FRENCH PAINTING.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY (_Continued_).
BOOKS RECOMMENDED: The books before mentioned, consult also
General Bibliography, (page xv.)
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: The influence of either the classic or
romantic example may be traced in almost all of the French painting of
this century. The opposed teachings find representatives in new men,
and under different names the modified dispute goes on--the dispute of
the academic _versus_ the individual, the art of form and line
_versus_ the art of sentiment and color.
With the classicism of David not only the figure but the landscape
setting of it, took on an ideal heroic character. Trees and hills and
rivers became supernaturally grand and impressive. Everything was
elevated by method to produce an imaginary Arcadia fit for the deities
of the classic world. The result was that nature and the humanity of
the painter passed out in favor of school formula and academic
traditions. When romanticism came in this was changed, but nature
falsified in another direction. Landscape was given an interest in
human affairs, and made to look gay or sad, peaceful or turbulent, as
the day went well or ill with the hero of the story portrayed. It was,
however, truer to the actual than the classic, more studied in the
parts, more united in the whole. About the year 1830 the influence of
romanticism began to show in a new landscape art. That is to say, the
emotional impulse springing from romanticism combined with the study
of the old Dutch landscapists, and the English contemporary painters,
Constable and Bonington, set a large number of painters to the close
study of nature and ultimately developed what has been vaguely called
the
FONTAINEBLEAU-BARBIZON SCHOOL: This whole school was primarily devoted
to showing the sentiment of color and light. It took nature just as it
found it in the forest of Fontainebleau, on the plain of Barbizon, and
elsewhere, and treated it with a poetic feeling for light, shadow,
atmosphere, color, that resulted in the best landscape painting yet
known to us.
[Illustration: FIG. 64.--COROT. LANDSCAPE.]
Corot (1796-1875) though classically trained under Bertin, and though
somewhat apart from the other men in his life, belongs with this
group. He was a man whose artistic life was filled with the beauty of
light and air. These he painted with great singleness of aim and great
poetic charm. Most of his work is in a light silvery key of color,
usually slight in composition, simple in masses of light and dark,
and very broadly but knowingly handled with the brush. He began
painting by using the minute brush, but changed it later on for a
freer style which recorded only the great omnipresent truths and
suppressed the small ones. He has never had a superior in producing
the permeating light of morning and evening. For this alone, if for no
other excellence, he deservedly holds high rank.
Rousseau (1812-1867) was one of the foremost of the recognized
leaders, and probably the most learned landscapist of this century. A
man of many moods and methods he produced in variety with rare
versatility. Much of his work was experimental, but at his best he had
a majestic conception of nature, a sense of its power and permanence,
its volume and mass, that often resulted in the highest quality of
pictorial poetry. In color he was rich and usually warm, in technic
firm and individual, in sentiment at times quite sublime. At first he
painted broadly and won friends among the artists and sneers from the
public; then in his middle style he painted in detail, and had a
period of popular success; in his late style he went back to the broad
manner, and died amid quarrels and vexations of spirits. His long-time
friend and companion, Jules Dupré (1812-1889), hardly reached up to
him, though a strong painter in landscape and marine. He was a good
but not great colorist, and, technically, his brush was broad enough
but sometimes heavy. His late work is inferior in sentiment and
labored in handling. Diaz (1808-1876) was allied to Rousseau in aim
and method, though not so sure nor so powerful a painter. He had fancy
and variety in creation that sometimes ran to license, and in color he
was clear and brilliant. Never very well trained, his drawing is often
indifferent and his light distorted, but these are more than atoned
for by delicacy and poetic charm. At times he painted with much power.
Daubigny (1817-1878) seemed more like Corot in his charm of style and
love of atmosphere and light than any of the others. He was fond of
the banks of the Seine and the Marne at twilight, with evening
atmospheres and dark trees standing in silent ranks against the warm
sky. He was also fond of the gray day along the coast, and even the
sea attracted him not a little. He was a painter of high abilities,
and in treatment strongly individual, even distinguished, by his
simplicity and directness. Unity of the whole, grasp of the mass
entire, was his technical aim, and this he sought to get not so much
by line as by color-tones of varying value. In this respect he seemed
a connecting link between Corot and the present-day impressionists.
