single artist of first-rate excellence. All the national talent seems
to have found expression in the sister art of music. We find Handel,
Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and a host of other musical giants, but not
one man of exceptional stature amongst the painters.
Raphael Mengs was undoubtedly the best. Kugler tells us that from his
twelfth year he was set to draw from the finest antiques, and from the
masterpieces of M. Angelo and Raffaelle. He afterward studied color from
Titian, chiaroscuro from Correggio, and so on. In short, he had a most
thorough and systematic art education. He was a painstaking and
intelligent man, and yet, though crammed with knowledge, he failed to
leave a great name. The truth appears to be that he lacked originality
and self-dependence. His pictures, therefore, though almost faultless in
composition and drawing, are somehow cold and unsatisfactory.
Then there is Dietrich, whose peculiar talent lay in the imitation of
other masters. Rembrandt, Ostade, and many other Dutch masters were most
closely imitated by this artist.
Denner, the most minute finisher that ever lived, and Sieboldt the
portrait-painter, who had a smooth, highly polished manner of painting
(not unlike Denner’s), pretty well exhaust the list of popular artists
in Germany.
In the Netherlands, as I have already stated, the race of charming
“genre” and landscape painters died out with the seventeenth century,
but Van Huysum and his followers Roepel and Van Os carried the art of
flower-and fruit-painting to a point which it never reached before.
Many of the Italian painters of this century were very fond of
introducing festoons of flowers in their pictures, and Boucher was
pretty liberal too of Pompadour roses, but these floral accessories were
treated in a decorative fashion, and could not be compared to Van
Huysum’s exquisitely finished and richly colored flower pieces.
To summarize what I have said about eighteenth-century painting, we find
in England a very low level of dull portraiture until Reynolds
revolutionized the art; historical painting altogether absent; incident
painting with only one good representative (Hogarth), and
landscape-painting also with only one (Richard Wilson), unless we count
Crome, Cotman, and Constable as belonging to this century. It will,
however, be observed, that during the latter half of the century, art
was in a continued state of progress. The portraits which satisfied the
public of the early Georges were no longer tolerated. Landscape art was
seriously studied, and even what is called historical painting was
feebly struggling into life.
In France, on the contrary, we find the art barometer falling during the
century, until the fall was rudely arrested by David. Her painters were
incomparably superior to ours in the early part of the century, but the
all-pervading influence of the Vanloos and Bouchers demoralized fatally
the whole school, and prepared the way for the great classical revival.
Art was in a woful plight in Italy, hardly any better in Germany, and
dead or not yet born in other countries. So that the eighteenth century,
or at least the greater part of it, may be described in meteorological
language as a widespread depression. This depression has, however, long
passed away, and it rests with the coming generation of painters to take
care that it should not occur again. We cannot control the weather. When
a telegram is received from New York announcing “a disturbance which
will develop energy” (meaning in plain English that we must look out for
squalls), we cannot avert the coming storm; but when we are threatened
from Paris, Vienna, or Rome, with an epidemic of false or meretricious
art, we _can_ resist the temptation of following, like the sheep of
Panurge, any cracked bell-wether who may happen to be in fashion. Let
every young artist work hard and conscientiously, and when he has
thoroughly learned the technical part of his profession and stored his
mind with knowledge likely to be useful to him, let him determine to
carry out his own ideas, regardless whether they happen to coincide with
the prevailing craze of the day, and I will venture to prophesy that no
such a collapse of art as afflicted the first half of the eighteenth
century will ever occur again.
LECTURE IV.
“DAVID” AND HIS SCHOOL.
In my last lecture I traced the progress or rather the retrogression of
the French school of painting during the eighteenth century. I explained
how, beginning fairly well with such painters as Lebrun, Sebastian,
Bourdon, and Rigaud, the school gradually degenerated, and lost all
traces of the pure and noble style of Poussin and Lesueur. Boucher and
the numerous tribe of the Vanloos deluged the country with a species of
art which, however suitable for decorative purposes in Louis XV
galleries and boudoirs, could not be called historical painting, and the
false sentiment, conventional color, and meretricious style peculiar to
the school (if pardonable in the original founders) became unendurable
in their followers and imitators. It is not surprising, therefore, that
almost simultaneously with the great national Revolution, an art
revolution should also have occurred.
