r-"i 
 
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 553 
 
 B29C85E 
 
 5TIEN LEPAGE 
 
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 1 
 
 
 !«- 
 
 T* 
 
 MASTERPIECES 
 
 IN COLOVR
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UXR'ERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 FREDERIC THO^L\S BLAXCHARD
 
 MASTERPIECES 
 IN COLOUR 
 EDITED BY - - 
 M. HENRY ROUJON 
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 (1848-1884)
 
 IN THE SAME SERIES 
 
 REYNOLDS 
 
 VELASQUEZ 
 
 GREUZE 
 
 TURNER 
 
 BOTTICELLI 
 
 ROMNEY 
 
 REMBRANDT 
 
 BELLINI 
 
 FRA ANGELICO 
 
 ROSSETTI 
 
 RAPHAEL 
 
 LEIGHTON 
 
 HOLMAN HUNT 
 
 TITIAN 
 
 MILLAIS 
 
 LUINI 
 
 FRANZ HALS 
 
 CARLO DOLCI 
 
 GAINSBOROUGH 
 
 TINTORETTO 
 
 VAN DYCK 
 
 DA VINCI 
 
 WHISTLER 
 
 RUBENS 
 
 BOUCHER 
 
 HOLBEIN 
 
 BURNE-JONES 
 
 LE BRUN 
 
 CHARDIN 
 
 MILLET 
 
 RAEBURN 
 
 SARGENT 
 
 CONSTABLE 
 
 MEMLING 
 
 FRAGONARD 
 
 DiJRER 
 
 LAWRENCE 
 
 HOGARTH 
 
 WATTEAU 
 
 MURILLO 
 
 W^ATTS 
 
 INGRES 
 
 CO ROT 
 
 DELACROIX 
 
 FRA LIPPO LIPPI 
 
 PUVIS DE CHAVANNES 
 
 MEISSONIER 
 
 GEROME 
 
 VERONESE 
 
 VAN EYCK 
 
 FROMENTIN 
 
 MANTEGNA 
 
 PERUGINO 
 
 ROSA BONHEUR 
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 GOYA
 
 PLATE I, — THE SONG OF SPRINGTIME 
 ( Museum at Verdun ) 
 
 This is one of the artist's earliest works. A certain embarrassment 
 may be noted in the manner in which the Cupids are treated ; even 
 at this period, it is easy to see that allegory is not suited to the pre- 
 cise and realistic talent of this painter; yet the young girl is 
 designed with a vigour which already foreshadows the masterly art 
 of Hay-making.
 
 ^'   *^:r-^*^-' 
 
 
 1^- -K-
 
 Bastien Lepage 
 
 BY FR. CRASTRE 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 
 BY FREDERIC TABER COOPER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT 
 REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 NEW YORK — PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 i 
 
 e> 
 
 March, 1914 
 
 THE'PLIMPTON- PRESS 
 NORWOOD'MASS-U-S'A
 
 NO 
 
 553 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 His Youth . . i6 
 
 His Best Years . . 31 
 
 His Premature End 65 
 
 vu 

 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Plate 
 
 I. The Song of Springtime . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Museum at Verdun 
 
 II. Portrait of M. Wallon 14 
 
 Museum of the Louvre 
 
 III. The Artist's Mother 24 
 
 Collection of E. Bastien-Lepage 
 
 IV. The Hay-making 34 
 
 Museum of the Luxembourg 
 
 V. Portrait of M. Hay em 40 
 
 Museum of the Luxembourg 
 
 VI. Portrait of M. X 50 
 
 Museum at Verdun 
 
 VII. The Little Boatman 60 
 
 Collection of E. Bastien-Lepage 
 
 VIII. The Artist's Uncle 7° 
 
 Museum at Verdun 
 
 IX
 
 'T^HERE are certain beings who bear the stamp 
 of the divine seal and are preordained to 
 receive the highest favours within the gift of glory; 
 they are fated to pass through life like those bril- 
 liant meteors which are seen to flash across the 
 heavens and disappear in the same instant. Bastien- 
 Lepage was one of these meteors. But while the 
 others leave behind them only a luminous trail 
 
 II
 
 12 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 that swiftly vanishes, this rare artist, snatched so 
 prematurely from the field of art, traced his 
 passage in a furrow of dazzling splendour, the 
 radiance of which has not even yet begun to fade. 
 
 Bastien-Lepage was a painter in the noblest 
 acceptation of the term; it may even be asserted 
 that he would have exercised considerable influ- 
 ence upon the art of his epoch if Destiny had not 
 stupidly mown down the sturdy flower of his 
 genius in the very hour of its brightest blossom- 
 ing. Born into this world with a solid tenacity 
 of purpose which seems to be a special gift of 
 the soil of Lorraine to her sons and daughters, 
 he had a clear-cut and unalterable conception of 
 what painting should be. His mind was recep- 
 tive only of simple ideas, his eye perceived only 
 visions that were tangible, such as were unob- 
 scured by any shadow or any artifice. He was 
 the apostle of clearness, both in conception and 
 in execution. Every time that he tried experi- 
 mentally to turn aside from his chosen path, he
 
 PLATE II.— PORTRAIT OF M. WALLON 
 
 (Museum of the Louvre) 
 
 Few artists have been able to endow their models with such 
 an animated expression of life. All the keenness, intelligence and 
 austerity of this prominent personage, known by the name of 
 Father of the Constitution, are eloquently transferred to this page, 
 with a sobriety of means that still further emphasizes its vigour.
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 15 
 
 ceased to be himself, he fell below his own stand- 
 ards. What interested him most of all, in the life 
 of this world which he observed so eagerly, as 
 though he had a presentiment of his early end, was 
 nature's most precise and most uncompromising 
 manifestation, both in line and in relief; namely, the 
 peasant and the environment which frames him. 
 Having deliberately chosen such models, Bastien- 
 Lepage could not pretend to be the painter of 
 the Beautiful, nor did he ever become so. He 
 did not even adorn his subjects with that special 
 sort of idealism with which Millet embellished 
 even his most uncouth rustic types, a slightly 
 melancholy idealism obtained by a sombre toning 
 down of colour, which Bastien-Lepage held in horror. 
 His peasants stand out boldly, in the crude glare 
 of flamboyant noontide, under a summer sun that 
 refuses to leave hidden any part of their ugliness 
 or their defects. He painted them as he saw 
 them, with the searching rays striking them full 
 in the face; and his brush was a stranger to any
 
 i6 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 compromise, intolerant of even the slightest better- 
 ment, in the course of the literal transference of 
 his model to his canvas. It made no difference 
 how handsome or how homely a given subject 
 might be, Bastien-Lepage would always render 
 him precisely as nature, in a grudging or indulgent 
 mood, had made him, — that is to say, truly 
 and sincerely, with a precision that would be 
 almost photographic, if the minuteness of his 
 technique were not ennobled by the high quality 
 of his art. With such gifts, Bastien-Lepage was 
 foreordained to be a marvellous interpreter of 
 rural life, and such he was in the highest degree; in 
 like manner, he could not fail to become a por- 
 trait painter of the first order, and it was in this 
 capacity also that he enrolled himself among the 
 most interesting and vigorous artists of our epoch. 
 
