art-training seemed impossible for the young man because the
Meissoniers were poor people. Nevertheless, he was so persevering that
while still a young man he got to Paris and began to paint in the
Louvre. He was but nineteen at that time, and his fate seemed so hard
and bitter that later in life he refused to talk of those days.
He sat for many days in the Louvre, by Daubigny's side, painting
pictures for which we are told he received a dollar a yard. We can
think of nothing more discouraging to a genius than having to paint by
the yard. It is said that his poverty permitted him to sleep only
every other night, because he must work unceasingly, and someone
declares that he lived at one time on ten cents a week. This is a
frightful picture of poverty and distress.
Meissonier's first paying enterprise was the painting of bon-bon boxes
and the decorating of fans, and he tried to sell illustrations for
children's stories, but for these he found no market. A brilliant
compiler of Meissonier's life has written that "his first
illustrations in some unknown journal were scenes from the life of
'The Old Bachelor.' In the first picture he is represented making his
toilet before the mirror, his wig spread out on the table; in the
second, dining with two friends; in the third, on his death-bed,
surrounded by greedy relations and in the fifth, the servants
ransacking the death chamber for the property." This was very likely a
vision of his own possible fate, for Meissonier must have been at that
time a lonely and unhappy man.
There are many stories of his first exhibited work, which Caffin
declares was the "Visit to the Burgomaster," but Mrs. Bolton, who is
almost always correct in her statements, tells us that it was called
"The Visitor," and that it sold for twenty dollars. At the end of a
six years struggle in Paris, his pictures were selling for no more.
Until this artist's time people had been used only to great canvases,
and had grown to look for fine work, only in much space, but here was
an artist who could paint exquisitely a whole interior on a space said
to be no "larger than his thumb nail." His work was called
"microscopic," which meant that he gave great attention to details,
painting very slowly.
During the Italian war of 1859, and in the German war of 1870, this
wonderful artist was on the staff of Napoleon III. During the siege of
Paris he held the rank of colonel, and he lost no chance to learn
details of battles which he might use later, in making great
pictures. Thus he gained the knowledge and inspiration to paint his
picture "Friedland," which was bought by A. T. Stewart and is now in
the Metropolitan Museum. He, himself, wrote of that picture: "I did
not intend to paint a battle--I wanted to paint Napoleon at the zenith
of his glory; I wanted to paint the love, the adoration of the
soldiers for the great captain in whom they had faith, and for whom
they were ready to die.... It seemed to me I did not have colours
sufficiently dazzling. No shade should be on the imperial face.... The
battle already commenced, was necessary to add to the enthusiasm of
the soldiers, and make the subject stand forth, but not to diminish it
by saddening details. All such shadows I have avoided, and presented
nothing but a dismounted cannon, and some growing wheat which should
never ripen.
"This was enough.
"The men and the Emperor are in the presence of each other. The
soldiers cry to him that they are his, and the impressive chief, whose
imperial will directs the masses that move around, salutes his devoted
army. He and they plainly comprehend each other and absolute
confidence is expressed in every face."
This great work was sold at auction for $66,000 and given to the
Metropolitan Museum.
It is said that when he painted the "Retreat from Russia," Meissonier
obtained the coat which Napoleon had worn at the time, and had it
copied, "crease for crease and button for button." He painted the
picture mostly out of doors in midwinter when the ground was covered
with snow, and he writes: "Sometimes I sat at my easel for five or six
hours together, endeavouring to seize the exact aspect of the winter
atmosphere. My servant placed a hot foot-stove under my feet, which he
renewed from time to time, but I used to get half-frozen and terribly
tired."
So attentive was he to truthfulness in detail that he had a wooden
horse made in imitation of the white charger of the Emperor; and
seating himself on this, he studied his own figure in a mirror.
At last this conscientious man was made an officer of the Legion of
Honour, having already become President of the Academy. Edmund About
writes that "to cover M. Meissonier's pictures with gold pieces simply
would be to buy them for nothing; and the practice has now been
established of covering them with bank-notes."