At the time of _our_ great Revolution, when we set the example of
beheading royalty, Cromwell and his Roundheads were antagonistic to all
art (at least to all painting), and no revival was possible. A gloomy
Puritanism would tolerate nothing but dull portraiture. In France,
however, the case was different. Atheism and the worship of the goddess
of Reason, though, of course, antagonistic to religious art, were not
opposed to pagan or classic painting, and in the interval immediately
preceding the establishment of the Empire, art suffered no
discouragement.
On the contrary, every thing was done to enlist the services of the best
painters toward the glorification of the new régime; and as David, the
most able artist of his day, happened to be an enthusiastic student of
the antique, it is not surprising that he acquired unlimited influence
over the school.
Artists (particularly when they are such men as David) do not spring up,
like mushrooms, in a day, and it may surprise some to hear that he was
born as early as 1748, and had therefore reached the mature age of
forty-four when the Revolution broke out. He received his artistic
education in the atelier of Vien. That painter, though not free
altogether from the mannerism of the period, adhered more closely to
nature than did the painters of the Vanloo school.
Vien rose to great eminence under Louis XVI, and held for many years the
directorship of the French Academy at Rome. His pupil, David, having
after three unsuccessful attempts at last obtained the prix de Rome,
accompanied his master, and it was not till his residence in Rome that
he finally and completely emancipated himself from the Vanloo school.
His study from the antique was unremittent. He drew more than he
painted, but the few pictures he executed at this period were the best
he ever did. I know of nothing in the whole range of art more exquisite
in arrangement and drawing than the drapery of the woman in his
“Belisarius.” This and several other excellent pictures were bought by
Louis XVI, and the Count d’Artois, afterward Charles X, so that David in
his best time was any thing but a ferocious revolutionist.
When the terrible time at last came, David appears to have given up his
art, and to have joined the party of Robespierre. His biographer says,
“Il se laissa entrainer,” but there is no doubt that he was a willing
convert, and his name is associated with some of the most atrocious acts
of the Jacobins. It is possible that, having once connected himself with
that sanguinary set, he found he could not draw back, and _must_ be as
cruel and ferocious as his colleagues. It is difficult to believe that a
man who had such an exquisite and refined taste for form (and especially
the human form) should have taken a pleasure in ordering wholesale
executions.
After narrowly escaping the fate of his friend Robespierre, he wisely
returned to art and humanity; nor did he ever afterward take any share
in the political convulsions of his country. He was much patronized by
the first Napoleon, as the huge official pictures at Versailles amply
testify. Official pictures, particularly during the hideous fashions
which marked the Empire, must have been very awkward things to
undertake, and David, with all his good qualities, had not the gift of
color, which alone could enliven and give interest to such subjects as
the crowning of Napoleon and the distribution of the eagles to the
troops.
He had, however, _one_ quality in the highest perfection, and that was
drawing. His monochrome cartoon for the great coronation picture is
really a wonderful production. All the figures are completely nude, and
it is a pity that his pontiffs, princes, and ambassadors could not be
left in the state in which he first drew them from Academy models.
When he came to draw figures in violent action, as in his “Romans and
Sabines” and the “Leonidas,” his drawing becomes rather stiff and
constrained. This, coupled with his disagreeable color, makes these
pictures odious in the sight of most artists, and to none more odious
than to Frenchmen. But even in these works, if individual portions,
heads, arms, and legs, are examined critically, it will be found how
thoroughly masterly the drawing is. There is in his figures no display
of anatomy (which display, by the way, generally indicates _ignorance_
rather than knowledge of anatomy), no ugly realism perpetuating the
bunions and other deformities of his models; and, on the other hand,
none of that fictitious decorative style of drawing which is so
characteristic of Louis XV painters. David was a very great draughtsman,
not exactly in the sense in which M. Angelo is considered a great
draughtsman. He was singularly deficient in imagination, in power of
grouping, and in poetic feeling; but probably no man ever lived who
could paint so good an Academy figure. It may also be said of him, that
he was not only a great master of drawing, but a great drawing-master.
