“ILS PRENNENT LA NATURE ET ILS LA RENDENT, ILS
LA RENDENT VUE À TRAVERS LEURS TEMPÉRAMENTS
PARTICULIERS. CHAQUE ARTISTE VA NOUS DONNER AINSI UN
MONDE DIFFÉRENT, ET J’ACCEPTERAI VOLONTIERS TOUS CES
DIVERS MONDES”
_ZOLA_
JONGKIND and Boudin are the links which connect the Barbizon men of 1830
to the Impressionist group of 1870. Although little public fame came to
them during their lifetime, they had considerable influence upon the
younger landscape-painters of their generation. Both were artists of
great ability as well as of enormous industry; both suffered from
continued misfortune and neglect. Yet no collection illustrating the
history of Impressionism can exclude examples of the Dutch Jongkind, or
of Boudin, a follower of Corot and master of Monet. Jongkind’s pictures
are doubling, nay trebling, in value, and the records of the public
sale-rooms are astounding evidences of the increasing appreciation of
Boudin by modern collectors.
The biographies of Jongkind and Boudin form excellent texts over which
one may moralise upon the uncertainties of art as a career. It is not
often that the Fates compel two men to struggle for so long against such
hopeless and wretched surroundings. The life of Jongkind was a life of
continued misery. Towards its end he utterly gave way, and died a
dipsomaniac. Boudin possessed a little more grit, although his
surroundings were not more propitious. He lived almost unnoticed until a
beneficent Minister awarded him the greatest prize a Frenchman can
receive on this earth, the Cross of the Legion of Honour.
Johann Barthold Jongkind was born at Lathrop, near Rotterdam, in 1819.
Dutch by birth, many years’ residence in France, together with a strong
sympathy with Gallic ways, made him almost a citizen of his adopted
country, and certainly a member of the French School of Painting. At
first he was a pupil of Scheffont, and afterwards he worked under
Isabey. At the Salon of 1852 he obtained a medal of the first class, and
then for years in succession was rejected by the juries. Almost at the
end of his life he was offered the long-coveted decoration, but he was
never a popular artist, nor even well known amongst the art public. A
few amateurs bought his works, his water-colours were lost in old
portfolios, and the exhibition of his pictures previous to the sale
after his death was a revelation alike to painters and critics. His life
was a sad history of neglect, terrible privation, and want. All that we
know of him is that he gave way to alcoholism, dying in Isère in 1891,
alone, friendless, and forgotten.
Jongkind was one of the very first men in France to occupy himself with
the enormous difficulties surrounding the study of atmospheric effects,
the decomposition of luminous rays, the play of reflections, and the
unceasing change crossing over the same natural form during the
different hours of the day. His influence over several of the more
prominent men of the Impressionist group was great. Edouard Manet was
strongly impressed by his methods, and Claude Monet refers to him as a
man of profound genius and originality of character, “le grand peintre.”
In the sale-rooms Jongkind’s water-colours and etchings are now reaching
very high prices, although one cannot agree that they are his most
remarkable creations. Works the artist was content to sell for £4 to £8
now change hands under the hammer at sums ranging from £160 to £800. The
best canvases were painted towards the end of his life, especially those
depicting the luminous atmosphere of the beautiful Dauphiné countryside.
His large landscapes are extremely unequal, somewhat hard and dry in
technique, and more or less stereotyped in the choice of subject. His
pictures do not always convey the true feeling for atmospheric effect,
and many are simply experiments which lack the great quality of charm.
Without a doubt he possessed extraordinary ability, but he lacked the
illuminating spark of genius. He pointed out a way he was not himself
strong enough to follow.
[Illustration:
MOONRISE · J. B. JONGKIND
]
Louis-Eugène Boudin, an old comrade and life-long friend of Jongkind, is
the head of the group of “little masters” who reigned during the
transitional period in French landscape art between 1830 and 1870. He
was born in the Rue Bourdet, Honfleur, on July 12, 1824, and died within
a few miles of his birthplace in 1898. He leaves a magnificent record of
work accomplished, and the memory of a noble life devoted to a beautiful
ideal. Pissarro, in a letter addressed to the writer, says that Boudin
had much influence upon the advancement of the Impressionist idea,
particularly through his studies direct from Nature. His father was a
pilot on board the steamboat _François_ of Havre, a bluff and hearty
sailor, typical of the coast nearly a century ago. A good specimen is to
be found in the burly guardian of the Musée Normand at Honfleur, who, by
a coincidence not altogether strange in this world of coincidences,
travelled round the world with old Boudin, and knew intimately “le petit
Eugène.”