Meissonier seldom painted the figure of a woman in his pictures, but
all of his subjects were wholesome and fine.
One time an admirer said to him "I envy you; you can afford to own as
many Meissonier pictures as you please!"
"Oh no, I can't," the distinguished artist replied. "That would ruin
me. They are a good deal too dear for me."
In his maturity he became very rich, and his homes were dreams of
beauty, filled with rare possessions such as bridles of black leather
once owned by Murat, rare silver designed by the artist himself, great
pictures, and flowers of the rarest description besides valuable dogs
and horses. Yet it was said that "this man who lives in a palace is as
moderate as a soldier on the march. This artist, whose canvases are
valued by the half-million, is as generous as a nabob. He will give to
a charity sale a picture worth the price of a house. Praised as he is
by all he has less conceit in his nature than a wholesale painter."
On the 31st of January in his country house at Poissy, this great man,
whose life reads like a romance, died, after a short illness. His
funeral services were held in the Madeleine, and he was buried at
Poissy, near Versailles, a great military procession following him to
the grave.
PLATE--RETREAT FROM MOSCOW
In the painting of this picture we have already told how every detail
was mastered by actual experience of most of them. Meissonier made
dozens of studies for it--"a horse's head, an uplifted leg, cuirasses,
helmets, models of horses in red wax, etc. He also prepared a
miniature landscape, strewn with white powder resembling snow, with
models of heavy wheels running through it, that he might study the
furrow made in that terrible march home from burning Moscow. All this
work--hard, patient, exacting work."
Some of his other pictures are "The Emperor at Solferino," "Moreau and
His Staff before Hohenlinden," "A Reading at Diderot's" and the "Chess
Players."
XXIX
JEAN FRANÇOIS MILLET
_Fontainebleau-Barbizon School_
1814-1875
_Pupil of Delaroche_
Two great artists painted peasants and little else. One was the artist
of whom we shall speak, and the other was Jules Breton. One was
realistic, the other idealistic. Both did wonderful work, but Millet
painted the peasant, worn, patient steadfast, overwhelmed with toil;
Breton, a peasant full of energy, grace, vitality, and joy.
Millet painted peasants as he knew them, and hardly any one could have
known them better, for he was himself peasant-born. His youth was
hard, and the scenes of his childhood were such as in after life he
became famous by painting. Millet lived in the department of Manche,
in the village of Gruchy, near Cherbourg. Manche juts into the sea, at
the English Channel, and whichever way Millet looked he must have seen
the sea. His old grandmother looked after the household affairs, while
his father and mother worked in the fields and Millet must have seen
them hundreds of times, standing at evening, with bowed heads,
listening to the Angelus bell. He toiled, too, as did other lads in
his position. His grandmother was a religious old woman, and nearly
all the pictures he ever saw in his boyhood were those in the Bible,
which he copied again and again, drawing them upon the stone walls in
white chalk.
The old grandmother watched him, never doubting that her boy would
become an artist. It was she who had named him--François, after her
favourite saint, Francis, and it was she, who, beside the evening
fire, would tell him legends of St. Francis. It was she alone who had
time and strength left, after the day's work, to teach him the little
he learned as a boy and to fix in his mind pictures of home. His
father and mother were worn, like pack-horses, after their day in the
fields. The mother very likely had to hitch herself up with the
donkey, or the big dog, after the fashion of these people, as she
helped draw loads about the field. Who can look for Breton's ideal
stage peasants from Millet who knew the truth as he saw it every day?
Many years after his life in the Gruchy home, Millet painted the
portrait of the grandmother whom he had loved so much that he cried
out: "I wish to paint her soul!" No one could desire a better reward
than such a tribute.
Millet had an uncle who was a priest and he did what he could to give
the boy a start in learning. He taught him to read Virgil and the
Latin Testament; and all his life those two books were Millet's
favourites. Besides drawing pictures on the walls of his home, he drew
them on his sabots. Pity some one did not preserve those old wooden
shoes! He did his share of the farm work, doing his drawing on rainy
days.
