It is agreeable in many ways to turn from the rounded and complete
impeccability of M. Dubois to the fancy of M. Saint-Marceaux. More than
any of his rivals, M. Saint-Marceaux possesses the charm of
unexpectedness. He is not perhaps to be called an original genius, and
his work will probably leave French sculpture very nearly where it found
it. Indeed, one readily perceives that he is not free from the trammels
of contemporary convention. But how easily he wears them, and if no
"severe pains and birth-throes" accompany the evolution of his
conceptions, how graceful these conceptions are! They are perhaps of the
Canova family; the "Harlequin," for instance, which has had such a
prodigious success, is essentially Milanese sculpture; essentially even
the "Genius Guarding the Secret of the Tomb" is a fantastic rather than
an original work. But how the manner, the treatment, triumphs over the
Canova insipidity! It is not only Milanese sculpture better done, the
execution beautifully sapient and truthful instead of cheaply imitative,
the idea broadly enforced by the details instead of frittered away among
them; it is Milanese sculpture essentially elevated and dignified.
Loosely speaking, the mere _article de vertu_ becomes a true work of
art. And this transformation, or rather this development of a germ of
not too great intrinsic importance, is brought about in the work of
Saint-Marceaux by the presence of an element utterly foreign to the
Canova sculpture and its succession--the element of character. If to the
clever workmanship of the Italians he merely opposed workmanship of a
superior kind as well as quality--thoroughly artistic workmanship, that
is to say--his sculpture would be far less interesting than it is. He
does, indeed, noticeably do this; there is a felicity entirely
delightful, almost magical, in every detail of his work. But when one
compares it with the sculpture of M. Dubois, it is not of this that one
thinks so much as of a certain individual character with which M.
Saint-Marceaux always contrives to endue it. This is not always in its
nature sculptural, it must be admitted, and it approaches perhaps too
near the character of _genre_ to have the enduring interest that purely
sculptural qualities possess. But it is always individual, piquant, and
charming, and in it consists M. Saint-Marceaux's claim upon us as an
artist. No one else, even given his powers of workmanship, that is to
say as perfectly equipped as he, could have treated so thoroughly
conventional a _genre_ subject as the "Harlequin" as he has treated it.
The mask is certainly one of the stock properties of the subject, but
notice how it is used to confer upon the whole work a character of
mysterious witchery. It is as a whole, if you choose, an _article de
Paris_, with the distinction of being seriously treated; the modelling
and the movement admirable as far as they go, but well within the bounds
of that anatomically artistic expression which is the _raison d'être_ of
sculpture and its choice of the human form as its material. But the
character saves it from this category; what one may almost call its
psychological interest redeems its superficial triviality.
M. Saint-Marceaux is always successful in this way. One has only to look
at the eyes of his figures to be convinced how subtle is his art of
expressing character. Here he swings quite clear of all convention and
manifests his genius positively and directly. The unfathomable secret of
the tomb is in the spiritual expression of the guarding genius, and the
elaborately complex movement concentrated upon the urn and directly
inspired by the ephebes of the Sistine ceiling is a mere blind. The same
is true of the portrait heads which within his range M. Saint Marceaux
does better than almost anyone. M. Renan's "Confessions" hardly convey
as distinct a notion of character as his bust exhibited at the Triennial
of 1883. Many of the sculptors' anonymous heads, so to speak, are
hardly less remarkable. Long after the sharp edge of one's interest in
the striking pose of his "Harlequin" and the fine movement and bizarre
features of his "Genius" has worn away, their curious spiritual
interest, the individual _cachet_ of their character, will sustain them.
And so integrally true is this of all the productions of M.
Saint-Marceaux's talent, that it is quite as perceptible in works where
it is not accentuated and emphasized as it is in those of which I have
been speaking; it is a quality that will bear refining, that is even
better indeed in its more subtle manifestations. The figure of the
Luxembourg Gallery, the young Dante reading Virgil, is an example; a
girl's head, the forehead swathed in a turban, first exhibited some
years ago, is another. The charm of these is more penetrating, though
they are by no means either as popular or as "important" works as the
"Genius of the Tomb" or the "Harlequin." In the time to come M.