Such a man was sadly wanted after the demoralization of eighteenth
century art; and, notwithstanding the jeers of the modern realists, I
maintain that the pre-eminence of the French historical painters over
those of other nations during the better part of this century is
entirely due to old David and his teaching. Amongst his actual pupils
may be mentioned Girodet, Drouais, Gros, Gérard, and Ingres; but his
influence extended far beyond the walls of his atélier, and it is no
exaggeration to say that the correct and refined though manly style of
drawing inaugurated by David permeated the whole French school.
Of the above-mentioned pupils Drouais was undoubtedly the most
promising. His picture of the “Canaanitish Woman,” which is now at the
Louvre, was his “prix de Rome” work, corresponding to our gold-medal
pictures, and it certainly is a most remarkable work for a young man. It
has very little of the stiff academic manner about it. Moreover, there
is a feeling for color in it which is very rare in the David school.
Unfortunately Drouais died in his twenty-fifth year, and France lost a
man who fairly promised to be one of the greatest painters she ever had.
Gérard followed pretty closely in the footsteps of his master. His
touch, however, was softer, and his color less unpleasant. Moreover, he
abandoned Greek and Roman warriors, and painted a great variety of more
pleasing subjects, from “Cupid and Psyche” down to the “Entry of Henry
IV into Paris.”
Pierre Guérin was another artist of this group, who, although not a
pupil of David, adopted his style completely. Guérin was an excellent
draughtsman, but his taste in composition was theatrical, and in almost
all his pictures his figures have a stagey look, as if they were on the
boards of the Théatre Français, declaiming Racine. His picture of
“Phèdre and Hyppolite” is a good example of this histrionic tendency.
Both Gérard and Guérin were content to emulate not only the fine drawing
of the master, but his false, unpleasant color, and their figures have,
like David’s, rather the appearance of painted statues. Moreover, there
is a degree of effeminacy about such pictures as the “Cupid and Psyche”
of Gérard, and the “Dido and Æneas” of Guérin which we never find in old
David’s work. Neither of these painters appears to me to have in any
way improved on the style of their master, whereas Girodet, Gros, and
Ingres grafted on to the correct drawing of David qualities of their
own.
Girodet emancipated himself completely from the stiff academic attitudes
which David gave to his figures when he wanted to depict action. The
scene from the “Deluge” (which every one who has been to the Louvre must
have seen) is outrageously artificial; nevertheless, supposing it
possible that a family of antediluvians should have performed the
acrobatic feat here depicted, the action in all the figures is perfectly
true. Moreover, there is a freedom and spirit about the attitudes which
we do not find in David’s work.
This picture competed with David’s “Romans and Sabines” for the grand
decennial prize given in 1810, and the judges very justly gave the prize
to Girodet. In the “Endymion” and the “Burial of Atala,” both at the
Louvre, Girodet deserted the David system of coloring and adopted a
color suitable to the subjects, which to my thinking is very impressive
and poetic.
The dead Atala is a most lovely creation, perfect in every way. Indeed,
I consider it to be the _chef-d’œuvre_ of the whole school. Girodet’s
talent for composition was very great. He illustrated Virgil, Anacreon,
Racine, and other poets with exquisite taste and skill. I have seen some
of these illustrations. They are more picturesque than Flaxman’s, and
much more refined in drawing. Girodet was himself a poet of no mean
order, and his translations from the Greek classics proves him to have
been an accomplished scholar.
I should have much liked to have illustrated what I have been saying
about these really great artists with a few engravings from their works.
