ON THE USEFULNESS OF THE ARTIST
I
The day before the _vernissage_ (varnishing day), I met Auguste Rodin at
the Salon de la Société Nationale in Paris. He was accompanied by two of
his pupils, themselves past-masters: the sculptor Bourdelle, who was
this year exhibiting a fierce Hercules piercing the Stymphalian birds
with his arrows, and Despiau, who models exquisitely clever busts.
All three had stopped before a figure of the god Pan, which Bourdelle
had whimsically carved in the likeness of Rodin, and the creator of the
work was excusing himself for the two small horns which he had set upon
the master’s forehead.
“You had to do it,” Rodin replied, laughing, “because you are
representing Pan. Michael Angelo gave just such horns to his _Moses_.
They are the emblem of omnipotence and omniscience, and I assure you
that I am flattered to have been so favored by your attentions.”
As it was now noon, Rodin invited us all three to lunch with him
somewhere in the neighborhood.
We passed out into the Avenue des Champs Élysées, where beneath the
crude young green of the chestnut-trees the motors and carriages slipped
by in shining files, all the brilliance of Parisian life flashing here
from its brightest and most fascinating setting.
“Where are we going to lunch?” Bourdelle asked, pausing with comical
anxiety. “In the big restaurants about here we shall be waited upon by
solemn men-servants in dress-coats, which I cannot bear. They frighten
me. I advise some quiet little restaurant where the cabbies go.”
[Illustration:
LA FRANCE
By Rodin
Presented to the people of the United States of America by the French
nation for the base of the Champlain Monument at Crown Point
]
“The food is really better there than in these gorgeous places,” Despiau
declared. “Here the food is too sophisticated.”
He had expressed Bourdelle’s secret thought; for Bourdelle, in spite of
his pretended modesty, is a gourmand.
Rodin agreeing, allowed them to lead him to a little eating-house hidden
in a side-street off the Champs Élysées, where we chose a quiet corner
and installed ourselves comfortably.
Despiau, who has a lively disposition, began teasing Bourdelle. “Help
yourself, Bourdelle,” he said, passing him a dish, “though you know you
don’t deserve to be fed, because you are an artist—that is to say, of no
use to any one.”
“I pardon you this impertinence,” Bourdelle answered, “because you take
half for yourself.” He began gayly, but ended in a momentary crisis of
pessimism, as he added: “But I won’t contradict you. It is true that we
are good for nothing. When I think of my father, who was a stonecutter,
I say to myself, ‘His work was necessary to society. He prepared the
building materials for men’s houses.’ I can see him now, good old man,
conscientiously sawing his blocks of freestone, winter and summer, in
the open workshop. His was a rugged type such as we do not see nowadays.
But I—but we—what service do we render to our kind? We are jugglers,
mountebanks, dreamers, who amuse the people in the market-place. They
scarcely deign to take an interest in our efforts. Few people are
capable of understanding them. And I do not know whether we really
deserve their good-will, for the world could very well get on without
us.”
II
It was Rodin who answered. “I do not believe that our friend Bourdelle
means a word of what he says. As for me, my opinion is entirely opposed
to his. I believe that artists are the most useful of men.”
[Illustration:
THE BROKEN LILY
By Rodin
]
Bourdelle laughed. “You are blinded by love of your profession.”
“Not at all, for my opinion rests on very sound reasons, which I will
tell you. But first have some of this wine which the _patron_
recommends. It will put you in a better frame of mind to listen to me.”
When he had poured it out for us, he resumed: “To begin with—have you
reflected that in modern society artists, I mean true artists, are about
the only men who take any pleasure in their work?”
“It is certain that work is all our joy, all our life,” Bourdelle cried,
“but that does not mean that—”
“Wait! It seems to me that what is most lacking in our contemporaries is
love of their profession. They only accomplish their tasks grudgingly.
They would willingly _strike_. It is so from the top to the bottom of
the social ladder. The politician sees in his office only the material
advantages which he can gain from it, and he does not seem to know the
pride which the old statesmen felt in the skilful direction of the
affairs of their country.
“The manufacturer, instead of upholding the honor of his brand, strives
only to make as much money as he can by adulterating his products. The
workman, feeling a more or less legitimate hostility for his employer,
slights his work. Almost all the men of our day seem to regard work as a
frightful necessity, as a cursed drudgery, while it ought to be
considered as our happiness and our excuse for living.