The boy’s mother was stewardess on board the boat her husband piloted,
and the artist commenced life in the humble and not altogether enviable
capacity of cabin-boy. In that position he remained until his fourteenth
year, travelling from French and English ports as far as the Antilles.
At that age an irresistible desire came over his soul. He wished to quit
seafaring life and devote himself to the brush. He had already made many
sketches in bitumen, some having attracted attention from passengers.
Those which have been preserved display wonderful proficiency,
considering the many difficulties the boy had to labour under. Chance
helped the youth; for his father, tiring of his endless struggle with
the elements, retired from his post and opened a little stationery shop
on the Grand Quai at Havre. The cabin-boy became shop-boy.
This new mode of life gave him far greater time to follow his
inclinations. All untaught he applied himself assiduously to
draughtsmanship, painting on the quays, in the streets, devoting Sundays
and fête-days to long excursions amongst the hills round about Havre.
One day Troyon brought a canvas for framing to the elder Boudin’s shop.
In the corner he noticed some curious little pastels of the shipping and
harbour. Eugène made his first artistic friendship. Troyon, who was
living in great poverty, only too pleased to sell a picture for
twenty-five francs, was of great assistance to the lad. Another customer
helped young Boudin. Norman by birth, son of a seaman, Jean-François
Millet met the boy in Havre and was attracted by his evident skill.
Millet was in the same quandary as Troyon; stranded in semi-starvation,
he was executing portraits at thirty francs per head, diligently
canvassing the retired ebony merchants, the harbour officials, the
sailors and their sweethearts. Alphonse Karr and Courbet, whilst
wandering through Normandy, became acquainted with Boudin’s sketches,
and sought out the young artist.
Eugène Boudin’s career was now determined. The advice of friends was
vain. They pointed out that if Corot with his immense talent was unable
to earn an independence at the age of fifty, an untrained shop-boy had
still less chance. No man could tell a more bitter story of the artist’s
life than Millet, and he attempted to persuade the boy to keep to the
shop. All efforts were fruitless. Couture and a few other associates
obtained a small student’s allowance from the Havre Town Council, and
Boudin set out for Paris. The bursary of one pound weekly soon came to
an end, and left the artist without resources or friends. He paid for
his washing with a picture valued at the sum of forty francs. The
laundress immediately sold the work to cover her bill, and the canvas
has recently changed hands for four thousand francs. His “marchand de
vin” exchanged wine for pictures which have lately passed through the
sale-rooms at forty times their original agreed values. By these means,
together with a few portrait commissions, Boudin managed to eke out a
most precarious existence.
From 1856 dates the foundation of the “Ecole Saint Simeon,” (so called
from the rustic inn and farmhouse on the road from Honfleur to
Villerville, halfway up the hill overlooking Havre and the mouth of the
Seine), in which Boudin took a prominent part. In 1857 the artist
exhibited ten pictures at the local Havre exhibition, which he followed
with a sale by auction, his idea being to raise enough money to pay his
expenses back to Paris. Claude Monet had been sending several pressing
letters of invitation, holding out fair prospects of business with
several art dealers. The sale was a complete failure, producing a net
sum of £20. Boudin gave up his hopes of Paris and returned to the
farmhouse of Saint Simeon saddened and discouraged. Roused by “la mère
Toutain,” he opened an academy of painting, and the old inn of Saint
Simeon may be called the cradle of French Impressionism.
For twenty-five years it formed the resting-place, from time to time, of
all the most celebrated men of the group. The list is a long one—Millet,
Troyon, Courbet, Lepine, Diaz, Harpignies, Jongkind, Cals, Isabye,
Daubigny, Monet, and many others. Boudin always regretted that there was
no history written of the place, no record of the scenes which took
place there. One has the same regret over many other famous sketching
grounds and artistic inns in France. What stories can be told of the
joyous life, of the good fellowship, the games and escapades, the
brilliant jokes of many a world-renowned genius in playful mood, happy
little bands of men with the spirit and souls of children!