 HIS YOUTH 
 Jules Bastien-Lepage was bom at Damvillers, 
 in the department of the Meuse, on the first of
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 17 
 
 November, 1848. His parents were of the well- 
 to-do farming class, occupied from one year's end 
 to the other with the work of the fields. Conse- 
 quently, all the early boyhood of the artist was 
 passed in daily contact with the soil of Lorraine 
 and with the sons of that soil. He knew them, 
 one and all, in his native village; he grew up among 
 them; he went to school side by side with the 
 other little rustics of his own age: he understood 
 the peasant class, with all their faults, their vir- 
 tues, their habits of life; he learned to read in 
 their faces, which were a sealed book to the out- 
 sider, the opinions and emotions which they had 
 in common with him. 
 
 These childhood impressions were destined to 
 abide with him throughout his life; he cherished 
 to the end a fervent love for his native land, 
 and he felt that he had an infinitely noble task in 
 painting that life of the fields which the Second 
 Empire affected to despise.
 
 i8 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 But though he came of peasant stock, it was 
 Bastien-Lepage's good fortune that these same 
 peasants were in prosperous circumstances and 
 could afford to give him an education. They were 
 ambitious for him; and it hurt them to see their 
 Httle Jules, who was so wide-awake, so intelligent, 
 and at the same time so frail, leading the hard 
 and monotonous life of the fields, following the 
 plough, tilling the soil. It needed only a few 
 household economies to enable him to continue his 
 studies; so, when the time came, young Bastien- 
 Lepage wended his way towards Verdun, where he 
 entered upon his college course. 
 
 There is nothing that marks in any particular 
 way these years of study, nothing to indicate that 
 the boy was a youthful prodigy, nor that he showed 
 any special aptitude for drawing. But he was 
 studious, diligent, and anxious to avoid repre- 
 mands and to fulfil the expectations of his parents. 
 In due time he obtained his bachelor's degree, 
 which at that period was highly prized. His father,
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 19 
 
 filled with pride, already began to form brilliant 
 projects for his future, already foresaw him a 
 distinguished official, supervising some great branch 
 of the public service. As a matter of fact, a 
 position was found for the young baccalaureate 
 in a government department which was neither 
 the most desirable nor the one of least impor- 
 tance; namely, the Post Office Department. Bas- 
 tien-Lepage was not vastly delighted with the 
 choice, but, dutiful son that he was, he accepted the 
 modest clerkship offered him. One circumstance 
 contributed, in a large degree, towards overcom- 
 ing his reluctance: the post assigned to him from 
 the start was in Paris, of which he had often heard 
 marvellous things, and in which he hoped that he 
 would be able to follow his secret inclination. For, 
 in the interval his vocation had revealed itself; he 
 had conceived a passion for drawing, for colour- 
 ing, for painting; and, like Correggio, he was 
 eager to say in his turn, '*I too am a painter!" 
 Accordingly he set forth, leaving behind him
 
 20 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 no suspicion of his purpose. Upon arriving at 
 the capital, he acquitted himself scrupulously of 
 his official duties, but every leisure moment was 
 consecrated to visiting the museums and exhibi- 
 tions. He saturated himself with the wealth of 
 beauty strewn broadcast through the Louvre, and 
 was thrilled with admiration at contact with the 
 masters of every school and country. He did not 
 care equally for them all, in spite of their genius; 
 his intimate preferences leaned to the side of 
 Flemish rather than Italian art; but he was not 
 insensible to the lofty inspiration, the severe har- 
 mony, the faultless composition, which have made 
 the great masters of the Renaissance the most 
 astonishing prodigies in the history of painting. 
 
 But while the older schools of art delighted 
 him, he followed with no less attention the move- 
 ment of contemporary painting. At the hour when 
 his critical spirit awoke, certain new elements and 
 new formulas had come to light and had been put 
 into practice by two audacious and gifted artists
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 21 
 
 by the names of Courbet and Manet. Although 
 the prolonged struggle between the classicists and 
 romanticists had not yet come to an end, these 
 two rival schools were entrenched in their positions 
 and refused to stir forth from them. Supporters 
 of Delacroix and of Ingres confined themselves 
 strictly to their respective hostile formulas, doing 
 nothing either to expand or to rejuvenate them. 
 Whoever dared to venture outside of one of these 
 two beaten tracks was regarded as a madman, and 
 his attempts were greeted with derisive clamours 
 by both parties, who declared a momentary 
 truce, for the purpose of annihilating him by a 
 joint attack. Courbet, who was scorned by Ingres, 
 met with equally harsh criticism from Delacroix; 
 and as for Manet, he had managed to call down 
 universal wrath upon his head, and at the Salon 
 of 1863 it became necessary to place his Olympia 
 in the very topmost line upon the wall, in order to 
 protect it from the fury of the public, hounded on 
 by the hue and cry of the critics.
 
 22 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 Bastine-Lepage made mental notes of all the 
 episodes of this struggle; he listened to the criti- 
 cisms and passed them through the crucible of his 
 unspoiled mind, in the presence of the very works 
 under indictment. His good sense showed him how 
 large an element of injustice entered into these 
 hostilities. Moreover, his peasant blood inclined 
 him to sympathize with those artists who refused 
 to bind themselves to seek for beauty only within 
 the limits of academic form, and who had the 
 ability to make it flash forth from the humblest 
 and even the most vulgar type of subject. Further- 
 more, this constant study of matters pertaining to 
 art, day by day added fuel to the hidden fire 
 smouldering within him; he was conscious of its 
 mounting flame. Back of the rude sketches, drawn 
 and coloured in the tiny chamber befitting an 
 humble postal clerk, he perceived vaguely that he 
 also possessed the temperament of a painter, and 
 little by little he witnessed the unfolding of his 
 artist's soul.
 
 PLATE III. — THE ARTIST'S MOTHER 
 (Collection of E. Bastien-Lepage) 
 
 What a kindly and gentle face this is, the face of the woman to 
 v/hom the artist applied the tender endearment of " Good little 
 mother"! In this work, it is evident that the heart guided the 
 hand of the painter. None but a son could have rendered with 
 such emotion the humid tenderness of those eyes and the maternal 
 caress of those lips. It is a powerful work, which enrolls Bastien- 
 Lepage in the foremost rank of portrait painters.
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 25 
 
 At last, unable to bear it longer, he resigned 
 from the postal service and enrolled his name at 
 the Beaux-Arts. At this time, when he entered 
 the studio of Cabanel, he was but little more than 
 nineteen years of age. Cabanel, to be sure, was 
 not the painter of his choice, but Bastien-Lepage 
 was not for that reason any the less appreciative 
 of a system of instruction which was dominated 
 by a worship of line-work. His training under 
 Cabanel was not without value to the young artist, 
 who throughout his life, even in his most realistic 
 paintings, proved himself to be an impeccable 
 master of design. 
 
 At the outset, however, he was beset with 
 difficulties. Now that his salary as a postal clerk 
 had ceased and remittances from the family were 
 necessarily restricted, Bastien-Lepage exerted him- 
 self to gain a living by his own efforts. He had 
 no lack of courage, and he had in addition that 
 Lorraine tenacity which enabled him to confront 
 all difficulties with tranquil assurance. He worked
 
 26 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 with desperate energy, and in the intervals of 
 respite from his labours he overran all Paris in 
 search of orders from business houses. It was an 
 inglorious task, but at least it enabled him to live; 
 thus it happened that about 1873 he produced a 
 widely circulated advertisement for a perfumery 
 house. Up to this time he had remained wholly 
 unknown; and although he had already exhibited 
 one painting, at the Salon of 1870, it was passed by 
 unheeded both by the critics and the general public. 
 