“You must not think that it has always been so. Most of the objects
which remain to us from the old days, furniture, utensils, stuffs, show
a great conscientiousness in those who made them.
“Man likes to work well, quite as much as to work badly. I even believe
that it is more agreeable to him, more natural to him, that he _prefers_
to work well. But he listens sometimes to good, sometimes to bad advice,
and gives preference to the bad.
“And yet, how much happier humanity would be if work, instead of a means
to existence, were its end! But, in order that this marvellous change
may come about, all mankind must follow the example of the artist, or,
better yet, become artists themselves; for the word _artist_, in its
widest acceptation, means to me the _man who takes pleasure in what he
does_. So it would be desirable were there artists in all trades—artist
carpenters, happy in skilfully raising beam and mortice—artist masons,
spreading the plaster with pleasure—artist carters, proud of caring for
their horses and of not running over those in the street. Is it not true
that that would constitute an admirable society?
“You see, then, that artists set an example to the rest of the world
which might be marvellously fruitful.”
“Well argued,” cried Despiau; “I take back what I said, Bourdelle. I
acknowledge that you deserve your food. Do take a little more
asparagus.”
III
“Ah, Master!” I said, “you doubtless have the gift of persuasion. But,
after all, what is the good of proving the usefulness of artists?
Certainly, as you have shown us, their passion for work might set a good
example. But is not the work which they do at the bottom useless, and is
it not that precisely which gives it value in our eyes?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that happily works of art do not count among useful things,
that is to say, amongst those that serve to feed us, to clothe us, to
shelter us—in a word, to satisfy our bodily needs. On the contrary, they
tear us from the slavery of practical life and open before us an
enchanted land of contemplation and of dreams.”
“The point is, my dear friend, that we are usually mistaken in what is
useful and what is not,” Rodin answered. “I admit that we must call
useful all that ministers to the necessities of our material life. But
to-day, besides that, riches are also considered useful, though their
display only arouses vanity and excites envy; these riches are not only
useless, but cumbersome.
[Illustration:
CERES
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
]
“As for me, I call _useful all that gives us happiness_. Well, there is
nothing in the world that makes us happier than contemplation and
dreams. We forget this too much in our day. The man who, with just a
sufficiency, wisely enjoys the numberless wonders which meet his eyes
and mind at every turn—who rejoices in the beauty and vigor of the youth
about him; who sees in the animals, those wonderful living machines, all
their supple and nervous movements and the play of their muscles; who
finds delight in the valleys and upon the hillsides where the spring
spends itself in green and flowery festival, in waves of incense, in the
murmur of bees, in rustling wings and songs of love; who feels an
ecstasy as he watches the silver ripples, which seem to smile as they
chase each other upon the surface of the water; who can, with renewed
enthusiasm, each day watch Apollo, the golden god, disperse the clouds
which Earth wraps closely around her; the man who can find joy in all
this walks the earth a god.
“What mortal is more fortunate than he? And since it is art which
teaches us, which aids us to appreciate these pleasures, who will deny
that it is infinitely useful to us? It is not only a question of
intellectual pleasures, however, but of much more. Art shows man his
_raison d’être_. It reveals to him the meaning of life, it enlightens
him upon his destiny, and consequently points him on his way. When
Titian painted that marvellously aristocratic society, where each person
carries written in his face, imprinted in his gestures and noted in his
costume, the pride of intellect, of authority and of wealth, he set
before the patricians of Venice the ideal which they wished to realize.
When Poussin composed his clear, majestic, orderly landscapes, where
Reason seems to reign; when Puget swelled the muscles of his heroes;
when Watteau sheltered his charming yet melancholy lovers beneath
mysterious shades; when Houdon caused Voltaire to smile, and Diana, the
huntress, to run so lightly; when Rude, in carving the _Marseillaise_,
called old men and children to his country’s aid—these great French
masters polished in turn some of the facets of our national soul; this
one, order; this one, energy; this one, elegance; this one, wit; this
one, heroism; and all, the joy of life and of free action, and they kept
alive in their compatriots the distinctive qualities of our race.