Michel (1763-1842), Huet (1804-1869), Chintreuil (1814-1873), and
Français (1814-) were all allied in point of view with this group of
landscape painters, and among the late men who have carried out their
beliefs are Cazin,[7] Yon,[8] Damoye, Pointelin, Harpignies and
Pelouse[9] seem a little more inclined to the realistic than the
poetic view, though producing work of much virility and intelligence.
[Footnote 7: Died, 1901.]
[Footnote 8: Died, 1897.]
[Footnote 9: Died, 1890.]
Contemporary and associated with the Fontainebleau painters were a
number of men who won high distinction as
PAINTERS OF ANIMALS: Troyon (1810-1865) was the most prominent among
them. His work shows the same sentiment of light and color as the
Fontainebleau landscapists, and with it there is much keen insight
into animal life. As a technician he was rather hard at first, and he
never was a correct draughtsman, but he had a way of giving the
character of the objects he portrayed which is the very essence of
truth. He did many landscapes with and without cattle. His best pupil
was Van Marcke (1827-1890), who followed his methods but never
possessed the feeling of his master. Jacque (1813-[10]) is also of the
Fontainebleau-Barbizon group, and is justly celebrated for his
paintings and etchings of sheep. The poetry of the school is his, and
technically he is fine in color at times, if often rather dark in
illumination. Like Troyon he knows his subject well, and can show the
nature of sheep with true feeling. Rosa Bonheur (1822-[11]) and her
brother, Auguste Bonheur (1824-1884), have both dealt with animal
life, but never with that fine artistic feeling which would warrant
their popularity. Their work is correct enough, but prosaic and
commonplace in spirit. They do not belong in the same group with
Troyon and Rousseau.
[Footnote 10: Died, 1894.]
[Footnote 11: Died, 1899.]
[Illustration: FIG. 65.--ROUSSEAU, CHARCOAL BURNERS' HUT. FULLER
COLLECTION.]
THE PEASANT PAINTERS: Allied again in feeling and sentiment with the
Fontainebleau landscapists were some celebrated painters of peasant
life, chief among whom stood Millet (1814-1875), of Barbizon. The
pictorial inclination of Millet was early grounded by a study of
Delacroix, the master romanticist, and his work is an expression of
romanticism modified by an individual study of nature and applied to
peasant life. He was peasant born, living and dying at Barbizon,
sympathizing with his class, and painting them with great poetic force
and simplicity. His sentiment sometimes has a literary bias, as in his
far-famed but indifferent Angelus, but usually it is strictly
pictorial and has to do with the beauty of light, air, color, motion,
life, as shown in The Sower or The Gleaners. Technically he was not
strong as a draughtsman or a brushman, but he had a large feeling for
form, great simplicity in line, keen perception of the relations of
light and dark, and at times an excellent color-sense. He was
virtually the discoverer of the peasant as an art subject, and for
this, as for his original point of view and artistic feeling, he is
ranked as one of the foremost artists of the century.
Jules Breton (1827-), though painting little besides the peasantry, is
no Millet follower, for he started painting peasant scenes at about
the same time as Millet. His affinities were with the New-Greeks early
in life, and ever since he has inclined toward the academic in style,
though handling the rustic subject. He is a good technician, except in
his late work; but as an original thinker, as a pictorial poet, he
does not show the intensity or profundity of Millet. The followers of
the Millet-Breton tradition are many. The blue-frocked and sabot-shod
peasantry have appeared in salon and gallery for twenty years and
more, but with not very good results. The imitators, as usual, have
caught at the subject and missed the spirit. Billet and Legros,
contemporaries of Millet, still living, and Lerolle, a man of
present-day note, are perhaps the most considerable of the painters of
rural subjects to-day.
THE SEMI-CLASSICISTS: It must not be inferred that the classic
influence of David and Ingres disappeared from view with the coming of
the romanticists, the Fontainebleau landscapists, and the Barbizon
painters. On the contrary, side by side with these men, and opposed
to them, were the believers in line and academic formulas of the
beautiful. The whole tendency of academic art in France was against
Delacroix, Rousseau, and Millet. During their lives they were regarded
as heretics in art and without the pale of the Academy. Their art,
however, combined with nature study and the realism of Courbet,
succeeded in modifying the severe classicism of Ingres into what has
been called semi-classicism. It consists in the elevated, heroic, or
historical theme, academic form well drawn, some show of bright
colors, smoothness of brush-work, and precision and nicety of detail.
