound greatly to the honour of their village. 34 JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE All through this expedition, Bastien-Lepage was in the highest spirits. In spite of the heavy rain which repeatedly interrupted his work, he made seven or eight drawings, and beguiled the long evenings spent at village inns by singing popular songs at the top of his voice. And he talked freely with his friends of his hopes and plans for the future. He intended to paint a great series of pictures, illustrating the whole cycle of peasant-life. Sowing and reaping, ploughing and digging, haytime and harvest, the vintage and the fruit-gathering, were each to form part of the scheme. Love and marriage, birth and death were to have their place in the story. Together with Theuriet he would publish a series of twelve compositions entitled Les Mois Rustiques. His friend should write the letter-press and he would adorn the pages with drawings of peasant-life and labour, and with the flowers and fruits of the different seasons. And then he would carry out his favourite dream and paint a Jeanne d’Arc, of his own “coin de terre,” as well as another great picture, which should have for its subject, La Mise an Tombeau and represent the Maries weeping over the body of Christ. He had already made several preparatory sketches for this work, including a water-colour study of the dead Christ, but before he began the picture was anxious to see the celebrated Entombment at Saint Mihiel, the master- piece of Ligier Richier, a Lorraine sculptor of the sixteenth century. So he left his friends on their return journey to visit the church containing this marble group, which he described in a letter to his friend Charles Baude as the most touching work of sculpture that he had ever seen. “ France,” he adds, “ ought to be prouder and less ignorant of this great Lorraine artist.” Meanwhile M. Theuriet had made the walk through the Argonne the subject of an article called “ La Chanson du Jardinier,” and sent a copy of the magazine in which it appeared, to Damvillers. “ I must tell you” wrote Bastien-Lepage in return, “how much pleasure your article gave my parents and congratulate you on the portraits you have drawn of them. When the Revue arrived, we did not read the book, but tore it out of each other’s hands and devoured it, over one another’s shoulders. I will do my best, I assure you, to deserve the name of the Primitif ! Bravo ! for the songs ! for the sunny page of the Bishop’s sermon ! — that great violet iris — how exactlv you describe the scene ! JULES BASE IEN-LEPAGE 35 But what more can I say, only that you have made me live the whole journey over again ! ” M. Theuriet’s article was afterwards republished in his volume ot Sous Bois , and one of Bastien-Lepage’s best-known drawings was destined to adorn the title-page. Eventually the book appeared without illustra- tions, but the drawing, which was evidently a recollection of the walking tour in Argonne, has been often reproduced, sometimes by the name L' Absent, sometimes simply described as L' A uberge. The scene represented is the interior of a village inn. In the background a group ot men seated at table are engaged in talking, drinking, smoking and playing cards ; while in the foreground we see a young woman, probably the ser- vant of the inn, who has set down her basket on the floor and retreated to a window overlooking the street, where she sits, leaning her head against the frame and watching for the form of her absent friend. There is no particular charm about her, she is simply a peasant girl in a coarse stuff gown and long apron. The whole beauty of the picture lies in her intent face, in the fixed yearning of her eyes, and the expectant air ot her whole form, as she listens for the footstep which tarries still. The tace ot that poor peasant girl is in its way as much a triumph of expression as that of Jeanne d’Arc herself, and is a sufficient answer to the critics who say that Bastien-Lepage was a painter devoid alike of poetry and of feeling. But those joyous autumn days were to have a melancholy ending. When the painter wrote again to his friend, it was in a sadder strain. H is father had died suddenly of congestion of the lungs. It was the first break in the happy family circle, and Jules felt the blow keenly. “ We were too young to lose so good a friend, and for all my courage, the blank, the awful blank fills me at times with a sense of despair ” “ Happily his memory is left us,” he wrote to another friend, M. Victor Klotz, “ and what a memory it is ! the purest and best that there could be. He was goodness and unselfishness personified, and he loved us so well ! But what can we do? Nothing but try to fill up the gap with a great deal of love for those who remain and who care for us, and keep up the remembrance of him we have lost, as well as work hard to drive away the one thought that is always present.” Work indeed proved his one consolation, and the next year saw the c 2 36 JULES BASE IEN-LEP AGE production of some of his most important works. He spent the winter months in Paris, engaged on a full-length portrait of Madame Lebegue, in a splendid court costume of Tudor date, and on another of his friend Theuriet. He was now settled in the Impasse du Maine, with his brother Emile, who was studying architecture, as his companion. Here he had a large atelier looking out on a garden with a single apricot tree which he liked, for the sake of the white blossoms which reminded him of Damvillers. The walls were hung with his own sketches and some Japanese curtains, and an old divan and a few stools were the only furniture. Here, M. Theuriet tells us, he used to appear every morning at eight o’clock, to find the painter but half awake, and after smoking a cigarette together Bastien -Lepage would set to work with fiery speed. Now and then he would stop and leave his seat and contemplate his friend’s face in silence for several minutes without saying a word and then return to work with renewed vigour. The rapidity and boldness of touch with which he worked was marvellous. He always prepared the exact tone of his colour on his palette, and never put it on the canvas until he was certain of the effect that it would produce. In this way his painting won that peculiar crispness and freshness which has been often admired. He was also very particular about keeping his palette clean and tidy, declaring that he could not work unless his white was in the middle, between the blues and greens on one side and the reds and browns and yellows on the other. He generally managed to get the general effect of the picture at the first sitting, but after that he would work at it again and again for weeks together, always finding that some- thing more was wanted to make it perfect, and never quite satisfied with the result. The whole of that summer was devoted to his large open-air picture of Les Foins , and his letters to M. Theuriet give some interesting details respecting its progress. In July he writes: “My picture, as yet, is not fully sketched out But I may tell you that I am going to indulge in a revel of pearly tints ; half-dried hay and flowering grasses seen together in the sunshine, and producing the effect of some pale yellow tissue embroidered with silver- threads. A few clumps of trees along the banks ot the brook and in the meadow will stand out like dark spots and give the whole a Japanese JULES B AS TIE N-LEP AGE 37 effect. ...” A month later he returns to the subject with tresh interest : August 15 , “Your verses are just the sort ot picture that I should like to paint. You make one feel the scent of the hay and the heat ot the meadow. ... If only my hay smells as good as yours does, I shall be content. . . . My young peasant woman is sitting on the grass. Her arms are drooping, her face is red and hot, her fixed eyes have a vacant look. Her whole attitude is tired and worn out. She will, 1 think, give the idea of a true peasant, Behind, her companion is lying fiat on his back, sleeping with his fists closed; and in the tull sunshine ot the meadow beyond, the peasants are going back to work again. At first, I had a great trouble in the composition of my picture, being anxious to preserve the actual aspect of a corner of nature. There is nothing of a conventional arrangement here, no willow tailing over the heads of the personages to frame in the scene. Nothing ot all that. My personages stand out against the half-dried hay. A small tree grows in the corner of the picture, to show that other trees are near, and that our peasants have come here to rest in the shade. The whole tone ot the picture will be a very pale gray-green. . . .” And in September he tells Theuriet that the country people say hir figures are alive, a verdict which gratified him more than all the praises of the Paris world In the following spring, Les Foins appeared at the Salon, and caused a great sensation there. The extraordinary torce ot the painting, the absolute reality of the two figures, the tired, panting woman, and the man sleeping with his hat over his eyes, and the way in which they stand out against the pale background, above all the wonder- tul effect ot light and air in the picture, made an immense impression at the time. “I came into the room, without knowing what I should see,” wrote Marie BashkirtsefF in her journal, “ and stopped short before Les Foins as you would stop betore a window which has been suddenly opened on the country.” Several critics, as might be expected, accused the artist of heresy, and as he expected, reproached him with the coarseness and vulgarity of his types. But