[Illustration:
RETURN OF THE FISHING SMACKS · EUGENE BOUDIN
]
The hostesses are of a type apart, and no other country but France
produces them in such numbers. “Mères des artistes,” they are full of
pride with their anecdotes of celebrated lodgers. Peasants of the best
class, admired and respected by all who come into contact with them,
they are remembered with affection. The peaceful holidays spent in these
lovely villages represent much of the brighter side of the art-student’s
career, and memories mix with regrets as one recalls a youth spent in
that beloved country of art—la belle France.
Boudin’s academy of painting at the inn was no great success, and he
changed his habitat to Trouville, twenty miles down the coast, at the
invitation of Isabey and the Duc de Morny. They suggested that he should
paint “scènes de plage” of that gay and fashionable watering-place, the
bathers, the frequenters of the Casino and the racecourse, the regattas,
the “landscapes of the sea” as Courbet called them. “It is prodigious,
my dear fellow; truly you are one of the seraphim, for you alone
understand the heavens,” cried Courbet one day in excitement as he
watched Boudin at work. Boudin was at last becoming famous. Alexandre
Dumas addressed him as, “You who are master of the skies, ‘par
excellence,’” and above all came the testimony of Corot, who described
him as “le roi des ciels.”
Unfortunately, the public did not buy Boudin’s pictures, and he remained
in poverty. In 1864 he married, his wife receiving a “dot” of 2000
francs, and a home was made up four flights of rickety stairs in a mean
street in Honfleur, the rental of the garret being thirty-five shillings
per annum. Amongst their visitors the saddest was Jongkind, the man of
failure, a reproach to the blindness of his generation, and a warning to
those who seek fortune by the brush. It was only by the combination of
courage, energy, and robust health that Boudin was able to fight his way
through actual periods of starvation in order to live to see his work
justified by public appreciation.
Four years later the little household was moved to Havre. Boudin was
reduced to such absolute poverty that he was not able to provide himself
with sufficient decent clothing to visit a rich tradesman of the town,
who had commissioned some decorative panels. The commission was lost,
and the fight for bread was keener than before. During the winter
furniture was converted into firewood, and the artist worked as an
ordinary labourer. Boudin hated Paris, but at the urgent solicitation of
artists, who promised him work, he left Havre for the metropolis. Ill
luck still dogged his steps. No sooner had he settled with his wife in
the new quarters than the war broke out with all the unendurable
misfortunes of “l’année terrible” in its train.
Hopes of commissions were at an end, the art colony being scattered far
and wide. Boudin fled first to Deauville, then to Brussels. Crowded with
French refugees, the struggle for life entered its bitterest stage. For
the second time Boudin became a day-labourer. At last, by a most
trifling chance, his wretched position was altered for the better. By
hazard Madame Boudin met a picture-dealer whilst marketing, and his
appreciation and encouragement enabled the artist to return to his
easel. The artist’s progress was, however, extremely slow. Nine years
later he held an auction sale of his pictures, at which four paintings
realised £21. A friend who had joined in the sale was more unfortunate,
for he sold nothing. “You see,” he wrote to Boudin, “that nothing
succeeds with me. I don’t know how it will all finish. What upsets me
most in the midst of all this worry is the fear that I should lose all
love for painting.” This phrase must have represented Boudin’s thoughts
during the long years of disheartening struggle.
In 1881, after twenty-three years of almost annual exhibition in the
Paris Salons, Boudin obtained a medal in the third class. Nowadays this
award is usually made to the young man who exhibits for the first time.
Three years later Boudin received a medal of the second class, which
exempted his work from judgment by the jury, and places its recipient
“hors concours.” He commenced, at the age of fifty, to sell his pictures
more regularly, but at prices extremely low and out of proportion to
their present value. At the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, in 1888, one hundred
canvases by Boudin fetched the grand total of £280. It is difficult to
estimate what sum such a lot would reach at the present day.
The tide had changed, for the Government bought a large painting, _Une
Corvette Russe dans le Bassin de l’Eure au Havre_ for the Luxembourg. In
1889, public honour was marred by the most mournful blow. To his
inconsolable grief his wife died, after twenty-five years of the
happiest companionship. Amongst the letters of sympathy were many
acknowledgments of the artist’s genius, notably from Claude Monet, “in
recognition of the advice which has made me what I am”—a striking and
flattering phrase from the head of the Impressionist group. In this same
year Boudin was awarded the gold medal at the Salon. In 1896 the
Government purchased his _Rade de Villefranche_ for the Luxembourg, and
the old artist received from the hands of Puvis de Chavannes, at the
recommendation of the Minister Léon Bourgeois, the ribbon and cross of
the Legion of Honour.