When I was a student in Paris one might have picked up any number of
them from the portfolios on the quays, but now they are extremely
scarce. The school has long since gone out of fashion in France, and in
England it never was in fashion.
Before proceeding to speak of Gros, Ingres, and Granet, who, although
pupils of David, departed gradually from their master’s style, I should
like to notice two painters, Prudhon and Géricault, whose art was
altogether antagonistic to the stiff classicism of the period.
The former went to Rome in 1782, and, unlike his countrymen, devoted his
time to the study of the old masters instead of adhering to nature and
the antique. There is a pretty and true anecdote connected with this
journey to Rome, which I should like to tell you. Whilst competing for
the prix de Rome, one of his fellow-competitors was taken ill and was
obliged to give up. Prudhon, out of compassion for the poor fellow, who
had overworked himself, left his own picture and finished his rival’s
in such a style that he gained him the prize. The successful candidate
was, however, not to be outdone in generosity, so he told the whole
story to the judges, assuring them that had it not been for Prudhon’s
assistance, his picture would by no means have been the best. Upon
hearing this, the judges revised their decision, and declared Prudhon to
be the victor.
I am not aware whether so much generosity on the one hand, and modesty
on the other, is common amongst prize candidates and gold medallists. I
fancy it is the exception rather than the rule, and this must be my
excuse for relating the story.
Prudhon’s pictures are very inferior to his small drawings. He never was
a thorough draughtsman like his contemporaries, and when he attempted
life-size figures, the form becomes incorrect and very vague. His
favorite masters appear to have been Correggio and Andrea del Sarto, but
he exaggerated their softness until his figures lost all texture and
appeared to be made of cotton wool.
In aiming at breadth, he again overshot the mark. Simplicity is a very
desirable quality, and one which is rarely found in our Academy schools,
but at the same time, when carried to such extremes as in Prudhon’s
“Crucifixion” it degenerates into mannerism. Of his small drawings I
cannot speak too highly. They are greatly admired in France, but little
known in England.
The other eccentric nonconformist to the David tradition, namely,
Géricault, is much better known in England than Prudhon. His famous
picture of the “Medusa Raft” was not liked when first exhibited in
Paris. It was brought over to London, where it was much more
appreciated. On its return to Paris, M. de Forbin, the director of the
national collection, in vain urged the government to purchase it. It was
disliked by Louis XVIII’s ministers, and it took M. de Forbin three
years to persuade them to grant £200 for its purchase. After this it
suddenly rose to great popularity, which went on increasing until my
student days, when it was universally acknowledged to be the
_chef-d’œuvre_ of the modern French school. It is no doubt a fine,
vigorous work, full of action and energy, but my enthusiasm was always
rather cold compared to that of my fellow-students. Its realism appears
to me to lie more in the execution than in the conception. It is too
melodramatic to be true. We admire the technical qualities of the
painting, the vigorous drawing, and the appropriate, if somewhat sombre,
color, but somehow we feel that the _mise en scène_ lacks truth, that
the painter has thought more about displaying his own power than
realizing the dreadful scene he had to depict. Compared with the
artificial, classical works of David, this picture is nature itself; but
measured by the modern standard of pictorial truth, it must be confessed
that it is not quite satisfactory. The sea ought surely in such a
subject to play an important part. We miss altogether the long swell
which always follows a storm, and the helpless condition of a rude raft
as it plunges and rises on the big waves. Géricault’s single wave, which
threatens to break over the raft, is a pasteboard, theatrical one, which
need cause no alarm. To criticise the setting of the sail from a
nautical point of view would be too matter-of-fact; but I cannot help
thinking that if the canvas had been listlessly flapping, and
consequently useless as a sail, the picture would have been truer, and
therefore more touching.
Géricault’s other works in the Louvre are rather gigantic sketches than
pictures. They all evince great power and facility, but the action is
generally unnecessarily violent, and the relative proportion between man
and horse not properly observed. In spite of his faults, Géricault was,
however, a very great artist, and may justly be considered as the
founder of the _école romantique_, which subsequently developed itself
so greatly in France.
