 | Goupil's Paris Salon of 1897 |  |
THE SALON
IN THE
CHAMPS-ÉLYSÉES.
H. Harpinies pinx.
G. Garn sc.
PAINTING.
FOR the last time, we enter the Palais de l'Industrie, already
almost a ruin, under which are being dug, even while we
visit it, the foundations of the monument by which it is to
be replaced. Here it is that, during two-and-forty years,
have been held the sessions of contemporary art. Here have appeared
in all their pristine freshness the works of modern artists, whose
names the future will preserve—those whom it does preserve.
and simple of aspect, but in which so many beautiful productions
have been brought together. We owe it, even, much gratitude and
many regrets for the hours of refined pleasure it has provided, during
our long promenades through the exhibitions that been held here.
We smile at the romantic phrase: "Walls have eyes and ears."
But in one sense of the words, the saying is not so ridiculous as
it may seem. Imagination or reality, something clings to walls of all
the things that have passed within them. Wandering through the
shrunken galleries of this year's Salon, one thinks of those that have
preceded it. We shall not recall them, even by a word; that would
be re-writing the history of modern painting. It is not without
interest, however to skim the catalogue of the Fine Art Exhibition
of 1855, birth-date of the Palace which is now to disappear.
A comparison between 1855 and 1897 would not be just. It
would be too easy to crush the present with the glories of the
past. Of the works of the past, the best only are remembered; the
poor and mediocre have died out of memory, many out of existence:
while the present offers us its productions pell-mell; whole fields of
tares with a few good and fruitful wheat-ears towering here and
there. And then, it would really be snatching an unfair verdict, to
lay the catalogue of 1855, representing the pick of thirty years,
against that of 1897, which resumes only one year's labour.
Yet the reading of this catalogue of 1855, which every now and then
seems as though it were that of the Louvre, suggests some sufficiently
unlooked-for reflections. One lesson among others may be drawn
from it, of which many contemporary artists might well take heed:
the artistic education of those great painters of the Romantic school,
of those admirable landscape-painters who, in their own days, were
innovators, and discovered many things in Nature of which the world
had been ignorant hitherto.
We know whence comes the art of Ingres and of Delacroix.
The portraits of Ingres, worthy at whiles to be paralleled with the
THE VIRGIN "AU CHASSEUR"
E HEBERT
Copyright 1897 by Jean Bou, Man,& Co.
SALON DE 1897
COMPASSION !
BOUGUEREAU
Copyright 1897 by Braun, Clément & Co.
SALON DE 1897.
us. Whatever be the perfection attained by the artist, his point
of view is not absolutely novel. But where are the progenitors of
Corot, Rousseau, Millet, to cite only these? Where find them among
the twenty-five thousand pictures that fill the galleries of Europe,
representing four centuries of painting? Still, whether one will or
no, one is always son to somebody. These also had their masters,
frequented a studio, hearkened to a teacher, accomplished their artistic
apprenticeship.
The catalogue of 1855 furnishes us with a categorical answer, the
answer ceaselessly repeated by experience, but which may not be
without astonishment for many contemporary painters who believe
themselves the pupils of none but themselves.
Théodore Rousseau, who exhibited thirteen pictures, among them
the "Marsh in the Landes" and the "Edge of the Forest," does
not give the name of his master. We know it, nevertheless: it is
that of Lethière, the classical painter of Roman tragedies, whose
horizon was that of the Forum, whose personages the fierce Quirites.
Corot calls himself pupil of Victor Bertin, representative as well as
professor of historical landscape. Courbet is pupil of Hesse, academic
painter of historical subjects; and this same Courbet, who, ten years
later, was still to pass for unappreciated, as one rejected by all the
juries, exhibits in 1855 eleven pictures, among them the "Stone-Breaker"
and the views of the "Valley of the Loue." Millet, who
discovered the style and the nobility of the peasant, comes from the
studio of Paul Delaroche, as does Daubigny. Paul Huet is pupil of
Guérin and Gros. Decamps gives Abel de Pujol as his master. Rosa
Bonheur receives lessons from Léon Cogniet; and Théodore Chassériau,
who paints like Delacroix, is pupil to Ingres.
What conclusion is to be drawn from all this? No other, if it be
not that all these veritable creators, these explorers of unknown
springs of beauty and emotion, received a classical training, that very
training which seems so useless to the pupils who undergo it, which
whom it has been refused. Their genius was not trammelled by it nor
their originality lessened. On the contrary, they gained from it that
dignity and force which uphold their works in spite of the degradation
of the time. In what does it consist, after all, if not to make us
profit by the experience of the masters who have preceded us, and to
teach us, in a moment, that which they have conquered after long and
painful effort? In order that the demonstration were complete, it
would be necessary for us to give the other side, and cite the names
of masters who reached the same height without having passed
through the classical course of study. But we find none who can be
named after those of whom we have spoken. Furthermore, it is
enough to glance over those contemporary schools which have tried
to free themselves from these so-called chains. They have wished to
originate only from themselves, listen only to their own voice. Therefore
has offended Art smitten them with the most deadly penalty
at her disposal: mediocrity.
On entering the Salon of 1897, we encounter a great and noble
landscape, signed with a name that we have up to the present only
seen attached to historical paintings: the "Lauraguais," by Jean-Paul
Laurens. The general effect is at once powerful and agreeable.
One might take it for an immense water-colour. And it is, in fact,
something of the kind, a sort of fresco on canvas, destined to form
part of the decoration of the great Hall of Worthies (Salle des Illustres),
in the Capitol of Toulouse. The landscape of Laurens is a view of
the hillocks of the Lauraguais. In the bottom of a valley, of which
the yellow sides are still covered with the stubble of the last harvest,
ploughmen are driving the plough, drawn by grey, heavy-horned
oxen. The ground ranges itself in vast undulations, whose austere
lines are barely broken, here and there, by a bush or a bunch of
trees. These waves of earth rise gradually to the summit of the
picture and there lose themselves in a bluish horizon. Up to this
ENTRY OF JESUS INTO JERUSALEM, PALM SUNDAY
J L GEROME
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THE DIVINE APPRENTICE
MME V. DEMONT - BRETON
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SALON DE 1897
A detail of costume makes it an historical composition. These ploughmen
who, each in his field, almost side by side, toil as though they
had to make up for lost time, these ploughmen are in mediæval
costume. This fixes the date, and at the same time the meaning of
the picture. In reality it is an historical painting, with this added
MATIGNON - Death of Mano Les
wars, and above all in those of time past. "Le Lauraguais" represents
the morrow of that episode of the siege of Toulouse which the
same artist exhibited last year under the title of "La Muraille"
(The Wall). The siege raised, the peasants of the neighbourhood,
who had taken refuge in the town, hurried back to the fields. The
deserted country re-peopled itself; the oxen, hidden in the forests,
returned to the stables; the interrupted work of cultivation was
resumed; suspended life took up its march again, and, in the words
of the local legend: "If the shadow of Montfort passed upon the air,
he who had mown down everything, who had swept away everything,
would see nothing but men toiling."
A majestic serenity fills the atmosphere. One must not look for
which is in itself all-sufficient. The artist has not aimed at that; he
has tried to express the joy of field-labour, the consolation of peace
after the horrors of war, that profound heart-lightening experienced
by all who underwent the siege of "l'Année Terrible" in once more
finding themselves amid the spring sweetness of the country. Properly
speaking, this landscape is Impressionist in the true sense of the
word, in the sense that it embodies an impression received by the
artist and by him communicated to us, and not one of those felt but
not conveyed, as is most often the case. "Le Lauraguais" is a new
departure in the work of J.-P. Laurens, as brilliantly successful as it
was unexpected. It is to be hoped that he will not stop there on the
fresh path his great talent has found for itself.
Altogether different is the sentiment animating the two beautiful
landscapes of M. Harpignies: "Solitude" and the "Banks of the
Rhône." In Laurens' work the landscape is the means of expressing
a human sentiment; in that of Harpignies, the landscape is loved
and described for itself. M. Harpignies, inheriting the great tradition
of the Landscapists of 1830, expresses his vision of Nature with a
firmness which at times, is almost hard, but of which it is impossible
not to see the poetry and grandeur. Almost all his landscapes
might entitle themselves "Solitude" like the present one; for the
living figure is always absent. His plains or his thickets are hardly
ever traversed by man or animal. They are inhabited, however;
but only by the trees which are found in them. M. Harpignies
is a portraitist of trees, which he poses and designs as though they
were personages. He gives them a character, makes of them
individuals who draw together or apart in significant groups; they
have an expression. It is in this way that the deserted landscapes
of M. Harpignies possess an intimate life and beauty of their own.
The sea-port of M. A. Vollon is the work of a master painter,
who is nothing but a painter, without the shadow of a hidden
thought or mental reservation, but who is that to perfection. It is
PORTRAIT OF H. R. H. THE DUKE D AUMALE
BENJAMIN - CONSTANT
SALON DE 1897
ROCROY
L. ROYER
SALON DE 1897
contemplating it that full satisfaction which can only be given by a
powerful execution for which no difficulty seems to have existed.
One might advise its careful study to M. Matignon, who has
treated pallidly, though with a certain distinction, one of the most
moving subjects possible: "The Death of Manon Lescaut." Ever
since the publication of the Abbé Prévost's master-piece, that scene
has tempted painters and illustrators. There are few so touching
as the disappearance of the little courtesan in the then unknown
deserts of the New World. "It was a country covered with sand.
I broke my sword in order to dig with it, but it was of less use to
me than were my hands. I opened a deep trench. There I laid the
idol of my heart, after taking care to wrap her in my clothes, that the
sand might not touch her. I did not do so until I had kissed her a
thousand times, with all the ardour of the most perfect love." M. Matignon
has realized emotion and delicacy; it remains for him to attain
strength and vigour.
After having saluted in passing the "Portrait of Cardinal
Vaughan," by Madame de Wentworth, we return to great decorative
compositions.
M. Henri Martin possesses rare artistic qualities. "Toward
the Abyss" is once more the pursuit of a Chimera. At sunset,
amid the sand-hills of a boundless desert, the Chimera, a woman,
young and bat-winged, advances with swift steps. Covered but
not concealed by a sombre and mystic drapery, belted with poppy-heads,
she waves behind her, as a bait, a tuft of thistle-down, and
looks with mocking eye to see if the crowd that follows her is not
discouraged in its futile quest. Needless mistrust! Humanity is
"afire for a lie"; it holds only to its illusions, and it has reason enough
to pursue them in bitter earnest, inasmuch as they are its only form of
happiness. That mad Humanity, M. Martin has symbolized in a troop
of old and young, men and maidens, of children even, all crowned with
roses as though leaving a feast; and all precipitating themselves
at hand if we may believe the ravens already circling overhead.
This is, or may be, the meaning of the design; for the indeterminate
[ILLUSTRATION]
MME C. DE WENTWORTH _ Portrait of H. E. Cardinal Vaug han
is the weak
point, and at the same
time the charm, of all
philosophical compositions.
They may equally
well express quite contrary
ideas. But that
which matters, above all,
in a picture, is the painting;
the thought is something
in addition: some
say that it detracts.
However high the
qualities a picture may
possess, it is its defects
that first catch the eye.
Let us at once deal with
that of M. Martin's
work: the composition
is far below the level of
the conception. One
looks in vain here for that balance of mass, that harmony of movement,
which even, and above all, in the most exuberant works,
afford a complete pleasure to the intelligence as to the eye. Defect
common enough nowadays. With a few rare exceptions, our
artists seem to have forgotten the art of composition, which is the
one essential condition to endurance of all painted work. Time
effaces or blackens colour; the charm of youth attaching to every
new-born work evaporates inevitably. Remains the foundation
itself; that is to say, the composition and design. It is by that
FRENCH SOLDIERS AT KARNAK (EGYPT.)
CLAIRIN
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MARCEAU
E. BOUTIGNY
Copyright 1897 by Jean Bousod, Man, Joyant & Co.
SALON DE 1897.
everything to the subtleties of colour, will leave to the future
only the list of their names.
With this reserve, M. Martin's picture appears luminous, warm
and transparent of atmosphere, the work of a colourist, equal to
"Hercules between Vice and Virtue" and to the "Chimera," a
little below the level of his decoration for the Hôtel de Ville,
which remains to this day the most seductive of all his works.
