(1813-1882)
We have few personal details of Charles Blanc. We know that he lived in
a luminous world of form and thought, a life in harmony with his work;
we have books containing his conception of art; we know that art was his
one absorbing passion: and this should satisfy us, for it was his own
opinion that all which does not tend to illustrate an artist's
conception of art is of but secondary importance in his life.
Of Franco-Italian extraction, Charles Blanc was born in Castres, France,
on the 15th of November, 1813. When in 1830 he and his brother Louis,
youths of eighteen and nineteen, came to Paris, their aged father, an
ex-inspector of finance whose career had been ruined by the fall of
Napoleon, was dependent on them for support. Louis soon procured work on
a newspaper; but Charles, whose ambition from his earliest years was to
become a painter, spent his days in the Louvre, or wandering about Paris
looking in the old-print-shop windows, and he thus learned much that he
afterwards developed in his works. As his brother's position improved,
he was enabled to study drawing with Delaroche and engraving with
Calamatta. His masters gave him but little encouragement, however, and
he soon turned his thoughts to literature, his maiden effort being a
description of the Brussels Salon of 1836 for his brother's paper.
Exquisite sensitiveness and responsiveness to beauty eminently fitted
Charles Blanc for the position of art critic, and gave a charm to his
earliest writings. He brought to his new task the technical knowledge of
an artist, and a penetrating critical insight which, aided by study,
ripened rapidly. The evidence of talent afforded by his first art
criticism induced Louis Blanc to confide to him successively the
editorship of several provincial papers. But Charles's inclinations were
toward the calm atmosphere of art; he was, and ever remained,
indifferent to politics, and looked upon the fiery, active Louis with
astonishment, even while catching his energy and ambition. On his return
to Paris he began a history of the 'French Painters of the Nineteenth
Century,' but one volume of which appeared; and the 'Painters of All
Schools,' completed in 1876. Very little was then known of the lives of
the painters. By illustrating each biographical sketch with engravings
of the artists' pictures, Blanc met a long-felt want. As the work was
intended for the general reader, it was not overloaded with erudition:
but numerous anecdotes, combined with vivacity of style, aroused
interest in painting and created a public for the more purely technical
works which followed. Though assisted by others in this undertaking,
Blanc himself planned the method of treatment, and wrote the history of
the Dutch and French schools; and the work justly retains his name.
The Socialists had taken a prominent part in the events of February,
1848, which led to the overthrow of Louis Philippe; and they yielded to
the universal desire by appointing Charles Blanc Director of Fine
Arts--a position which he had prophesied to his friends several years
before that he would one day fill. When he assumed office, the position
of artists was critical; as, owing to social convulsions, government and
private orders had dwindled into insignificance. Thanks to his energy,
work was resumed on public monuments, and the greater part of the sum of
900,000 francs, voted by the National Assembly for the Champs de Mars
festival, was devoted to work which gave employment to a legion of
decorative painters and sculptors. After the Salon of 1848, as the
government coffers were depleted, he obtained 80,000 francs' worth of
Sèvres porcelain from the Minister of Commerce, to give as prizes. He
combated a proposition made by the Committee on Finance to suppress the
Louvre studios of molding; he opposed the motion to reduce the corps of
professors at the School of Fine Arts, and defended the School of Rome,
threatened with suppression.
While Director of Fine Arts, Blanc fought his first and only duel, in
defence of his brother, although he had never fired a pistol in his
life. During the political agitation of 1848, Louis was condemned by the
National Assembly, and fled to London. After his departure, he was
abused in very insulting language by one Lacombe, and Charles called the
latter to account. In the duel which followed, Lacombe was hit, but the
ball struck his pocket-book and glanced off, when Méry, one of the
seconds, exclaimed, "That was money well invested!" and there the
matter ended.
Another event, which occurred several years previous, has a certain
psychological significance. One evening Charles Blanc was visiting a
friend who resided a distance of one hundred and fifty miles from Paris.
In the midst of conversation, he suddenly grew pale and exclaimed that
he had received a shock, adding that something must have happened to
Louis. The next day his fears were confirmed by the receipt of a letter,
telling him that the latter had been knocked down in the streets of
Paris by a blow across the forehead. When Dumas père heard of this
coincidence, he utilized it in his 'Corsican Brothers.'
Notwithstanding his fine record as an administrator and his
encouragement of talent, Blanc was sacrificed to the spirit of reaction
which set in about 1850. His removal displeased the entire art world,
so highly was he esteemed for his integrity, his progressive ideas, and
his unerring taste. On his return to private life he resumed his
'History of the Painters.' 'L'Oeuvres de Rembrandt' (1853 to 1863),
containing also a life of the artist, was illustrated by the first
photographic plates which ever appeared in a book.