 This lack of success in no wise discouraged him, 
 for he had faith. It was in the year 1874 that 
 he exhibited The Song of Springtime. It was a 
 veritable revelation. There was no neglect this 
 time. The public gathered in throngs before his 
 canvas, and the critics, notwithstanding a few 
 objections to details, were lavish in their praise 
 and hailed him as having the qualities of a true 
 artist. Naturally, the picture was not perfect, 
 but it well merited the flattering reception which 
 it received. In a springtime landscape a young
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 27 
 
 peasant girl is seated beneath a tree, looking before 
 her over a sunlit plain. Around her skirts a 
 whole bevy of Cupids are gathering blossoms and 
 offering them to the girl. Here, at the first stroke, 
 is an assertion of the young painter's independence, 
 his formal determination to emancipate himself 
 from the accepted formulas in his treatment of 
 the eternal theme of a young girl's soul, opening 
 to the first appeal of love. As a matter of fact, 
 the allegory is somewhat clumsy; you realize that 
 the author's talent does not run to sentimental 
 compositions. Yet the young girl is brushed in 
 with an energetic hand, and all that rather coarse 
 robustness that distinguishes the women of peasant 
 stock is blended in a masterly manner with the 
 naive innocence of simple souls. The Song of 
 Springtime was Bastien-Lepage's first attempt in 
 that vein of realistic painting in which he was 
 soon destined to excel. 
 
 That same year he produced Grandfather's 
 Portrait, which also attracted much attention.
 
 28 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 The artist had placed his model in the little garden 
 adjoining the home of his birth. This portrait, 
 which belongs to-day to the painter's brother, is 
 remarkable for its naturalness, its touch of inti- 
 mate understanding, and its vigour of execution. 
 
 Bastien-Lepage had now acquired a name. His 
 Song of Springtime won him a third class medal, 
 and the State purchased the painting for the 
 museum at Verdun, where it at present hangs. 
 
 In the following year he exhibited Her First 
 Communion, picturing a young and pretty coun- 
 try girl, stiff and self-conscious under her white 
 veil. This work was the product of keen obser- 
 vation, and is deliberately stilted and traditional 
 in its style of execution, recalling in some meas- 
 ure the French primitive school. Bastien-Lepage 
 evidently had in mind the portraits by Frangois 
 Cluet: his little communicant is infinitely arti- 
 ficial in her spotless finery, yet infinitely alive 
 under the thin surface wash of colour which 
 recalls the Elizabeth of Austria, wife of Charles
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 29 
 
 IX, as painted by the greatest of the French 
 primitives. 
 
 Simultaneously with this picture he exhibited 
 the Portrait of M. Hayem, in which the vigorous 
 treatment of the face, with its clear, firm colour 
 tones and sober workmanship, proclaimed him 
 already a portrait painter of the first order. 
 
 His success this time was more marked: he 
 received a medal of the second class. A less 
 modest artist would have allowed himself to be 
 borne tranquilly along by the mounting tide of 
 glory; but Bastien-Lepage did not yet feel that 
 he was sufficiently sure of himself. He wished 
 to continue for a while longer, working, learning, 
 perfecting himself; he even conceived the idea, 
 in spite of his renown, of competing for the 
 Prix de Rome. Accordingly, the painter of The 
 Song of Springtime and Her First Communion 
 might shortly after have been seen entering the 
 lists like any ordinary nobody. He obtained only 
 the second prize.
 
 30 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 He presented himself again the following year, 
 but with no better success. The subject assigned 
 for the competition was Priam at the Feet of 
 Achilles. It is easy to understand that such a 
 theme was little calculated to inspire an artist of 
 Bastien-Lepage's temperament; he found it im- 
 possible to attain full development unless in the 
 presence of nature herself. No amount of manual 
 dexterity can take the place of inborn faith, and 
 the young artist had no faith in antiquity; he 
 never could muster any enthusiasm for the Greek 
 or Roman gods, nor for historic scenes in which the 
 very attitudes are dictated by the rules and regu- 
 lations of time-honoured tradition. 
 
 Nevertheless, the work is not without merit; 
 it is forceful, its colouring is good, and it falls short 
 of perfection only in failing to conform sufficiently 
 with what we know of ancient life. This painting 
 is at present to be found in the Museum at Lille. 
 
 This rebuff did not discourage Bastien-Lepage 
 unreasonably; but he decided to confine himself
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 31 
 
 in the future to painting portraits and picturing the 
 life of the fields. 
 
 HIS BEST YEARS 
 
 The same year that he failed for the second 
 time in the competition for the Prix de Rome, 
 Bastien-Lepage painted The Portrait of M. Wallon, 
 which is one of his most important works as a 
 portrait painter. In spite of its tendency towards 
 naturalism, this canvas was nevertheless still con- 
 ceived in accordance with the established technique, 
 and the keen and serious visage of the Father 
 of the Constitution standing out against its sombre 
 background is a fine study in chiaroscuro. 
 
 But the following year he struck the naturalistic 
 note more strongly in his Portrait of Lady L., 
 the only full-length, life-sized portrait that he 
 ever painted; and he declared himself plainly 
 and definitely a realist in his picture entitled My 
 Parents. It would be impossible to find two 
 figures more life-like, more literal, or painted with
 
 32 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 greater sincerity. This canvas amounted to a 
 declaration of principles; for an artist whom filial 
 piety cannot turn aside from the truth will never 
 make sacrifices to convention: he will never con- 
 sent to embellish or idealize his models through 
 tricks of his craft; he will paint them as he sees 
 them, without correcting any of the imperfections 
 and ugliness with which nature has afflicted them. 
 How clearly we recognize that these likenesses of 
 Bastien-Lepage's parents are absolutely true to 
 life, and how much better we like them as they 
 are, in the simple intimacy of daily life, than if 
 they had been decked out, all spick and span, as 
 a less scrupulous artist would inevitably have shown 
 them to us! 
 
 Bastien-Lepage's brother, himself a painter of 
 some talent, has preserved in his studio at Neuilly 
 a certain number of the artist's works, which he 
 surrounds with pious care and feelingly exhibits 
 to occasional visitors. The family portraits are 
 there, pulsating with life and radiating that gener-
 
 PLATE IV— HAY-MAKING 
 (Museum of the Luxembourg) 
 
 A masterpiece of contemporary painting, because of the truth of 
 its attitudes and the vigour of its execution. It would be impossible 
 to render more forcibly the blissfulness of rest when the body has 
 been racked by the exhausting labour of the soil. In this picture, 
 Bastien- Lepage revealed himself as an incomparable painter of 
 rural life.
 
 ?• 
 
 ■;4<aK*
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 35 
 
 ous peasant kindliness which finds expression in 
 a broad and tender smile. The father, seated in a 
 chair in his garden, an old man with shrewd yet 
 friendly eyes, seems so real, so actual, that we 
 almost expect him to step down from his frame 
 to bid us welcome. And what a marvel the Por- 
 trait of my Mother is, which forms a companion 
 piece on the same wall! A somewhat wistful 
 charm pervades this face, with its deeply graven 
 lines, and an infinite tenderness, a true mother's 
 tenderness, hovers over the thin, pale lips. 
 
 Perhaps this is the moment, in the presence 
 of these pictures, to emphasize Bastien-Lepage's 
 great value as a colourist. Few contemporary 
 painters have used colour with so much tact, 
 such veritable mastery as he. Others have em- 
 ployed more dazzling tonal schemes and have 
 achieved more gorgeous effects, but no one has 
 rendered with such exact truth the tints of the 
 flesh, the grayish folds of wrinkles, the profound 
 light of the eye. And his colour is always clear,
 
 36 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 always unmistakably employed to produce a sought- 
 after effect. There is no artifice, no trick-work, 
 it is all straightforward, honest, precise; the oppo- 
 sition of light and shade never result in opacity, 
 bitumen plays no part in his canvases, the aston- 
 ishing relief of which is obtained by means of 
 such perfect simplicity that it recalls the inimi- 
 table technique of Correggio. 
 