[Illustration:
THE TORN GLOVE
By Titian
]
“Take the greatest artist of our time, Puvis de Chavannes—did he not
strive to shed upon us the serenity to which we all aspire? Are there
not wonderful lessons for us in his sublime landscapes, where holy
Nature seems to cradle upon her bosom a loving, wise, august, simple
humanity? Help for the weak, love of work, self-denial, respect for high
thought, this incomparable genius has expressed it all! It is a
marvellous light upon our epoch. It is enough to look upon one of his
masterpieces, his _Sainte Geneviève_ in the Pantheon, his _Holy Wood_
(_Bois Sacré_) in the Sorbonne, or his magnificent _Homage to Victor
Hugo_ (_Hommage à Victor Hugo_) on the stairway of the Hôtel de Ville in
Paris, to feel oneself capable of noble deeds.
“Artists and thinkers are like lyres, infinitely delicate and sonorous,
whose vibrations, awakened by the circumstances of each epoch, are
prolonged to the ears of all other mortals.
“Without doubt, very fine works of art are appreciated only by a limited
number; and even in galleries and public squares they are looked at only
by a few. But, nevertheless, the thoughts they embody end by filtering
through to the crowd. Below the men of genius there are other artists of
less scope, who borrow and popularize the conceptions of the masters:
writers are influenced by painters, painters by writers; there is a
continual exchange of thought between all the brains of a generation—the
journalists, the popular novelists, the illustrators, the makers of
pictures bring within the reach of the multitude the truths discovered
by the powerful intellects of the day. It is like a spiritual stream,
like a spring pouring forth in many cascades, which finally meet to form
the great moving river which represents the mentality of an era.
[Illustration:
VICTOR HUGO OFFERING HIS LYRE TO THE CITY OF PARIS
By Puvis de Chavannes
]
“And it should not be said, as it is sometimes, that artists only
reflect the feeling of their surroundings. Even this would be much; for
it is well to hold up a mirror in which other men may see themselves,
and so to aid them to self-knowledge. But artists do more. Certainly
they draw largely from the common fund amassed by tradition, but they
also increase this treasure. They are truly inventors and guides.
“In order to convince oneself of this, it is enough to observe that most
of the masters preceded, and sometimes by a long period, the time when
their works won recognition. Poussin painted a number of masterpieces
under Louis XIII. whose regular nobility foretold the character of the
following reign; Watteau, whose nonchalant grace would seem to have
presided over all the reign of Louis XV., did not live under that King,
but under Louis XIV., and died under the Regent; Chardin and Greuze,
who, in celebrating the bourgeois home, would seem to have announced a
democratic society, lived under a monarchy; Prudhon, mystical, sweet and
weary, claimed, in the midst of strident imperial fanfares, the right to
love, to meditate, to dream, and he affirmed it as the forerunner of the
romantics. Nearer to us, Courbet and Millet, under the Second Empire,
pictured the sorrows and the dignity of the people, who since then,
under the Third Republic, have won so preponderant a place in society.
“I do not say that these artists determined these great currents, I only
say that they unconsciously contributed to form them; I say that they
made part of the intellectual élite who created these tendencies. And it
goes without saying that this élite is not composed of artists only, but
also of writers, philosophers, novelists and publicists.
[Illustration:
MOTHER AND BABE
By Rodin
]
“What still further proves that the masters bring new ideas and
tendencies to their generations is that they have often great trouble in
winning acknowledgment for them. They sometimes pass nearly all their
lives in striving against routine. And the more genius they have, the
more chance they run of being long misunderstood. Corot, Courbet,
Millet, Puvis de Chavannes, to cite no more, were not unanimously
acclaimed until the end of their careers.
“It is impossible to do good to mankind with impunity. But, at least,
the masters of art, by their determination to enrich the human soul,
have deserved that their names should be held sacred after their deaths.
“There, my friends, is what I wished to say to you upon the usefulness
of artists.”
IV
I declared that I was convinced.
“I only want to be,” said Bourdelle, “for I adore my work, and my
grumbling was doubtless the effect of a passing mood; or, perhaps,
anxious to hear an apology for my profession, I behaved like a coquette
who complains of being ugly in order to provoke a compliment.”
There was silence for several instants, for we were thinking of what had
been said.
Then, realizing that Rodin had modestly omitted himself in indicating
the influence of the masters, I said: “Master, you have yourself
exercised an influence on your epoch, which will certainly be prolonged
to succeeding generations.
[Illustration:
SISTER AND BROTHER
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts
]
“In emphasizing so strongly the inner truth, you will have aided in the
evolution of our modern life. You have shown the immense value which
each one of us to-day attaches to his thoughts, to his affections, to
his dreams, and often to his wandering passions. You have recorded the
intoxication of love, maiden reveries, the madness of desire, the
ecstasy of meditation, the transports of hope, the crises of dejection.