The "St. George," of M. Georges Bergès, is an original conception.
Here is a St. George whom we have not met always and
everywhere; not the eternal knight, hurling himself and horse at full
gallop, lance in rest, against a giant snake that writhes before him.
M. Bergès has passed over the combat and painted the victory.
St. George, as conqueror, drags after him, attached to the pommel
of his saddle, the body of the monstrous bird-reptile, a bit of the
broken lance protruding from its side. But his charger, his brave
companion in the fight, parched with thirst and harassed by fatigue,
has stopped before a fountain. His bleeding muzzle plunged into the
great basin of cold water, he drinks deeply and long; while the saint,
motionless in the saddle, waits with grave patience for his trusty
steed's complete refreshment. In the background, a group of women
regard the hero, some with gestures of pious admiration for the
wonder of his victory, and one, a woman of the people with her
nursling at her back, sparing but a hasty look at the monster and
anxious only to get back home, her pitcher full.
All the personages of the scene, including the horse, have been
exactly seized. The face of the saint is intelligent and energetic, and
we are spared that ecstatic look usually considered necessary to
God's elect. The dragon, bird with alligator's head, is sufficiently
curious. The women at the fountain are treated with a care usually
reserved to figures in the foreground. In short, everything combines
to make of M. Bergès' "St. George" a remarkable achievement.
The "Birth of Pegasus." by M. Etcheverry, is the work of a
glitter and flash of gems, the iridescence of scales and shells. The
artist has thus lifted his subject out of the pallid languor to which
academic tradition seemed to have condemned mythology for ever.
Antique myth forms an inexhaustible mine of ideas, all artistic. Any
one of its legends affords the painter an admirable framework for all
that his soul contains of intellect and imagination. Greek mythology
is always new, because forever unknown, the most impenetrable of
enigmas. Four centuries of painting are far from having exhausted
the subject. Everything needs continual new treatment, every generation
putting into the old myths its own sentiments, its own ideas. It
suffices for an artist to have once plunged into that infinite and
teeming ocean, to return laden with the spoils of its most magnificent
fauna, and to enrich his memory with the most marvellous visions.
Perseus, obeying the orders of King Polydectes, undertakes the
destruction of the Gorgons. Protected by the Ægis, lent by Minerva,
wearing the helmet given by Pluto, which renders him invisible, and
armed with an iron glaive, he penetrates into the cavern where sleep
the dread sisters. At one blow he beheads the most redoubtable,
Medusa, once upon a time the fairest among women, now the most
hideous, and from her blood springs Pegasus, the winged horse, in an
instant, fully formed, and launches himself toward Olympus, to be
tamed by Minerva.
The "Orpheus," of M. Foreau, on the contrary, airs his melancholy
in a fantastic forest, where the sleep of gloomy ponds is scarce
disturbed by the strange fowl that people them. M. Gustave Moreau
has already taught us the way to these unknown countries; an
extreme virtuosity in the handling is one of the necessary conditions
for feeling their charm. However, even lacking that brilliancy of
execution, this manner of comprehending mythology leaves a better
impression than that which one receives from the "Wedding of
Flora," by M. Lavalley.
We have already seen this picture at the Palais des Beaux-Arts,
THE DESPATCH BEARER
E. CHAPERON
Copyright 1897 by Eugène Chaperon
SALON DE 1897
MARBOT'S FIRST COMMAND
A. MARCHAND
SALON DE 1897
very serious argument against the present organization of the School
of Rome.
One has no worse enemy than oneself. The Villa de Médicis Copyright 1897 by Jean Boussod. Man Joyant & Co.
A. E. ARTIGUE - Spring Flowers
And indeed, is it really in order to produce compositions of this kind
that the State perseveringly maintains several young men amid the
marvels of their art? It is matter of common observation that the
pupils of the Roman School, in face of the master-pieces of Leonardo
da Vinci or of Paolo Veronese, elaborate pictures after the latest
Parisian fashion, in the naïve preoccupation of being modern, up-to-date,
of their day and generation. As if an artist could be of any
other time than his own!
The remark is not a new one. Even in the 18th century, the
directors already complained of this tendency or turn of mind. The
to Paris, felt the influence of the masters they had quitted. But
that it goes the other way is demonstrated by daily experience.
There is then no hope of changing such long-established habits; at
least, until the just and reasonable system of according travelling
scholarships to young artists who may reveal themselves at the
Salon be substituted for that of granting the "Prix de Rome" for
mere school-exercises, not invariably judged with impartiality.
Shakespearian fairy-lore has found in M. Gervais an interpreter
thoroughly impregnated with classical ideas. The fairies who
people his "Madness of Titania" have all the marble beauty of
antique nymphs; they stand or lie upon the grass in the attitudes of
Olympian goddesses. The preoccupation by beauty of form testified
by the composition cannot be too highly praised. Yet the work
would have gained very greatly had the artist remembered that the
first principle of classic art is the exact appropriateness of form to
idea. The fairies evoked by him are not born of the work of
Shakespeare; they have grown up in Italy or Greece.
The most remarkable of all the mythological subjects to be seen
in the Salon is unquestionably the "Glauce and Thalia," by
M. P.-Albert Laurens. Glauce and Thalia were two of the fifty
Nereids or Oceanides, daughters of Nereus, the venerable ancient
whose hair and beard are made of the foam of the sea. To the
Greek imagination the Nereids were white of body, but their hair
and eyebrows were blue or green, according to the state of the sea
they symbolized. When breezes ruffled the face of the waters,
they loved to emerge from Ocean's abysses and rest among desert
rocks or in the worn caves of the cliffs. It is at such a moment
M. Laurens has surprised them. The two nymphs, doubtless alarmed
by the presence of some fisherman, have taken refuge in a grotto
the entry of which is bathed by the sea, and there they wait till the
coast be clear. A penetrating freshness fills the simple but beautiful
composition: a moist and salty air distils from the shady grotto, from
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course of ages with their embroideries. Nothing can be more curious
than the view of this solitary den, beyond all mortal ken, where the
most timorous divinities find retirement. The observation of nature
mingles with the reverie, and reveals in the young artist a distinguished
mind no less than the temperament of a true painter.
M. Fantin-Latour is an artist of rare spirituality. The present
epoch does not afford him his true place, the eminent place which
belongs to him. But he may confidently wait for the revenge the
future has most certainly in store for him. As portraitist he has but
few rivals. The groups of portraits signed by him are standard
works; it is to be regretted that most of them have passed over-sea,
never to return. For a long while past, the annual Salon has lacked
the important pages of other days. M. Fantin-Latour appeared to
be absorbed in allegorical compositions inspired by Richard Wagner.
Those who had approached the Greek myths, profound as they are
in meaning and perfect in harmony, could not but regret his predilection
for the German myths, so poor in sense and beauty. This
year, at any rate, he has renounced them, and one can only rejoice.
His "Temptation of St. Anthony" and his "Night" are charming.
In the "Temptation," M. Fantin-Latour has realized all the delicacy
of his mind. He has disdained the lascivious nudities that usually
float around the praying saint. That brutal form of pleasure has
rightly seemed to him unworthy of his subject and of himself. He
has, on the contrary, surrounded the pious anchorite with fair and
noble dames, robed in diaphanous veils such as those the ancients
delighted in and Leonardo da Vinci rediscovered and loved. Dainty
tones, seen as in a dream, flicker amid the rose and blue of stuffs
impalpable as vapour. But there stops the caprice of imagination.
Under these flimzy gauzes, palpitate beautiful and noble bodies, firm
yet supple, rich and dignified in form, grandly perfect. The temptation
offered is not of those which appeal to a base appetite, but to
the most lawful desires of man, to his noblest and most ethereal visions.
A charmer also that magician, who, in the painting by Madame
Consuelo Fould, prepares a "Philter": a love-drink doubtless,
inasmuch as a woman should know how to compose no other.
MME C. FOULD — The Philter
Temptresses, too, those
young girls of the "Spring
Flowers," by M. Artigue,
playing with flowers in an
orchard, snowed with petals,
and those again evoked by
M. Boyé in the fields, in the
dark shade of the trees, in
the "Cool of the Evening."
The decorative fantasy of
M. Frank Lamy is clear and
joyous. M. Sinibaldi has
succeding in obtaining a very
good result from a distinctly
unpromising theme: "French
Commerce receiving specimens
of raw material presented
by Peace and Plenty."
This panel is intended for
the Ministry of Commerce.
The artist has put into the
presentation of his theme all
the elegance of which it is
capable.
Biblical paintings are
scarce enough this year. The
neo-Christian fervour seems to have calmed down, and the painters
try less to convince us that they are as naïve as in the first ages of
faith. But if religious impulse is lacking, philosophic thought now
and then reveals itself with remarkably ability.
GENERAL CHANZY AT THE BATTLE OF MANS.
JANUARY, 11, 1871.
M. ORANGE
Copyright 1897 by Orange
SALON DE 1897
THE TURCO BEN-KADDOUR AT THE COMBAT OF LORCY
(DECEMBER 26, 1870)
J. MONGE
SAL N DE 1897
The "Flight into Egypt," by M. Gérôme, is a poetic landscape
at night. The fugitives pass by in the bluish mist of an
Egyptian evening. The work is filled with a tender charm, and
brings to mind those first pictures of the East which gained for the
artist such a universal success. M. Gérôme's qualities are more
clearly visible in this canvas than in his "Entry of Christ into
Jerusalem," where the historical reconstitution of the scene seems to
have principally preoccupied him. From this point of view his ambition
has been amply realized; but we for our part prefer a grain of
poetry, commonplace if you will have it so, but irresistible, which
emanates at night from the venerable earth whence have arisen so
many religions.
M. Destrem has great literary conceptions. "Sinaï" might be
a subject for a poem, a sort of "Légende des Siècles." The people
of Israel, assembled at the foot of Sinai, have left their tents to
gaze upon Moses climbing the flanks of the mountain, and wait
there till God shall manifest himself. Then, mid-way up Mount
Horeb appears the burning bush, like a resplendent globe from
which jet up to Heaven two immense horns of fire. It is no longer
Moses who bears upon his forehead the emblem of the thunders of
the Lord, it is the entire mountain, thus become the mouthpiece of
the Eternal. The idea is a beautiful one; it merited, in order to be
developed at its ease, a larger canvas. Reversing the rule of so
many vast compositions, where the idea has to be stretched to fill
out the frame, this is crushed and uncomfortable within the dimensions
the artist has assigned it. The picture will interest painters
but little; they will gently protest before the uncertain, discoloured
light, which pervades it: but the "littérateurs" will regard it with
pleasure, recognizing M. Destrem as one of theirs.
The "Judith," of M. Eug. Thirion, returns proudly and peaceably
to Bethulia, the head of Holophernes in a corner of her robe.
M. Thirion's figures always possess distinction of design and colour.
A touch of strangeness in a simple form gives them the interest of
endure as long as painting itself.
M. Tanner exhibits a "Resurrection of Lazarus," slightly heavy
in tone, but strong in composition and execution. It is noteworthy
not only for what it realizes, but for the promise it holds out.
The "Prodigal Son," by M. Vayson, is a landscape by night;
the "Divine Apprentice," by Madame Demont-Breton, a pretty
indoors scene.
In the "Paradise," M. Lévy-Dhurmer, and in the "Annunciation,"
M. Desvallières, have gone in for, speaking with precision, philosophical
painting. The execution is as intellectual as the conception.
This is not the place for starting a discussion. At most we may
once more note the danger of the intervention of literature in
painting. Let us simply recall to mind that the representation,
pure and simple, of Man and Woman, is the representation of a
greater thing and a deeper mystery than our vastest conceptions;
for, after all, as Pascal said: "Imagination wearies of conception
sooner than Nature of production."
M. Hébert's paintings are always intellectual, were it only in
the look, sometimes beatified, of his Madonnas and his Infant
Christs. But this weakness is atoned for by a profound sentiment
of melancholy, of nervous suffering. His "Virgin," though obviously
inspired by the assiduous contemplation of the Italian primitives, is
nevertheless thoroughly modern: nay, more, she is a woman of
the world. In that lies her seduction. Her countenance has a slight
curl of bitterness on the lip, a shade of disillusion, of the weariness
of living and doing. She and her Child well represent the woman
and child of our burning epoch: beings whose bodies are atrophied
by cerebral over-development, whose minds are filled with regrets
for the past and visions of the future: organisms destroyed by
the incessant effort of thought. M. Hébert has plunged into the
past to find there sentiments new because forgotten; he has brought
back types which might well be those of the future.