the younger men rallied round Bastien-Lepage, and hailed him with enthusiasm as the master of a new school and the painter ot open-air life. JULES BAST' IE N-LEP AG E o J 8 III An artist who makes truth his first object and has a keen and penetrating faculty of observation is likely to excel in portraiture ; and so we find that Bastien-Lepage was no mere professional manufacturer of portraits, but a portrait painter of the very highest order. From the beginning of his career in Paris, his portraits had been popular among his brother-artists and every year increased his reputation in this direction. Commissions reached him from all sides. Editors and journalists, ministers of state and merchants, actors and beauties, came to him in turn and sat to him for their portraits. In the Salon of 1875, h’ s portrait of the wealthy banker M. Simon Hayem, dressed in clothes of the latest Paris cut and fashion, was recognized as a living type of the rich merchant and thorough man of the world, who combined refined tastes with practical business qualities. That of M. Wallon, exhibited in the Salon of 1876, was a no less exact admirable likeness of this former Minister of Public Instruction, with his timid and careworn expression, although it was attacked for political purposes by his opponents. At the same time Bastien-Lepage painted several portraits of ladies, which were exhibited at the Cercle Volney. That of Madame Godillot attracted attention by the skilful manner in which the bright carnations ot a fair complexion were relieved by the black velvet of her gown, while the refined charm of Madame Victor Klotz’s dark eyes were heightened by the simplicity of her white tulle folds and black robe. The portrait of Madame Lebegue, here repro- duced, is interesting as the only full-length life-sized portrait ever painted by the artist. The fantastic character of the lady’s costume, the blue velvet train and white satin skirt excited 'the scorn of the critics, who reproached the painter with this theatrical effect and called him a servile copyist of old pictures. At the same time they were forced to- acknowledge the marvellous skill with which he had treated the rich details of old brocade and lace in Madame Lebegue’s dress and the Portrait oj Madame Lebegue. 4 o JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE tapestry of the background. If any further proof of the independent and versatile nature of Bastien-Lepage’s talent were needed, his detractors had only to turn to the double portrait of his father and mother in one frame, which hung in the same Salon. Here was a masterpiece which it was impossible to overlook and which imposed silence on the most cavilling tongues. The artist had represented his parents sitting on a low bench in the garden at Damvillers, in their every-day country dress, just as he had done in his grandfather’s portrait. And as before, the effect he has chosen is one of plain daylight, without help from striking illumination ot any kind. The whole charm of the pictures lies in the ease and simplicity of their treatment, in the affectionate feeling with which they are painted. In each case the individual character is admirably brought out. We see at a glance the trank manliness and kindliness of the father, the goodness and tenderness of the mother. In the opinion of artists Madame Bastien-Lepage’s portrait is considered the painter’s greatest technical triumph, because the structure and modelling ot the face are so perfect. The features are plain and irregular, and there has evidently not been the faintest attempt at flattery on the part of the artist, but at the same time there is a look of lively intelligence and sweetness which makes the portrait far more profoundly charming than many a younger and prettier face. This characteristic picture is at once a touching tribute of filial affection and a worthy memorial of the devoted woman whom her son’s friends describe as the best possible mother for an artist, skilled in all that makes the home, and yet quick to follow his moods and fancies, always thinking of others and only forgetful of herself. These earlier portraits of Bastien-Lepage were all on a large scale, generally about the size ot life, and treated with a certain breadth ot manner. But about this time he adopted an entirely different style, and began to paint a series of small portraits, varying from twenty to fifty inches in height and from twenty to forty in breadth. These little portraits were painted in the same style as his old picture La Communi- ante , and were marked by the same delicate brushwork and high degree of finish. It is wonderful to see how in a few square inches of canvas, the painter contrives to give a vivid impression of his sitter’s personality, and of the atmosphere in which he lives. The whole ot the man’s outer JULES BASTIEN-LEPAG E 41 and inner self, his habits and surroundings, his temper, character and condition of life are all brought before us at the same moment. “ I he man himself- — what he was — not more, but to all conceivable proof of The Artist's Mother. right, in all aspect of life or thought, not less. So far as it reaches, it contains the absolute facts of colour, form and character, rendered with an unaccusable faithfulness.” 42 JULES BASE IEN-LEPAGE Take for instance, one of these little portraits, which does not depend for interest, as others may, on the fame of the subject, that of his brother, the architect. M. Emile Bastien-Lepage, a small, fair-haired man, with the same square forehead as the painter, is seated in his ordinary gray morning suit at the table, resting his hands on some architectural plans which are spread out before him. Both hands and face are studied with the most careful attention, and the strong character and thoughtful expression of the countenance are admirably rendered. The colouring is very quiet throughout. There is a yellow curtain at the back of the head, and a small profile portrait of the artist’s father hangs on the stamped leather of the wall behind. The light, as usual in the painter’s works, is ordinary daylight, and the same high degree of finish is perceptible in every part of the picture. Yet in sober and tranquil accomplishment this little portrait can hardly be surpassed. Equally fine in its way is the portrait of M. Albert Wolff, the well-known journalist, sitting in the luxurious ease of his study, wearing red slippers on his feet and holding a cigarette in his hand, with a bronze of Barye at his side and a number of Figaro lying on the table before him. In M. Theuriet’s thoughtful countenance and gray eyes we realise the imaginative power and poetic dreams of the thinker and author. In M. Andrieux’s keen face and alert eye as he bends to listen to a report which is being read to him, we recognise the former prefect of police. Or, to take an instance of his power in another direction, there is the portrait which Bastien-Lepage painted in Victor Hugo’s house, of the poet’s faithful friend, Madame Juliette Drouet, and which has been described with good reason as “ a miracle of likeness, of feeling, and of execution.” At that time she was already slowly dying of cancer, and the traces of suffering are plainly seen in her drooping form, in the deep lines of' the brow and the pallor of the thin cheek, but the painter has caught and rendered the spiritual charm which lingered on her countenance to the end. This pathetic little picture was painted by Bastien-Lepage during the last years ot his own life, when he himself was smitten by the same terrible disease, and the friends who watched the progress of the portrait, often wondered which of the two woidd be the first to go. ?«r* AI. Emile Basticn-Lepnge. 44 JULES BASEIEN-LEP AGE But the most famous and the most actually beautiful of all Bastien-Lepage’s portraits is that of Madame Sarah Bernhardt. In Madame Drouet. its vivid sense of life and power, this portrait forms a strange contrast to that of Victor Hugo’s white-haired friend. The great actress is painted in profile, sitting up in an erect attitude and looking down JULES BA ST IE N-LEPAG E 45 apparently rapt in thought, at a small statue of Orpheus which she holds in her hand. The creamy tones of her brocades, the snowy whiteness of the fur rug at her side and the bright locks of her wavy hair are all painted with rare delicacy. Both as a study of colour and of expression, this picture is equally remarkable. In some strange way the artist has been able to lay hold of the dreamy spell that floats about the enchantress. We see the magic of the down-dropped eye and hear the vibrations of that voice which has thrilled us all with its passion and its power. It is interesting to compare this well-known portrait of Sarah Bernhardt with another picture which is slighter indeed, but just as exquisite in treatment. It is that of a lady sleeping on her bed. Only the face and one hand are visible. But the expression of the slumbering face and the varied tints of white are beautifully given, while the surrounding objects — pillow, curtains, and counterpane — are all very slightly indicated and kept in a subdued light. This harmony in white is another example of the variety of styles in which this artist worked and of the mastery which he attained in each of them. Like Rembrandt and other artists who have worked in different styles, Bastien-Lepage expressed himself most decidedly in the style adopted for the time being, as if it had been the only one he knew or could employ. Among the works in his brother’s possession, there is a study of a naked man about the size of life seated on the ground, with his knees