We now come to Gros, who, although originally a pupil of David,
abandoned in after-life the style of his master. Gros spent a good deal
of his youth in Italy, and having pleased Buonaparte by a picture
representing the battle of the Bridge of Arcola, the young general
attached him to his staff, and thus fixed the painter’s career.
Every one who has been to Paris knows the gigantic pictures
commemorative of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, the “Pestiferés de
Jaffa,” the “Battaille des Pyramides,” and last, though not least, the
“Battaille d’Aboukir.” This picture may be accepted as the
_chef-d’œuvre_ of that noble style of battle-painting which is
intermediate between the academic manner of David and the thoroughly
naturalistic style of modern battle-painters. The composition of this
picture has always struck me as being most masterly, and I strongly
recommend all students to study the subtle manner in which the lines of
the groups and the masses of light and shade are made to express the
action, quite independent of the individual attitudes. Murat, who is
charging at the head of the French cavalry, looks like the forerunner of
a great wave which is about to break over the unfortunate Turks, and the
whole composition, viewed as a composition, is a masterpiece. The
relative proportions of the figures are not properly observed, but the
spirit and skill displayed are so great that this fault passes almost
unnoticed. I do not wish to underrate the battle-pieces of H. Vernet,
Bellanger, and Raffet, and I admire exceedingly those of De Neuville,
but I must say that the art which could produce on canvas such an epic
poem as this “Battaille d’Aboukir” is of a higher quality; and when we
recollect that the figures are considerably larger than life, our
respect and admiration for old Gros must be proportionately increased.
When considerably past fifty, Gros went to Brussels to visit his old
master, David, who was living there in exile, and for whom he had always
entertained the greatest affection.
Unfortunately for Gros, he allowed himself to be persuaded by the old
man to give up painting modern battles, and to go back to the Greeks and
Romans. A few attempts in this direction, made by Gros on his return to
Paris, were so severely criticised, and greeted with such roars of
laughter, that poor Gros drowned himself from sheer vexation. A
coroner’s jury would have justly returned a verdict of temporary
insanity, for previous to his suicide Gros had shown many symptoms of
mental aberration independent of his egregiously bad pictures.
His rival Ingres survived him for thirty years. This painter (also a
pupil of David) departed from the master’s style, but in quite a
different direction to that taken by Gros. Slow, laborious, and
fastidious, he was a long time before gaining the front rank of French
painters, which, however, when once gained he kept for forty years. He
largely modified the David interpretation of the antique by studying the
works of Raffaelle, and importing into his own much of the simplicity,
dignity, and grace which characterize the best works of the great Roman
painter. He deserves, however, more honor as the founder of a school
than as a great painter. He may be said to have supplemented the
schooling in draughtsmanship which the French artists got under David.
I can name but one _very_ great artist amongst his pupils, namely,
Flandrin, but there is no doubt that his severe and dignified style
influenced, perhaps unconsciously, most of his younger contemporaries.
My own master, P. Delaroche, was eclectic in his art; that is, he
endeavored to unite the spirit and life of Gros with the severe drawing
of Ingres. He was not always very successful in the attempt, but
fortunately he had qualities of his own which will rescue his fame from
the fate which attends that of most eclectic artists.
These qualities were great dramatic power and exquisite taste in the
arrangement of his figures. I can bear witness to the care he bestowed
on composition, never grudging time or labor if he could in any way
improve the action of his figures or the outline of his groups. I have
known him to efface no less than seventeen finished figures during the
progress of his great mural painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts; thus
destroying at least two months’ work, simply because he was dissatisfied
with the grouping.
His atelier was about equally divided between the Ingrests and the
partisans of the _école romantique_, but although a few men of extreme
views would often quarrel over the respective merits of Ingres and
Delacroix, the great majority were much better employed in endeavoring
to draw and paint the model they had before them.