You have ceaselessly explored the mysterious domain of the individual
conscience, and you have found it ever more vast. You have observed that
in this era upon which we have entered, nothing has more importance for
us than our own feelings, our own intimate personality. You have seen
that each one of us, the man of thought, the man of action, the mother,
the young girl, the lover, places the centre of the universe in his own
soul. And this disposition, of which we were ourselves almost
unconscious, you have revealed to us.
“Following upon Victor Hugo, who, celebrating in his poetry the joys and
the sorrows of private existence, sang the mother rocking the cradle,
the father at the grave of his child, the lover absorbed in happy
memories, you have expressed in sculpture the deepest, most secret
emotions of the soul.
“And there is no doubt but that this powerful wave of individualism
which is passing over the old society will modify it little by little.
There is no doubt but that, thanks to the efforts of the great artists
and the great thinkers, who ask each one of us to consider himself as an
end sufficient unto himself, and to live according to the dictates of
his own heart, humanity will end by sweeping aside all the tyrannies
which still oppress the individual and will suppress the social
inequalities which subject one to another, the poor to the rich, the
woman to the man, the weak to the strong.
“You, yourself, by the sincerity of your art, will have worked towards
the coming of this new order.”
But Rodin answered with a smile:
“Your great friendship accords me too large a place among the champions
of modern thought. It is true, at least, that I have striven to be of
use by formulating as clearly as I could my vision of people and of
things.”
[Illustration:
BUST OF MR. THOMAS FORTUNE RYAN
By Rodin
Photograph reproduced by permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
]
In a moment he went on:
“If I have insisted on our usefulness, and if I still insist upon it, it
is because this consideration alone can recall to us the sympathy which
is our due in the world in which we are living. To-day, every one is
engrossed by self-interest; but I would like to see this practical
society convinced that it is at least as much to its advantage to honor
the artist as to honor the manufacturer and the engineer.”
TRANSLATIONS
Page 37
Ah! proud and traitorous old age!
Why have you so soon brought me low? Why do you hold me so that I cannot
strike and with the stroke end my sorrow?
Pages 38 and 39
When I think wearily on what I was, of what I am, when I see how changed
I am—poor, dried-up, thin—I am enraged! Where is my white forehead—my
golden hair—my beautiful shoulders, all in me made for love? This is the
end of human beauty! These short arms, these thin hands, these humped
shoulders. These breasts—these hips—these limbs—dried and speckled as
sausages!
Pages 44 and 45
Yet one day you will be like this—like this horrible contamination—thou
star of my eyes, thou sun of my nature, oh my angel and my passion! Yes,
such will you be, oh Queen of the Graces, after the last sacraments—when
you are laid under the grass and the flowers, there to crumble among the
bones. Then oh, my beautiful one! tell the worms, when they devour you
with kisses, that in spite of them, in spite of all, I have kept the
form and the divine essence of my love who has perished.
Page 118
Flesh of the woman, ideal clay; oh sublime penetration of the spirit in
the slime; matter, where the soul shines through its shroud; clay, where
one sees the fingers of the divine sculptor; august dust, which draws
kisses, and the heart of man; so holy that one does not know—so entirely
is love the conqueror, so entirely is the soul drawn—whether this
passion is not a divine thought; so holy that one cannot, in the hour
when the senses are on fire, hold beauty without embracing God!
Page 181
We never see but one side of things—the other is plunged in night and
mystery. Man suffers the effect without knowing the cause. All that he
sees is short, useless, and fleeting.
Page 186
As when, in taking flight, the bird bends the branch, so his soul had
bruised his body.