 In 1878 he exhibited Hay-making, that magis- 
 terial page from the life of the fields which to-day 
 is the pride of the Luxembourg museum, and 
 which the art of the engraver has scattered broad- 
 cast to the extent of millions of copies. 
 
 This picture represents a vast sun-bathed 
 meadow, overstrewn with new-mown hay and 
 punctuated, here and there, by the rounded cones 
 of the stacks. Against the blue background of the 
 sky, green hill-tops trace an undulant line. In the 
 foreground a robust, bony-armed country-woman 
 is seated on the grass, her legs stretched out be- 
 fore her in an attitude expressive of the utter
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 37 
 
 weariness resulting from the work performed. Her 
 head, soHdly planted on her massive neck, is a 
 marvel of realism; in her vulgar peasant face 
 we may read health, strength, and a sort of dulled 
 mentality born of physical fatigue. In every fibre 
 of her exhausted body the woman is veritably 
 resting, and through her half-parted lips it seems 
 as though we could detect the passage of her 
 hurried breathing. The man beside her, no less 
 worn out than she, is stretched at full length on 
 the thick couch of grass, and with his hat over 
 his face, to shelter it from the sun, he is sleeping 
 as though dead to the world. 
 
 Every detail of this canvas is perfect, because 
 every detail is true, drawn straight from life, the 
 fruit of minute observation. In it Bastien-Lepage 
 once more affirms his predilection for the open 
 country; and nothing could be more impressive 
 than these two uncouth, vulgar, homely human 
 beings, set amid the splendour of a meadow turned 
 golden by the sun. It is an every-day spectacle; it
 
 38 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 would not seem at first sight to contain material 
 for a picture. But Bastien-Lepage has succeeded 
 in proving indisputably that beauty does not con- 
 sist solely in the harmony of the body, but in 
 the impression which emanates from scenes that 
 are most humble in outward appearance. In these 
 few square feet of canvas the artist has summed up, 
 perhaps without intending it, all the majesty of 
 nature and all the grandeur of the life of the fields. 
 It is scarcely necessary to add that this work is 
 a transcript of the soil of Lorraine, that good 
 natal soil which he loved so profoundly and to 
 which he returned eagerly, year after year. 
 
 Bastien-Lepage was exclusively the painter of 
 the rural aspects of Lorraine; he loved its hori- 
 zons, its fertile and undulating plains. And when, 
 occasionally, he ventured into allegory, the back- 
 ground was still Lorraine, and the characters were 
 developed in the familiar setting of his native 
 village, Damvillers. And how he loved it! How 
 he enjoyed the warm atmosphere of affection
 
 PLATE v. — PORTRAIT OF M. HAYEM 
 (Museum of the Luxembourg) 
 
 A marvel of discernment and of rendering. The face, to be sure, 
 has a strong originality ; but there is no slight merit in having ex- 
 pressed with such striking truth the piercing intelligence of the 
 eyes that twinkle behind the lenses of the spectacles, and the en- 
 ergy, tempered with satiric humour, of his whole odd physiog- 
 nomy.
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 41 
 
 which always awaited him when his father, grand- 
 father, and valiant and devoted "little mother" 
 gathered at night around the family table! He 
 made his home in Paris, because residence there 
 was indispensable, both for business and artistic 
 reasons; but the moment that he could escape 
 from the capital and its constraints, he would go 
 to rest and gather new energy in the midst of 
 the family circle. He had a spacious studio in- 
 stalled in the second story of the ancestral home; 
 and there he worked, absolutely happy so long 
 as he could see the old grandfather at his side, 
 pipe in mouth, examining the work with a knowing 
 air, and the father and mother in a sort of ecstasy, 
 as they watched him fill in his canvas. 
 
 Nevertheless, Bastien-Lepage was no studio 
 painter; it was not from the height of a window 
 that he chose to contemplate nature, but in the 
 open fields, in the very heart of the furrows; and 
 it was there also, in the midst of the wheat and 
 the rye, that he set up his easel and painted his
 
 42 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 peasants in action, in the daily fulfilment of their 
 thankless task. And by picturing them thus, with- 
 out artifice, in all their simplicity of gesture and 
 coarseness of feature, he imbued his canvases with 
 a profound spirit of poetry, through which the 
 often brutal realism of his subjects was redeemed 
 and ennobled. In the presence of these peasants 
 he experienced a joy more genuine than he had 
 ever felt before the rarest canvases in any museum. 
 Not that he denied or disdained the genius of the 
 great ancestors of painting; he had too much 
 reverence for his art ever to dream of doing so. 
 But when it came to a question of training, he 
 could learn more from nature than from them. 
 Listen to his own exposition of his ideas: 
 
 "What a pity," he wrote, "that we are initi- 
 ated, whether we will or not, into traditions and 
 routines, under the pretext that this is the way 
 to train us to be artists! It would be so simple 
 to teach the use of brush and palette, without 
 ever once mentioning the name of Michelangelo
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 43 
 
 or Raphael or Murillo or Domenichino! We could 
 then go home, back to Brittany or Gascony, 
 Lorraine or Normandy, and peacefully paint the 
 portrait of our own province; and if some morn- 
 ing the book we had chanced to read aroused the 
 wish to paint a Prodigal Son, or Priam at the feet 
 of Achilles, we could reconstruct the scene to suit 
 ourselves, without needing to resort to the museums, 
 taking the setting from our own surroundings and 
 making use of the models close at hand, as though 
 the old drama dated only from yesterday. That 
 is the way for an artist to succeed in breathing 
 the breath of life into his art and in making it 
 beautiful and appealing to the eyes of the whole 
 world. And that is the goal towards which I am 
 striving with all my strength." 
 
 As painter of the open air, he became in a 
 certain sense the founder of a school, without 
 meaning to be; for his conception of the painter's 
 art won over a whole group of young artists who 
 united in hailing him as their master. Each year
 
 44 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 his offerings to the Salon were impatiently awaited, 
 and his followers gathered in full force before them, 
 discussing, comparing, acclaiming; each Salon be- 
 came the occasion for a new success, the critics 
 were unanimous in praising him, the public adopted 
 his pictures for their own, because they could 
 understand his clear and rigorous manner. What- 
 ever hostility he met with was among his own 
 colleagues, at least among such of them as were dis- 
 couraged and humiliated by his vigorous originality. 
 Nevertheless, the Exposition of 1878, at which he 
 had gathered together all his works, was an espe- 
 cially triumphant occasion for him; yet when the 
 awards were distributed, he discovered that he had 
 received nothing but a medal of the third class. 
 
 At the Salon of 1879, Basti en-Lepage exhibited 
 his Women gathering Potatoes, which formed a 
 companion piece to his Hay -making. Here again 
 we have the landscape of Lorraine and the eternal 
 and infinitely varied theme of rural labour. In a 
 sun-parched field two women are toiling to reap
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 45 
 
 the harvest of potatoes. While the one in the 
 middle distance is stooping to turn up the ripe 
 bulbs from the soil, the other, placed in the fore- 
 ground, is striving to empty the contents of her 
 basket into a sack which she holds open by a 
 wonderfully natural movement of her knee. Noth- 
 ing could be simpler or more humble than this 
 subject, and yet one feels drawn towards it, con- 
 quered by the truth of these two figures, both in 
 their attitude and their expression. Involuntarily 
 memory conjures up another canvas, The Gleaners, 
 and we realize that it is impossible to resist that 
 higher appeal which the great artists succeed in 
 giving to the most commonplace episode of farm- 
 ing life. But, unHke Millet, Bastien-Lepage does 
 not awaken in us any compassion for these beings 
 who toil, stooping above the earth; no touch of 
 bitterness saddens his pictures, and the types 
 which he shows to us have the healthy vigour of 
 peasants who live their lives in the open air and 
 love the soil which nourishes them.
 
