Exhibition of Living Artists at the Louvre.--The
Deluge.--Poussin and Martin.--Portraits.--Appearance of the
company.
I have been so little careful about dates and seasons, as totally to
have forgotten, or rather neglected to learn, that the period of our
arriving at Paris was that of the Exhibition of Living Artists at the
Louvre: and it is not easy to describe the feeling produced by
entering the gallery, with the expectation of seeing what I had been
used to see there, and finding what was, at least, so very different.
Nevertheless, the exhibition is a very fine one, and so greatly
superior to any I had heretofore seen of the modern French school,
that we soon had the consolation of finding ourselves amused, and I
may say delighted, notwithstanding our disappointment.
But surely there never was a device hit upon so little likely to
propitiate the feelings which generate applause, as this of covering
up Poussin, Rubens, Raphael, Titian, and Correggio, by hanging before
them the fresh results of modern palettes. It is indeed a most
un-coquettish mode of extorting attention.
There are some pictures of the Louvre Gallery in particular, with
which my children are well acquainted, either by engravings or
description, whose eclipse produced a very sad effect. "The Deluge" of
Poussin is one of these. Perhaps it may have been my brother's
striking description of this picture which made it pre-eminently an
object of interest to us. You may remember that Mr. Milton, in his
elegant and curious little volume on the Fine Arts, written at Paris
just before the breaking up of Napoleon's collection, says in speaking
of it--"Colouring was unquestionably Poussin's least excellence; yet
in this collection there is one of his pictures--the Deluge--in which
the effect produced by the mere colouring is most singular and
powerful. The air is burdened and heavy with water; the earth, where
it is not as yet overwhelmed, seems torn to pieces by its violence:
the very light of heaven is absorbed and lost." I give you this
passage, because I remember no picture described with equal brevity,
yet brought so powerfully before the imagination of the reader.
Can the place where one comes to look for this be favourable for
hanging our illustrious countryman's representation of the same
subject? It is doing him a most ungratifying honour; and were I Mr.
Martin, or any other painter living, I would not consent to be
exposed to the invidious comparisons which must inevitably ensue from
such an injudicious arrangement.
How exceedingly disagreeable, for instance, must it be for the
artists--who, I believe, not unfrequently indulge themselves by
hovering under the incognito of apparent indifference near their
favourite works--to overhear such remarks as those to which I listened
yesterday in that part of the gallery where Le Sueur's St. Brunos
hang!--"Certainly, the bows on that lady's dress are of a delicate
blue," said the critic; "and so is the drapery of Le Sueur, which, for
my sins, I happen to know is hid just under it.... Would one wish a
better contrast to what it hides, than that unmeaning smile--that
cold, smooth, varnished skin,--those lifeless limbs, and the whole
unspeakable tameness of this thing, called _portrait d'une dame_?"
He spoke truly; yet was there but little point in what he said, for it
might have referred with equal justice to many a pretty lady doomed to
simper for ever in her gilded frame.
On the whole, however, portraits are much less oppressively
predominating than with us; and among them are many whose size,
composition, and exquisite style of finishing redeem them altogether
from the odium of being _de trop_ in the collection. I cannot but wish
that this style of portrait-painting may find favour and imitation in
England.
Lawrence is gone; and though Gérard on this side of the water, and
indeed too many to rehearse on both, are left, whose portraitures of
the human face are admirable; true to nature; true to art; true to
expression,--true, even to the want of it; I am greatly inclined to
believe that the enormous sums annually expended on these clever
portraits contribute more to lower than to raise the art in popularity
and in the genuine estimation of the public. The sums thus lavished
may be termed patronage, certainly; but it is patronage that bribes
the artist to the restraint, and often to the destruction, of his
genius.
Is there, in fact, any one who can honestly deny that a splendid
exhibition-room, crowded with ladies and gentlemen on canvass, as
large as life, is a lounge of great tediousness and inanity?
We may feel some satisfaction in recognising at a glance the eyes,
nose, mouth, and chin of many of our friends and acquaintance,--nay,
our most critical judgment may often acknowledge that these familiar
features are registered with equal truth and skill; but this will not
prevent the exhibition from being very dull. Nor is the thing much
mended when each portrait, or pair of portraits, has been withdrawn
from the gaudy throng, and hung up for ever and for ever before the
eyes of their family and friends. The fair lady, sweetly smiling in
one division of the apartment, and the well-dressed gentleman looking
_distingué_ in another, contribute as little at home as they did when
suspended on the walls of the academy to the real pleasure and
amusement of the beholder.
At the exhibition this year at the Louvre are many exquisite
full-length portraits in oil, of which the canvass measures from
eighteen inches to a foot in height, and from a foot to ten inches in
width. The composition and style of these beautiful little pictures
are often such as to detain one long before them, even though one does
not recognise in them the features of an acquaintance. Their
unobtrusive size must prevent their ever being disagreeably
predominant in the decoration of a room; while their delicate and
elaborate finish, and the richness of their highly-studied
composition, will well reward attention; and even the closest
examination, when directed to them, either by politeness, affection,
or connoisseurship, can never be disappointed.
The Catalogue of the exhibition notices all the pictures which have
been either ordered or purchased by the king or any of the royal
family; and the number is so considerable as to show plainly that the
most liberal and widely-extended patronage of art is a systematic
object with the government.