Saint-Marceaux will probably rely more and more on their quality of
grave and yet alert distinction, and less on striking and eccentric
variations of themes from Michael Angelo like the "Genius," and
illustrations like the "Harlequin" of the artistic potentialities of the
Canova sculpture.
With considerably less force than M. Dubois and decidedly less piquancy
than M. Saint-Marceaux, M. Antonin Mercié has perhaps greater
refinement than either. His outline is a trifle softer, his sentiment
more gracious, more suave. His work is difficult to characterize
satisfactorily, and the fact may of course proceed from its lack of
force, as well as from the well-understood difficulty of translating
into epithets anything so essentially elusive as suavity and grace of
form. At one epoch in any examination of academic French sculpture that
of M. Mercié seems the most interesting; it is so free from exaggeration
of any kind on the one hand, it realizes its idea so satisfactorily on
the other, and this idea is so agreeable, so refined, and at the same
time so dignified. The "David" is an early work now in the Luxembourg
gallery, reproductions of which are very popular, and the reader may
judge how well it justifies these remarks. Being an early work, one
cannot perhaps insist on its originality; in France, a young sculptor
must be original at his peril; his education is so complete, he must
have known and studied the beauties of classic sculpture so thoroughly,
that not to be impressed by them so profoundly as to display his
appreciativeness in his first work is apt to argue a certain
insensitiveness. And every one cannot have creative genius. What a
number of admirable works we should be compelled to forego if creative
genius were demanded of an artist of the present day when the best
minds of the time are occupied with other things than art! One is apt to
forget that in our day the minds that correspond with the artistic
miracles of the Renaissance are absorbed in quite different departments
of effort. M. Mercié's "David" would perhaps never have existed but for
Donatello's. As far as plastic motive is concerned, it may without
injustice be called a variant of that admirable creation, and from every
point of view except that of dramatic grace it is markedly inferior to
its inspiration; as an embodiment of triumphant youth, of the divine
ease with which mere force is overcome, it has only a superficial
resemblance to the original.
But if with M. Mercié "David" was simply a classic theme to be treated,
which is exactly what it of course was not with Donatello, it is
undeniable that he has expressed himself very distinctly in his
treatment. A less sensitive artist would have vulgarized instead of
merely varying the conception, whereas one can easily see in M. Mercié's
handling of it the ease, science, and felicitous movement that have
since expressed themselves more markedly, more positively, but hardly
more unmistakably, in the sculptor's maturer works. Of these the chief
is perhaps the "Gloria Victis," which now decorates the Square
Montholon; and its identity of authorship with the "David" is apparent
in spite of its structural complexity and its far greater importance
both in subject and execution. Its subject is the most inspiring that a
French sculptor since the events of 1870-71 (so lightly considered by
those who only see the theatric side of French character) could treat.
Its general interest, too, is hardly inferior; there is something
generally ennobling in the celebration of the virtues of the brave
defeated that surpasses the commonplace of pæans. M. Mercié was, in this
sense, more fortunate than the sculptor to whom the Berlinese owe the
bronze commemoration of their victory. Perhaps to call his treatment
entirely worthy of the theme, is to forget the import of such works as
the tombs of the Medici Chapel at Florence. There is a region into whose
precincts the dramatic quality penetrates only to play an insufficient
part. But in modern art to do more than merely to keep such truths in
mind, to insist on satisfactory plastic illustrations of them, is not
only to prepare disappointment for one's self, but to risk misjudging
admirable and elevated effort; and to regret the fact that France had
only M. Mercié and not Michael Angelo to celebrate her "Gloria Victis"
is to commit both of these errors. After all, the subjects are
different, and the events of 1870-71 had compensations for France which
the downfall of Florentine liberty was without; so that, indeed, a note
of unmixed melancholy, however lofty its strain, would have been a
discord which M. Mercié has certainly avoided. He has avoided it in
rather a marked way, it is true. His monument is dramatic and stirring
rather than inwardly moving. It is rhetorical rather than truly poetic;
and the admirable quality of its rhetoric, its complete freedom from
vulgar or sentimental alloy--its immense superiority to Anglo-Saxon
rhetoric, in fine--does not conceal the truth that it is rhetoric, that
it is prose and not poetry after all. Mercié's "Gloria Victis" is very
fine; I know nothing so fine in modern sculpture outside of France. But
then there is not very much that is fine at all in modern sculpture
outside of France; and modern French sculpture, and M. Mercié along with
it as one of its most eminent ornaments, have made it impossible to
speak of them in a relative way. The antique and the Renaissance
sculpture alone furnish their fit association, and like the Renaissance
and the antique sculpture they demand a positive and absolute, and not a
comparative criticism.