 46 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 This picture, when it appeared, produced a 
 sensation. Coming directly after the Hay -making, 
 it definitely established Bastien-Lepage's talent and 
 placed him in the foremost rank of painters of 
 rural life. The critics hailed this powerful canvas 
 with enthusiasm. Theodore de Banville, writing 
 of the Salon of 1879, said: "M. Bastien-Lepage is 
 the king of this Exposition. Young as he is, he has 
 started in to produce masterpieces: he is very 
 wise! For in later years an artist continues to 
 copy himself, with more or less cleverness and 
 success; but the creative genius has taken wing, 
 like a bird on whose tail we have failed to drop 
 the indispensable grain of salt. The October 
 Season pictures the harvesting of potatoes. The 
 earth, the encompassing air as far as we can see, 
 the sky, the solitude laden with silence, are all 
 evoked for us in this picture by the sincerity of its 
 powerful painter; the peasant women are done 
 in a masterly manner, and precisely for the reason 
 that he has seen them apart from all convention
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 47 
 
 and has not tried to idealize them by any hack- 
 neyed device." 
 
 Albert Wolff was no less enthusiastic: "The 
 colouring in Women harvesting Potatoes is in- 
 gratiating and discreet; not a discordant touch 
 disturbs the beautiful harmony of this canvas, 
 over which the silence of the open country has 
 descended, enveloping the obscure toil. It is only 
 artists of superior powers who can embody so much 
 charm in a single conception." 
 
 Another feature of the same Salon was his 
 magnificent portrait of Madame Sarah Bernhardt, 
 a marvel of expression and of delicate art, em- 
 bodied in a pale symphony of tenderest whites, 
 blending harmoniously with the warmest tones of 
 gold. The great tragic actress is portrayed draped, 
 almost swathed, in a gown of white china silk, 
 verging on the faintest yellowish caste; she is 
 posed in profile, that cameo-like profile that has 
 so often been portrayed. She is seated, with a sort 
 of intentional rigidity, on a white fur robe, and is
 
 48 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 examining a statuette of Orpheus, in old ivory, 
 which she holds in her hands. Her expressive and 
 intellectual features are treated with a vigour 
 which does full justice to the classic beauty and 
 virile energy of the sitter. 
 
 **The work as a whole," wrote the critic of 
 the Revue des Beaux- Arts, "possesses supreme 
 distinction and an admirable delicacy of colouring. 
 The silvery tones of the whites, the warm grays 
 of the draped gown lead up to the freshness of the 
 delicate, rose-like flesh tints, beneath the crown of 
 close curled locks that seem at once massive and 
 weightless. The artist's hand was sure of itself; 
 it neither groped nor hesitated. The execution is 
 such that the drawing of the gown and the lines 
 of the face seem to have been traced by an en- 
 graver's tool. In this case, however, definiteness 
 has not resulted in stiffness. The sharp design has 
 not imprisoned unwilling forms; it leaves them 
 free to move as they please within the limits of 
 their contours which are its domain. It is worth
 
 PLATE VI. — PORTRAIT OF M. X 
 
 ( Museum at Verdun ) 
 
 Bastien-Lepage possessed the rare quality of being able to 
 bestow the same superior skill upon every part of a portrait. Being 
 sincere before all else, he never tried to shirk any difficulty; this is 
 seen in the care he took in painting the hands of all his various 
 sitters, showing something akin to vanity in the marvellous talent 
 he displayed in rendering them. In this portrait — just as in all 
 the others — the hands are quite as truly a miracle of execution 
 as the face itself.
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 51 
 
 while to examine with a lens the marvellous process 
 which, by the aid of imperceptible half-tones, has 
 softened the modelling of the face and hands." 
 
 These two pictures earned Bastien-Lepage the 
 Cross of the Legion of Honour and a definite 
 recognition of his talent. The artist could not 
 keep his delight to himself and, good son that he 
 was, wished to share it with his beloved family; 
 so he sent for them, to pay him a visit in Paris. 
 The grandfather and the "good little mother" 
 arrived, full of pride in this famous son, of whom 
 the whole world was talking. He showed them 
 the sights of the city and was only too happy to 
 have a chance to introduce them to his friends; 
 he took his mother to the big shops and insisted 
 on choosing silk cloaks and silk dresses for her. 
 The poor woman protested, saying that they were 
 far too fine, that she would never dare to wear 
 anything like that. "Show us some more," ordered 
 the devoted artist, "I want mamma to have her 
 choice of the best there is!"
 
 52 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 After the old people had returned home to 
 Lorraine, Bastien-Lepage set out for England, 
 where he was to paint the portrait of the Prince 
 of Wales, who afterwards became King Edward VII. 
 
 In this portrait of tiny dimensions the Prince 
 is represented in fancy costume, after the manner 
 of Holbein. His garments recall in a measure those 
 worn by King Henry VIII, in the celebrated por- 
 trait done by the great painter from Basle. The 
 Collar of the Golden Fleece is displayed upon his 
 breast. In the background of the picture may be 
 seen dimly, through a veil of mist, the panorama 
 of London and the gray ribbon of the Thames. 
 The portrait is a little gem, which Bastien-Lepage 
 wrought with the minuteness and affectedly hieratic 
 mannerism of Holbein and the French primitive 
 school. Although at present in possession of M. 
 Emile Bastien-Lepage, it will eventually find its 
 place, together with a goodly number of other can- 
 vases, in the museum of the Louvre, to which the 
 brother of the great artist intends to bequeath them.
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 53 
 
 It should be mentioned here, in connection 
 with this work, that Bastien-Lepage continued to 
 make more and more of a specialty of portraits 
 of reduced dimensions, and that he acquired in 
 this respect a reputation of the first order. He 
 loved these little canvases, scarcely larger than 
 miniatures, and he expended on their scanty sur- 
 faces an inimitable skill; he embellished them with 
 a wealth of accessory detail which brings to mind, 
 as we look at them to-day, the formidable labours 
 of the illuminators of the middle ages. But this 
 goldsmith's work, far from impairing the effect of 
 the whole, adds a certain fascination to it. And 
 he expended upon the study of the face the same 
 degree of devotion that he gave to the rendering 
 of a garment. His models relive with an intensity 
 of life such as could be expressed only by an artist 
 who has made a life-long study of nature in her 
 minutest manifestations. 
 