[Illustration:
THE REPAIRING DOCKS AT DUNKIRK · EUGENE BOUDIN
]
Boudin’s health, weakened by the long privations, had at last broken up.
After several futile journeys he returned to his native Normandy, and,
whilst working at his easel in his châlet near Deauville in 1898, died
almost without warning. By his will he left a rich legacy of pictures to
the gallery of his native town, Honfleur. Over one hundred of Boudin’s
sketches can now be seen in the public gallery of Havre. Boudin’s
connection with modern Impressionism is chiefly the influence generated
by a strong enthusiasm for working “en plein air” and a deep love of
Nature. His dominant colour, almost to the end of his life, was grey—a
grey beautiful in its range and truthful in its effect. Personally
Boudin had the head of an old pilot, with healthy ruddy complexion,
white beard, and keen blue eyes. He spoke slowly in low monotonous
tones, was doggedly tenacious of an idea, had strong artistic
convictions. He was modest to a degree, and when he sought honours they
were for brother artists, never for himself. His highest ambition was
reached when the Town Council of Honfleur named a street “Rue
Eugène-Boudin.” This street, long, narrow, hilly, with many rough places
and occasional pitfalls, typifies the artist’s own life. After his death
the town went further. Aided by M. Gustave Cahen, president of the
“Société des Amis des Arts,” Honfleur erected a fine statue of its
talented son by the jetty, where he had so often painted his favourite
scenes of sea and shipping.
Boudin has left a name which will be honoured in the annals of French
art. He lived a long life, produced many works of which not one falls
below his own high standard. His position, midway between two great
schools, is perhaps one reason why he has not loomed more strongly in
the public appreciation. Upon their merits his pictures cannot easily be
forgotten. When it is remembered that he links Corot to Monet, was in
fact the true master of the latter, it will be seen what an important
niche he occupies in any history devoted to Modern French Impressionism.
From Boudin is an easy step to Cézanne, one of the pioneers of the
movement before 1870. Paul Cézanne and Zola were schoolboys together in
Aix. They left Provence to conquer Paris, and whilst Zola was a clerk in
Hachette’s publishing office Cézanne was working out in his studio the
early theories of Manet, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer. Both
men frequented the Café Guerbois, and there is little doubt that in the
remarkable series of articles contributed to De Villemessant’s paper
“L’Événement,” Zola was assisted by Cézanne, who had introduced the
journalist to the artists he had championed. When the criticisms were
republished in 1866, in a volume entitled “Mes Haines,” Zola dedicated
the book in affectionate terms, “A mon ami Paul Cézanne,” recalling ten
years of friendship. The writer went still further, for the character of
Claude Lantier, hero of “L’Œuvre,” a novel dealing largely with artistic
life and Impressionism, is generally supposed to have been suggested by
the personality of Paul Cézanne.
For years Cézanne seldom exhibited, and his pictures are not known
amongst the public. As to their merits, opinion is curiously divided. He
has painted landscapes, figure compositions, and studies of still-life.
His landscapes are crude and hazy, weak in colour, and many admirers of
Impressionism find them entirely uninteresting. His figure compositions
have been called “clumsy and brutal.” Probably his best work is to be
found in his studies of still-life, yet even in this direction one
cannot help noting that his draughtsmanship is defective. It is probable
that the incorrect drawing of Cézanne is responsible for a reproach
often directed against Impressionists as a body—a general charge of
carelessness in one of the first essentials of artistic technique. Apart
from this defect, Cézanne’s paintings of still-life have a brilliancy of
colour not to be found in his landscapes.
In his student-days this artist had a great admiration for Veronese,
Rubens, and Delacroix, three masters who had some influence upon Manet.
Some of his latter methods showed a strong sympathy with the Primitives.
The modern symbolists are his descendants, and Van Gogh, Emile Bernard,
and Gauguin owe much to his example. Personally he unites a curiously
shy nature with a temperament half-savage, half-cynical. Cézanne’s work
is remarkable for its evident sincerity, and the painter’s aim has been
to attain an absolute truth to nature. These ambitions are the keynotes
of Impressionist art.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
LA ROUTE · PAUL CÉZANNE
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
THE BULLFIGHT · EDOUARD MANET
]