In treatment it attempts the realistic, but in spirit it is usually
stilted, cold, unsympathetic.
Cabanel (1823-1889) and Bouguereau (1825-1905) have both represented
semi-classic art well. They are justly ranked as famous draughtsmen
and good portrait-painters, but their work always has about it the
stamp of the academy machine, a something done to order, knowing and
exact, but lacking in the personal element. It is a weakness of the
academic method that it virtually banishes the individuality of eye
and hand in favor of school formulas. Cabanel and Bouguereau have
painted many incidents of classic and historic story, but with never a
dash of enthusiasm or a suggestion of the great qualities of painting.
Their drawing has been as thorough as could be asked for, but their
colorings have been harsh and their brushes cold and thin.
Gérôme (1824-[12]) is a man of classic training and inclination, but
his versatility hardly allows him to be classified anywhere. He was
first a leader of the New-Greeks, painting delicate mythological
subjects; then a historical painter, showing deaths of Cæsar and the
like; then an Orientalist, giving scenes from Cairo and
Constantinople; then a _genre_ painter, depicting contemporary
subjects in the many lands through which he has travelled. Whatever he
has done shows semi-classic drawing, ethnological and archæological
knowledge, Parisian technic, and exact detail. His travels have not
changed his precise scientific point of view. He is a true academician
at bottom, but a more versatile and cultured painter than either
Cabanel or Bouguereau. He draws well, sometimes uses color well, and
is an excellent painter of textures. A man of great learning in many
departments he is no painter to be sneered at, and yet not a painter
to make the pulse beat faster or to arouse the æsthetic emotions. His
work is impersonal, objective fact, showing a brilliant exterior but
inwardly devoid of feeling.
[Footnote 12: Died, 1904.]
[Illustration: FIG. 66.--MILLET. THE GLEANERS. LOUVRE.]
Paul Baudry (1828-1886), though a disciple of line, was not precisely
a semi-classicist, and perhaps for that reason was superior to any of
the academic painters of his time. He was a follower of the old
masters in Rome more than the _École des Beaux Arts_. His subjects,
aside from many splendid portraits, were almost all classical,
allegorical, or mythological. He was a fine draughtsman, and, what is
more remarkable in conjunction therewith, a fine colorist. He was
hardly a great originator, and had not passion, dramatic force, or
much sentiment, except such as may be found in his delicate coloring
and rhythm of line. Nevertheless he was an artist to be admired for
his purity of purpose and breadth of accomplishment. His chief work is
to be seen in the Opera at Paris. Puvis de Chavannes (1824-[13]) is
quite a different style of painter, and is remarkable for fine
delicate tones of color which hold their place well on wall or
ceiling, and for a certain grandeur of composition. In his desire to
revive the monumental painting of the Renaissance he has met with much
praise and much blame. He is an artist of sincerity and learning, and
as a wall-painter has no superior in contemporary France.
[Footnote 13: Died, 1898.]
Hébert (1817-1908), an early painter of academic tendencies, and
Henner (1829-), fond of form and yet a brushman with an idyllic
feeling for light and color in dark surroundings, are painters who may
come under the semi-classic grouping. Lefebvre (1834-) is probably the
most pronounced in academic methods among the present men, a
draughtsman of ability.
PORTRAIT AND FIGURE PAINTERS: Under this heading may be included those
painters who stand by themselves, showing no positive preference for
either the classic or romantic followings. Bonnat (1833-) has painted
all kinds of subjects--_genre_, figure, and historical pieces--but is
perhaps best known as a portrait-painter. He has done forcible work.
Some of it indeed is astonishing in its realistic modelling--the
accentuation of light and shadow often causing the figures to advance
unnaturally. From this feature and from his detail he has been known for
years as a "realist." His anatomical Christ on the Cross and mural
paintings in the Pantheon are examples. As a portrait-painter he is
acceptable, if at times a little raw in color. Another portrait-painter
of celebrity is Carolus-Duran (1837-). He is rather startling at times
in his portrayal of robes and draperies, has a facility of the brush
that is frequently deceptive, and in color is sometimes vivid. He has
had great success as a teacher, and is, all told, a painter of high
rank. Delaunay (1828-1892) in late years painted little besides
portraits, and was one of the conservatives of French art. Laurens
(1838-) has been more of a historical painter than the others, and has
dealt largely with death scenes. He is often spoken of as "the painter
of the dead," a man of sound training and excellent technical power.