raised and his head and one hand resting upon them. This is interesting as a specimen of strong and rough brush-work, as opposite as possible to the workmanship of the portraits we have been considering. A critic who saw this study without knowing the artist of the work would naturally conclude that he was a painter of considerable manual power but altogether wanting in refinement. “ The fact is,” he said to an English friend who questioned him closely about this variety of style that was so curious a feature in his work, “ I have no fixed rules and no particular method. I paint things just as I see them, sometimes in one fashion, sometimes in another, and afterwards I hear people say that my pictures are like Rembrandt or like Clouet.” Whatever discussion Bastien-Lepage’s works provoked during his- 4 6 JULES B AS LIE N- L E P AG E lifetime, his portraits received the most unqualified praise. They were the wonder ot all the critics, the despair of all the artists. “ C’est la vie meme! c’est Fame,” wrote Marie Bashkirtseff. “ Et c’est d’une facture qu’on ne peut comparer a rien, car c’est la nature meme. On est insense de peindre apres cela.” We have only mentioned two or three ot the most remarkable among the many portraits which he painted during his short career. He had told M. de Fourcaud that once he had finished his series of rustic pictures he meant to turn his attention to Parisian life and to paint the people he knew and saw there. Had he lived long enough to carry out this intention we might have had many more portraits ot distinguished contemporaries from his hand. It is impossible not to feel what a priceless possession a gallery ot such portraits would have been for the future historian of the nineteenth century. But this was not to be, and Bastien-Lepage’s portraits ot Albert Wolff, ot Sarah Bernhardt, and ot Madame Drouet, remain to show us what he might have done in this direction had he been allowed a longer span ot life. IV In the spring of 1879, another great picture came from Damvillers. This was the well-known Potato Gatherers , or Saison d'Octobre, as it is sometimes called. The exact shape and size ot this canvas are the same as Les Foitis, almost square, and rather wider than it is high, the proportions being 1 meter 81 inches in height and 1 meter 99 inches in width. The scene is a potato-field, where two women are at work. The principal figure, a woman with a fine head and serious face, is stooping down to empty her basket into a sack on the ground, while her companion, a rosy-cheeked, smiling, peasant-girl of a common type, is kneeling down gathering potatoes at her side. Behind them is the broad plain with its patches of arable and grass land and a tew leafless trees swayed to and fro by the wind, reminding us ot the coming winter. There is no sunshine in the picture, but the rich browns and russet and JULES BA ST IE N-LE PA G E 47 greens ot the soil under the gray sky, the clods ot earth and scanty herbage and wild flowers of the foreground are all exactly rendered, and help to give the same impression of the lonely countryside on a still October day. The picture is in some ways the most complete that The Potato Gatherers. Bastien-Lepage ever painted. There is the same sense of light and air as in Les Foins, the same vigorous drawing and forcible realisation of life and character in the figures. But the harmony of colour is more perfect and the composition is more impressive, while the action and expression 48 JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE of the stooping woman is finer than anything of the kind in his peasant- pictures. This time the artist’s success was complete. The voices of envious detractors were silenced and Bastien-Lepage was recognised among the foremost of living painters. His Portrait of Madame Sarah Bernhardt was exhibited at the same time, and the painter’s double achievement in these separate branches of his art commanded general admiration. “Bastien-Lepage,” wrote the poet Theodore de Banville, “is the king of this year’s Salon.” Now that success had at length come to him, his first thought was of his parents. His father indeed was dead, but his mother and grandfather remained. They had shared his struggles and trials and must now share in his prosperity So he brought both of them to Paris and showed them the sights of the city. He took his mother to the Magasin du Louvre and told her to choose a new gown for herself. In vain she pro- tested that these silks and satins were too fine for her. Jules would have his way and chose the richest and stiffest black satin that he could find, saying, as he well might, that nothing could be too good for the mother to whom he owed so much. He took his grandfather for a walk on the Boulevards and showed him the chief theatres. But he was disappointed in the effect which the sight of these splendours had upon the poor old man. The old man yawned at the Opera and complained that he was tired of all the noise and bustle. So he soon. went back to Damvillers to grow his geraniums and asters, and said that he was too old to leave home again. That summer Bastien-Lepage paid his first visit to England. The fame of his portraits had already reached London, and he met with a cordial welcome. He never could learn a word of English, but the simplicity and bonhomie of the man delighted his admirers, and he made many friends. He visited our picture galleries, and was never tired of studying Rembrandt’s etchings in the Print Room of the British Museum. He painted several portraits, amongst others one of Madame Alma Tadema, and sketched the banks of the river and the shipping in the Thames. And his last day in England was spent in making a drawing of the Prince of Wales. An amusing little storv is told with JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE +9 regard to this portrait. An Englishman whose name is well known in literary and artistic circles, and who had made friends with the young French artist, was at his club about six o’clock on Saturday evening, when he was told that a gentleman who could not speak a word of English wished to see him. The description, he felt at once, could apply to no one excepting Bastien-Lepage, and true enough, much to his surprise, he found the painter who had already taken leave of him and was leaving town that evening, awaiting him in a great state of perturbation. An hour before, he had received a note, of which he could not understand a word, but which, he was told, demanded his immediate attention. The letter, as his English friend informed him, came from Marlborough House, and contained an intimation to the effect that the Prince of Wales would give M. Bastien-Lepage a sitting on the following day. “That is impossible,” replied the painter; “my things are already packed; I start in an hour’s time for Paris.” His friend begged him to defer his departure for a night, and pointed out the discourtesy of neglecting to obey, what was in fact, a royal command. Still Bastien-Lepage remained obdurate. He had promised his mother to be back at Damvillers on a certain day, and he could not disappoint her. And it needed all his friend’s powers of persuasion to induce him to change his plans, and put off his departure until the following evening. In the end he yielded with a very bad grace, and presented himself at Marlborough House the next day. There he made a silver-point drawing of the Prince, and came away charmed with the genial manners and affable kindness of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their children, who had conversed with him in French, in what seemed to him the most natural manner in the world. “After all,” he said to his friend, with an honest twinkle in his eye, “this time you were right.” And that same evening he started on his way back to France. From this sketch which he had taken at Marl- borough House, afterwards he painted his well-known portrait of the Prince of Wales in Holbein costume, with the masts of the Thames and the Tower of London in the background. On his return to France, Bastien-Lepage was decorated with the Legion of Honour, and hurried home to set to work on his next great picture. This was to be the Jeanne d' Arc, of which he had dreamed D 5 ° JULES BASE IEN-LE PA G E so long, a Jeanne d’Arc not of his atelier, but a true shepherdess of Lorraine. Before beginning his picture, he paid a visit to Domremy, accompanied by his faithful mother, and saw the birthplace of the heroic maid, and the cottage where she had lived. A complete series of studies for this picture, seven or eight in number, were collected in the Exhibition of Bastien-Lepage’s works, that was held after his death. And he has himself described the successive stages of thought by which he reached the form of composition which he finally adopted for his picture. Jeanne d’Arc, he began by saying to himself, was a simple and devout maiden, of a thoughtful and contemplative nature. Often she was to be seen on her knees in the village church, praying to the virgin saints Katherine and Margaret, and the great archangel Michael, whose carved images adorned the altar of Domremy. Often as she knelt there, she thought of the distracted state of her poor country and of the misery which she saw around her. And as she prayed to God and the Saints for help, it seemed to her that a voice from heaven called her to go forth and save her unhappy land. Accordingly the artist’s first idea was to represent Jeanne on her knees before the altar of the village church, and he made a beautiful drawing of the kneeling maid with her hands clasped in prayer and her head raised in a listening