The gold medal of the year has been courteously bestowed upon Mr.
Martin for his picture of the Deluge. Had I been the judge, I should
have awarded it to Stuben's Battle of Waterloo. That the faculty of
imagination is one of the highest requisites for a painter is most
certain; and that Mr. Martin pre-eminently possesses it, not less so.
But imagination, though it can do much, cannot do all; and common
sense is at least equally important in the formation of a finished
artist. The painter of the great day of Waterloo has both. His
imagination has enabled him to dive into the very hearts and souls of
the persons he has depicted. Passion speaks in every line; and common
sense has taught him, that, however powerful--nay, vehement, might be
the expression he sought to produce, it must be obtained rather by the
patient and faithful imitation of Nature than by a bold defiance of
her.
The Assassination of the Duc de Guise, by M. Delaroche, is an
admirable and highly popular work. It requires some patient
perseverance to contest inch by inch the slow approach to the place
where this exquisite piece of finishing is hung--but it well rewards
the time and labour. One or two lovely little pictures by Franquelin
made me envy those who have power to purchase, and sigh to think that
they will probably go into private collections, where I shall never
see them more. There are, indeed, many pictures so very good, that I
think it possible the judges may have relieved themselves from the
embarrassment of declaring which was best, by politely awarding the
palm to the stranger.
I could indulge myself, did I not fear to weary you, by dwelling much
longer upon my agreeable recollections of this extensive
exhibition--containing, by the way, 2,174 pictures,--and might
particularise many very admirable works. Nevertheless, I must repeat,
that thus hiding the precious labours of all schools, and of all ages
of painting, by the promiscuous productions of the living artists of
France during the last year, is a most injudicious device for winning
for them the golden opinions of those who throng from all quarters of
the world to visit the Louvre.
This exhibition reaches to about three-fourths of the gallery; and
where it ceases, a grim curtain, suspended across it, conceals the
precious labours of the Spanish and Italian schools, which occupy the
farther end. Can anything be imagined more tantalising than this? And
where is the living artist who could stand his ground against such
cruel odds?
To render the effect more striking still, this dismal curtain is
permitted so to hang as to leave a few inches between its envious
amplitude and the rich wall--suffering the mellow browns of a
well-known Murillo to meet and mock the eye. Certainly not all the
lecturers of all the academies extant could point out a more effectual
manner of showing the modern French artist wherein he chiefly fails:
let us hope he will profit by it.
As I am writing of Paris, it must be almost superfluous to say that
the admission to this collection is gratis.
I cannot quit the subject without adding a few words respecting the
company, or at least a part of it, whose appearance, I thought, gave
very unequivocal marks of the march of mind and of indecorum;--for a
considerable sprinkling of very particularly greasy citizens and
citizenesses made itself felt and seen at every point where the
critical crowd was thickest. But--
"Sweetest nut hath sourest rind;"
and it were treason here, I suppose, to doubt that such a proportion
of intellect and refinement lies hid under the soiled _blouse_ and
time-worn petticoat, as is at least equal to any that we may hope to
find enveloped in lawn, and lace, and broadcloth.
It is an incontrovertible fact, I think, that when the immortals of
Paris raised the barricades in the streets, they pulled them down,
more or less, in society. But this is an evil which those who look
beyond the present hour for their sources of joy and sorrow need not
deeply lament. Nature herself--at least such as she shows herself,
when man, forsaking the forest, agrees with his fellows to congregate
in cities--Nature herself will take care to set this right again.
"Strength will be lord of imbecility;"
and were all men equal in the morning, they would not go to rest till
some amongst them had been thoroughly made to understand that it was
their lot to strew the couches of the rest. Such is the law of nature;
and mere brute numerical strength will no more enable a mob to set it
aside, than it will enable the ox or the elephant to send us to
plough, or draw out our teeth to make their young one's toys.
For the present moment, however, some of the rubbish that the
commotion of "the Ordonnances" stirred up may still be seen floating
about on the surface; and it is difficult to observe without a smile
in what chiefly consists the liberty which these immortals have so
valiantly bled to acquire. We may truly say of the philosophical
population of Paris, that "they are thankful for small matters;" one
of the most remarkable of their newly-acquired rights being certainly
the privilege of presenting themselves dirty, instead of clean, before
the eyes of their magnates.
[Illustration: Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.
LOUVRE.
London, Published by Richard Bentley, 1835.]
I am sure you must remember in days of yore,--that is to say, before
the last revolution,--how very agreeable a part of the spectacle at
the Louvre and in the Tuileries Gardens was constituted by the
people,--not the ladies and gentlemen--they look pretty much the same
everywhere; but by the careful coquetry of the pretty costumes, now a
_cauchoise_, and now a _toque_,--the spruce neatness of the men who
attended them,--nay, even by the tight and tidy trimness of the "wee
things" that in long waist, silk apron, snow-white cap, and
faultless _chaussure_, trotted beside them. All these added greatly to
the pleasantness and gaiety of the scene. But now, till the fresh dirt
(not the fresh gloss) of the Three Days' labour be worn off, dingy
jackets, uncomely _casquettes_, ragged _blouses_, and ill-favoured
round-eared caps, that look as if they did duty night and day, must
all be tolerated; and in this toleration appears to consist at present
the principal external proof of the increased liberty of the Parisian
mob.