Regnault (1843-1871) was a figure and _genre_ painter with much feeling
for oriental light and color, who unfortunately was killed in battle at
twenty-seven years of age. He was an artist of promise, and has left
several notable canvases. Among the younger men who portray the
historical subject in an elevated style mention should be made of Cormon
(1845-), Benjamin-Constant (1845-[14]), and Rochegrosse. As painters of
portraits Aman-Jean and Carrière[15] have long held rank, and each
succeeding Salon brings new portraitists to the front.
[Footnote 14: Died, 1902.]
[Footnote 15: Died, 1906.]
THE REALISTS: About the time of the appearance of Millet, say 1848,
there also came to the front a man who scorned both classicism and
romanticism, and maintained that the only model and subject of art
should be nature. This man, Courbet (1819-1878), really gave a third
tendency to the art of this century in France, and his influence
undoubtedly had much to do with modifying both the classic and
romantic tendencies. Courbet was a man of arrogant, dogmatic
disposition, and was quite heartily detested during his life, but that
he was a painter of great ability few will deny. His theory was the
abolition of both sentiment and academic law, and the taking of nature
just as it was, with all its beauties and all its deformities. This,
too, was his practice to a certain extent. His art is material, and
yet at times lofty in conception even to the sublime. And while he
believed in realism he did not believe in petty detail, but rather in
the great truths of nature. These he saw with a discerning eye and
portrayed with a masterful brush. He believed in what he saw only, and
had more the observing than the reflective or emotional disposition.
As a technician he was coarse but superbly strong, handling sky,
earth, air, with the ease and power of one well trained in his craft.
His subjects were many--the peasantry of France, landscape, and the
sea holding prominent places--and his influence, though not direct
because he had no pupils of consequence, has been most potent with the
late men.
[Illustration: FIG. 67.--CABANEL. PHÆDRA.]
The young painter of to-day who does things in a "realistic" way is
frequently met with in French art. L'hermitte (1844-), Julien Dupré
(1851-), and others have handled the peasant subject with skill, after
the Millet-Courbet initiative; and Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884) excited
a good deal of admiration in his lifetime for the truth and evident
sincerity of his art. Bastien's point of view was realistic enough,
but somewhat material. He never handled the large composition with
success, but in small pieces and in portraits he was quite above
criticism. His following among the young men was considerable, and the
so-called impressionists have ranked him among their disciples or
leaders.
PAINTERS OF MILITARY SCENES, GENRE, ETC.: The art of Meissonier
(1815-1891), while extremely realistic in modern detail, probably
originated from a study of the seventeenth-century Dutchmen like
Terburg and Metsu. It does not portray low life, but rather the
half-aristocratic--the scholar, the cavalier, the gentleman of
leisure. This is done on a small scale with microscopic nicety, and
really more in the historical than the _genre_ spirit. Single figures
and interiors were his preference, but he also painted a cycle of
Napoleonic battle-pictures with much force. There is little or no
sentiment about his work--little more than in that of Gérôme. His
success lay in exact technical accomplishment. He drew well, painted
well, and at times was a superior colorist. His art is more admired by
the public than by the painters; but even the latter do not fail to
praise his skill of hand. He was a great craftsman in the infinitely
little. As a great artist his rank is still open to question.
The _genre_ painting of fashionable life has been carried out by many
followers of Meissonier, whose names need not be mentioned since they
have not improved upon their forerunner. Toulmouche (1829-), Leloir
(1843-1884), Vibert (1840-), Bargue (?-1883), and others, though
somewhat different from Meissonier, belong among those painters of
_genre_ who love detail, costumes, stories, and pretty faces. Among
the painters of military _genre_ mention should be made of De Neuville
(1836-1885), Berne-Bellecour (1838-), Detaille (1848-), and Aimé-Morot
(1850-), all of them painters of merit.
Quite a different style of painting--half figure-piece half
_genre_--is to be found in the work of Ribot (1823-), a strong
painter, remarkable for his apposition of high flesh lights with deep
shadows, after the manner of Ribera, the Spanish painter. Roybet
(1840-) is fond of rich stuffs and tapestries with velvet-clad
characters in interiors, out of which he makes good color effects.