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Religious sentiment is notwithstanding less penetrating in "Our Copyright 1897 by Gabrl Ferrier
Lady and the Fowler" than in M. Buland's "Before the Relics."
Nothing can be more opposite than the conception of these two
works, despite their common source of inspiration. As one breathes
fashionable distinction, so does the other exhale vulgarity. The faces
wholly lack that instinctive nobility conferred by high sentiment; but
G FERRIER — Harmony
portraits of peasants kneeling before the altar. Execution and
thought are at one, without poetry or grace, but vigorous and most
thoroughly honest. These are conscientious works, meriting high
esteem.
The "Communicants," of M. Royer and those of M. Trigoulet,
furnish new and interesting treatments of a theme which young
painters reproduce with unwearied constancy, ever trying to fix its
fugitive charm.
M. Struijs, an intimate of the lugubrious scenes which precede or
expression. "To Console the Afflicted" is a scene of two personages:
a priest seated near a woman of the people, dissolved in tears, gives
her those pious consolations which never console, but which afford a
momentary relief from pain. The sentiment, action, execution, are
all true, strong, sad of aspect, a sort of far-away echo from the great
works of the past.
Flemish art delights only in homely spectacles, in the life of the
humble. There it manifests a fullness which is without counterpart
in other schools. The two paintings by M. Dierckx are scenes
in the Foundling Hospital. His "Foundlings" and his "Dinner
at the Foundling Hospital" are peopled with the same round-cheeked
babies. The danger for such works is insipidity. Everything
in a child is round, soft, undecided; the character of its features
is as yet no more than sketched. M. Dierckx has overcome this
difficulty by an execution at once strong and bright. This nest of
birdlings is full of health and life. No melancholy in these faces,
unconscious of their misery; this little world is full of hope, and the
artist shares in it as whole-heartedly as any of these youngsters
pressed one against the other like birdlings on a branch. The
impression conveyed is full of charm.
That which one receives from the "Invalid Child" of M. Wilhelmson
is more melancholy. Swedish interiors have not that cheery
comfort which seems to be the privilege of Flemish and Dutch
interiors. The subject is nothing here, despite all appearance.
"In the Village Shop," a scene in which only good wives appear, has
just as much incurable sadness behind it, sadness which the sincerity
of the painting has not been able to attenuate. How much more
easily one breathes in that "Dutch Interior," by M. Pieters, where
everything is fresh, coloured, sweetly and strongly serene! A ray
of sunlight filters through the trees of the garden and the window-curtains
into the great room, at once kitchen and dining-room. One
might almost believe oneself, so strong and well diffused is the light,
THE ABDUCTION.
U CHECA
SALON DE 1897
THE DEATH OF THE LAST MOUNTAINEERS
(29 PRAIRIAL, YEAR III).
G CAIN
SALON DE 1897.
Salon. It is to be wished that our painters of home-life, like M. Paul
Thomas, would acquire a taste for that large manner which gives so
much value to the smallest things.
"Tea," by M. Thomas, is a graceful episode of Parisian life: a
young lady drinking a cup of tea. One knows, since Chardin, that
master-pieces may be painted without searching for vaster subjects.
Everything depends upon execution: it is this alone which gives
value to these bourgeois pictures. Beauty of matter and firmness of
touch are essential conditions of success. One understands that the
study of Dutch masters might cause despair through their perfection:
but is it necessary to go so far and so high for models? In the same
gallery as the "Tea" is M. Antoine Vollon's "View of Dieppe."
Here is a work of painting, nothing but painting, which comes very
near to being a master-piece. We cannot too strongly recommend
the young artist to study this master-painter. He will learn the
secret of that transparency, of that sumptuous richness of impasto,
which is in itself a delight to the eye. The vigorous pastels
exhibited by M. Thomas last year allow the hope that he will
abandon the thin manner, so fatally unexpressive, and remain
faithful to the more solid work which alone affords works of real
art, that of all the masters without exception of time or country.
"Intimity," by M. M. Rieder, is composed of a girl playing the
piano while two young men listen. Nothing more, but the picture
is interesting because it is frank. M. Chayllery's "Parisian
Interior," is equally a work of merit, not so much through the
search for reflections to which the artist has devoted himself as
through the vigour of handling. Strength is not incompatible with
the finest delicacy. M. Bréauté's "Interior," full of the play of
beautiful stuffs, blue, tender rose, silks and satins, has all the grace
of a pastel.
M. Raphaöl Collin, on the other hand, delighting himself in almost
diaphanous carnations of the most attenuated colour, allows the finer
in style, leaves the regret for a work that would have been exquisite
had it not been so diminished by dint of being subtilized. The "Souvenir,"
by M. d'Estienne, is pretty in inspiration and in movement.
This fragile young woman who smilingly inhales the perfume of a
bunch of violets, has a great deal of nervous grace in her smile and
in her action: But, here again, the qualities of the painting do not
completely respond to the truth of the observation.
"Around the Cradle," by M. de Richemont, on the contrary, is
upheld by its handling. The artist has already made more than one
attempt to introduce the supernatural into modern life. These mystic
tendencies justified themselves by a certain current of ideas which
made its way to the front some years ago. We do not think that the
movement is anything else than purely intellectual. Contemporary
mysticism is of archælogical origin; it is born of our promenades
through the past in search of new themes. One has come across the
Christian legends in the same way that one had previously met the
pagan myths. All is beautiful, all is good, all is living and real
that is animated by conviction. The works of times past move us
still, in spite of their defects, by that hidden and irresistible force
conferred by a solid faith. But we ourselves, are we still in the
requisite position? The illusion of reality can only be given by a
believer in the reality: are our artists profoundly convinced of the
surrounding presence of angels, spirits, of apparitions of Jesus or
of the saints? Such pictures can only be painted by one of those
Bretons, peasant or sailor, in whom these naïve beliefs have survived.
But the very day which saw him prepared for the realization
of his dream, he would believe no longer, and the brush would fall
from his hands.
The "Last Gleams," by M. Wery, merits its success through
the poetic sentiment which envelopes the sunset landscape. The
old sailor who sits on the summit of the cliff and contemplates the
sun-reddened port is a touching evocation. The execution recalls a
ST BONAVENTURA AND THE PURPLE
A. DAWANT
SALON DE 1897
A BRETON LEGEND
G. BOURGAIN
SALON DE 1897
because sincere. We cannot, unhappily, say so much for the canvas
exhibited by M. Gabriel Ferrier, "Harmony" which is perhaps
the most factitious in the Salon. Painting or chromo? Art or
commercialism? One does not know. A like error on the part of
such an artist as M. Gabriel Ferrier should have its motives: we
cannot see them. Beside the "Harmony," the vine-grower seated
at the foot of a wine-press in M. Chantron's "After the Vintage,"
assumes a real value. But in order to rediscover the light and
glow of sunshine we must follow M. Sorolla to Spain.
"Sailmaking," by M. Sorolla y Bastida, is gaiety itself. Nothing
less complicated, less profound, than the subject of this great
picture. But the joy animating it makes up for all the rest. Under
a trellis, fisher-folk, men and women, are at work sewing a great
white sail. That is all. The sunshine through the leaves, splashing
the white cloth, the faces, the hands, with brilliant flakes, bathes
the scene in light and warmth. It is good Impressionism: it is
nature itself.
M. Bilbao, on the contrary, though a Spaniard, loves sad sights
and melancholy colourings. He exhibits a view of a Spanish
pawnshop. "The Lamentable Waiting-Room" (Triste Antesala),
he calls it. That is true. Nothing is more lamentable than the
view of poverty pawning its last rags. The handling is adequate.
It recalls on more than one point that of M. Geoffroy, who paints
with such an honest and solid talent episodes of humble life. This
year M. Geoffroy takes us to the "Dispensary." Everybody
cannot be received at the hospital, and the poor have not the
wherewithal to trouble a doctor. Mothers take their children to
the dispensary, where they can obtain advice and medicine. For
many it is the antechamber of the asylum. M. Geoffroy in devoting
himself to the painting of misery, performs not only a work of art
but of a generous humanity.
In contrast with these sadnesses, but starting from the same
its Victims." He personifies Gold in a fat financier, seated on a
car drawn by his victims, men, women, and young girls, all that
[ILLUSTRATION]
CHANTRON — After the vintage
live, move, and die by riches.The artist has expressed this
philosophic conception with
his habitual talent. He has
staged it with his instinct of
painter and dramatist, and
has fixed it in a moving
work, the impression of which
is not to be effaced.
M. Dawant's "St. Bonaventure
and the Purple" is
an anecdote drawn from the
Lives of the Saints. The
difficulty is great of giving
any majesty to the scenes of
familiar good-nature with
which these primitive existences
are filled. Painters of
the Spanish School have attempted
it sometimes and
with success, but only
through a triumphant execution
which in such subjects
is everything. M. Dawant's
talent has too much delicacy for these scenes, which need a certain
harshness of composition.
M. Sabatté, in his "Interior of St. Germain des Prés," has
painted a pendant to the church interiors of F. de Witte. It is
necessary to go back to the Dutch master in order to meet such
an expression of what one might call the poetry of walls. The
FRENCH COMMERCE ACCEPTING SPECIMENS OF RAW MATERIALS
LAID BEFORE HER BY PEACE AND PLENTY.
SINIBALDI
SALON DE 1897.
THE INTERRUPTED DUEL
GARNELO - ALDA
SALON DE 1897
found in M. Sabatté a remarkably eloquent interpreter. He has
seen and made visible the charm of these stones brushed by so many
vestments, on which so many hands have been laid. e has rendered
that melancholy of very old things which the ablest restoration
cannot rejuvenate and the venerable age of which pierces through all
the modern adornments. A devout shade envelopes these columns,
an odour of wax and of incense floats under these Roman vaults; one
hears the whisper of muttered words. The impression is true and
strong.
The "Standard-Bearer" and the portrait of the geographer
Philippe Cluvier, by M. Roybet, are bravura airs such as this artist
knows how to give out in resounding tones, with abundance and
truculence. Amid other surroundings there might be reserves to make
upon this art, but amid the universal anæmia in which painting
threatens to die out, how can one withhold sympathy from an artist
whose fundamental quality consists precisely in being a true
painter? His exhibit of this year is not so striking as usual; but
nobody can always be up to his own level.
Both of the pictures shown by M. Joseph Bail are familiar. We
know only too well the "Card-Players," scullions in an idle moment,
who thumb their greasy cards instead of watching their sauces.
We have already seen the "Housewife," who prepares so carefully
such beautiful gherkins. Here there is nothing new, transcendent,
nothing even smart, but what glowing caldrons, transparent bottles
and marvellous jars! what coppers, vegetables, aprons! what a
kitchen! what brilliancy, transparency, solidity! It is pleasing to
see so much still-life within one frame. It is all of it good work.
Official pictures abound this year. That was to be foreseen.
The Franco-Russian fêtes, through their incomparable splendour,
have produced a harvest of commemorative paintings. "The Funeral
of Pasteur" has also furnished M. Ed. Detaille with the subject for
the best of these severe compositions. The march-past of the
by representatives of all the great bodies of the State, has served
as excuse for a series of portraits of contemporary celebrities.
Some, as those of Messrs. Joseph Bertrand, Gérôme, Gréard, are full
of life and truth.
The "Reception of the Emperor and Empress of Russia by the
French, Academy, October 7th, 1896," without pretending to the
same artistic value, nevertheless retains the lively interest of an
exact souvenir. The portraits of the Imperial couple and of all
the members of the French Academy must become, by force of
time, documents of great value. We should be glad to possess
as much for very many past ceremonies. We should thus be endowed
with an iconography of our writers, and those not the least, whom
our painters have forgotten or disdained. Those of M. Brouillet are
not all of equal value; the laws of perspective are implacable and
all the Immortals could not be placed in the foreground. Even
so, the scene is an interesting representation, which merits preservation
as a record of a great event.