V
Well, then, speaking thus absolutely and positively, the cardinal defect
of the Institute sculpture--and the refined and distinguished work of M.
Mercié better perhaps than almost any other assists us to see this--is
its over-carefulness for style. This is indeed the explanation of what I
mentioned at the outset as the chief characteristic of this sculpture,
the academic inelasticity, namely, with which it essays to reproduce the
Renaissance romanticism. But for the fondness for style integral in the
French mind and character, it would perceive the contradiction between
this romanticism and any canons except such as are purely intuitive and
indefinable. In comparison with the Renaissance sculptors, the French
academic sculptors of the present day are certainly too exclusive
devotees of Buffon's "order and movement," and too little occupied with
the thought itself--too little individual. In comparison with the
antique, this is less apparent, but I fancy not less real. We are so
accustomed to think of the antique as the pure and simple embodiment of
style, as a sublimation, so to speak of the individual into style
itself, that in this respect we are scarcely fair judges of the antique.
In any case we know very little of it; we can hardly speak of it except
by periods. But it is plain that the Greek is so superior to any
subsequent sculpture in this one respect of style that we rarely think
of its other qualities. Our judgment is inevitably a comparative one,
and inevitably a comparative judgment fixes our attention on the Greek
supremacy of style. Indeed, in looking at the antique the thought
itself is often alien to us, and the order and movement, being more
nearly universal perhaps, are all that occupy us. A family tombstone
lying in the cemetery at Athens, and half buried in the dust which blows
from the Piræus roadway, has more style than M. Mercié's "Quand-Même"
group for Belfort, which has been the subject of innumerable encomiums,
and which has only style and no individuality whatever to commend it.
And the Athenian tombstone was probably furnished to order by the
marble-cutting artist of the period, corresponding to those whose signs
one sees at the entrances of our own large cemeteries. Still we may be
sure that the ordinary Athenian citizen who adjudged prizes between
Æschylus and Sophocles, and to whom Pericles addressed the oration which
only exceptional culture nowadays thoroughly appreciates, found plenty
of individuality in the decoration of the Parthenon, and was perfectly
conscious of the difference between Phidias and his pupils. Even now, if
one takes the pains to think of it, the difference between such works as
the so-called "Genius" of the Vatican and the Athenian marbles, or
between the Niobe group at Florence and the Venus torso at Naples, for
example, seems markedly individual enough, though the element of style
is still to our eyes the most prominent quality in each. Indeed, if one
really reflects upon the subject, it will not seem exaggeration to say
that to anyone who has studied both with any thoroughness it would be
more difficult to individualize the mass of modern French sculpture than
even that of the best Greek epoch--the epoch when style was most
perfect, when its reign was, as it sometimes appears to us, most
absolute. And if we consider the Renaissance sculpture, its complexity
is so great, its individuality is so pronounced, that one is apt to lose
sight of the important part which style really plays in it. In a work by
Donatello we see first of all his thought; in a Madonna of Mino's it is
the idea that charms us; the Delia Robbia frieze at Pistoja is pure
_genre_.