Bonvin (1817-1887) and Mettling have painted the interior with small
figures, copper-kettles, and other still-life that have given
brilliancy to their pictures. As a still-life painter Vollon (1833-)
has never had a superior. His fruits, flowers, armors, even his small
marines and harbor pieces, are painted with one of the surest brushes
of this century. He is called the "painter's painter," and is a man of
great force in handling color, and in large realistic effect. Dantan
and Friant have both produced canvases showing figures in interiors.
A number of excellent _genre_ painters have been claimed by the
impressionists as belonging to their brotherhood. There is little to
warrant the claim, except the adoption to some extent of the modern
ideas of illumination and flat painting. Dagnan-Bouveret (1852-) is
one of these men, a good draughtsman, and a finished clean painter who
by his recent use of high color finds himself occasionally looked upon
as an impressionist. As a matter of fact he is one of the most
conservative of the moderns--a man of feeling and imagination, and a
fine technician. Fantin-Latour (1836-1904) is half romantic, half
allegorical in subject, and in treatment oftentimes designedly vague
and shadowy, more suggestive than realistic. Duez (1843-) and Gervex
(1848-) are perhaps nearer to impressionism in their works than the
others, but they are not at all advance advocates of this latest phase
of art. In addition there are Cottet and Henri Martin.
[Illustration: FIG. 68.--MEISSONIER. NAPOLEON IN 1814.]
THE IMPRESSIONISTS: The name is a misnomer. Every painter is an
impressionist in so far as he records his impressions, and all art is
impressionistic. What Manet (1833-1883), the leader of the original
movement, meant to say was that nature should not be painted as it
actually is, but as it "impresses" the painter. He and his few
followers tried to change the name to Independents, but the original
name has clung to them and been mistakenly fastened to a present band
of landscape painters who are seeking effects of light and air and
should be called luminists if it is necessary for them to be named at
all. Manet was extravagant in method and disposed toward low life for
a subject, which has always militated against his popularity; but he
was a very important man for his technical discoveries regarding the
relations of light and shadow, the flat appearance of nature, the
exact value of color tones. Some of his works, like The Boy with a
Sword and The Toreador Dead, are excellent pieces of painting. The
higher imaginative qualities of art Manet made no great effort at
attaining.
Degas stands quite by himself, strong in effects of motion, especially
with race-horses, fine in color, and a delightful brushman in such
subjects as ballet-girls and scenes from the theatre. Besnard is one
of the best of the present men. He deals with the figure, and is
usually concerned with the problem of harmonizing color under
conflicting lights, such as twilight and lamplight. Béraud and
Raffaelli are exceedingly clever in street scenes and character
pieces; Pissarro[16] handles the peasantry in high color; Brown
(1829-1890), the race-horse, and Renoir, the middle class of social
life. Caillebotte, Roll, Forain, and Miss Cassatt, an American, are
also classed with the impressionists.
[Footnote 16: Died, 1903.]
IMPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: Of recent years there has been a
disposition to change the key of light in landscape painting, to get
nearer the truth of nature in the height of light and in the height of
shadows. In doing this Claude Monet, the present leader of the
movement, has done away with the dark brown or black shadow and
substituted the light-colored shadow, which is nearer the actual truth
of nature. In trying to raise the pitch of light he has not been quite
so successful, though accomplishing something. His method is to use
pure prismatic colors on the principle that color is light in a
decomposed form, and that its proper juxtaposition on canvas will
recompose into pure light again. Hence the use of light shadows and
bright colors. The aim of these modern men is chiefly to gain the
effect of light and air. They do not apparently care for subject,
detail, or composition.
At present their work is in the experimental stage, but from the way
in which it is being accepted and followed by the painters of to-day
we may be sure the movement is of considerable importance. There will
probably be a reaction in favor of more form and solidity than the
present men give, but the high key of light will be retained. There
are so many painters following these modern methods, not only in
France but all over the world, that a list of their names would be
impossible. In France Sisley with Monet are the two important
landscapists. In marines Boudin and Montenard should be mentioned.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: The modern French painters are seen to
advantage in the Louvre, Luxembourg, Pantheon, Sorbonne, and
the municipal galleries of France. Also Metropolitan Museum
New York, Chicago Art Institute, Boston Museum, and many
private collections in France and America. Consult for works
in public or private hands, Champlin and Perkins,
_Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings_, under names of
artists.