attitude. But then his love for open-air subjects got the better of his first resolve. He remembered how Jeanne d’Arc had said that the mysterious voices followed her everywhere, and haunted her both at her work and in her sleep. So he drew a coloured sketch on the walls of his studio, in which he represented his heroine, in the gray homespun bodice and brown skirt of the Lorraine peasants, spinning under the fruit-trees of her father’s orchard. That orchard was the garden of Damvillers with the rose-bushes and the flowers and vegetables growing together under the pear-trees and the apple-trees, and wild flowers in the long grass ot the meadow beyond. And in the background he painted the white walls and the red roofs of the cottage at Domremy. Still he was not satisfied. He altered Jeanne’s attitude and represented her standing under an apple-tree with her right arm hanging down and her left hand grasping the leaves of a bush at her side. She has started to her feet, ■ overturning the spinning-wheel in her agitation, and listens with a rapt JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE 5 1 look on her face to the voices that are calling her by name. But it was some time before the artist could find the exact head he wanted for his Jeanne d’Arc. The type of face was to be that of the ordinary Meuse peasant-girl, with low brow, high cheek-bones, and square chin. But the right expression was hard to get, and he drew a dozen different y oati of Arc listening to the Voices. heads before he could satisfy himself. When at length he succeeded he wrote joyfully to his friend Charles Baude : “ I really think I have found the head of my Jeanne d’Arc, and every one agrees that the resolve to start on her mission is well expressed in her face, while the simple D 2 JULES BASE IE N-LEP AGE 5 2 charm of the peasant is retained. Her attitude is, I think, very pure and gentle, as it ought to be. . . . But I shall see you soon, and I had rather leave you the pleasure of the surprise which you will receive from the first sight of the picture. You will judge of it all the better and be better able to tell me what you think of it.” But another difficulty remained to be solved. How were the unseen voices to be represented ? The painter’s friends were all of opinion that the saints whose call she hears should be invisible. Suppress your phantoms, they said, and depend on the expression of Jeanne’s face alone for the desired effect, and your conception will gain immensely in dramatic force and in artistic beauty. But this idea did not content Bastien-Lepage. The maid’s vision, he felt, must be embodied in a palpable form, the saints must be present if the mystic meaning of Jeanne d’Arc’s story was to be fully realised. At one time he thought of representing the gilt and painted images of the patron saints of Domremy, as hidden among the fruit-trees of the orchard. But by degrees a happier inspiration prevailed. In the pure dreams of Jeanne, he reflected, the “ blessed saints ” would appear in a glorified form, with the light of paradise on their brows. And so he painted the great archangel in his shining armour and the white-robed virgins, dimly seen through the luminous mist that streams from heaven. The artist’s friends hurried down to Damvillers to see the work into which the artist had put so much of his heart. His own hopes were high, and great things were expected. But when Jeanne d' Arc ecoutant les Voix appeared in the Salon of 1880, there was a general feeling of disappointment. The strangeness of the composition repelled the public, and many of the painter’s warmest admirers were puzzled. I'he representation of the voices was condemned on all sides, and the critics complained of a certain confusion of form and want of atmosphere and perspective in the picture. And in some measure, no doubt, they were right. The artist had tried to say too much, in his anxiety tO' be perfectly true to nature. The details of his background were too elaborately painted. The mass of tangled leaves and thorns had been allowed to come too far forward, and interfered with the effect of the central figure. And yet, in spite of these defects Bastien-Lepage’s- JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE 53 Jeanne d' Arc remains a great and noble picture. No one can look at that wonderful face and form without feeling how completely the artist has realised his own idea. His Jeanne is the true peasant-maid of Domremy, pure, and good, and simple, and wholly rapt in thoughts of the unseen. The figure itself is a masterpiece of drawing. The attitude of passionate attention, the upraised head, and wide-open blue •eyes all tell the same tale. She is conscious of divine presences about her and hears the sound of heavenly voices, and she rises up, without delay, to follow the call of God. If Bastien Lepage had painted nothing else, he would deserve to rank among the great masters of expression, for the sake of this one figure. And if on its first appearance in the Salon of 1880, it tailed to produce the effect which might have been expected, there were some at least upon whom the impression which it then made was never forgotten. “ Nothing in painting has ever moved me like the Jeanne d' Arc of Bastien-Lepage,” wrote Marie Bashkirtseff, a frank and at times a severe critic of the pictures which she most admired. “There is something indescribably mysterious and marvellous about it. There you have a sentiment which the artist has thoroughly understood, the perfect and intense expression of a great inspiration, — something great and human, inspired and divine at the same moment, in fact what it actually was, and what no one before him had ever understood. Only think of all the Jeanne .d' Arcs that had been painted before ! Good Heavens ! why they are as common as Ophelias and Gretchens ! But in this incomparable artist you find what is only to be found in the sacred art of Italy, in the days when men believed in what they painted.” But the jury of the Salon took the popular view, and the medal of honour which Bastien-Lepage had hoped to win, was awarded to a far inferior work, the Good Samaritan of Aime Morot. Jeanne d' Arc was promptly bought by an American collector and taken to Boston, where the great picture received the homage which it had failed to win in Paris. When it came back to France for the Exhibition of 1889, there was a general feeling of regret at the loss of a work which, by reason both of its subject and its merit, should have found a place in the Louvre. But it was too late then to repair the wrong. Bastien-Lepage himself was bitterly disappointed, not so much 54 JULES BASLIEN-LEP AGE at the loss of the medal, as at the failure of a picture upon which he had spent so much time and thought, and which, he was conscious, re- presented the best that he had to give. In his sadness he began to doubt his own powers, and seriously asked himself and his friends if after all his theories of art were false. “Tell me frankly,” he said one evening to M. de Fourcaud, “what is wrong in my picture? They tell me that my values are not correct. That may be true, but upon my word I only paint things as I see them, and it is impossible that I should borrow other people’s eyes. Or else, is it my subject to which people take exception ?' Well, that is Jeanne d’Arc, a young peasant girl of Lorraine, who sees visions. My figure is true ; surely the rest may be left to my imagina- tion.” So he complained in his darker hours. But he soon recovered his usual courage and gaiety, and went off to England, where his friends welcomed him warmly, and he was everywhere received as an honoured guest. The few weeks which he spent in the midst of his variety of engagements he found time to paint several pictures, including a portrait of Mademoiselle Damain, of the Comedie Fran^aise, and a clever study of the London Docks, with the muddy waters of the Thames flowing under a gray sky. And by August he was back at Damvillers, planning new pictures and working with renewed activity. V The next two years were the most productive in Bastien-Lepage’s life. That autumn he painted his beautiful harvest landscape Les Bles Murs, with the reaper in the foreground, putting in his sickle to cut down the golden corn, and the sun breaking out behind a passing storm-cloud, over the purple hills and distant woods of Reville. Among his smaller sketches for future pictures were his Vendanges and his Femme Enceinte ; among his larger studies, the Peasant visiting the field on Sunday, and an old woman anxiously examining the blossoms of her apple-tree on a cold spring morning, to see what damage the night frost JULES BASE TEN-LEE AGE 55 had done, and asking herself if she will have any fruit this year. A colporteur hurrying across the plain in driving rain was another subject which he began at Damvillers, that winter, while during his brief visits to^Paris he was busy executing the orders of portraits which now reached The Beggar. him on all sides. That of M. Albert Wolff appeared at the following Salon ( i 8 8 1 ) together with Le Mendiant. The artist had gone back to one of his earliest impressions, in this life-size picture of the sturdy beggar who 5 6 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE has grown old in tramping from door to door. He is the very type of the habitual mendicant, dirty, ragged and lazy, shod in huge sabots and armed with a stout stick which he is quite ready to use in his own defence if necessary. The cunning old tramp has started on his rounds and has taken care to call at a house where he is sure of alms. The clean white shutters and