The name 'Peintres des Fêtes Galantes' was derived by Blanc from the
title conferred on Watteau by the French Academy. Of the artists therein
mentioned, Watteau occupied the realm of poetry; Lancret that of the
conventional, the fashionable; Pater that of vulgar, jovial reality;
Boucher, the most distinctively French of artists, that of brilliancy,
dash, and vivacity. These painters are a curious study for the historian
interested in the external forms of things.
With the exception of Dupré, Blanc knew all the painters of whom he
writes in the 'Artistes de mon Temps' (Artists of My Time). The work is
therefore replete with personal recollections. Here again the general
interest is deepened by the warm interest which the author takes in the
men and events of the time. There are many charming pages devoted to
Félix Duban, Delacroix, and Calamatta; to the contemporary medallions of
David d'Angers; to Henri Leys, Chenavard, and Troyon; to Corot, the
lover of nature who saw her through a veil of poetry; to Jules Dupré and
Rousseau, who saw the poetry innate in her. He introduces us to the
caricaturists Grandville and Gavarni; to Barye's lifelike animals. On
reading the lives of these men, one is struck by the fact that they
produced their masterpieces at about the age of twenty years.
The 'Treasures of Art in Manchester,' and 'From Paris to Vienna,' were
published in 1857. The latter contained curious information about the
sale of art works during the seventeenth century, with the prices they
brought, and is enlivened with short spirited sketches of artists and
amateurs. In 1867 Blanc became a member of the Academic des Beaux Arts.
The 'Treasures of Curiosity' is a catalogue of pictures and engravings
sold between 1830 and the date of the appearance of the book.
Devoted to purely artistic subjects, the Journal des Beaux Arts, founded
by Blanc, rendered great service to art by spreading a taste for it
among the cultivated classes. The 'Grammar of Painting and Engraving'
first appeared in this periodical. Though given up to a consideration of
technical subjects, the work abounds in poetic touches and has great
interest for the general reader. In 1875 it was discussed in the French
Academy, when its author competed for the chair left vacant by the death
of Vitel. He was not elected until the following year, though his book
met with great success, and led to the revival of engraving in France.
When he began his studies for the life of Ingres, which appeared in
1867, he found many letters of the artist, which enabled him to follow
the latter through the various phases of his life: to know the changes
of his temper, the inflexibility of his character; his emotions day by
day; his momentary discouragements, his great will-power; the heroic
efforts he made to reach the heights; his ideas on art, his opinions of
others as well as himself: and thanks to these documents, he was enabled
to reproduce one of the most remarkable personalities, if not the most
original one, of the French school.
In 1870 he was again made Director of Fine Arts. He introduced several
reforms in the organization of the Salon, and founded a 4,000-franc
prize. But the spirit of reaction could not forgive his political
antecedents; and in 1873, on the fall of Thiers, he was removed before
he could complete his plan for establishing a museum of copies to
reproduce the masterpieces of painting. One well-deserved satisfaction
was granted him in 1878 by the creation of a chair of Æsthetics and Art
History in the College of France, which he was called by special decree
to fill; and there he taught for three years.
The first part of the 'Grammar of the Decorative Arts' appeared in 1881;
the second part, dealing with interior decorations, in 1882. The third
part, 'The Decoration of Cities,' was not completed, owing to his sudden
death. Elected President of the French Academy in 1882, he did not enjoy
this well-deserved honor long. A few weeks before his death--which
occurred on February 17th, 1882, from the effects of an operation for
cancer--he began a catalogue of the collection presented by Thiers to
the Louvre. This was the last work of a pen wielded with unimpaired
vigor to the end.
"The great artist," wrote Blanc, "is he who guides us into the region of
his own thoughts, into the palaces and fields of his own imagination,
and while there, speaks to us the language of the gods;" and to none are
these words more applicable than to himself. In the world of thought he
was a man of great originality, though neither architect, painter, nor
sculptor. He had all the artist nature from a boy, and never lost the
tender sensibility and _naïf_ admiration for the beautiful in nature and
art which give such glow of enthusiasm to his writings. His 'Grammar of
Painting and Engraving' founded the scientific method of criticism. In
this work he brought his intellectual qualifications and extensive
reading to bear upon a subject until then treated either by
philosophical theorizers or eloquent essayists. He has left one of the
purest literary reputations in France. He was above all an idealist, and
made the World Beautiful more accessible to us.
[Illustration: _REMBRANDT AND HIS WIFE_. Photogravure from the original
Painting by Rembrandt. Dresden Gallery.] [Illustration]