 To name over his portraits would be to mention 
 an equal number of masterpieces. The catalogue
 
 54 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 would be too long, for Bastien-Lepage was an 
 indefatigable workman. We may content ourselves 
 with citing those that are most widely known: 
 that of M. Andrieux, one-time Prefect of Police, 
 whose refined features are rendered with striking 
 truth; that of J, Bastien-Lepage, the artist's 
 uncle, which is here reproduced and which shows 
 him violin in hand, a clear and vigorous piece of 
 brush-work, transcribing life in telling strokes, 
 with an astonishing simplicity of means. This fine 
 example is to be seen to-day in the museum at 
 Verdun. And in the same museum there is still 
 another that deserves mention; namely, the excel- 
 lent Portrait of M, X. And we must not forget 
 the Portrait of Andre Theuriet, born, like Bastien- 
 Lepage, on the banks of the Meuse and attached 
 to the painter by ties of almost fraternal affection. 
 One feels that, in this picture, the heart must 
 have guided the hand, for it would be difficult to 
 find another work more magisterial in execution 
 and more delicate in finish. And lastly, there is
 
 BASTIEN LEPAGE 55 
 
 Mme. Bastien-Lepage, the "good little mother," 
 as the great artist and loving son used to call her. 
 He posed her in the garden of the home at Dam- 
 villers. She is seated on a stone bench; on her 
 knees rests a large garden hat; her two hands are 
 crossed, one over the other, and in the left she 
 holds a little bunch of field flowers. She is clad 
 in a loose dress of sombre colour, cut with a pele- 
 rine; and nothing but the one bright spot formed 
 by the white collar reveals the severity of the 
 costume. The whole attitude of the body in repose 
 is perfect in its truth and naturalness; but our 
 admiration changes and quickens to emotion when 
 we raise our eyes to the level of the face of this 
 "good little mother," a bony, irregular face, almost 
 ugly, but so gentle, so kind, so touchingly illumined 
 by the tender caress in the eyes as they rest upon 
 the adored son in the course of painting her. 
 Those emaciated features, which not even the 
 crown of blonde hair is able to rejuvenate, are 
 unmistakably those of a mother; if we had not
 
 56 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 known, we should inevitably have divined it; no 
 one but a son, and a great artist as well, could 
 have crowned the brow of a woman with such an 
 aureole of gentleness and love. 
 
 Bastien-Lepage, whom those who envied him 
 affected to regard as dedicated wholly to the 
 reproduction of rustic uncouthness, had no equal 
 in catching the radiance of feminine charms, even 
 in their subtlest manifestations. No one was more 
 skilled than he in seizing and recording the one 
 particular trait, often elusive and intangible, which 
 characterizes a woman and makes her beautiful. 
 What delicious portraits of women we owe to 
 him! Where could we meet with a more smiling 
 image than that of Mme. Godillot, radiant and 
 seductive, a rosy vision in the black velvet of her 
 gown, relieved by the brilliant sheen of her white 
 satin corsage! And what studied and elaborate 
 art was expended on the Portrait of Mme, Klotz, 
 whose magnificent brunette beauty emerges like 
 a gorgeous lily from the surrounding whiteness of
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 57 
 
 her scarf, that is all the more dazzlingly white by 
 contrast with her sombre robe! And still again, 
 there is the Portrait of Mme. Juliette Drouet, 
 another beautiful and noble specimen of portraiture. 
 And how marvellously Bastien-Lepage could detect 
 the hidden soul lurking in the inmost recesses of 
 his models and reveal it behind the transparent 
 screen of their eyes! If Bastien-Lepage had not 
 achieved eternal glory as an interpreter of rural 
 life, he would still have remained celebrated as a 
 portrait painter. 
 
 But to Bastien-Lepage portrait painting was 
 only a side issue, a form of relaxation between 
 two landscapes; his predilection, his one object in 
 life, so to speak, was to return constantly to his 
 peasants, his scenes of toil, his fields of Lorraine. 
 
 After his return from England he passed some 
 months at Damvillers, when an impulse seized 
 him to visit Italy, to which the verdict of a prej- 
 udiced committee had once upon a time barred 
 his way. He proceeded straight to Venice, and it
 
 58 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 may as well be acknowledged at once, Venetian 
 art left him cold, if not indifferent. He had never 
 in the least understood any of the big *'set pieces," 
 and in spite of all the art of Veronese and Titian, 
 in spite of their dazzling flare of colour, he never 
 succeeded in understanding their sumptuous alle- 
 gories or in accepting the fantastic interpretation 
 of nature which the Venetians allowed themselves. 
 He returned to Damvillers, profoundly disillusioned 
 and more than ever convinced that nature alone, 
 such as he saw it, was deserving of the attention 
 of the true artist. There would be no object in 
 discussing here how rightly or how ill founded 
 such an opinion was; we note it only to indicate 
 once more the absolute independence of the painter, 
 his fixed determination never to imitate anyone. 
 
 And, beyond question, there is no resemblance 
 to any other painter in that curious and remarkable 
 picture known as Jeanne d'Arc listening to the 
 Voices. Lorraine in heart and soul, Bastien-Lepage 
 desired to pay his tribute, as so many had done
 
 PLATE VII. — THE LITTLE CHIMNEY-SWEEP 
 (Collection of E. Bastien- Lepage) 
 
 This attractive picture, full of charm and vigour, belongs to the 
 closing years of the artist's life, at the time when he was enjoying 
 the flood tide of his talent. How much force and truth there is in 
 this picture of the little chimney-sweep, and what graceful nimble- 
 ness in the movements of the cats that he is watching at play.
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 6i 
 
 before him, to the glorious heroine who, like him, 
 had come from the banks of the Meuse. And he 
 wished also to restore her to her natural setting, 
 with the greatest degree of historic accuracy. 
 Consequently it is in a Lorraine garden surround- 
 ing a Lorraine cottage that he shows us Jeanne, 
 the shepherdess; around her are the familiar garden 
 utensils such as peasants use to-day just as they 
 did in the fifteenth century. She is standing in 
 an inspired and attentive attitude, which gives to 
 her whole countenance that forceful character which 
 Bastien-Lepage imprints upon all his compatriots. 
 For he wished to make her, in a certain sense, a 
 composite type of the women of the Lorraine 
 race, such as Theuriet has described: **The fore- 
 head low but intelHgent, the eyes with drooping 
 lids that half conceal the somewhat sullen glance; 
 the bones prominent in cheek and jaw, the chin 
 square, indicative of an opinionated race; the 
 mouth large, with half parted lips, through which 
 one perceives the passage of the deep-drawn
 
 62 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 breath." This head is always the same; under 
 all the variations in physiognomy we always 
 meet with the same local type: it is the head of 
 the woman in Hay -making and of the Women 
 gathering Potatoes, and it is also that of the 
 "good little mother," so fundamentally and em- 
 phatically representative of Lorraine. 
 
 Nevertheless Jeanne d'Arc listening to the 
 Voices was rather badly received by the critics. 
 Without disputing the originality and vigour of 
 the inspired shepherdess, they reproached the artist 
 for the presence of the traditional saints. Bastien- 
 Lepage had indicated these under the form of 
 luminous vapour, radiating through the branches 
 overhanging the garden: St. Michael in the golden 
 armour of a knight of the fifteenth century, St. 
 Margaret and St. Catherine as phantoms so diaph- 
 anous as to be hardly perceptible. The idealists 
 complained that the picture was lacking in ideal- 
 ism; the realists were somewhat disconcerted to 
 find the apparitions there at all. It must be
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 63 
 
 acknowledged that Bastien-Lepage ceases to be 
 himself the moment that he ventures to attempt 
 the supernatural or even allegory pure and simple. 
 He feels that he is no longer on familiar ground, 
 he hesitates, he fumbles, and the harmony of the 
 work suffers in consequence. Nevertheless, in spite 
 of this undeniable defect, the face of Jeanne d'Arc 
 will be remembered as a piece of powerful painting 
 and genuine inspiration. 
 
 At all events, Bastien-Lepage was keenly aware 
 of the half-way nature of his success, and from 
 that day renounced forever the element of the 
 marvellous and confined himself to that concrete 
 and tangible poetry which emanates from the earth. 
 