garden seat, the iron ring to which a horse or donkey can be tied, the scarlet geraniums at the window are all signs of thrift and comfort which his experienced eye is quick to detect. He has told his habitual tale and has received the expected dole, in the shape of a loaf of bread, which he stows away in his roomy pouch, while the pretty little girl in trim frock and pinafore and white collar, who has been sent out to him, lingers at the door, with wondering eyes, to take another look at this strange visitor. This time the story was easy enough to read, the character of the figures and force of the painting were undeniable, and there was a touch of humour in the incident which appealed to the popular taste. The public which had failed to appreciate Jeanne d' Arc gave Le Mendiant a cordial reception, and Bastien-Lepage reaped the solid fruits of a popular success. The picture of P'ere Jacques , which was exhibited the following year in the Salon of 1 882, was intended as a companion or rather as a contrast to Le Mendiant. This time the artist told his friends, laughingly, he would show them an honest man, and Le brave Homme was the name which he originally chose for his picture, although when he sent it to the exhibition he changed his mind and called it Le Pere Jacques , after the old Damvillers woodman who had sat to him for the figure. The aged peasant whom he painted, bearing his heavy load of faggots home, through the autumn woods, on a cold November afternoon, was the very type of the respectable labourer. Pere Jacques has worked hard, it is plain, all his life long, and has seen bad times, but he has not toiled and saved in vain. Now, as he wends his way slowly home, at the close of the brief autumn day, he knows that a good fire and a comfortable meal are awaiting him there. The little grandchild who trips before him, in her neat print frock and blue apron, half-hidden in the grass as she stoops to pick the last flower of the forest, is a living proof of the order and happiness that reigns in the old woodcutter’s home, of the love which cheers the evening of his life. The contrast between the gray- JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE 57 headed old man and the tair-haired chdd charmed all hearts, and when the Salon closed, Pere Jacques was sold to a London picture-dealer, tor whom Bastien-Lepage also painted his famous gamin , Pas-Meche. This celebrated work, one of the most lifelike specimens ot humanity ever put upon canvas, was the first of several pictures ot children which were among the most popular of the artist’s creations. There was his Petite Coquette and Petite Fauvette and Allant a f Ecole, that well-known picture of the rosy-cheeked child, carrying her lesson books and wrapping her shawl closer round her, as she goes to school, on a snowy winter’s morning. And there was the peasant-boy looking at the rainbow, which the painter sketched out on a large scale, but which, like so many more of his finest conceptions, was doomed to be lett unfinished. The growing popularity of his peasant-pictures had not led him to give up other subjects. He was anxious to paint an Annunciation, and drew a sketch of the subject in oils, as well as another of Golgotha at dawn of day, with the three crosses set on the hill in the dim morning light. Another subject which especially attracted his imagination was the death of Ophelia. On one of his visits to London he had seen Hamlet at the Lyceum, and had returned to Damvillers deeply impressed with Shakspeare’s conception. He saw in this hapless maiden a “ miserable d' amour," an eternal type ot unrequited love, ot the tailures and disappointments of human life. In his eyes, Ophelia was the most touching of victims and her end the most pathetic thing in tragedy. In August i 88 i he began his picture on a large scale. “ I have made some progress,” he wrote to Charles Baude, “ with a large picture of Ophelia. I think it will be a good thing to make her an entire contrast to my Beggar, that is to say a really touching Ophelia, as heartrending as it she were really alive. The poor foolish child no longer knows what she is about. Her tace bears marks of her grief and her madness. She is close to the edge ot the water, leaning against a willow, the smile of her last song is still on her lips and her eyes are full of tears. Only a branch supports her, and she is slipping unawares into the stream close beside her. Another moment, and she will be in the water. She wears a pale blue bodice, half blue, half green, a white skirt with loose folds, her pockets are full of flowers and behind her you see the 58 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE river banks — a wooded bank with tall flowering grasses and thousands of hemlocks — flowers like stars in the sky, and in the back of the picture, a w T ooded hill-side, with the sun setting behind birches and nut-trees. That is the scenery.” Sketch i for the Death of Ophelia. But this beautiful poetic scheme, which the artist had thought out in all its details, was never completed, and the sketch here reproduced is all that is left us. He was interrupted in his work, and when he J UL ES BASE IE N-LEPAG E 59 returned to Damvillers, other thoughts came crowding on his brain and Ophelia was put off -till a more convenient season. That autumn he took a short journey to North Italy and sketched the lake of Como and the water streets of Venice, but the art of Titian and Tintoret did not appeal to him, and he was glad to come back to the peasants and fields of Lorraine. In June 1882, he paid his last visit to London. There he painted a brilliant little portrait of M. Coquelin and his well-known picture of Blackfriars Bridge. The streets of London were a source of endless interest and amusement to him, and he brought home a large picture of a flower-girl and a smaller study of a shoe-black in his red jacket leaning against a post, at the corner of the crowded thoroughfare, a figure so lifelike that, a visitor to his studio remarked, you seem to hear the sound of the wheels all round him. Bastien-Lepage was a great man now. Each of his works was hailed with a tresh burst of applause, and he himself was courted and caressed by the leaders of Parisian society. Invitations poured in upon him and his company was in great request. At first sight, his youthful and insignificant appearance might be disappointing, but a closer ac- quaintance soon revealed the man’s powers. He had read widely and thought deeply upon many subjects. His perfect simplicity and absence of affectation made him a pleasant companion, and when he found a sympathetic listener, he would talk freely of his home and early life, and of the pictures which he meant to paint. “ Genius is a grand thing, ’ T exclaimed Marie Bashkirtseff one evening when she first met the painter, whose works she had so long admired. “This ugly little man is an angel in my eyes, and I could spend my whole life in hearing him talk of his pictures. It is really beautiful to understand art and to feel as he feels. And he speaks so naturally. He replied to some remark that was made to-night, ‘ I always find so much poetry in Nature,’ with an accent of such perfect sincerity and conviction, that I cannot forget it now. ... I really believe I shall end by thinking him handsome ! At all events, he has the infinite charm which belongs to men of real power and greatness, who are conscious of their worth without any conceit or nonsense.” In 1887, he left his old atelier in the Rue de Maine for a larger and pleasanter quarters in the Rue Legendre, near the Parc de Monceaiu 6o JULES BA ST IEN-LEP AGE But the change in his circumstances had not altered his character. He was the same true friend and good comrade as in old days, and was never so happy as when he could escape from the salons of the great world to join a party of his old companions. One such joyous meeting M. Theuriet recalls, in the summer of 1 8 8 i , when the members of an Alsace-Lorraine society, to which both he and the painter belonged, went down the river to dine at Suresnes. That day Bastien-Lepage was the gayest of the gay. He collected pence on board the steamer for a blind beggar, revelled in the loveliness of the blossoming hawthorns and acacias of the Bois de Boulogne, and shouted joyous songs at the top of his voice, as they went home under the stars. In January i 8 8 1 , he had been elected a member of the Council of the Societe des Artistes Fran^ais, and both in this capacity and as one of the Salon jury , was frequently called upon to attend meetings. He kept his engagements punctually, but these frequent interruptions were a tax upon his time, and although his first glimpses of the gay world amused him, before long he found the distracting influences of Paris too much for him. His advice to promis- ing young artists was always the same. Economise your strength and concentrate the whole energies of your body and soul upon your art. But it was impossible for him to carry out his own principles, when, at all hours of the day, his doors were beset by struggling artists or by fine ladies who clamoured for his presence at their balls and parties. He became restless and moody, and complained that life was not long enough to satisfy all the demands upon his time. But once he could escape to Damvillers, his cheerfulness and good temper returned, and he looked forward confidently to a day when he might be able to give up painting portraits, and devote himself entirely to his work in his country home. After his return from England in July, 1882, he finished several important pictures. One of these was his