When he was about eighteen years old, coming from mass one day, he was
impressed with the figure of an old man going along the road, and
taking some charcoal from his pocket he drew the picture of him on a
stone wall. The villagers passing, at once knew the likeness; they
were pleased and told Millet so. Old Millet, the father, also was
delighted for he, too, had wished to be an artist, but fate had been
against him. Seeing the wonderful things his son could do, he decided
that he should become what he himself had wished to be, and that he
should go to Cherbourg to study.
François set off with his father, carrying a lot of sketches to show,
and upon telling the master in Cherbourg what he wanted and showing
the sketches, he was encouraged to stay and begin study in earnest. So
back the old father went, with the news to the mother and grandmother
and the priest uncle, that François had begun his career. He stayed in
Cherbourg studying till his father died, when he thought it right to
go home and do the work his father had always done. He returned, but
the women-folk would not agree to him staying. "You go back at once,"
said the grandmother, "and stick to your art. We shall manage the
farm." She sewed up in his belt all the money she had saved, and
started him off again, for he had then been studying only two
months. Now he remained till he was twenty-three, a fine, strapping,
broad-shouldered country fellow. He had long fair hair and piercing
dark blue eyes. All the time he was with Delaroche he was dissatisfied
with his work--and with his master's, which seemed to Millet
artificial, untrue. He knew nothing of the classical figures the
master painted and wished him to paint, for his heart and mind were
back in Gruchy among the scenes that bore a meaning for him. He wished
to study elsewhere, and by this time he had done so well that one of
the artists with whom he had studied went to the mayor of Millet's
home town, and begged him to furnish through the town-council money
enough to send Millet to Paris. This was done, and Millet began to
hope.
He was very shy and afraid of seeming awkward and out of place. The
night he got to Paris was snowy, full of confusion and strange things
to him, and an awful loneliness overwhelmed him. The next morning he
set out to find the Louvre, but would not ask his way for fear of
seeming absurd to some one, so that he rambled about alone, looking
for the great gallery till he found it unaided. He spent most of the
days that followed gazing in ecstasy at the pictures.
He liked Angelo, Titian, and Rubens best. He had come to Paris to
enter a studio, but he put off his entrance from day to day, for his
shyness was painful and he feared above all things to be laughed at by
city students. At last one day, he got up enough courage to apply to
Delaroche, whose studio he had decided to enter if he could, as he
liked his work best. The students in that studio were full of
curiosity about the new chap, with his peasant air, his bushy hair and
great frame, so sturdy and awkward. They at once nicknamed him "the
man of the woods," and they nagged at him and laughed at the idea that
he could learn to paint, till one day, exasperated nearly to death, he
shook his fist at them. From that moment he heard no more from them,
for they were certain that if he could not paint he could use his
fists a good deal better than any of them. Delaroche liked the peasant
but did not understand him very well, and Millet was not too fond of
his painting, so after two years he and a friend withdrew from that
studio and set up one for themselves. Thus eight years passed, the
friends living from hand to mouth, doing all sorts of things:
sign-painting, advertisements, and the like; and Millet, in the midst
of his poverty, got married.
He went home, returning to Paris with his wife, and after starving
regularly, he became desperate enough to paint a single picture as he
wished. It seemed at the time the maddest kind of thing to do. Who
would see ugly, toil-worn peasants upon his _salon_ walls? Paris
wanted dainty, aesthetic art, and an Academy artist would have scoffed
at the idea; but the Millets were starving anyway, so why not starve
doing at least what one chose. So Millet painted his first wonderful
peasant picture "The Winnower," and just as the family were starving
he sold it--for $100. He had done at last the right thing, in doing as
he pleased. This was a sign to him that there was after all a place
for truth and emotion in art. But the Millets must change their place
of living, and go to some place where the money made would not at once
be eaten up. Jacque--the friend with whom Millet had set up shop, and
who also became famous, later--advised them to go to a little place he
knew about, which had a name ending in "zon." It was near the forest
of Fontainebleau, he said and they could live there very cheaply, and
it was quiet and decent. The Millets got into a rumbling old cart and
started in search of the place which ended in "zon" near the forest of
Fontainebleau. Jacque had also decided to take his family there and
they all went together. When they got to Fontainebleau they got down
from the car and went a-foot through the forest.