 Some little time after his Jeanne d'Arc, he 
 produced The Mendicant, veteran knight of the 
 road, whose lazy life is passed in going from door 
 to door, asking charity and compelling it if need 
 be; suspicious looking old tramp, perhaps a thief 
 as well, who inspires fear and whose sack is often 
 filled through unwillingness to provoke him. The
 
 64 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 artist has pictured him with a stout stick in his 
 hand, stowing away the sUce of bread which a 
 pretty sHp of a girl in a blue apron has just 
 given him. This fine and vigorous canvas scored 
 almost as much of a success, at the Salon of 1881, 
 as the admirable Portrait of Albert Wolff, a critic 
 on the Figaro and close personal friend of the 
 artist. 
 
 In 1882 he won a further success with his 
 superb Father Jacques, a masterly study of the 
 Lorraine peasant, and with his charming Portrait 
 of Mme. W. 
 
 In 1883 came Love in a Village, one of his 
 most popular canvases, in which he depicted with 
 charming naturalness the uncomplicated and naive 
 courtship of rustic lovers. Here are a pair who 
 are untroubled by curious glances; the nearer 
 houses of the village are quite close by. Bending 
 slightly towards his sweetheart, the man is mur- 
 muring his avowals in her ear, in a voice that, we 
 suspect, is by no means steady. Strapping fel-
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 65 
 
 low that he is, he evidently lacks the habit of 
 making pretty speeches; we can see that from 
 the embarrassed air with which he twists his 
 fingers. His words, however, are plainly not lack- 
 ing in eloquence, for the girl, type of buxom 
 young womanhood that we have already learned 
 to know, has bent her head and, although her 
 back is turned, we are sure that she is blushing 
 as she listens to his declaration. A special atmos- 
 phere emanates from this picture, as well as that 
 profound spirit of poetry which is inseparable 
 from the eternal song of love. 
 
 HIS PREMATURE END 
 
 At this period Bastien-Lepage had already 
 begun to incur the first attacks of the disease 
 which was destined so soon to end his days. He 
 suffered violent pains in the kidneys. He became 
 melancholy, nervous, irritable; he shut himself up 
 in his studio in the Rue Legendre, and even his 
 best friends could not gain admittance. The doc-
 
 66 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 tors who were called in recognized the gravity of 
 his illness and ordered energetic treatment and 
 a change of air. The poor artist reconciled him- 
 self to go for a time to Brittany, and his choice 
 fell on Concarneau. The keen sea air produced 
 a temporary betterment, and he took advantage 
 of it to work, for he could not resign himself to 
 lay aside his palette and brushes. He spent entire 
 days in a boat and, in spite of his sufferings, 
 executed several landscapes of rare beauty. But 
 his condition, instead of improving, took a turn 
 for the worse. "The digestive tube," he wrote 
 to Theuriet, "is always kicking up a row!" The 
 pain in the kidneys and bowels became at this 
 time so violent that he was forced to decide to 
 return to Paris, in order to consult the men of 
 science once again. 
 
 This time, when Dr. Potain examined him, he 
 could no longer deceive himself as to the artist's 
 fate; he saw that his patient was irremediably 
 condemned. However, a sojourn in a milder
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 67 
 
 climate might prolong his life for a few months; 
 so he advised Algeria. The prospect of the journey, 
 the desire to make the acquaintance of this land 
 of sunshine which Delacroix, Decamps, and Fro- 
 mentin had taught him to love, for a few days 
 gave a false strength to the poor sufferer, which 
 produced a deceptive appearance of renewed health 
 and even deceived the artist himself. Besides, Mme. 
 Bastien-Lepage, the " good little mother," was to 
 accompany him, and this unselfish and tender devo- 
 tion warmed his heart. The poor woman forced 
 back her tears in order to smile upon the unfortu- 
 nate son whom she knew to be doomed. And so 
 the pitiful pair set forth for the land of sunshine, 
 she consumed with grief, and he almost joyous in 
 the hope of a speedy cure. 
 
 His first letters to his friends bore the imprint 
 of good spirits; Algeria aroused his enthusiasm 
 by its clear and vibrant colours; his disease de- 
 clared a brief truce and he began to form proj- 
 ects. The thought of dying had not yet even
 
 68 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 vaguely occurred to him, though, for that matter, 
 he had no fear of death. The previous year he 
 had painted Gambetta on his Death-bed; and 
 his frequent visits to Ville-d'Avray led him to 
 discuss the inevitable end of life. "I am not 
 afraid "of death," he said, "dying is nothing, 
 — the important thing is to survive oneself, 
 and who can be sure of establishing a claim 
 upon posterity? But there! I am talking non- 
 sense! So long as our work is true, nothing else 
 matters." 
 
 But before long the ravages of the disease be- 
 gan to make headway; the kidneys no longer 
 performed their function, and he suffered atrocious 
 agonies which stretched him for days at a time 
 on his back. Even the burning heat of the African 
 sun no longer had strength enough to animate his 
 shattered physique; the brush, which the artist 
 from time to time still attempted to take up, 
 fell from between his fingers. He, Bastien-Lepage, 
 painter of the soil, found himself unable to transfer
 
 PLATE VIII. — THE ARTIST'S UNCLE 
 ( Museum at Verdun ) 
 
 Here is still another kindly and vigorous face from Lorraine, 
 forcefully modelled, with salient jaw bones, betraying the obstinacy 
 of the race. An air of good nature softens the energy of this face, 
 and the eyes sparkle with intelligence. This portrait is treated in a 
 free-handed manner, with unfaltering strokes, and its colouring is 
 especially excellent.
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 71 
 
 to canvas the enchantment of that land of fairy 
 tale! And he poured forth his distress in long 
 and poignant letters, in which could be read in 
 every line the loss of hope and the sure prevision 
 of the now inevitable end. 
 
 As no amelioration took place, Bastien-Lepage 
 made the return journey to Paris towards the end 
 of May, 1884. He went back to his studio in 
 the Rue Legendre, where he had formerly passed 
 such happy hours in the full enjoyment of a 
 talent at its zenith and a constitution apparently 
 able to defy all tests. Now, however, he dragged 
 around a dying body, with disease gnawing at his 
 vitals. He could no longer sleep without the aid 
 of powerful doses of morphine. The winter-time 
 increased his suffering; his strength rapidly failed 
 him; and, on the tenth of December, at six o'clock 
 in the evening, he drew his last breath, at the 
 age of thirty-six years. 
 
 As long as he could hold a brush, Bastien- 
 Lepage continued to work, in spite of the sufferings
 
 72 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 which racked him. During the year preceding his 
 death, while he was already experiencing fright- 
 ful tortures, he painted The Woman making Lye 
 and The Little Chimney-sweep, the latter of 
 which is here reproduced. This admirable canvas 
 is to be seen now at the studio of the painter's 
 brother at Neuilly, and forms part of the legacy 
 which M. Emile Bastien-Lepage intends to be- 
 queath to the Louvre. It has never been shown at 
 any Salon, and for that matter there are a good 
 many other paintings and portraits which have 
 never been exhibited in public and which are not 
 for that reason any the less remarkable. We may 
 cite at random: The Portrait of M. E. Bastien- 
 Lepage, The Prince of Wales, Mme. Juliette 
 Drouet, A Little Girl going to School, The Little 
 Pedler asleep. The Vintage, No Help! The Thames 
 at London, etc. 
 