Rires d'Avril, a group of women washing their clothes in the river under the flowering apple-trees of a Damvillers orchard, in the fitful sunshine of an April day. Another was the exquisite little idyll of Le Soir an Village , the village street in the quiet stillness of evening, with the moon climbing over the top of the roofs and two figures seeking their homes in the fading twilight. A third which attracted even greater attention, was La Forge , a small study of a blacksmith’s shop, with its glowing coals, throwing a fine JULES BASE IEN-LEPAGE 61 Rembrandt effect of light on the face of an old man, as he bends at work over his anvil. In January 1883, Bastien-Lepage and his brother Emile were em- ployed to design the funeral car of Leon Gambetta, and both painter and architect walked in the solemn procession immediately behind the bier. Jules painted a picture of the statesman lying dead in the humble room at Ville d’Avray, with the wreaths of flowers resting on his lifeless corpse Sketch oj Gambetta after Death. and an expression of happy serenity on his sleeping face. “ I am not afraid of death,” the artist said, as he showed M. de Fourcaud his picture. “It is nothing to die; but the question is, which of us will live in the remembrance of the world? . . . Ah! well, let us do our work honestly and leave the rest.” He little dreamt then how near death was, and how little more time was left him for work. The cold was severe at the time. Jules caught a chill painting in the 62 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE dark little room at Ville d’Avray and went home ill. For some time past he had been ailing, and now he was laid up for several weeks with acute rheumatic pains. But as soon as he was fit to work, he began a new open-air picture, and sat out in the garden painting, wrapt up in rugs, for whole days together. This time his theme was that of rustic court- ship, a subject after his own heart. The simple tale is charmingly told. It is a spring evening in Damvillers, and the church spire and village roofs are seen on the rising ground behind the garden hedge where the peasant-girl is hanging out her clothes to dry. A lad of twenty has left his work to bring his sweetheart a flower, and lingers at her side with downcast eyes. He has something more to say ; but words are hard to find, and he leans on the stile with a shamefaced look on his honest face and twists his fingers together in clumsy silence. The girl’s face is turned away. We only see the outline of her cheek, the hand holding the flower, and the back ot her head with the short plaits of hair falling on her neck. Yet every line reveals the thoughts that are passing in her mind, the new and contused emotions that are stirring in her breast. And all around the hedges are breaking into flower, the orchards blossom under a pearly sky, and the old earth smiles in its spring loveliness on this young dream of love. Early in March, M. Theuriet and another triend went down to Damvillers in answer to the painter’s pressing invitation, to see his picture before it started for Paris. The whole family — grandfather, mother, and sons — met them at the door and gave them a hearty welcome. The next day they saw L' Amour an Village and a new picture, Le Petit Ramoneur , on which he was then engaged. He had painted the little chimney-sweep in all his blackness, eating his roll with evident enjoyment, and throwing crumbs to the cats, who watch his proceedings with friendly attention and a keen eye to their own interests. The snow still lay thick on the ground, but the beeches were budding and the larks sang of coming spring. Bastien-Lepage took long walks in the woods with his friends and talked freely of his future plans. He had bought a neighbouring orchard and meant to build a chalet, where his friends might come and spend the summer and share the pleasures of his rural retreat. And he discussed the criticisms which had been made on his P'ere Jacques in the last Salon, and defended himself from the charge of JULES BASE IEN-LEPAGE ^3 want of atmosphere and perspective, which was often brought against his open-air pictures. “ Here we are in a wood,” he said, “ and as yet there are no leaves on the boughs, but you see how little the figure stands out from the thick growth of trees and brushwood. There is a great deal of prejudice, depend upon it, in the fault which people find with the perspective of my open-air pictures. It is the criticism of men who have never looked at a landscape, except when they are sitting down. Then you see more of the sky, and trees and houses or living beings stand out sharply, and the effect of greater distance and wider atmo- sphere is naturally given. But this is not the ordinary way in which we look at the landscape. We see it when we are on our feet, and then objects, both animate or inanimate, instead of standing out against the sky, are seen in profile against the trees, or the fields, and mingle with the background, which seems to come forward. The fact is, we must renew the training of the eye by looking at things as they are in nature, instead of accepting the theories and conventions of the schools and studio as absolute truths.” The evenings of M. Theuriet’s visit were spent in cheerful talk and round games, in which Jules took care that his grandfather should always hold the best cards and took the greatest delight in the old man’s childish pleasure at his good luck. The painter himself had never seemed in better spirits, and before the party broke up, he insisted on etching a plate, in which the whole group was represented listening to the recital of a fable of La Fontaine, by one of the guests. When his friends returned to Paris, he made them promise to come back the following September and spend a long holiday at Damvillers. VI A few weeks later, L' Amour an Village appeared at the Salon, and was greeted with acclamation. The shy young girl was declared to be a poem in herself, the painting of her fair head and of the lad’s torn gaiters was applauded as a marvel of execution. So unanimous was the verdict of approval, that scarcely one critic noticed the real fault of the 64 JULES BASE IE N-LEPAG E picture, the peculiar tint of pale green in which the background is painted, a colour commonly used by the artist, which here strikes the eye as at once too uniform and too prominent. Bastien-Lepage’s name was on every lip that summer, but the painter himself was missed from the circles where his presence was most frequent, and he was supposed to have gone home. It only transpired later that he was already suffering from the terrible disease which ended his life, and that after undergoing a serious operation for cancer, he had been sent for change of air to Concarneau in Brittany. Here he spent the summer days in a boat, making studies of the sea, which he had already tried to paint on his visits to England, and which inspired him with new delight each time he approached its shores. In August he returned to Paris, showed his friends his Brittany sketches, and appeared once or twice in Madame BashkirtsefFs salon. His good spirits deceived others, and he spoke with great earnestness of the works which he meant to paint during the winter. One was to be the Shepherds on their way to Bethlehem, the other that long-thought-of Enterrement d'une jeune Fille , for which he had already prepared several careful sketches. The contrast between the joy and beauty of the spring-time and the sorrow of death is forcibly brought out in the painter’s design. A group of young girls, dressed in white with black tippets, lead the way. One of them bears a cross which has caught in the boughs or a flowering apple tree, scattering the white blossoms over the procession. A spray falls on the bier, which draped In white, and attended by priest and acolytes, is borne aloft on men’s shoulders, and the white houses of the village are seen in the background, gleaming in the spring sunshine. Full of this touching and impressive idea, which had taken strong hold of his imagination, Bastien-Lepage went back to Damvillers in October, and reached home in time to witness the last moments of his aged grandfather. He felt the old man’s death keenly, and wrote full of grief to his friends: “You have no idea how empty the house feels. Only a few days ago, the door might open at any moment and the grandfather might appear. The sight of his good face was enough. We reason with ourselves and appear brave and resigned. But behind all that, there is a painful sense of blank, of absolute hunger. If only one JULES B A ST IE N- LEPAGE 65 could still take his hand ! Ah ! my friend, it is hard, and I have been and am still quite ill. I cannot work, and have been out to-day for the first time, shooting larks on a fine day, in a bright sun, and through a beautiful country, which did me good.” Sketch for the Burial of a Young Girl. His own health was failing fist. He still struggled to work, but each day his sufferings seemed to grow worse. The letters which he wrote to his friends that winter, are very touching in their tender affection, and in the deepening sense which they reveal of the beautv of £ 66 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE the world that he was so soon to leave. Never before had the sunsets been so full of solemn splendour ; never had the leafless woods and the dead yellow grasses been so fair in their pale soft tints. What effects he caught as he lingered at twilight on the edge of the forest, what glories he saw when the dawn broke over the low hills, or the dark masses of rolling clouds swept across the midnight sky ! Each day