INDEX
_Age d’Airain_, Rodin’s, 65, 67, 71, 73
Andrea del Sarto, 105, 106
Arc de Triomphe, 83
Aristotle, 216
Art, realism in, 25–34;
character in, 37–50;
movement in, 65–89;
drawing and color in, 93–107;
thought in, 151–171;
mystery in, 175–188
Art, modern, Rodin’s views on, 6
Artist, usefulness of, 227–245
_Baiser_, Rodin’s, 186
_Balzac_, Rodin’s, 66, 146, 186
Baptistery, Florence, 40
Barye, 67
Bazire, 135, 138
Beaudelaire, 44
Beauty of women, 113–118
_Belle Heaulmière_, Rodin’s, 37–42
Berthelot, Rodin’s bust of, 146
Biron, l’Hôtel de, 111
_Bois Sacré_, Chavannes’, 238
Bourdelle, 227–242
_Bourgeois de Calais_, Rodin’s, 66, 85, 144, 185
British Museum, 212
Brongniart children, Houdon’s bust of, 122
_Burghers of Calais._ See _Bourgeois de Calais_
Busts, Rodin’s, 134–148, 186
Busts, Rodin’s views on, 121–148
Byron, Lord, 158
Calais, 88
Caliari, 79
Cambodian dancers, 116
_Captives_, Michael Angelo’s, 218
Carpeaux, 67, 159
_Centauress_, Rodin’s, 163
Chantilly, 201
Character in nature, 45
Chardin, 240
_Charles V_, Titian’s, 131
Chavannes, Puvis de, 237, 238, 241;
Rodin’s bust of, 143
_Children of Edward_, Delavigne’s. See _Enfants d’Edouard_
Claude Lorraine, 106
_Cnidian Venus_, 206
Color, Rodin’s views on, 96–107
Color in sculpture, 60
_Commander_, the, 73
_Concert Champêtre_, Giorgione’s, 182
_Confessions_, Rousseau’s, 126
Constant, 58
Corneille, 85
Corot, 166, 179, 241
Correggio, 105, 106
Courbet, 240, 241
_Course d’Epsom_, Gericault’s, 76
Cuyp, 166
Dalou, 140–142;
Rodin’s bust of, 140
_Dance_, Carpeaux’s, 67
Dante, 69
_Daughter of Icarus_, Rodin’s. See _Fille d’Icare_
David, 104
Delacroix, 103, 158
Delaroche, 157
Delavigne, Casimir, 157, 158
Della Robbia. See _Luca della Robbia_
Dépôt des Marbres, 25, 111
Despiau, 227, 229, 233
_Diadumenes_, 212
_Diana_, Houdon’s, 115, 237
_Divine Comedy_, 160
_Don Juan’s Shipwreck_, Delacroix’s. See _Naufrage de Don Juan_
Donatello, 40, 202
Drawing, Rodin’s views on, 93–107
Ducal Palace, Venice, 79
Duomo, the, 221
Dürer, Albrecht, 104, 106
Egyptian sculpture, 180
_Embarkation for the Island of Cythera_, Watteau’s. See _Embarquement_,
etc.
_Embarquement pour Cythère_, Watteau’s, 80, 84
_Enfants d’Edouard_, Delavigne’s, 157
_Epsom Races._ See _Course d’Epsom_
Europa, 79
Falguière, Rodin’s bust of, 145–146
_Fille d’Icare_, Rodin’s, 162
Flesh, the, 56, 57
France, Anatole, 203–207
_Francis I_, Titian’s, 131
Franklin, Houdon’s bust of, 122, 128
Gericault, 76, 77
Ghirlandajo, 202
Giorgione, 182
_Gleaners_, Millet’s, 182
Goethe, 180
Gothic cathedrals, 166
Goujon, Jean, 115, 218
_Graces_, Raphael’s, 201
Greek sculpture, 11, 27, 56, 57, 114, 192–196, 212–218
Greuze, 240
Hanako, 116
Henner, 123
_Hercules_, Bourdelle’s, 227
Hercules, statue of, 205
Holbein, 104, 106
_Holy Wood._ See _Bois Sacré_
_Hommage à Victor Hugo_, Chavannes’, 238
_Homme qui marche_, Rodin’s, 66
Houdon, his busts, 115, 121, 122, 125–129, 147, 148, 237
Houdon, Mme., Houdon’s bust of, 122
Hugo, Victor, 118, 135–138, 181, 243
Hugo, Rodin’s bust of, 135, 136, 137, 138, 156
_Illusion_, Rodin’s, 162
Ingres, 104
_l’Intransigeant_, 135
_Iron Age._ See _Age d’Airain_
Issy, 13
Italians, the modern, 114
_Judgment of Paris_, Watteau’s, 115
Laurens, Jean-Paul, Rodin’s bust of, 144
Literature, its relation to art, 153–161
Louvre, the, 76, 79, 101, 201, 211–223
Luca della Robbia, 178
Lucretius, 207