M. L. Béroud's "Nicholas II. at the Tomb of Napoleon," is
another episode of the Imperial visit. This time the Sovereigns
and the President of the Republic are alone before the sarcophagus
where sleeps the greatest warrior of modern times. The
encounter is tragic between the colossal dead and these fêted
visitors whose ancestor he had met during a truce in the most
frightful of wars. M. Béroud has not needed to insist upon that
evocation: it arises of itself. It was enough to present the personages
for the emotion to be felt. The effect is more dramatic
in this silent tableau than in the "Review of Châlons," by
M. Georges Scott. There, despite the military panoply, all is fête,
all is pleasure; for all is hope.
It is the future preparing itself within the present, and none can
deny us the right, or privilege, if you will, of picturing it as happy,
peaceful, and fortunate.
THE OBSEQUIES OF PASTEUR
E. DETAILLE
Copyright 1897 by Jan & Co.
SALON DE 1897
THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF RUSSIA AT THE FRENCH ACADEMY.
OCTOBER 7, 1896.
A. BROUILLET
SALON DE 1897
The marine painters, Messrs. Émile Maillard, Ravanne and Rudaux,
have celebrated the arrival of the Russian Imperial yacht
at Cherbourg, escorted by the Northern Squadron. They have done
it with precision, in the picturesque frame formed by the short
and turbulent waves of the Channel. All these pictures of passing
events, in a little time, will become historical records.
We live in an epoch during which it is well to hasten to
celebrate the benefits of peace, either by composing gracious
landscapes, where peaceful oxen graze in fertile meadows, as in
"The Banks of the Dordogne at Siorac," by M. Watelin, or in
painting such rural souvenirs as "Cornflowers," by Mlle Hart.
Peace and its idylls are no more than happy accidents in the life
of peoples as in the life of men. This year, Art is all for Peace,
and with the exception of the obligatory military tableaux, sanguinary
or terrible scenes are rare in the Salon. We have no cause
for complaint.
Portraiture is brilliantly represented by several remarkable works,
and by many others reaching an honourable average. That is
enough to maintain the annual production at its regular level.
The portrait of Pierre Laurens, by Jean-Paul Laurens, is one
of those works struck off rapidly by a master-hand for which
there is neither difficulty nor effort. The execution is as supple
and rich as possible. The familiarity of the attitude, the youthful
health of the model, have met for their expression with a talent
compounded of power and affection; the result is a portrait worthy
of those we have already received from the artist.
M. Bonnat exhibits a portrait of M. Joseph Bertrand, of the
French Academy, and that of an "Eagle Clutching a Hare."
The latter is a piece of still-life, vigorously painted by an artist
of whose power of presentation none can be ignorant. The portrait
of M. Joseph Bertrand shares in the qualities no less than in
the ordinary defects of M. Bonnat. It possesses precision, firmness
of design, the accentuation of character, everything which comes
that melts all traits into one expression, the goodness, the moistness
of regard, the indescribable something which makes the humanity
of a type. M. Bonnat's portraits lack feeling.
The two portraits exhibited by M. Marcel Baschet are in complete
contrast. That of "Madame P...," has the clear and fresh
aspect of a pastel. The other, that of "Madame B...," is not only
one of the best in the exhibition but one of the best the artist has
ever signed. It belongs to that French School which remains,
after all, in possession of the most solid principles of the expression
of the human countenance. Certainly, the modern English School
can offer seductive feminine figures, elegant of aspect, decorative
in execution, charming at first sight. But on further acquaintance the
superficiality of that art appears quickly, and one is compelled to
return to the French School, the works of which gain by being known,
improve with time, because built on the enduring foundation of an
honest and learned design. The portrait of "Madame B....." is
classic; we can give it no higher praise. It need not fear the
caprice of fashion like the sketchy, ill-constructed and unmodelled
portraits that certain noisy artists have succeeded in palming off
upon the public. These, born of the infatuation of a day, are
dead with the folly that produced them. That which lives by
fashion dies by fashion. This of which we speak can confidently
await public favour, which in the end always fixes upon works of
real value.
M. Paul Dubois regularly exhibits portraits which seem to us
not to be appreciated according to their merit. This sculptor
turned painter may well have put his best into his painting, and, by
a change not unexampled in the history of Art, may see his renown
as sculptor turn to a renown as portraitist. He possesses thoroughly
the knowledge of interior forms. His portrait of "Madame R. G...,"
modelled in the light, manifests that profound knowledge of the
hidden which is the whole of statuary art. The general aspect
EAGLE GRIPPING HARE
L. BONNAT
SALON DE 1897
AT THE FENCE
HERRMANN - LÉON
SALON DE 1897
that strikes the eye, but as one looks more closely one discovers
a thousand dainty details that render it preferable to noisier
works.
M. Saintpierre also is an artist of distinction. His portrait of Copyright 1897 by Jean Man Joyant & Co.
M. Alph. Lamotte is robust and healthy. It is seductive by its energetic
accent, and it proves that the painter who evoked on canvas
L. V. WATELIN - The banks of the Dordogne at Siorac.
on occasion.
But behold the green-room of the Comédie Française; behold
the white statue of Voltaire against the intercolumniation touched
with gold; behold the peristyle of the temple of Art. In the
midst, the intelligent and sympathetic face of Truffier, the poet-comedian,
painted by M. L. Béroud. The comedian, at once melancholy
and smiling, holds a manuscript: is it in order to rehearse
a rôle or recite some of his verses? Both, it may be, so closely
Under the title of "Reading" we recognize the portrait of
M. Marguillier, the sympathetic and erudite art-critic. M. Vigoureux
has designed the features with firmness, but the somewhat
pale colouring confuses the contours of a very characteristic visage.
However, the artist deserves the encouragements that he must
have received and that already the promises of his talent justify.
We would rather not have had to notice the portrait of the
Duc d'Aumale, by M. Benjamin-Constant. It is a pity that it
should have been painted, a still greater pity that it should have
been exhibited. Those who know the Duc d'Aumale will have
trouble in recognizing his masculine and intelligent physiognomy in
the personage whom M. Constant shows us. A painter should
doubtless not conceal the physical imperfections of his model; but
still less should he emphasize them. That is a question of tact.
But, at the very least, his first duty is to render visible the soul
of his model; in this only is painting superior to photography. There
was more in the look of the Duc d'Aumale than this drooping
attitude and this effeminate expression. We are the more puzzled
by such an error that the artist exhibits simultaneously a portrait
of M. Chauchard endowed with exactly those artistic qualities that
are so painfully absent in the portrait of the Duc d'Aumale.
Three tradesmen, after an al fresco lunch, call for cards and
play a game of piquet. It is called Quinte et Quatorze, as a
picture must have a name of some kind. Really, we have three
good open-air portraits by Mme Delacroix-Garnier. The atmosphere
has the accent of truth, as has the attitude and action; the
expression is exactly rendered both in design and colour. The
open-air school has not accustomed us to works of this value.
M. Guiraud de Scevola exhibits a curious little portrait of Mademoiselle
Lejeune, standing in walking costume, veiled, altogether
in the shade, with just a golden touch of sunshine on the cheek.
In his portrait of M. Saint-Saöns, M. Glaize has given to the
THE BADGER CAUGHT
J. GÉLIBERT
SALON DE 1897
COWS IN THE SHADE
J. DUPRÉ
Copyright 1897 by Julien Dupré
SALON DE 1897.
resemblance is incontestable. But one inevitably comes with a
preconceived idea of the appearance of a well-known artist, according
with his talent: an idea almost always false, though, because the one
and the other are generally in contrast. So that we have difficulty,
evidence notwithstanding, in figuring the illustrious representative
of French music and only French, in this phantom academician
who, like Orpheus returning from Hades, seems to emerge from
the eternal night.
M. Jules Lefebvre places us in a delicate position. One has to
recall the remarkable portraits which form a part, the best, of
his past work, in order not to judge more severely than one should
his portraits of "Count B. de C." and of "Mademoiselle B." By
what gradual descent can an artist arrive at subtilizing his colours
to the point of non-existence? In what category can one rank the
diaphanous persons presented by M. Lefebvre? Certainly, an
attentive examination allows the discovery of traces of his habitual
distinction and knowledge of design. But, where is the warmth,
the energy, in these portraits of young beings? Where is the life,
even? The pictorial ideas, fashionable a few years back, but
renounced nowadays by those who fathered them, are they at this
late day cutting away the firmest pillars of classical art? We hope
not. At the precise moment when a movement of reaction has set
in against anæmic art, it would be piquant to watch the influence
on members of the Institute of artistic theories which they have
ceaselessly combatted and which would be held in honour by none
but them.
Is it a portrait or a study, this dark "Young Woman" in a
lilac robe, exhibited by M. Nicolas Martin? It matters little. The
little painting is full of serious executive qualities. The portrait of
Mademoiselle J. J..., by M. Boudier, is painted in the style of
Fantin-Latour; in happy contrast with a "Jules Verne," thin and
rosy, by M. Dubois-Menant. The two exhibits of M. Humbert,
B...," are elegant; the execution is, or rather, appears to be
careless.
The English school is represented by a good portrait of Albert
Bruce-Joy, by M. Joy, his brother. The picture is kept within
that yellowish tone of which the English school has already shown
us some very interesting specimens. But, apart from this foregone
conclusion, which sets our French eyes at fault, one cannot refuse
to credit this portrait with a great accuracy of observation.
Note also the portrait of "M. L...," by M. Franzini d'Issoncourt;
that of "M. J.-M. B...," by M. Frick; that of "Madame P...," and
her daughter, by M. Berne-Bellecour; and that of two children,
Kingdon and Jay Gould, by M. A. Lynch.
Historical anecdotes have furnished a rather less considerable
contingent of work than usual. Military pictures abound, but they
keep to the Imperial epoch. The Revolution seems to be nearly
used up as a subject for composition. Is it a sign that souls are
becoming less heroic, and that the public prefers to gaze upon a
pretty woman bedecking herself, as she does who is presented by
M. Dupain in his "Before the Ball"? May be. Painting seems
to have said all it has to say on the Revolution. For twenty years
it has harped upon the theme; without, it must frankly be
admitted, producing anything very definitive. Everything, or very
nearly so, on that great epoch, needs doing over again. Though
a whole century has gone by, the lapse of time is not sufficient to
allow of treating it with the calmness so necessary to artistic work.
We have not yet altogether formed our ideas, on the one side or
the other, of that great upheaval and the blood it cost; we
debate it still, and it suffices to evoke its history to rouse the
most ardent discussion. The serenity which is indispensable for
the development of a work of art is still far from our minds, then,
and the time has not yet arrived for drawing from the Revolution
all the dramas and the pictures it provides.
PORTRAITS OF KINGDON AND JAY GOULD
A LYNCH
SALON DE 1897
PORTRAIT OF MMEP.
M BASCHET
SALON DE 1897
M. Laurent-Desrousseaux, in "The Suspects," has reproduced Copyright 1897 by Braun, Clément & Co.
a scene of the Terror in the country. Unhappy nuns, hidden in
[ILLUSTRATION]
Melle E Hart _ The Corn-Flowers
bullets of the Republicans.
M. Georges Cain
has chosen, on the contrary,
the well-known episode
of "The Death of
the last members of the
Mountain," who kill
themselves to avoid the
guillotine. Romme, accompanied
by his five
companions, descends the
stair of the Conciergerie.
Suddenly, be draws a
knife which he had concealed,
plunges it into his
side, draws it out and
passes it to another who
stabs himself in the same
way, handing on the
weapon to still another.
All the six fall thus, one
beside another. M. G.
Cain has done his best to
give the scene the fierce grandeur of which it was susceptible. But
there are subjects which crush their interpreters.
The Egypt shown us by M. G. Clairin, in an episode of General
Belliard's expedition, is an Egypt that will not be recognized by
all those who have seen Karnak. It is a revelation that will astonish
a good many travellers. One has no right to find fault with a
painter for the way in which he sees things, but this group of
grenadiers, does it appear to possess adequate novelty or interest?
The "Memoirs of General Marbot" have furnished M. André
Marchand with the motif of some military costumes. The episode
chosen by him is not the most significative of these highly interesting
souvenirs. If he had read on, he would have come across,
on almost every page, stories at once more picturesque and more
moving; he would have found some grandiose spectacles, even; pictures
ready composed by a soldier who was actor and spectator in the
great military epic of the Revolution and the Empire.