the curtain rose on a new scene, and he could not paint fast enough to keep a record of all the lovely changes that followed each other in such quick succession. And all the while he was slowly dying of a wasting disease. When he came to Paris in March to consult the doctors, he did not know that he was leaving Damvillers for the last time. His friends found him terribly altered, and the weary look in his eyes told them how much he had suffered. But he tried to talk cheerfully, and said, as he showed them his last drawings, “When people see these at George Petit’s, they will say after all little Bastien knew how to paint landscape when he chose!” A journey to Algiers was recommended, and his “valiant little mother,” as he called her, who had never left home except for a few days, at once prepared to accompany him. They reached Algiers when the spring was in its full beauty, and at first the change seemed to relieve his pain. He wrote long letters to his friends in Paris, describing the luxuriant wealth of vegetation, the orange and lemon and palm trees in his garden, and the delicate tints of rose and pearl in the white walls of the old Arab town on the green hillside, with the blue sea beyond. The Arabs, too, filled him with admiration. He was never tired of watching their splendid forms, and calm and noble bearing. “ They are knaves, people tell me. What does it matter? They are beautiful. . . Each of them wears his burnous draped in a fashion peculiar to himself. There again you see the triumph of truth over conventional arrangement. The sorrowful man, whether he knows it or not, never puts on his clothes in the same way as the gay. Beauty, I am convinced, is absolute truth, neither to the right nor to the left, but straight before us.” Soon, he adds, he will be able to paint again, and then what studies he will have to bring home ! But his sufferings returned, and his strength failed as the summer heats came on. His brother joined him in Algiers, and told him of the great success which had attended Sketch for the Burial of a Young Girl. JULES BASFIEN-LEPAGE 69 the exhibition of his recent works at Petit’s gallery that spring, and of the admiration which his Forge had excited at the Salon. All Paris was talking of his pictures, and longing to see him back again. Late in June they brought him home. He bore the journey well, but by this time all hope of recovery had vanished, and the next six months were one long struggle with increasing pain and weakness. Yet he longed to paint more than ever, and often said how gladly he would give up everything for three months of health and power to work. “ What beautiful pictures I could paint now,” lie said to his Russian friend, Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch, “ if only I had strength to work. 1 have learnt a great deal since I left off painting, and have done nothing but think about it.” But his painting days were over. The last drawing that he ever made was a portrait of himself in pencil, as he lay in bed, with long hair and sunken eyes, a mere shadow of his former self. His Russian friend, Marie Bashkirtseff and her mother paid him frequent visits, and drove with him on fine days in the Bois de Boulogne. This brilliant Russian girl, who had long been one of the warmest admirers of Bastien-Lepage’s genius, and whose own picture had met with great success at the Salon of that year, was herself dying of con- sumption. She was just twenty, and had all that the world could give. And now that she seemed to be entering on a great career, like him she was stricken with mortal disease. No wonder that a bond of more than common sympathy drew the two together in these last weeks of their lives. “ He is dying,” wrote Marie in her journal on the 1st of October. “ When you are as far gone as that, you cease to care for earthly things. Already his soul soars above us I only go to see him from habit. He is but a shadow, and I too am half a shadow. My presence is no longer of use to him. I cannot bring back the light to his eyes. But he is glad to see me.” When she became too ill to leave home, Bastien-Lepage came to see her, and was carried upstairs to the large drawing-room in Madame BashkirtsefFs house. The change seemed to do him good ; he talked with Marie of art and books, and liked to look at the dark-eyed girl with her wealth of fair hair lying there wrapt in soft folds of white lace and plush. The sight of these different tints of white recalled the pictures which he had painted in the days of health and strength. “ Ah ! if I could but paint now ! ” he cried. The 20th of October was a glorious 7 ° JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE autumn day. Bastien-Lepage came as usual, supported by his brother. But once on the couch, his strength was utterly exhausted. “ And to think,” wrote Marie in her journal that evening, “ how many concierges are in rude health.” They never met again. Eleven days afterwards Marie BashkirtsefF was dead. Bastien-Lepage lingered on five weeks longer. On the night of the 9 th of December he was very wakeful, and talked to his mother and brother of Damvillers and of the old home, which was ever present to his mind. At last the clock struck four, and he said with a smile “ It is time for children to go to sleep.” When he woke, his sight was already dim, and his limbs were growing stiff. Towards evening the long agony was over, and his eyes closed in the last sleep. Two days afterwards his remains were taken to Damvillers. The whole population of the village joined in the funeral procession, and followed the painter to his resting place in the little churchyard, where the last wild flowers of the year were mingled with the laurel wreaths which lay thick upon the sod. An apple-tree was planted by his mother on the spot, and each year as spring comes round the white blossoms which the painter loved so well fall like snow upon his grave. Five years afterwards a statue of Bastien-Lepage was set up by the roadside at Damvillers. It was the work of his friend, the great sculptor Auguste Rodin, and no more living image was ever carved in stone. The painter stands there in his short coat and cape, looking over the fields and orchards of his home. H is brush and palette are in his hand, his glance is as keen, his step as resolute as of old. The peasants who see that familiar form say that he seems to live again, and to be watching them as they go to and fro at their work. In the spring after Bastien-Lepage’s death, a complete exhibition of his works was held at the Hotel de Chimay, close to 1’Ecole des Beaux Arts. All his great pictures were there, with the single exception of Jeanne d' Arc, which could not be brought across the Atlantic in time. All his wonderful little portraits were there too, and all the chief drawings and studies he had left behind him, from the canvas of La Source , which had been struck by a shell during the Siege of Paris, down to his last sketch of the moon rising over the sea in Algiers. The critics who had called him a mere realist, saw with wonder all the poetry which this man had found in the skies and in the fields. They The Chimney Sweep, \ JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE 73 saw his Orpheus and his Ophelia , his Andromeda and his Angel of the Annunciation side by side with the haymakers and potato gatherers of Damvillers, the docks of London and the seas of the wild Breton shore, by the landscapes of his own Lorraine, and they marvelled at the variety of his subjects and diversity of his styles, as much as at the quantity of brilliant and original work which had been crowded into these few years. They saw, too, the sketches for the pictures which he had left undone, the studies for his great Entombment , the lovely sunrise drawing for the Shepherds of Bethlehem, and the designs for the Burial of a Young Girl , which was to have been his picture for the Salon of 1885. And hanging on the same wall, in startling contrast with these touching drawings which tell of sorrow and cieath, was the lifelike portrait of the artist painted by his own hand. There we saw him in all the vigour of his manhood, with the frank gaze and thoughtful brow, the keen eye and the anxious expression which marked the countenance of this earnest seeker after truth. Sad as the sight was, for Bastien-Lepage that day was a great triumph. Then for the first time, the world began to see the full extent of its loss, and realise all the power and promise of the young master who had been cut off in his prime. Had he lived but a iew more years, there can be little doubt that he would have painted some greater and more dramatic picture than he had done before. But it is idle to speculate when death has said the last word. We can only gather up what remains, and be thankful for the fine and thoughtful work which he has left behind. VII The general impression left by Bastien Lepage’s work confirms the honesty of his repeated declaration that he had no object in his art but truth. “ Faisons vrai ! ” was the motto which he himself would have wished to see inscribed over his pictures. Truth —as Mr. Ruskin said of those earnest young Englishmen whom the French master resembled in his closeness of observation and intensity of feeling- Truth was the vital power of his art, his armour and his watchword. “There is only one to be admired,” said Bastien Lepage, “that is 74 JULES BUSTIEN-LEPAGE Nature. There is only one art and that is to reproduce Nature.” The consequence of this simple faith, which was complicated in his own mind The Artist' s Grandfather. From a water-colour drawing. by no aesthetic