Luxembourg, Musée du, 41, 65, 140, 144, 161, 187
Lysippus, 199, 205
_Man with the Hoe_, Millet’s, 44
_Maréchal Ney_, Rude’s, 67, 69
Marivaux, 84
_Marseillaise, La_ (newspaper), 135
_Marseillaise_, Rude’s, 67, 83, 84, 85, 237
_Meditation._ See _Penseur_
Meudon, 5, 37, 111, 134, 175
Michael Angelo, 97, 178;
his work expounded by Rodin, 196–202, 218–223
Millet, François, 43, 179, 182, 240, 241
Mirabeau, Houdon’s bust of, 122, 127
Modelling, 53–61, 66
Models, 26
_Moses_, Michael Angelo’s, 228
Movement in art, 65–89
Mystery in art, 175–188
Nature, as seen by Rodin, 30–34, 37–50
_Naufrage de Don Juan_, Delacroix’s, 158
Nude, the, 27
Ovid, 68
Palais Royal, 156
_Pan_, Bourdelle’s, 227
Pantheon, the, 144, 238
Paris, 15, 111, 238
_Parnassus_, 101
Parthenon, the, 183
_Paul III_, Titian’s, 131
_Pensée_, Rodin’s, 161
_Penseur_, Rodin’s, 151–152, 185
Periboëtos, torso of, 213
Phidias, 114, 165, 218, 222;
his work expounded by Rodin, 192–196
_Philip IV_, Velasquez’s, 131
Photographs, instantaneous, 73, 74, 75, 76
_Pietà_, Michael Angelo’s, 222
Pilon, Germain, 218
Pisanello, 131
Polycletus, 199, 212
Pont de l’Alma, 5
Portraits, 123–125, 129–134
Pottery, 99
Poussin, 236, 239
Praxiteles, 199, 206, 213
Prudhon, 240
Puget, 236
_Pygmalion_, Rodin’s, 163, 164
Racine, 45
Raphael, 97, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 200
Realism in art, 25–34
Rembrandt, 101, 102, 103, 105, 106, 107, 167, 168, 187
Robbia, della. See _Luca della Robbia_
Rochefort, Henri, 138, 139
Rochefort, Rodin’s bust of, 138, 139
Rodin, Auguste, his home at Val-Fleury, 5;
at the Dépôt des Marbres, 25;
his method of work, 26-34;
at “l’Hôtel de Biron,” 111;
his religion, 175-177;
his views on modern art, 6;
on nature, 30-34, 37-50;
on modelling, 53-61;
on drawing and color, 93-107;
on beauty of women, 111-118;
on busts and portraits, 121-148;
on thought in art, 151-171;
on mystery in art, 175-188;
on Phidias and Michael Angelo, 191-207, 218-223;
on usefulness of artists, 227-245
Rousseau, Houdon’s bust of, 125
Rousseau, Theodore, 166
Rubens, 98, 105, 106
Rude, 67, 69, 83, 85, 237
Ruysdael, 166
_Sainte Geneviève_, Chavannes’, 238
_Saint George_, 101
_Saint-Jean-Baptiste_, Rodin’s, 65, 67, 71, 72, 73, 74, 185
_Saint John_, Rodin’s. See _Saint-Jean-Baptiste_
_Sainte Magdalene_, Donatello’s, 40
Saint-Pierre, Eustache de, 86, 88
Santisimo Christo, Chapel del, Burgos, 175
Sanzio, 101
Scopas, 199
Sculpture, Egyptian, 180
Sculpture, Greek, 11, 27, 56, 57, 114, 192-196, 212-218
_Sebastian_, Velasquez’s, 43
Shakespeare, 45
Siena, 201
Société des Gens de Lettres, 146
Sorbonne, the, 238
South Kensington, 101
Stained-glass, 98
Thiers, 127
_Three Fates_, 183
Titian, 98, 131, 167, 168
Truth in art, 31, 45
Turner, 106
Ugliness in nature, 42
_Ugolin_, Rodin’s, 159
Val-Fleury, Rodin’s home at, 5
Vatican, the, 101
Velasquez, 43, 105, 106, 131
_Venus, the Cnidian_, 206
_Venus of the Capitol_, 206
_Venus di Medici_, 54, 206
_Venus of Milo_, 213
Veronese, 79, 98
_Victory of Samothrace_, 215
Villain, 136
Villon, 37
Vinci, Leonardo da, 182
Voltaire, Houdon’s bust of, 121, 122, 126, 237
Washington, Houdon’s bust of, 122
Watteau, 80, 81, 85, 115, 237, 240
Women, beauty of, 113-118
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as
printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
4. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.