The "Death of Marceau," by M. E. Boutigny, makes the mistake
of coming after the "Funeral of Marceau," by J.-P. Laurens. Not
that any subject belongs to any one painter; subjects belong to everybody
who can handle them. But it is prudent to leave them alone if
one is not certain of overshadowing or at least equalling the works
that have preceded one's own. M. Boutigny's "Marceau" is a
good genre picture, a simple episode in the wars of the Revolution.
The death and burial of the young general should possess something
antique through the poetic grandeur that surrounds them:
his history is remembered by all. Here we fail to find all its majesty.
M. H. Tenré shows us "Marshal Castellane at Home." The
great happiness of this impulsive general was, as he says in his
Journal, to find himself in the bosom of his family. Yes, but
did he bring there all the military stiffness attributed to him by
M. Tenré? Nothing can be less patriarchal than this interior;
one might sooner believe oneself in the presence of a Jomini lecturing
on the diverse bases of military operations.
M. Chartier's "Wagram" is a furious cavalry charge, in which
one finds a dash and go that is absent in the "Charge of the Grenadiers
of the Guards at Eylau," by M. Schommer. M. Brisset's
"Before the Charge" represents the Grenadiers in line awaiting
the signal to charge. It is the moment preceding that chosen by
M. Schommer; it is a review in the snow. "The Despatch," by
MUSIC
Mlle L ABBEMA
SALON DE 1897
THE BALMY BREATH OF EVENING
A. BOYE
SALON DE 1897.
painters. "Rocroy," by M. Lionel Royer, is a page detached from
the History of the Princes of Condé, by the Duc d'Aumale. At the
battle of Rocroy, the Count of Fuentès, commander of the Spanish
infantry, old and broken by infirmities, caused himself to be carried
on a chair to lead his regiments to battle. He was killed. Now
was the time or never to reconstitute on some grand canvas these
old-time battles, composed of many small individual combats, of
heroic episodes, in which fine feats of arms displayed themselves at
their ease. At this century-end, which has changed so many things,
that seemed as unchangeable as humanity itself, we look with some
pity upon those 17th century pictures that reproduce contemporary
victories. In them everything seems factitious, prepared for effect.
A more attentive study of History, of an authentic history, documented
as is that of the Princes of Condé, proves the naïve veracity
of these pictures taxed with convention. To reconstitute the past,
the surest method is to rely on contemporaries.
M. Fouqueray, in his "Trafalgar," has achieved a good military
picture. Though fog and smoke envelope his composition, one
distinguishes its remarkable qualities of dramatic movement. The
defense of the Achilles, which was dismasted, burnt, and blown up
without having struck its flag, is a comforting spectacle that we
must needs thank M. Fouqueray for having shown us. Despair,
heroism, devotion, fury, all the sentiments of strife, carried to
their highest point, find their expression in these soldiers, wounded
to death, who fight on the deck of this shot-rent vessel.
"The Turco Ben Kaddour, at the battle of Lorcy, December
26th, 1870," is a hero who deserves that his bravery shall be kept
in memory. M. Orange recounts for us an episode of the "Battle
of Le Mans" and an anecdote of "Napoleon on board the Bellerophon."
The army of to-day has also furnished its contribution of interesting
scenes; of which the best are "Our Alpine Troops," by
where the most jovial types of our young army reveal themselves
in their joyous familiarity. "The Morning of the Review," by
M. Grolleron, is one of those storyettes destined to be popularised
by lithography.
How far all this is from the grand epics of time past, from
those battles which had such a decorative look! We are not
likely to gaze upon them again in their reality. The modern battle,
spreading itself over leagues of country, in which each seeks mainly
to render himself invisible, will furnish no more combat themes
in which personal courage is everything. We must bid farewell
to glittering uniforms, fluttering plumes, and arms flashing in the
sunshine, to horses caracoling amid the powder-smoke, to all that
seduced the eye of the painter. Science has taken possession of War;
Art is gone from it.
Few sporting pictures; one would say that the variety is
dying out. M. Hermann-Léon remains faithful to it with his
"Strictly Preserved," a pack of hounds stopped by a thin wooden
barrier. A picture full of movement, true, such as an artist knows
how to paint who knows dogs as does nobody else. M. Gélibert's
"Capture of a Badger" is the struggle of a pack with this
timorous but dangerous animal, whose defence is often so redoubtable.
M. Gaudefroy's "In Full Cry," might call itself a genre
picture no less than one of sport: the former even more than the
latter. That which has interested the artist, is the alarm of the
washerwomen engaged in beating their linen by the river while
exchanging the petty scandals of their village, into whose midst
suddenly plunge the hounds, causing wild confusion amid the tubs,
beetles, and heaps of washed linen: an amusing scene.
Landscape, or more exactly, the representation of the aspects
of Nature, seen in her repose or in her anger, brings its annual
tribute of novelties and repetitions. At first sight, one feels taken
only by a very few pictures of the first rank, backed by a respectable
MERRIMENT
PIOT
SALON DE 1897.
MATERNAL TENDERNESS
L. PERRAULT
Copyright 1897 by Lionel Perrault
SALON DE 1897
allows us to discover works of great merit in some canvases of
quiet aspect. But one cannot demand that every Salon should
reveal to us a Corot or a Rousseau. Were they there, we might
easily pass them by without being deeply struck by them. These
GAUDEFROY_In full cry
value by their immediate contemporaries, and we would like to
believe in the absolute good faith of the public that passed before their
canvases. The same misfortune will probably not be spared their
successors. The seascapes of M. Antoine Vollon, for example, do
not excite, on their appearance, any considerable emotion in the
crowd. There are some, however—and this year's "View of Dieppe"
is among the number—which are destined to enter directly the
of no matter which landscapist of the Dutch School of the 17th
century or the French School of 1830. A few canvases of this
strength are enough to constitute the honour of a Salon.
We need not speak again of the two landscapes of Harpignies.
They crown a long career, wholly vowed to the soundest art.
However advanced may be the period of his life at which the artist
produced these two works, one may count him young still, for one
feels in them the same surety of eye and hand as ever.
Here again we may express the regret that public opinion so
often waits until an artist nears the end of his career before conferring
the honour that he merits. Why should all originality
meet with such obstinate opposition, and surrounding mediocrity
compel true artists to pay for the superiority of their talent by
denial of all justice, often by all kinds of humiliation? Must one
again recall the fact that Théodore Rousseau never obtained the
honours lavished by painters on their most commonplace colleagues?
Must one repeat that Corot only gained his medal of honour at
the extreme end of his life, when that distinction could be nothing
more than a derisive honour, a sort of irony towards a man consecrated
by universal admiration?
There is a double reason for this resistance. It arises, first, from
the very superiority of these grand landscapists, and next from a
superstition that still prevails in certain schools.
In some places, indeed, landscape is considered as an inferior
form of art. Landscape is reckoned an easy kind of work, adopted
by artists who are incapable of interpreting the human figure. It
is the contrary which is true. Nothing, doubtless, is easier than to
paint on a canvas the appearances of trees, the phantoms of hills, the
simulation of ponds, plains, etc. But the execution of a real
landscape is the rarest of all works. It is the material realization
of transparent atmosphere, of illusive contours, of infinite shades
of colour and tone, of all that appears and disappears with the
UNDER SHELTER
P. OUTIN
Copyright 1897 by Pierre Outin
SALON DE 1897
CASTELLANE WITH HIS FAMILY
H. TENRÉ
Copyright 1897 by Henry Tenré
SALON DE 1897
definite form, his precise and fixed contour; his anatomy is
known; his forms have their defined proportions, a hundred times
measured.
The physionomy of a landscape appears and changes like the
expression of a visage, and that expression, once lost, cannot be
found again. So that among by-gone painters, how many are the
artists who have represented human beauty. Man and woman in
all countries have found magnificent interpreters of their expression.
But, on the contrary, how rare are the true painters of earth
and sky! The French School has had the rare happiness of producing
artists in this line who are equalled only by those of the
seventeenth century Dutch School, and only by the greatest even
among these. It is sad to think that these geniuses have not
escaped the common law of the expiation of talent.
Français, the last survivor of the sacred battalion of 1830, will
not have seen the close of this Salon. Death took him just as he
recalled himself to the present generation by two remarkable pictures,
the "Valley of Cernay" and the "Ravine of Géhard."
Another landscapist, but this one still young and full of brilliant
hopes founded on work of great talent, Maurice Le Liepvre, is
also dead after having sent two decorative panels, "In the Meadows"
and "In the Fields." We have been reminded, by seeing these
corners of Nature, of the great landscapes he exhibited a few years
ago, into which he had put so much style and glow. Maurice Le
Liepvre, pupil of Harpignies, like his master, like all true artists,
firmly believed in design in landscape. Nothing could be more
foreign to his character than those hasty sketches which in a few
strokes of the brush pretend to give the impression of the profundities
of Nature. Trees, woods, fields, river banks, were for
him so many beautiful compositions by the harmony of their masses
and the inexhaustable variety of their detail. Their highly decorative
character has given his works a distinguished place in the contemporary
talent to produce all the works that were in him; he is the more
bitterly regretted in that he has been taken off before attaining his
full stature.
M. Adrien Demont's "Moonrise in Winter," is one of those
[ILLUSTRATION]
DUPAIN _ Preparing for the Ball
views of wide horizon
in which the artist delights.
He spreads at
our feet a great snow-plain,
relieved by low
hills: the white immensity
is lighted by the last
rays of a winter sun,
red but heatless, and at
the same time by the
gleams of a new-born
moon. An impression
of melancholy is left by
this captivating picture.
One might believe oneself
in some far northern
country, a land on
which the sun does not
set and yet shines pale
and cold. The catalogue
shows that we are in France, on the site of Cæsar's camp at
Wissant. Here there is subject for remark upon the causes of the
inevitable uniformity of winter landscapes. There is reason, when
speaking of snow, in calling it a shroud. Under this winding-sheet,
indeed, all individual forms disappear, all the charming aspects
of living Nature are wiped away, all that is colour and form is
lost. A heavy covering hides all, allowing only the main lines of
a landscape to show through, and even those only in a rudimentary
MAKING PLANS
E. GELHAY
Copyright 1897 by E. Gelhay
SALON DE 1897.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT
D R. KNIGHT
Copyright 1897 by Rudgway Knight
SALON DE 1897
horizons preserve an air of monotony stronger than the talent of their
painters.
M. Tattegrain, loving the tragic scenes of the sea, exhibits a
"Rescue on the High Seas." The impression is very strong, produced
by these furious waves, amidst which struggles a piece of
wreckage with the few survivors desperately chinging to it. To
say nothing of the drama, which is here but an excuse, the aspect
of these great grey waves that hurtle together, throwing up an immense
cloud of foam, forms a terrifying spectacle. The atmosphere
of the picture is deeply charged with a saline humidity. There is
nothing here of the academic sea with its regular waves, pleasant
in colour. This is the Northern sea, troubled, grim, raging under
a grey sky. M. Tattegrain possesses in a high degree the sentiment
of this side of Nature, and interprets it with a fine intensity of
expression.
The "Seaweeds," of Madame Élodie La Villette, belong to
Brittany, to the coast of Port-Ivy-Quiberon. On that savage shore,
at low tide, the sea uncovers rocks covered with red seaweed.
They push far out into the waters, seeming to protect the Breton
shore, itself already so austere, against strange vessels. In the
distance, a ray of sunlight casts a silver streak upon the tranquil
water. This is an effect of light that Madame Élodie La Villette
knows how to treat with surety.
M. Grandsire shows us boats at anchor at Pont-Aven. This
artist is another of those whom the present generation too readily
forgets. More than one of his seascapes or his views of the Oise
would make a brilliant figure to-day amid current productions in
the way of landscape. He belongs to that Romantic School which
contemporary art ignores without being capable of making us forget
it. M. Ruellan's "Rough Weather," produces a sinister effect.
The "Transatlantic Liners in Dock," by M. Schmitt, on the contrary,
shows extreme truth in colour, as does "In Trouville Roads,"
of M. Grimelund, with its river, wide as a branch of the sea,
dominated by the tower of its cathedral, which in the distance
looks like a lighthouse. M. Nozal's "Beach of Berck-sur-Mer" well
expresses the gloomy sadness of those infinite-seeming stretches of
sand. "Evening at St. Georges-de-Didonne" near Royan, is a
faithful presentation of that beautiful coast.