considerations, was that his works are remarkable for their veracity. This veracity is of a very comprehensive kind. It does not JULES BASEIEN-LEP AGE IS attach itself to any special department of nature, but includes everything that he attempts to represent. But although a realist of a very decided kind, Bastien-Lepage is not to be classed among the men who despise artistic selection and have a positive aversion for beauty. It is true that beauty is never his primary aim, but it is none the less present in his works and was seldom absent from his thoughts. No one can read his letters without feeling how keenly alive he was to natural beauty and what keen delight he took in all its varied forms. In his eyes the word no doubt may have had a wider meaning, and his idea of beauty may not have been the same as ours. He found beauty alike in the subtle expres- sion of a human face, and in the ploughed fields under the gray skies of autumn, and to make others feel this pathos and poetry by a perfectly faithful rendering was the whole of his aim. “At the present time,” he said one day to M. Theuriet, “we have a number of very clever artists, but for all our skill, our painting tor the most part, only serves to amuse people. It does not lay hold of them, because we ourselves do not paint with conviction. We must change our ways it any of our work is to live. We must try to see and reproduce that inmost radiance which lies at the heart of things, and which is the only true beauty, because it is the life.” Again, in spite of his careful fidelity to nature and anxiety to follow her as closely as possible his work was no mere photographic repro- duction of life. He would not adopt conventional arrangements of composition or “ prettify types,” but he brought the eye of a true artist to the study of natural fact. This is best proved by the great variety of his execution, more minutely truthful in one picture than in another, and ever careful to note the objects on which he desired to fix the spectator’s attention. At the same time Bastien-Lepage’s work is not free from defects in this direction. In his eager desire to be truthful, and to reproduce every part of nature, he too often sacrificed general effect, and allowed the essential facts to become obscured by a mass of detail. This tendency, which weakens the impression of some of his finest pictures, would, there can be little doubt, have been gradually overcome, if he had lived longer, and his work would have gained in proportion. I he wide range of Bastien-Lepage’s art, and his proficiency in 7 6 JULES BASLIEN-LEPAGE different branches of painting has been sufficiently proved. But he also worked in other materials, and tried his hand both at modelling and etching. Three sketches by him in clay remain. One is an impressive portrait-bust of his father, modelled by him after Claude Bastien- Lepage’s death and cast in bronze. The second is a figure of Jeanne d’Arc as a shepherdess leaning upon her crook. The third and finest of the group is a small statuette of Orpheus with his lyre, which Sarah Bernhardt held in her hand when her portrait was painted. There it appears as a statuette, and it has accordingly been usually described as some rare antique, belonging to the actress, whereas it was, in point of fact, the painter’s own work. In his later years Bastien-Lepage devoted some attention to etching, and executed as many as twenty plates. “ These, however,” writes Mr. Hamerton, “ are relatively of very slight importance. Bastien-Lepage never attained to much manual power as an etcher, and in fact, at the time of his death, was in this art like a skater who has not yet felt the edge of his skate. I believe he would have mastered the art later, if he had lived to pursue it. The two best plates he has left are one in dry point of Theuriet, the novelist, and his family and a portrait of Rodin, the sculptor. I may also mention a peasant-girl seen from behind. She is holding a rake and is standing in a landscape characteristic of Eastern France, with thin poplars standing three by three, and most of their branches lopped off. There are also two or three plates of peasants at work in rural occupations. However, I do not insist upon Bastien-Lepage’s merits as an etcher. He was no more than an experimentalist in the art, though his experiments were in the right direction, and he did not waste time in useless labour. His pen-drawings are good painter’s pen-drawings, though they do not resemble the technical displays of the clever modern specialists in pen- draughtsmanship. In water-colour he has left a remarkable sketch portrait of his grandfather reading his newspaper in a gray arm-chair near a book-case. In this sketch the whole of the background is as much suggested as the characteristic figure, but nothing is realised. It is an excellent example of genuine sketching in water-colour, without any attempt to rival oil, and without the employment of body-colour J UL E S BASE IE N-LEP AG E 77 for the lights, all of which are reserved. The colour, which is excellent, is chiefly in grays and browns, passing in places into violet and pale blue, and there is very little definition, though everything is suggested. Statuette of Orpheus. It is technically nearer to Turner’s water-colour sketching than to such definite drawing as we see, for instance, in the artist’s portrait of M. Emile Bastien-Lepage. All his drawings, including his water- colours, have the valuable quality of stopping short in time. In oil, 78 JULES BASE IE N-LEP AGE he was able to carry finish as far as he liked, and yet keep it sound and proportionate throughout. In a word, he was a master of oil-painting and sufficiently a master of other graphic arts for his own purposes.” It is hardly to be expected that the art of Bastien-Lepage will find favour with the critics of a school which resents the presence of ideas in painting as an intrusion, and sees no excellence in finish. But to speak of the master of Damvillers as a mere salonnier , who painted Round the Lamp. pictures lor the sake of exhibition, and whose work is of the most commonplace and uninteresting kind, is as ignorant as it is unjust. No artist ever cared less for popular applause or material rewards. No man was ever more faithful to his own convictions, or more single-minded in his devotion to art. Whatever the defects of his work may be, it contains undoubted elements of vitality. It is at once strong and delicate, original and profound. It was inspired by the most passionate love of nature, and distinguished by a complete mastery of means. And this being the case, it cannot fail to live. INDEX Algiers, 66, 70 “ Allant a l’Ecole,” 57 Andrieux, M., 42 Angelico, 2 I Anna, Mdlle., 14 “Annunciation,” 57 “Annunciation to the Shepherds,” 23 Argonne, 32 Banville, Theodore de, 48 Bashkirtseff, Marie, 37, 46, 53, 59, 69, jo Bastien, Claude, 10, 12,40 ,, Mdrae., 40, 48, 66 Bastien-Lepage, Emile, 1 1 , 36, 42, 61, 66, 70 Baude, Charles, 32, 51, 57 “ Beggar, The,” 55 Bernhardt, Sarah, 25, 44, 48 “Blackfriars Bridge,” 59 “ Bles Murs,” 54 Boston, U.S., 53 Botticelli, 2 1 Bouveret, Dagnan, 8 Brittany, 64 “Burial of a Young Girl, ’ 64 Cabanel, 13, 14 Castellani, 14 Chavannes, Puvis de, 15 “Chimney Sweep,” 62 Clouet, 21 Comcrre, 24 “ Communiante, La,” 22 Como, Lake of, 59 Concarneau, 64 Coquelin, M., 59 Corot, 2 1 Courbet, 22 Damain, Mdlle., 54 Damvillers, 8, 9, 14, 15, 25, 28, 50, 54, 62, 64, 70 Daubigny, 2 1 Domremy, 50 Drouet, Mdme. Juliette, 42 Ecole des Beaux Arts, 13, 16, 17 England, 48, 54 Etchings, 76 Exhibition of 1889, Paris, 8, 53 “ Faneuse, La,” 29 “Femme Enceinte,” 54 “ Forge, The,” 60, 69 F'ouquet, M., 1 1 Fourcaud, M. de, 8, 17, 46, 54, 61 Gambetta, Leon, 61 Godillot, Portrait of Mdme., 38 “Golgotha,” 57 “Grandfather, The Artist’s,” 15 Hayem, M., 22, 38 “Haymakers, The,” 8, 29, 36 Henner, 2 1 8o INDEX Holbein, 20, 27 Hugo, Victor, 42 “ Jeunesse doree,” 14 “Joan of Arc,’’ 8, 17, 34, 49, 70 Karageorgevitch, Prince Bojidar, 69 Klotz, M. Victor, 35 ,, Mdmc , 38 “ L’Absent,” 3 5 “ L’Auberge,'’ 35 Leb^gue, Portrait of Mdme., 36, 38 Lepage, M., 10, 48, 64 Lippi, 2 1 London, 48 London Docks, Sketch of, 54 “Love in the Village, ”^8, 62, 63 Luxembourg Gallery, 1 5 Manet, 21 Marlborough House, 49, Meuse, Department of the, 9, 13 Millet, 22 “ Mise au Tombeau,” 34 “Mois Rustiques,” 34 Morot, Aimd, 53 Ophelia, Study for, 57 “ Orpheus,” 45, 73 Paris, 1 3, 14, 17, 36, 59, 60, 66 “ Pas-Meche, 57 “ Pere Jacques,” 8, 56, 62 Perugino, 2 1 “Petite Coquette,” 57 “Petite Fauvette,” 57 “Potato Gatherers,” 8, 46 Pre-Raphaelites, 23 “ Priam,” 2 5 Rembrandt, 20, 48 Reville, 25, 30, 54 Richier, Ligier, 34 “ Rires d’Avril,” 60 Rodin, Auguste, 70, 76 Salon, Jury of, 60 Saint-Gaudens, Andre', 9 Sculpture, 76 “ Soir au Village,” 60 “ Source, La,” 1 4, 70 “Springtime,” 15 “ ,, Song °f” 1 5 Study. Lady sleeping on her bed, 45 ,, Nude figure of a man, 45 Tadema, Portrait of Mdme., 48 Thames, 48 Theuriet, M. Andre, 8, 16, 32, 34, 36, 42, 60, 62, 63, 76 Tinte, 9, 2 5 “Vendanges,” 54 Venice, 59 Verdun, 9, 10 Wales, Prince of, 48, 49 ,, Princess of, 49 Wallon, M., 38 Water Colour painting, 76 Watteau, 15 Wo! ft, Albert, 42, 55 f 3 3125 00599 3064 m- ... " ’ ■. PffiP M mm IMKf r '-iu,- 6 *rc*i' x& ' in |fe y : ''■:■■ . j<®§ Sf& ElSsisis $s if 5338 B KMu.il »w«t&' ;sB;;i o iufcw 3r -w&~ ree£ ^tJSixS -fcuL ■ •■ : IKiBi SlmlBtiSffiSBaiHag 1 -: r ii ■ ...v -liiliSS _*i{ 8 i pa^si s I ISik ^iw ^2 a •% \ ilia i-'i'.i ml §1 iw. awtif ; citfft'j If SStSsr •ra* 35 t SIS 3 *iS Hi :•% item iii II9PV ?a- -.rff fflSr in ■ 0V T altg' , rr4ifc r. ISBl . liii B yF MIlB isSSII i > v. -f-f!' iw cKig&ffi ' Jgfcp nT Ban