 The very year of his death, shortly before his 
 departure for Algeria, Bastien-Lepage executed a 
 delicious little canvas entitled The Forge, in which
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 73 
 
 the artist expended a surprising amount of talent 
 and skill, and which enables us to realize what 
 extraordinary heights his ever progressive genius 
 might have attained, but for the blind and brutal 
 cruelty of Destiny. 
 
 His death was a time of mourning for the 
 arts; the regrets which he left behind him were 
 unanimous. Even those who had been opposed 
 to his aesthetic creed paid homage to his great 
 conscientiousness as an artist and his noble char- 
 acter as a man. 
 
 During March and April, 1885, only a few 
 months after his death, all literary and artistic 
 Paris flocked to the Hotel de Chimay, an adjunct 
 to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where a posthumous 
 exhibition of his works had been organized. 
 
 At this exhibition the entire body of his works 
 had been brought together. The museums had 
 loaned the canvases which they possessed and 
 the private collectors had done their share towards 
 the glorification of the artist by entrusting to the
 
 74 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 organizers a goodly number of paintings and por- 
 traits which had never figured in any of the 
 Salons. 
 
 Thus it was made possible to comprehend at 
 a single glance the life-work of this remarkable 
 artist and to appreciate the distance he had trav- 
 ersed, the progress he had made during his brief 
 existence, and the brilliant prospects that were 
 destroyed by his untimely death. 
 
 From all these numerous works, exhibited side 
 by side, what stood out most clearly was the unity 
 of thought which had conceived them and the 
 dogged fidelity to principles which had controlled 
 their execution. At the same time they revealed 
 the amazing adaptability of his talent, which 
 essayed the most diverse and conflicting subjects 
 with the same realistic vigour, bestowing even 
 upon his vaporous and delicate portraits of women 
 a touch which, while light, is unmistakably his 
 own, and in which we recognize that noble, con- 
 scientious workmanship, free from all artifice, which
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 75 
 
 was the distinctive hall-mark both of his painting 
 and of his character. 
 
 But the quality which dominates all the rest 
 in the work of Bastien-Lepage, and which emanates 
 from it like the fragrance which is exhaled by- 
 certain precious essences, is his ardent and deep- 
 rooted love for his native soil. This form of local 
 patriotism, determined by the boundaries of Lor- 
 raine, underwent a noble expansion to the point 
 of encircling the entire earth; for while the painter 
 chose his models out of the familiar landscape of 
 his childhood's home, his observation and his art 
 broke out of the bounds of this special setting 
 and embraced rustic humanity throughout France 
 and even beyond. His peasants are unmistakably 
 from the banks of the Meuse in type and in cus- 
 toms, but they are from the world at large in 
 gesture and in philosophy of life. Whether he 
 comes from the North or from the South, the 
 tiller of the soil wages the same conflict with 
 ungrateful furrows, the spade and the plough
 
 76 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 imprint the same calluses on his bony hands, 
 the sun browns his energetic and stubborn features 
 to the same deep tan. It is in this respect that 
 the art of Bastien-Lepage assumes a higher sig- 
 nificance; like Millet, it is not a peasant whom he 
 paints, but the peasant, forever unchanging in 
 spite of latitude. But if his work has attained 
 this higher eminence of generalization, it is pre- 
 cisely for the reason that the artist's watchful 
 eye has succeeded in discovering, in the life of 
 the peasantry, that state of mind which is com- 
 mon to them all, that immutable gesture which 
 they have always made and always will make. 
 He has understood and translated with inspired 
 eloquence their rugged strength, their naive awk- 
 wardness, their simple intelligence. 
 
 Another glorious distinction of Bastien-Lepage 
 was that he loved the fields as well as he loved the 
 peasants. Not fields drowned beneath melancholy 
 shadow and pallid shifting light, but fields bathed 
 in sunshine, until the golden tassels of the grain
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 77 
 
 crackle like sparks under the fire of the midday 
 sun. Always and everywhere he sought for light, 
 and in the midst of it his modest protagonists of 
 rustic life stand out in all their vigour. 
 
 It would be easy to cite, among our best con- 
 temporary painters, a considerable number of artists 
 who are brilliantly continuing the tradition left 
 by Bastien-Lepage and emulating his predilection 
 for the luminous brilliance of the open air. How 
 often, in the presence of a canvas by Lhermitte, 
 our thoughts go back to the painter of Lorraine, 
 whose vigorous execution and joyous colouring 
 seem to have been reincarnated! Art is indebted 
 to Bastien-Lepage for having reinstated nature 
 in all her literal truth by proving that, in order 
 to be beautiful, she has no need of artificial and 
 superfluous adornment. 
 
 Lorraine, out of gratitude, wished to perpet- 
 uate the memory of this glorious son of the Meuse, 
 who had so eloquently celebrated the vitality and 
 poetry of his natal earth. It was at Damvillers
 
 78 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 itself that it was decided to raise a monument to 
 the great painter; and around its pedestal there 
 were gathered the ** good little mother," all in 
 tears, the assembled population of the village 
 and the whole region round about, and even the 
 Government took part in the pious ceremony 
 by sending as its representative M. Gustave 
 Larroumet, director of the Beaux-Arts. This 
 eloquent art critic brought as a tribute to the 
 departed painter the official seal of immortal- 
 ity, and he pronounced it in terms vibrant with 
 emotion. 
 
 "At the moment," he said, "when ordinarily 
 the best of artists have done no more than to 
 give indications of their originality and when 
 ripening years alone begin to keep the promises 
 of youth, Jules Bastien-Lepage died, leaving mas- 
 terpieces behind him, besides having liberated an 
 artistic formula from the tendencies and exaggera- 
 tions which hampered it, and indicated to the art 
 of painting a new pathway along which his young
 
 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 79 
 
 heirs are advancing with an assured step. He 
 loved nature and truth; he loved his own people, 
 and no one ever lived who was surrounded with 
 a greater degree of affection; he inspired faithful 
 friendships which he himself enjoyed to the full; 
 and those whom he left behind soothe their heart- 
 ache with the balm of tender memories; he prac- 
 tised his art without ever making sacrifice to 
 passing fashion or sordid profit; there was no 
 place in his mind or in his heart for any other 
 than noble and generous thoughts. Let us com- 
 fort ourselves, therefore, for what his death has 
 taken from us by the thought of what his life has 
 left to us, and let us assign him his place in the 
 ranks of the younger master painters who have 
 been mown down in full flower, close beside that 
 of Gericault and of Henri Regnault." 
 
 In his admirable biographic and critical study 
 of Bastien-Lepage, whose personal friend he had 
 been, M. L. de Fourcaud, by way of conclusion, 
 bids him this touching farewell:
 
 y 
 
 80 BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
 
 "Poor Bastien-Lepage, snatched away one win- 
 ter's night, at thirty-six years of age, in the fairest 
 flowering of his bright promise, in the richest 
 expansion of his personaHty; may each returning 
 month of May bring at least an abundance of 
 blossoms to the apple tree beside his grave! For 
 the blossoms of the apple were always, in his eyes, 
 so fair a sight!" 
 
 To-day he sleeps forever in a corner of that 
 Lorraine land which he loved so dearly, and per- 
 haps in the cemetery of his native village his 
 shade can still hear the familiar accents of his 
 native dialect. The great painter of Lorraine 
 could never have slept his eternal sleep in any 
 other soil than that. 
 
 Painter of flowers, painter of nature, painter 
 of the earth which is forever deathless and forever 
 renewed, Bastien-Lepage has chosen that better part; 
 his work will live as long as these, his models, and 
 will go down through the centuries in all the 
 splendour of increasing beauty and eternal youth.
 
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