M. Petitjean exhibits "The Millstream at Gerbéviller," a work
of thoroughly personal impression, of a large and fresh execution.
The old wooden houses, on the banks of the quiet stream, gaze
upon their images in the water, and give it all the play of their
reflections, which confuse themselves with the light of the sky.
The site is happily chosen and happily rendered.
The "Lande du Parc," by M. Julien Calvé, exactly expresses
the desolation of the Landes. Yellow broom and ruddy heath
mingle their colour in pallid shades. It is rather a study, the
conscientious interpretation of a corner of Earth, than the expression
of a state of mind, but there is great deal of truth in it, and that
is enough to establish its value.
The landscapists of autumn and of twilight are well represented
by M. Pointelin, who remains faithful to his poetic silhouettes of
great woods on which night descends, or on which the dawn rises.
His "Mossy Meadows" and his "Grey Dawn" are new witnesses
to his persevering love for the wild sites of the Jura. M. Félix
Bouchor has sought and found the melancholy of trees by the
roadside when leaves are falling. The "Fall of the Leaf" shows
the rusty foliage as it drops, covering the hard surface of the
road, preparing the way for the feet of Winter. An emotion of
artist and poet emanates from this simple picture, which needs no
other subject than its own to be touching.
M. Eymieu also loves the "Sunset" and the beginning of twilight.
M. Quignon, on the contrary, prefers the flaming glow of
flowers under the sun of Spring. His "Apple-Trees in Blossom"
THE MILLINER'S SHOP
V. G. GILBERT
SALON DE 18.
"MODEL WANTED?"
Mme REAL DEL SARTE
SALON DE 1897
of M. Quost. M. Zamor's "Rue de l'Espérance, at Créteil" is full
of light. The "Woodland Firs" of M. Van Damme-Sylva are only
a study, but one of a high quality.
The Orientalists grow fewer and fewer. The faithful to Algeria
PARIS _ Troop of horses (Algeria)
the real East is abandoned or all but. The great movement which
drew towards it all the great artists of the first half of this century,
has stayed itself after producing a magnificent harvest of work.
One turns nowadays to the colourless countries of the West; but
already the lassitude of this new pilgrimage begins to make itself
felt, and to-day one asks to which side should one turn to find that
new thing, which does not exist, but of which the public has forever
need. It is probable, then, that within the near future, our
restoring a little warmth to their anæmic execution.
It seems strange that Algeria has not inspired painters with as
much power as the East. Despite Delacroix, despite Fromentin,
the life and landscape of Algeria, charming as the seduction of
their colour may be, have not taken an important place in Art.
The picturesque does not always suffice. Natural features, be they
ever so grand in themselves, are grander still when they represent
some epoch of human history, and Algeria has no history. Her sky,
her horizons, her mountains, her valleys, and her forests possess
fully as much splendour as those of Egypt, of Syria, or of Greece,
but man has not lived through great events in a corner of the globe
with impunity. Something forever remains in him of the soil on
which he was bred and in which his forefathers were buried. And
as we know, or very nearly, the life of our like or of our ancestors,
the places that the painter evokes before us, invest themselves
before our eyes with the sublime poetry of the past. Everything is
to be done over again that was done by the great Romanticists;
all the sites they chose are there to be regarded with our eyes which
see so differently from theirs. What matters it that all the beautiful
points of view have been copied a hundred times, and are dishonoured
by the presence of troops of tourists. All beauty springs
from the soul of the artist, and it were to be wished that painters
should turn again toward that East in which all the arts found their
birthplace, in order to bring back impressions corresponding to the
profound admiration that it inspires in all those who feel and those
who know.
Algerian pictures are scarce in this Salon. Those that are here
produce a very clear impression, that of a scrupulous exactitude.
The "Ravine of Bouzareah," by M. Tanzi, shows the absolute
conscientiousness of that artist towards Nature. In this instance
a little laisser-aller would, perhaps, have given an additional charm
to his work. "Sidi-l'Hassen, near Tlemcen," by M. Joubert, is
BY THE FIRESIDE
T. ROBERT - FLEURY
SALON DE 1897
RETURNING FROM A FEAST.
ALGIERS
F. A BRIDGMAN
A
under a tempered sun, the village spreads its white roofs and its
domes. One might almost believe oneself in France, in a market-town
of the Centre, on a fine summer day. "On the Road from
Kardada," by M. Rigolot, glows on the contrary with the most
sparkling colour, strong tones of gold and violet clash with vehemence
under a blinding sky. This is an impression of the real
Africa, in summer, at high noon. One feels a certain joy, after
passing before this furnace, in resting before "Snow at Montbardon,"
by M. Prévot-Valéri, and in breathing the coolness of the
lovely garden, powdered over with hoar-frost, in which the re-birth
of Spring already reveals its promise.
The lovers of Paris are not very numerous, and we regret it.
Never can the portrait of this marvellous city, in which one meets
at every street corner with such wonderful effects, be too often
painted. Never can one have enough of the sites, pleasant or
gloomy, that are te be found within its borders. Can anything be
more picturesque than the banks of the Seine during its passage
through the town? A whole school of landscape would there find
enough themes for its expression. As for the monuments of Paris,
each of them represents so many centuries of history, such great
events, that they have become as it were mute personages of incomparable
grandeur. Genre subjects, themes of popular or domestic
life, abound; they are everywhere. It is an artistic macrocosm.
Parisian landscapes have not only an art value; they possess in
addition considerable documentary interest, and one can only be
grateful to those painters of talent who fix for us the physiognomy
of modern Paris, which is becoming the site of the old Paris. If
one thinks of the extreme importance that old-time views have
retained for us, imperfect as they may be, one is able to affirm
that our latest posterity will place a high price on the canvases
of those painters who love to make and re-make the portrait of
our great city.
M. Cagnard sends a view of the Boulevard Rochechouart by
twilight, and a view of the Palace of Justice, which are most
interesting. M. Gosselin's view of the Artesian Well of Grenelle,
also by twilight, is equally remarkable. "The Garden of the
Tuileries," by M. Dubuisson, is a picture full of solid qualities.
M. Wells has sent a view of the Luxembourg Garden, treated in
a large style.
M. Jules Breton is a countryman who has always remained
faithful to the plains of Artois. His this year's exhibit, "Messengers"
and "The Poppy Harvest" are new pages added to the
book which the distinguished painter has written on his native
country. They are not the most important, and we shall not judge
him by them. He has behind him too considerable a body of work
for us not to prefer to talk of that rather than to insist on "The
Poppy Harvest." Millet sought and found the design, the style, of
the peasant. There is no need to know his working processes,
nor to have seen his many experiments, in order to divine that his
unique aim was to fix the grandeur, the beauty even of that man,
nameless and story-less, who lives by the earth and so near to the
earth. M. Breton has rather sought for the poetry, the literary
side of the peasant. Not that he lacks conscientiousness before his
models: but between the eye of the artist and the rural model,
certain souvenirs interpose themselves sometimes, of a gesture, of an
attitude, that does not quite belong to the surroundings he describes.
There are, in certain of his peasant-women, movements of the head
or curves of the arm, that we remember to have seen in other places
and at other times. Here is the result of intellectual influences, so
much to be dreaded for the plastic arts. We dare hardly say that
M. Jules Breton is too much of a litterateur; but if we did not
know him to be one by the verses that he has published, in which
one meets such excellent passages, we should have easily divined
it. He belongs to the generation of Fromentin, who wrote what
was almost a master-piece, Dominique, souvenirs of the Sahel and
THE POPPY HARVEST
J. BRETON
SALON DE 1897
d'autrefois, which remains until displaced the chef-d'œuvre of art-criticism.
In his poems, M. Breton has shown himself what he is
in his painting. There is too much likeness between one and
the other for them not to have exercized a mutual influence. [ILLUSTRATION]
A GUILLOU_The fosler-sisters
With the exception of
his picture "Rogation"
— one of his best —
M. Jules Breton has declared
himself the determined
painter of subdued
landscapes, twilights in
which remain a little rosy
light, and in which the
crescent moon begins to
reveal herself. He does
not place his peasants in
the full light of noon,
but in a shade which
melts down the detail
and gives relief only to
the silhouettes. One
cannot deny the deep
poetic sentiment of his
pictures, and that is what
saves them from monotony. One could only wish them a little more
lyrism—a little more frenzy, if you will.
Brittany attracts just as many genre painters as ever by her
local colour, by all the indefiniteness and melancholy of her fauna.
Even though innumerable paintings have left nothing to know
of her picturesqueness, she seems destined to be indefatigably
reproduced under all her forms. In the days of Romanticism, this
enthusiasm was understandable. Brittany was the favourite land
and the coat of mail. Painters as well as writers then lived in the
past, their eyes fixed upon a time all the more beautiful the less
that was known of it.
Nowadays, all these effusions are done with, but Brittany has
furnished a new theme. Her legends, to which our scepticism is
wholly indifferent, constitute a fresh source of possible inspirations.
The fashionable mysticism accommodates itself very well to the evocation
of phantoms, to ghost-stories that in Brittany itself are becoming
less and less popular in the daily contact with holiday-making
Parisians. The "Breton Legend," of M. Bourgain, has arisen
from that inspiration, as has also the "Token," of M. Bulfield. To
speak the truth, their ghosts spoil for us the flavour of these
renderings of Breton interiors. We prefer the simple farm studies
of M. Brodie and M. Désiré Lucas, which are merely conscientious
bits of painting.
"Before Embarking," by M. Eugène Leroux, represents a public-house
tap-room, where robust sailors drain their last glass of whisky
ashore. The picture is sombre, but vigorous. To make amends,
M. Dennery has kept his "Gleaner of the Shore" within a grey
scheme, not very pleasing to the eye, but absolute in its truth.
The gleaner of the beach is the direct descendant of the wrecker;
he skulks alongs the edge of the waters, and waits the good fortune
of a wreck that shall bring him wood, barrels, cases, and old
iron with which to enrich his wretched hut. M. Dennery's picture
is expressive, all who have visited the shores of Finistère will
recognize the fidelity of his composition.
"Evening Rest," by M. Joseph Artigues, takes us far away,
to the country of the South of France; his painting breathes the
rude calm of these harsh lands. We already know this young
artist by his beautiful drawings, studies of peasants of the Cevennes,
strongly rustic in expression. We have the right to anticipate for
him the success due to a thoroughly individual talent.
BOLD ADVERTISEMENT
LE QUESNE
SALON DE 1897.
Year by year, the impressions of Italy grow rarer in the Salon.
Where is the time when every spring brought its crop of pifferari or
of lazzaroni, of landscapes in the Campagna, or views of Florence?
Each generation has its own admirations. Ours is turned away from
Italy; too well-known to the eyes of our painters, probably: as
though the rarety of a subject had anything to do with its value!
In reality, the desertion of Italy and Greece coincides with
the general desertion of classic studies, with the growing invasion
of the Anglo-Saxon spirit, so hostile to art. What matter great
horizons to him who has no other ideal in the world than that of
getting rich?
Were Poussin and Claude Lorrain to return among us and
exhibit their majestic landscapes at the Salon, the public would
look with astonishment upon these works, born of a culture that
no longer exists. The artists of other days, nurtured upon history,
could not look without emotion upon the earth, the ruins, even to
the smallest stone, that had witnessed the great things of which
they had been told. For them, as they struck in the line of the
horizon of the Campagna or of the hills of Attica, they saw again
in thought the life of humanity at its highest. Something of that
emotion passed into their painting, which thus became greater than
their talent alone could have made it. All that is objectless nowadays,
in an epoch when the veritable art-sense dwindles from day
to day, when the commercial spirit has replaced that of disinterestedness.
There is no use fighting against such a tendency; one
can only pity those who, having preserved the cult of Beauty,
find themselves exiles in a society that cannot comprehend them.