But modern academic French sculpture feels the weight of De Musset's
handicap--it is born too late into a world too old. French art in
general feels this, I think, and painting suffers from it equally with
sculpture. Culture, the Institute, oppress individuality. But whereas
Corot and Millet have triumphed over the Institute there are--there
were, at least, till yesterday--hardly any Millets and Corots of
sculpture whose triumph is as yet assured. The tendency, the weight of
authority, the verdict of criticism, always conservative in France, are
all the other way. At the École des Beaux-Arts one learns, negatively,
not to be ridiculous. This is a great deal; it is more than can be
learned anywhere else nowadays--witness German, Italian, above all
English exhibitions. Positively one learns the importance of style; and
if it were not for academic French sculpture, one would say that this
was something the importance of which could not be exaggerated. But in
academic French sculpture it is exaggerated, and, what is fatal, one
learns to exaggerate it in the schools. The traditions of Houdon are
noticeably forgotten. Not that Houdon's art is not eminently
characterized by style; the "San Bruno" at Rome is in point of style an
antique. But compare his "Voltaire" in the foyer of the Comédie
Française with Chapu's "Berryer" of the Palais de Justice, to take one
of the very finest portrait-statues of the present day. Chapu's statue
is more than irreproachable, it is elevated and noble, it is in the
grand style; but it is plain that its impressiveness is due to the fact
that the subject is conceived as the Orator in general and handled with
almost a single eye to style. The personal interest that accentuates
every detail of the "Voltaire"--the physiognomy, the pose, the right
hand, are marvellously characteristic--simply is not sought for in
Chapu's work. Of this quality there is more in Houdon's bust of Molière,
whom of course Houdon never saw, than in almost any production of the
modern school. Chapu's works, and such exceptions as the heads of Baudry
and Renan already mentioned, apart, one perceives that the modern
school has made too many statues of the République, too many "Ledas" and
"Susannahs" and "Quand-Mêmes" and "Gloria Victis." And its penchant for
Renaissance canons only emphasizes the absolute commonplace of many of
these.
On the other hand, if Houdon's felicitous harmony of style and
individual force are forgotten, there is hardly any recognized
succession to the imaginative freedom, the _verve_, the triumphant
personal fertility of Rude and Carpeaux. At least, such as there is has
not preserved the dignity and in many instances scarcely the decorum of
those splendid artists. Much of the sculpture which figures at the
yearly Salons is, to be sure, the absolute negation of style; its main
characteristic is indeed eccentricity; its main virtues, sincerity
(which in art, of course, is only a very elementary virtue) and good
modelling (which in sculpture is equally elementary). Occasionally in
the midst of this display of fantasticality there is a work of promise
or even of positive interest. The observer who has not a weak side for
the graceful conceits, invariably daintily presented and beautifully
modelled, of M. Moreau-Vauthier for example, must be hard to please;
they are of the very essence of the _article de Paris_, and only
abnormal primness can refuse to recognize the truth that the _article
de Paris_ has its art side. M. Moreau-Vauthier is not perhaps a modern
Cellini; he has certainly never produced anything that could be classed
with the "Perseus" of the Loggia de' Lanzi, or even with the
Fontainebleau "Diana;" but he does more than anyone else to keep alive
the tradition of Florentine preciosity, and about everything he does
there is something delightful.
Still the fantastic has not made much headway in the Institute, and it
is so foreign to the French genius, which never tolerates it after it
has ceased to be novel, that it probably never will. It is a great
tribute to French "catholicity of mind and largeness of temper" that
Carpeaux's "La Danse" remains in its position on the façade of the Grand
Opéra. French sentiment regarding it was doubtless accurately expressed
by the fanatic who tried to ink it indelibly after it was first exposed.
This vandal was right from his point of view--the point of view of
style. Almost the one work of absolute spontaneity among the hundreds
which without and within decorate M. Garnier's edifice, it is thus a
distinct jar in the general harmony; it distinctly mars the "order and
movement" of M. Garnier's thought, which is fundamentally opposed to
spontaneity. But imagine the devotion to style of a _milieu_ in which a
person who would throw ink on a confessedly fine work of art is
actuated by an impersonal dislike of incongruity! Dislike of the
incongruous is almost a French passion, and, like all qualities, it has
its defect, the defect of tolerating the conventional. It is through
this tolerance, for example, that one of the freest of French critics of
art, a true Voltairian, Stendhal, was led actually to find Guido's ideal
of beauty higher than Raphael's, and to miss entirely the grandeur of
Tintoretto. Critical opinion in France has not changed radically since
Stendhal's day.