They arrived tired and hungry toward evening, and went to Ganne's Inn,
where there were Rousseau, Diaz, and other artists who like themselves
had come in search of a nice, clean, picturesque place in which to
starve, if they had to. Those who were just sitting down to supper
welcomed the newcomers, for they had been there long enough to form a
colony and fraternity ways. One of these was to take a certain great
pipe from the wall, and ask the newcomer to smoke; and according to
the way he blew his "rings" he was pronounced a "colourist" or
"classicist." The two friends blew the smoke, and at once the other
artists were able to place Jacque. He was a colourist; but what were
they to say about Millet who blew rings after his own fashion.
"Oh, well!" he cried. "Don't trouble about it. Just put me down in a
class of my own!"
"A good answer!" Diaz answered. "And he looks strong and big enough to
hold his own in it!" Thus the newcomers took their places in the life
of Barbizon--the place whose name ended in "zon," and Millet's real
work began. His first wife lived only two years, but he married
again. All this time he was following his conscience in the matter of
his work, and selling almost nothing. In a letter to a friend he tells
how dreadfully poor they are, although his new wife was the most
devoted helpful woman imaginable, known far and near as "Mère Millet."
The artist wrote to Sensier, his friend, who aided him: "I have
received the hundred francs. They came just at the right time. Neither
my wife nor I had tasted food in twenty-four hours. It is a blessing
that the little ones, at any rate, have not been in want."
The revolution of 1848 had come before Millet went to Barbizon, and he
like other men had to go to war. Then the cholera appeared, and these
things interrupted his work; and after such troubles people did not
begin buying pictures at once. Rousseau was famous now, but Millet
lived by the hardest toil until one day he sold the "Woodcutter" to
Rousseau himself, for four hundred francs. Rousseau had been very
poor, and it grieved him to see the trials and want of his friend, so
he pretended that he was buying the picture for an American. That
picture was later sold at the Hartmann sale for 133,000 francs. Millet
was now forty years old, and had not yet been recognised as a
wonderful man by any but his brother artists. He was truly "in a class
of his own." He had learned to love Barbizon, and cried: "Better a
thatched cottage here than a palace in Paris!" and we have the picture
in our minds of Millet followed patiently and lovingly by "Mère
Millet" in the peasant dress which she always wore, that she might be
ready at a moment's notice to pose for his figures. Then there were
his little children and his sunny, simple, fraternal surroundings,
which make his life the most picturesque of all artists.
His paintings had the simplest stories with seldom more than two or
three figures in them. It was said that he needed only a field and a
peasant to make a great picture. When he painted the "Man with the
Hoe," he did it so truthfully, in a way to make the story so well
understood by all who looked upon it, that he was called a
socialist. No one was so much surprised as Millet by that name. "I
never dreamed of being a leader in any cause," he said. "I am a
peasant--only a peasant."
Of his picture "The Reaper" a critic wrote, "He might have reaped the
whole earth." All his pictures were sermons, he called them "epics of
the fields." He pretended to nothing except to present things just as
they were, as he writes in a letter to a friend about "The Water
Carrier:"
In the woman coming from drawing water I have endeavoured that she
shall be neither a water-carrier nor a servant, but the woman who has
just drawn water for the house, the water for her husband's and her
children's soup; that she shall seem to be carrying neither more nor
less than the weight of the full buckets; that beneath the sort of
grimace which is natural on account of the strain on her arms, and the
blinking of her eyes caused by the light, one may see a look of rustic
kindliness on her face. I have always shunned with a kind of horror
everything approaching the sentimental. I have desired on the other
hand, that this woman should perform simply and good-naturedly,
without regarding it as irksome, an act which, like her other
household duties, is one she is accustomed to perform every day of her
life. Also I wanted to make people imagine the freshness of the
fountain, and that its antiquated appearance should make it clear that
many before her had come to draw water from it.