Italy is now no more than a pretext for studies of manner and
custom. M. Bompard exhibits two of these that are pleasing to
look upon. His "Prayer to the Madonna" is composed of a
young woman kneeling and praying at the foot of one of those
modern altars which one meets in some Venetian churches and the
blatant ornamentation of which spreads itself amid the chapels and
Seller" is a painting taken from life on the market of the Rialto,
where all Venice comes to furnish itself with fruit, vegetables, and
herbs. The pumpkins, melons, peaches, tomatoes, figs, and onions,
cover the ground like a carpet glowing with colour; some there
are even that roll into the canal, and that the passengers in the
gondolas meet, peaceably floating on the sluggish current. M. Bompard's
two canvases are a feast for those who have seen Venice;
they will find in them the faithful echo of their sensations. "Bathing
in a Canal at Venice," by M. Darasse, is another humoristic episode
of popular life. In this happy land, in order to bathe, the habitants
have only to walk out of their front door, and step into the street—
that is to say, the canal. The small boys indulge themselves thus,
under the eyes of the gondoliers, in gambols that look as if they
could only be executed on dry land. And all this in a glitter
and flash of water enough to disconcert the most impetuous of
modern colourists.
"Water Babies," by Mademoiselle Dufau, is the same scene, but
this time Parisian. It is another bath of small boys. The composition
is not perfect in its conception; it is rather a scrap or corner
of nature than a balanced piece, but the colouring is just; it is real
painting. "Saying Grace," by M. Vazquez, takes us back to Spain.
Peasants, sitting under the shade of a tree, in front of their house,
repeat their benedicite before beginning their frugal midday meal.
As in the picture of M. Sorolla, light abounds, fluid, refulgent, the
real light of cloudless summer.
M. Morisset's "Etcher" works in a mysterious dusk, like an
alchemist in his laboratory. The "Antiquary" who is shown us
by M. Victor Lecomte, examining his treasures by the light of
his evening lamp, equally enjoys the most comfortable tranquillity.
M. Grateyrolle, in "The Sick Man," and Madame Cohen in "The
Nurse," express in clear language the misery, and devotion of
poor folk, always ready to help one another.
A MARRIA E OF CONVENIENCE
BEYLE
SALON E 1897.
"A Street Corner," by M. Chahin, is a scene in the daily
drama of the streets of Paris. The homeless folk, the beggars who
live how and where one fails to conceive, make their repast of a
handful of fried potatoes, bought of the fat dame who watches so
carefully over their cooking. These are the rich, who eat; there
are those who are poorer still, who have not even the essential
halfpenny, and who linger at barrack gates to receive the soldiers'
leavings. Nothing can be truer; but is not the real aim of Art
to aid man to forget his cares, in carrying him far away from bitter
reality?
The "Psyche" of M. Guinier, the "Beatrice" of M. Mondineu.
are outside all reality if one compares them with M. Chahin's
"Street Corner." They are executed with less vigour, perhaps,
but their dreamy grace ensures their superiority.
M. Checa excels in painting runaway horses, wild gallops, in
the circus or on the plains. In his "Abduction," a barbarian warrior
dramatically carries off a young woman and flies at headlong speed
to hide his prey. We prefer, all the same, the "Troop of Horses,"
by M. Pâris, which, conducted by Arab horsemen, gaily descends
a sunlit Algerian road. Another souvenir of Algeria is "Returning
from a Fête, Algiers," by M. Bridgman. Women, dressed up in
their best, return home in a boat; a graceful scene, into which,
however, the painter has not put the colour and relief we should
have expected.
M. Knight's "Summer Evening" is also a nocturne. It is summer,
the brilliant moon throws her glow upon the water; two young
villagers, on a terrace that dominates the river, sit and talk. Of
what, one guesses. The sentiment of the idyll is delicate. In
"A Wedding in 1830" M. Gelhay makes us read again a page of
Paul de Kock, the popular romance-writer, once over-admired, and
now too much neglected. The wedding party enjoys itself in a
restaurant-garden at Meudon or Romainville, and while the guests
drink to another, the newly-married couple, sit apart, conversing
Restoration. A downpour has surprized the passers-by; they take
refuge under the arcades of the Place Royale, and "During the
Shower," a handsome soldier eyes with interest the foot of a pretty
woman.
In the "Milliner's Shop," by M. Gilbert, we recognize with
pleasure one of the innumerable pictures that are furnished by the
working life of Paris. Milliner's assistants, seated round a table,
compose those marvellous achievements which together form the
toilette of a Parisienne. M. Chocarne-Moreau, on his part, seeks
the drollery of the street; he loves the cook-boys and scamps who
play jokes on the passers-by, the kitchen-lad who puffs his cigarette
smoke into the face of a parrot. His "A Sharp Wrangle" is
amusing. M. Beyle is also a humourist when he presents the public
with his "Marriage of Convenience"—that is with two dogs, dressed
as bride and groom, sitting up under the eye of a clown with
painted nose. After that presentation, they will return to the
"Green-Room," to which M. Vimar introduces us, and where we
are pleased to meet the great Dane, greyhound, bulldog, and
monkeys, who form the élite of the troupe.
FIFTY YEARS IN SERVICE
H. BRISPOT
SALON DE 1897.
Another theatre; but this time the actors are human, under
the facetious conductorship of M. Brispot. We are present at the
town's-meeting of a little provincial town. The authorities are
ranged upon a platform, and M. the Sub-Prefect is giving a medal
to the poor old servant who has remained "Fifty-four Years in
Service." M. Brispot has cause for laughter; for, in our knowing
age, nothing can be more comic than fidelity and devotion. The
real victor of the century is "Bold Advertisement," such as she is
shown by M. Lequesne, shrieking, gesticulating, radiant amid the
tools of her trade, the newspaper, the trumpet, the drum, and the
balloon, drunk with her own eloquence, believing herself the mainspring
of the universe. And, all the while, many grimly sorrowful
things pass silently by her side, like this "Convoy of Prisoners,"
that M. Julius Price shows us wordlessly making its way over the
infinite snow-plains to the mines of Siberia.
The "Interrupted Duel," by M. Garnelo-Alda, is a scene of
melodrama. These women in evening dress, throwing themselves
between combatants who already stand sword in hand, are only
seen in these days on the stage of the Ambigu or the Adelphi.
M. Dantan remains faithful to his studio interiors. His "Studio
Interior" and his portrait of the sculptor, Paul Aubé, are two pretty
scenes of a sculptor's life. Expressed in all the scale of greys,
they are endowed with a fineness of tone that makes of them a
feast, occasionally exquisite.
What can one say of M. Bouguereau's "Compassion"? This
picture shows us what an abyss separates academic from classic
painting. M. Bouguereau is academic. His Christ on the Cross
has not even that correctness in design for which one always,
without examination, gives him credit. As for emotion, that is
altogether absent, despite the visible effort made to attain it. The
subject, be it the most poignant that can be chosen, is not sufficient
to produce an impression; the most simple is enough.
M. Bouguereau might ask certain artists in this same Salon, M. Paul-Albert
given by sincere painting, even when it deals with the least tragic
scenes.
We conclude this review of the principal works in the Salon
by remarking the "Foster-Sisters" of M. Guillou; the "Armful
of Flowers" of M. Cavé; the "Young Girl Laughing" of M. Piot;
and the "Maternal Tenderness" of M. Perrault: all of them works
that seek for their interest in a graceful subject.
We cannot quit the Salon without saying a word of the Pastels.
The art of to-day resembles on many of its sides that of the
eighteenth century. It is not with impunity that amateurs and
litterateurs have called painters' attention to the delicate charm of
a misunderstood century. Pastel has benefited by this return toward
the amiable grace which is, after all, that which is best in our
national art. For some years past, a renaissance of pastel has
taken place, and produced works which will in all probability last
longer than many paintings that seem established to all eternity.
There is an abundance of charming portraits, which cannot, it is
true, rival those of a La Tour or a Chardin, but which are often
superior to those of the secondary masters of last century. The
average of our pastellists is very high. In many individual exhibitions,
in the Salon even, one has met works of extraordinary truth
and brilliancy. One is led to believe that for many effects of
transparency, of daintiness and softness, pastel is superior to oil.
Even to the murky depth of rocks, to the sombre lines of nocturnal
horizons, does it extend the revelation of its exceptional vigour.
If some ingenious inventor were to find the secret of preserving
this coloured powder in its primal freshness, pastel would be one
of the most beautiful means of expression in the hands of Art.
Even though the rooms reserved to it are right at the end of
the galleries they are none the less interesting. In reality, three-quarters
of the pastels exhibited are superior to the pictures that
encumber the walls of the rooms reserved to painting. But it is
A SHARP WRANGLE
CHOCARNE - MOREAU
Copyright 1897 by Chocarne - Moreau
SALON DE 1897
by the process employed, and that this one is inferior.
"Villeneuve-l'Étang," by M. Tanzi, the "Seascape," by M. Fraser,
are gems as remarkable as the landscapes of Messrs. Cagniart
and Caron. The "Woman's Head," by M. Gensollen, is charming;
the "Prayer" of Mademoiselle Pastré is a study in which talent is
doubled by a rare surety of execution.
M. Dantan's "Breakfast" is a real picture: small children breaking
their fast around a table. The colour is very clear, accented,
in contrast with the grey which forms the dominant note in other
pictures by the same artist.
Madame Real del Sarte has also produced a taking composition:
"No Model Wanted?" the accepted phrase of the model who
comes to offer herself.
Still further exiled than the pastels, the miniatures seem as
though serving out a sentence in the places to which they are
thrust. It would be difficult to show miniaturists more clearly the
contempt in which their art is held by the big-wigs of painting,
whose master-pieces are piled in the neighbouring rooms. A little
more condescension would be in better keeping, were it but from
mere courtesy, seeing that most miniaturists are women. This
delicate work was once upon a time performed by men; to-day,
women have made it their own, and it must be said that they
have succeeded in that through producing works of great merit.
The miniatures, or rather the portraits of Mesdames Bouchot and
Camille Henriot, those of Mesdames Bady, Debillemont, Chardon,
Gruyer-Brielman, de Mirmont, without surpassing the maöstria of
Madame de Mirbel, make a good figure beside her.
One general observation may be made on this form of art as
it is practised to-day: the art of the miniature ought not to borrow
the methods of other modes of painting. The material conditions
of its execution impose on it very special processes from which it
cannot with advantage depart. The preoccupation of a large
miniaturists. The results of this tendency are not satisfactory;
they destroy delicacy without adding force. There is every reason
to return to the manner of Augustin, who is, in sum, the one
who above all takes account of the special method and processes
of the art.
In conclusion, the Salon of 1897 well represents, in its two rival
manifestations, the present state of French art. No more tradition,
no School; individualities only, some of them very strong.
The theory of individualism triumphs here as everywhere else;
disorganizes, that is to say, the forces that holding together might
have been able to build up a succession of great works. Personal
effort is not adequate to surmounting all the difficulties of a creation;
the individual reduced to himself is not strong enough to
re-make the whole of Art, and his disdain of tradition, of the
Schools, has no other result than diminishing the value of his
most strenuous and powerful efforts.
If at the least, amid that state of anarchy which artists have
brought about, one could distinguish a definite current setting
toward some one point of the horizon, the evil would not be irreparable.
But painters direct themselves, singly, and isolated, toward
the four cardinal points: one towards modernism, another towards
the history of all times and all countries; another towards the
chance of what he may meet. They seem not to very well know
what they think themselves; for indeed — some exceptions apart,
of course—they display no parti-pris in any particular direction.
Perhaps the critical sense is too developed, and through learning
to love so many and such opposite things, they have lost that
faculty of loving or hating which is the mark of all conviction;
or perhaps it is, as some unkind folk suggest, that their general
education is insufficient, and they misunderstand tradition because
they know nothing about it.
However it may be, the confusion is certain. The Salon of 1897
THE GREEN-ROOM
N.S.A. VIMAR
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mystic, legendary, English, Swedish—and sometimes French. It is
no longer a direct emanation of the national spirit, something
born of our soil; it represents a cosmopolitan exhibition, an international
bazaar, where each brings the products of his industry. And
[ILLUSTRATION]
SOUZA PINTO The chestnuts
the critic can only patrolthese long galleries and
make his choice, in philosophising
as patiently as
he can, on the decadence
of which he is a witness.
However, it is not
everybody who resigns
himself so easily to the
dwindling of the French
School, all the more that
the foreign Schools are
valueless apart from that
which they borrowed
from the French in other
days. If at times we are
beaten on this ground, it
is with our own arms.
