_Alexandre Calame_ (Swiss: 1810-1864).
This painter is of some interest in the history of painting as
one of the pioneers who discovered for artistic purposes the
picturesqueness of Switzerland. He was born at Vevay, and was
the son--not (as sometimes stated) of a simple mason, but--of
a clever stone-cutter. He was very delicate as a child, and
an accident at school deprived him of the sight of his right
eye. As a youth, Calame obtained employment in a bank at
Geneva. He further aided the narrow resources of his home by
making little Swiss views in colour, which the shopkeepers
took up. Foreigners were glad to bring them away as travelling
memorials, in place of photographs, which did not then exist.
His employer, M. Diodati, noticing young Calame's talent for
art, generously enabled him to obtain instruction. He made
rapid progress, and became headmaster of a drawing-school in
Geneva. In 1837 he began contributing to foreign exhibitions
views of Switzerland, and these won for him a considerable
reputation. He visited England in 1850, and here, as in other
countries, his works found many purchasers. In the South
Kensington Museum there is a large collection of his Swiss
views in water-colour. He was a lithographer and engraver, as
well as a painter, and his plates of Swiss landscapes were at
one time well known. He received commissions from many European
sovereigns, and was visited by all the great personages who
passed through Geneva.
In France, indeed, art-circles were cool towards him. "_Un
Calame, deux Calames, trois Calames--que de calamités_" ran the
phrase every year in the Paris Salon. But in Germany he found
warm admirers and formed several imitators. His lithographed
studies of trees, and his landscapes for copying remained in
use for some decades as a medium of instruction in drawing.
He was a conscientious workman, who finished the whole of
his canvas or paper with equal industry, and his drawing was
correct. But his colouring is insipid, and his atmosphere
somewhat heavy. "By painting he understood the illumination of
drawings, and his drawing was that of an engraver. Sentiment
is replaced by correct manipulation, and in the deep blue
mirror of his Alpine lakes, as in the luminous red of his
Alpine summits, there is always to be seen the illuminator who
has first drawn the contours with a neat pencil and pedantic
correctness" (Muther's _History of Modern Painting_, ii. 322).
Calame's fertility was very great. His note-books contain the
record of 450 finished pictures in oil, 500 studies, and 1200
water-colours (E. Rambert: _Alexandre Calame. Sa vie et son
oeuvre_, Paris, 1884).
The mountain in our picture is the Blumlis Alp: an afternoon effect.