At forty he was in about the same condition as he had been on that
evening ten or twelve years before, when he had entered Barbizon
carrying his two little daughters upon his shoulders, his wife
following with the servant and a basket of food, to settle themselves
down to hardship made sweet by kind comradeship and hope. Now a change
came. Millet painted "The Angelus." He was dreadfully poor at that
time and sold the picture cheaply, but it laid the foundation of his
fame and fortune. He had worked upon the canvas till he said he could
hear the sound of the bell. Although its first purchaser paid very
little for it, it has since been sold for one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars.
At last, having struggled through his worst days, without recognition,
and with nine little children to feed and clothe, he was given the
white cross of the Legion of Honour; and as if to make up for the days
of his starvation, he was nearly feasted to death in Paris. He was
placed upon the hanging committee of the _Salon_, and took a dignified
place among artists. He and Mère Millet travelled a little, but always
he returned to Barbizon, till the war came and he had to move to
Normandy to work. Afterward he returned to Barbizon, to the scenes and
the old friends he loved so well, and there he died. He had come back
ill and tired with the long struggle, and he instructed his friends to
give him a simple funeral. This was done. They carried his coffin,
while his wife and children walked beside him to the cemetery, and he
was buried near the little church of Chailly, whose spire is seen in
"The Angelas," and where Rousseau, whom he loved, had already been
laid.
There in Barbizon, to-day, may be seen Rousseau's cottage and Millet's
studio. "The peasants sow and reap and glean as in the days of Millet;
Troyon's oxen and sheep are still standing in the meadow; Jacque's
poultry are feeding in the barnyard. The leaves on Rousseau's grand
old trees are trembling in the forest; Corot's misty morning is as
fresh and soft as ever; while Diaz's ruddy sunsets still penetrate the
branches; and the peasant pauses daily as the Angelus from the Chailly
church calls him to silent prayer."
PLATE--THE ANGELUS
In "The Angelus" you may see far-off the spire of the church at
Chailly, from which the bell sounds. The day's work is drawing to a
close. The peasant man and woman have been digging potatoes--the man
uncovering them, while his wife has been putting them in the
basket. As the Angelus floats across the fields, the two pause and bow
their heads in prayer. The man has dropped his fork and uncovered his
head, and his wife has clasped her hands devoutly before her.
All the air seems still and full of tender sound and colour, and we,
like Millet, seem "to hear the bell." This is the only picture he
painted which is full of the sentimentality he so much disliked. It is
a great picture, but we need to know the title in order to interpret
it.
Besides this one, Millet painted "The Gleaners," "The Woodcutters,"
"The Sower," "The Man with the Hoe;" "The Water Carrier," "The
Reaper," and many other stories of the peasant poor.
XXX
CLAUDE MONET
(_Pronounced Claude Mo-nay_)
_Impressionist School of France_
1840--
Another--Manet--was the founder of this school among modern painters,
but Monet is always considered his most conspicuous follower.
Monet's remarkable method of putting his colours upon canvas does not
mean impressionism. He is an impressionist but also _Monet_--an artist
with a method entirely different from that of any other. He belongs to
what in France is called the _pointillistes_. The word means nothing
more nor less than an effort to accomplish the impossible. If you
stand a little way from a very hot stove you may be able to see a kind
of movement in the air, a quivering of particles or molecular motion,
and this is what the _pointillistes_ try to show in their
paintings--Monet most of all.
The theory is that by putting little dabs of primitive colours, close
together upon canvas, without mixing them, just separate dabs of red,
yellow, blue, etc., the effect of movement is produced. Needless to
say, none of them ever have produced such an effect, but they have
made such grotesque, ugly pictures that they have attracted attention
even as a humpbacked person does.
The first who painted thus was a Frenchman named Seurat, who tried it
after closely studying experiments made in light and colour by
Professor Rood, of Columbia University. After him came Pissarro, and
then Monet. America also has such a painter, Childe Hassam, but nobody
is so grotesque as Monet.