Many clear minds think
that it would be easy to regain our superiority, and that in resting
faithful to ourselves. They are quite right, and the means is all
ready: we have only to return to the classic tradition, which must
never be confounded with academic teaching.
We must renew our forces by fresh contact with antiquity.
Certain people imagine that that means to imitate the Greeks and
Romans of the Restoration. That is not where the remedy lies;
that would only be to change one convention for another, and we
could only lose by the exchange. Leave then in peace the Greeks
warriors and matrons, sometimes ridiculous and always tiresome.
What is needed is not to set about the resurrection of the helmet,
but only to inspire ourselves with the principles of antique art.
The Ancients were nearer then we are to Nature; their ideas
were not obstructed by religious ideas which commanded them to
despise Form or Beauty: they saw them directly and expressed
them loyally. The immense superiority of their art lies only in its
sincerity, and that which is sincere is never vulgar. All modern
artists who have known how to see Nature directly and express her
without parti-pris, have by that fact alone drawn near to the antique
spirit, and have produced works which remain and will remain.
For the theories, conventions, systems, such as they are, never
outlast the generation that has brought them into fashion: none
of the works born of them can enjoy a longer life.
In the absolute confusion of artistic tendencies, we must search
for a fixed point to which all the world turn their eyes, a star
which may be a certain guide in the forward march. This fixed
point can only be antique Art, on which all men are of accord, and
of which the centuries have constituted for ever the authentic value.
The vestiges of that art are in number large enough for us to
know just that which it willed and that which it realized. There
are no hypotheses to establish as to its tendencies; it stands
erect before our eyes. It suffices to look with a mind free from the
local influences of fashion, and the foreseen result is not long to
be waited for. Experience has proved it many times; every artistic
renaissance has been born of a pilgrimage to Athens. Contemporary
Art has need of a renaissance; it is again the Greek spirit that
must beget it.
SCULPTURE.
The average of sculpture is the same as that of painting. No
striking work, but several remarkable pieces, accompanied by many
others which are conscientious in design and execution. It seems
that our masters are concentrating themselves for some great conception,
or, more simply, are resting.
"In the Fields," by M. Boucher, is a charming work. This
young haymaker is grace and expression itself. Assuredly, nothing
can be further from academic modelling than this peasant girl, but
she goes much nearer to classic modelling than most of the ordinary
nudities to which the statuary of the École des Beaux-Arts confines
himself. A legend, perfectly false, makes us believe that the
nude was for the ancients the essential condition of sculpture. That
erroneous idea, piously perpetuated in the Academies, leads artists
into a road where they are certain to be crushed by comparison
with the antique. The truth is that the Greeks, in their great
epoch, made but few nude figures. All the goddesses on the
pediments of the Pantheon were clothed by Phidias in delicate draperies,
and in the work of his contemporaries, nude figures are
those of personages for whom their nudity was, so to say, professional,
as athletes, dancers, or, among divinities, those whose
essential attribute it was. The greater number of the figures on
painted vases, and of the Tanagra statuettes, are draped. If the
statistics of the nude in ancient art were worked out, it would be
seen with some astonishment, that in the fine periods of the art it
is a reasoned particularity of the works in every case. The ancients
never treated, as we do, the nude for the sake of the nude, and
many of our draped statues are nearer to the antique in spirit
than the undressed women who encumber the garden of the Palais
de l'Industrie.
M. Boucher's haymaker in petticoat and caraco, shod with
sabots, and leaning on a fork, partakes of the classic spirit through
the rigorous truth of her costume and by the grace of her attitude.
We know not whether the artist willed it so; it is none the less
true that he has done it.
M. Frémiet exhibits a bas-relief destined to decorate the new
building of the Museum: "Man in the Age of Stone." The man
has killed a she-bear with a blow of his stake, sharpened and
hardened by fire, and carries off the cub, which struggles in infantile
rage. The group has movement; it possesses the savage
picturesqueness that the artist knows how to give to his personages,
men and animals. None like him has known how to render these
struggles between primitive man and the then triumphant brute.
Barye has created the supreme beauty of the wild beast, its force,
its elegance; he has constituted it an individuality, he has raised it
to a level with the human personality and placed it at the summit
of art. M. Frémiet, on the contrary, has delighted in placing the
animal in presence of man, and from that confrontation, which
could only be a mortal strife, he has drawn the most powerful
effects: the Combat of the Man and the Bear, the Gorilla carrying
off a woman, are masterpieces. At the same time, with a
rare versatility of talent, he has erected the most beautiful equestrian
statues that one can meet on the places of Paris. With the exception
of the "Centaur", by Barye, nothing can he cited as comparable
to his "Jeanne d'Arc," and above all to his "Velasquez,"
which equals certain Italian statues of the Renaissance. Again, a
large and varied collection of small figures, all interesting through
their incontestable originality, show the variety of that talent which
has never produced anything mean or commonplace, however diverse
the subjects upon which it has been exercized—or that have been
imposed on it.
The "Bonaparte" of M. Gércôme is the best piece of sculpture
that this artist has modelled. In it he has found himself in
IN THE FIELDS
A BOUCHER
SALON DE 1897.
of mind necessary to take up purely Greek themes and thus
enter into competition with the Athenian artists. They rendered
that which they saw: they rendered nothing they did not know.
They never attempted to do Chaldean or Egyptian sculpture. Their
[ILLUSTRATION]
GERÔME _ Bonaparte entering Cairo
art was wholly local, andthis it was that constituted
its value. Let us
do the same, and we
shall find our reward,
because we are in modern
times and among western
countries, the heirs of antique
tradition. M. Gérôme
then has been well
inspired in the choice of
his subject, who belongs
to us and whom we know
as well as possible. Thus
the realized work has assumed
a real interest.
The conqueror, meagre
and yellow, seated on his
Arab horse, sumptuously harnessed, and saluting the crowd with
his large hat, forms a truthful evocation at the same time as a
group of great value.
The bas-relief which M. Mercié has carved for the tomb of
Madame Carvalho, on the contrary, partakes as much of the nature
of painting as it does of sculpture. From the vertical surface of
the marble an apparition seems to emerge: it is the illustrious
singer. The head and the upper part of the body alone detach
themselves from the stone; the rest of the figure remains engaged in
the marble, imprisoned in a drapery of almost imperceptible relief.
with marks M. Mercié's talent. We should have wished for him
that he had not as quickly abandoned the artistic way on which
he engaged himself at the outset of his career, and of which
his "David" was the masterpiece.
The commemorative monuments that one meets this year are
not of an exceptional originality; almost all their authors have
done better than their exhibits of to-day. The "Monument erected
to the memory of the French soldiers in Madagascar," by M. Barrias,
does not count among the best that this noble artist has
signed. It seems as though emotion had been lacking in the conception
of this monument, even to him who had such pure inspirations
for the monument of St. Quentin, the tomb of Anatole de
la Forge, and that of Guillaumet. The talent is certainly great
that is displayed in this group intended for one of the places
of Antananarivo; but however proudly may be posed the colonial
soldier who watches, rifle in hand, the whole has not the decorative
movement that could be wished for. It may be that the
fault does not lie with the sculptor himself. Statuary lives only
through form, but it is still essential that profound emotion should
throb behind its form. The Madagascar campaign, however hazardous
it may have been, gave rise to none of those heroic feats of
arms that strike the imagination. Sickness was the great enemy
of our soldiers, and the spectacle of their silent sufferings sends
a shudder through the soul but does not lift it above itself.
The "Crowning-piece of the Monument erected to the memory
of Joigneaux" participates in the calm which reigned in the life
of that honest man. M. Mathurin Moreau has done a conscientious
piece of work. Born of a solid talent and executed with great
loyalty, it does honour to the artist and merits the high distinction
that has been accorded it.
M. Verlet, in his monument to Guy de Maupassant, has sought once
more to worthily glorify the exquisite story-teller. At the foot of
dames, at once merry and practical, sentimental and cynical, good and
perverse, whose soul Maupasssant described with so much tact and skill.
It was a happy idea, that of placing on this monument a
E. FREMIET _ Neolithic Man
so classic in his form, was pre-eminently modern in his thought.
No souvenir of times past, no reminiscence of ancient writers intrudes
itself on his thoroughly contemporary vision. He represents,
the most exactly possible, the mirror of his time. An allegorical
figure, the most perfect imaginable, would have been an anachronism
on a monument intended to recall his memory. M. Verlet was
justified in placing there this wide-skirted young woman who was one
of his heroines. As to the effect there might be some reserves to
in its destined place, and has neither its height nor its perspective.
The Luxembourg Gardens, once a marvellous park, then cut
down to the proportions of a garden, finally reduced by the progressive
invasion of the buildings to the dimensions of a square,
this Luxembourg is to be enriched with a monument raised by
M. Puech to the glory of Leconte de Lisle. The conception is
not a new one. It is the invariable Muse conferring his palm and
his crown upon the person glorified. The poetry of Leconte de
Lisle, eminently plastic, abounds in sculptural evocations. Could
not M. Puech have found among the multitude of figures created by
the poet, one more original, and one more strikingly characteristic?
"La Numismatique" is a statue commissioned by the State
from the good sculptor Just Becquet. This robust artist, in whom
is continued the tradition of Rude, his master, is the author of
many works of great merit, thoroughly French in their art. His
"Saint Sébastien," his "Christ on the Cross," worthily preserve
the spirit of our beautiful seventeenth-century sculpture, of free,
frank art which fashion may thrust aside for years at a time, but
which always comes to the front again. The statue he now
exhibits is an official commission that has not allowed the sculptor
to give all that is in him.
The "Man and Wolves," by M. Jacquot, is a decorative group,
beautifully effective. "The Wave on the Reef," by M. Jacques Loysel,
possesses great charm. The influence of M. Rodin makes
itself felt in the handling of its lines, in the harmony of its curves,
where this eminent sculptor is a past master. M. Captier shows,
in "Despair," a remarkable knowledge of modelling; may he receive
the praise he merits. In other days this talent would have sufficed
to render him peerless, but nowadays it is hardly enough to attract
the attention of the public. Technical ability has become so common
that it is barely noticed. One is now interested only by
uncommon attitudes, or still more, by the rendering in marble
This invasion of the art of the sculptor by that of the painter
has become universal nowadays. The tendency of our epoch is
towards the predominance of colour over design; sculpture has not
escaped this contagion, and one may say to-day that statuary art has
become wholly colorist. It is evident that contemporary marbles
and bronzes have a skin more sensitive, more vibrant than those of
past centuries. They have a special nervous life. But, in return,
our artists have lost the sentiment of ensemble, the feeling for line.
The decorative sense is almost wholly absent in contemporary
creation; our sculpture is the sculpture of the fragment, the "bit."
These reflections may apply to the very important group,
exhibited by M. and Madame Icard, united in a touching collaboration.
The group is that of the "Foolish Virgins" who, having
allowed their lamps to go out for lack of oil, and wishing to
enter, find the door shut and receive no other answer than "Too
Late!" They are represented by M. and Madame Icard throwing
themselves against the fatal door, trying to break it with their
fingers and wringing their arms in despair at their helplessness.
The ensemble is dramatic, a little too much so, perhaps, but the
figures, taken separately, are endowed with much truth of expression.
"Hagar," the marble group by M. Sicard, is also very interestingly
executed; there is in it the study of a back which denotes
singular skill of hand and a special knowledge of modelling.
Altogether, no new tendencies reveal themselves as yet. If
one retraces the road travelled since M. Dubois' "Florentine Singer,"
one can see that the Italian influence which that work brought
to France has not been very profound. It has found a powerful
continuator in the person of M. Rodin, who has followed up that
influence to the fullest extent, and has caused all that it implies
of exotic to penetrate French art. But it is impossible to go
further. The reaction will not be long in asserting itself. In fact,
it manifests itself already in such works as the "Haymaker" of
M. Dalou, who continues with the most brilliant success the
tradition of the Versailles School.
We judge that it is to this that the sculptor of to-morrow will
return, after a long détour in which he will have touched all the
foreign schools. The French School has produced master-pieces
born of the soil of France and full of its inspiration. It is to
these that a return must be made to find the energy and force
of renewed youth.
BARRIAS _ Monument erected to the memory of French Soldiers in Madagascar.
| Goupil's Paris Salon of 1897 | |