THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_)
Audran had in his studio Andre Watteau, whose very name spells
sophisticated pastorals of exceeding loveliness. Watteau worked with
Audran when he was producing his most inspired set of tapestry, on
which we must dwell for a bit for pure pleasure. This set is called
the _Portieres des Dieux_.
That they were portieres, only door-hangings, is a fact too important
to be slipped by. It denotes one of the greatest changes in tapestries
when the size of a hanging comes down from twenty or thirty feet to
the dimensions of a doorway. It speaks a great change in interiors,
and sets tapestries on a new plane. Later on, they are still further
diminished. But the sadness of noting this change is routed by the
thrills of pleasure given by the exquisite design, colour and weave.
The _Portieres of the Gods_ was, then, a series of eight small
hangings, four typifying the seasons and four the elements, with an
appropriate Olympian forming the central point of interest and the
excuse for an entourage of thrilling and graceful versatility. This
set has been copied so many times that even the most expert must fail
in trying to identify the date of reproduction. Two hundred and thirty
times this set is known to have been reproduced, and such talented
weavers were given the task as Jans and Lefebvre.
[Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY. TIME OF LOUIS XV]
In this exquisite period, which might be called the adolescence of
the style Louis XV, Audran and his collaborators produced another
marvellous and inspired set of portieres. These were executed for the
Grand Dauphin, to decorate his room in the chateau at Meudon, and were
called the _Grotesque Months in Bands_. The most self-sufficient of
pens would falter at a description of design so exquisite, which is
arranged in three panels with a deity in each, a composition of
extraordinary grace above and below them, and a bordering band of
losenge or diaper, on which is set the royal double L and the
significant dolphin who gave his name to kings' sons. The exquisite
art of Audran and of the regence cannot be better seen than in this
set of tapestries which was woven but once at the royal factory,
although repeated many times elsewhere with the border altered,
Audran's being too personal for other chambers than that of the prince
for whom it was composed. Recently copies have been made without
border.
The name of the artist, Charles Coypel, must not be overlooked, for it
was he who composed the celebrated suite of _Don Quixote_.
Twenty-eight pieces composed the series, and they were drawn with that
exquisite combination of romantic scenes and fields of pure decorative
design that characterised the charm of the regence. In the centre of
each piece (small pieces compared to those of Louis XIV) was a scene
like a painting representing an incident from the adventure of the
humorously pathetic Spanish wanderer; and this was surrounded with so
much of refined decoration as to make it appear but a medallion on
the whole surface. This set was so important as to be repeated many
times and occupied the factory of the Gobelins from 1718 to 1794.
Charles Coypel was but twenty when he composed the first design for
this suite. Each year thereafter he added a new design, not supplying
the last one until 1751. But, while all honour is due Coypel, Audran
and Le Maire and their collaborators must be remembered as having
composed the borders, the pure decorative work which expresses the
tender style of transition, the suggestive period of early spring that
later matured into the fulsome Rococo. America is enriched by five of
these exquisite pieces through Mr. Morgan's recent purchase.
But while artists were producing purity in art, those in political
power were, with ever-increasing effect, plunging morals into the mud.
Philippe, the Regent, died, the corrupt Duke of Bourbon took the place
of minister, and poor Louis XV was still but thirteen years old, and
unavoidably influenced by the lives of those around him. Even the
Gobelins was under the hand of the shallow Duke d'Antin. Yet even when
the king matured and became himself a power for corruption, the
artists of the Gobelins reflected only beauty and light. It is to
their credit.
It is an ungrateful task to pick flaws with a period so firmly
enthroned in the affections as that of the regence and the early years
of the reign of Louis XV. The beauties of its pure decoration lead us
into Elysian fields that are but reluctantly left behind. But the
designs and tapestry weavers of that time left us two distinct
classes of production, and to be learned in such matters, the amateur
contemplates both. This second style is ungrateful because it trains
us away from art, delicate and ingenious, and plants us before
enormous woven paintings.
Now it never had been the intention of tapestry to replace painting.
Whenever it leaned that way a deterioration was evident. It was by the
lure of this fallacy that Brussels lost her pre-eminence. It was
through this that the number of tones was increased from the twenty or
more of Arras to the twenty thousand of the Gobelins. It was through
this that the true mission of tapestry was lost, which was the mission
of supplying a soft, undulating lining to the habitat of man, and
flashes of colour for his pageants.
Under Louis XIV the pictures came thick and fast, as we have seen, but
in deep-toned, simple colour-scheme. Now, with the De Cottes as
directors at the Gobelins, and with a new reign begun, more pictures
were called for.
The splendid _History of the King_ of Louis XIV could not be
forgotten; the history of his successor must be similarly represented,
and what could this be but a series of woven paintings. The flower of
the time was an exquisitely complicated decoration on a small scale.
The larger expression was not spontaneous.
Louis XV, poor boy, was not old enough to have had many events outside
the nursery, so it took imagination--perhaps that of the elegant
profligate, Duke d'Antin--to suggest an occasion of appropriate
splendour and significance. The official reception of the Turkish
ambassador in 1721 was the subject chosen, and under the direction of
Charles Parrocel became a superb work, full of court magnificence of
the day and a valuable portrayal to us of the boyhood of the king.
The same type of big picture was continued in the series of _Hunts of
Louis XV_, lovely forest scenes wherein much unsportsmanlike elegance
displays itself in the persons of noble courtiers. The Duc d'Antin
favoured these and they were reproduced until 1745.
It is probable that the Bible fell into neglect in those days, too
heavy a volume for pointed, perfumed fingers accustomed to no books at
all. Bossuet, Voltaire, were they not obliged to set to the sonorous
music of their voices the reforming and satirical attacks on manners
and morals of the aristocrats at a time when books lay all unread? But
at the Gobelins ateliers the Bible, wiped clean of dust, was much
consulted for inspiration in cartoons. Charles Coypel dipped into the
Old Testament, and Jouvenet into the New, with the result of several
suites of tapestries of great elegance--all of which might much better
have been painted on canvas and framed.
Charles Coypel, the talented member of a talented family of painters,
also made popular the heroine _Armide_, who seemed almost to come of
the Bible, since Tasso had set her in his Christian _Jerusalem
Delivered_. The seductive palace and entrancing gardens where Renaud
was kept a prisoner, gave opportunity for fine drawing in this set.
[Illustration: HUNTS OF LOUIS XV
Gobelins, G. Audran after Cartoon by Oudry]
[Illustration: ESTHER AND AHASUERUS SERIES
Gobelins, about 1730. Cartoon by J. F. de Troy; G. Audran, weaver]
The Iliad of Homer came in for its share of consideration at the hands
of Antoine and Charles Coypel, who made of it a set of five scenes. It
was Romanelli, the Italian, who painted a similar set, a hundred
years before, for Cardinal Barberini, which set came to America in the
Ffoulke collection. After the death, in 1730, of the Duke d'Antin,
that interesting son of Madame de Montespan, several directors had the
management of the Gobelins in hand, the Count of Vignory and the Count
of Angivillier being the most important prior to the Revolution. These
were men who held the purse-strings of the state, and could thereby
foster or crush a state institution, but the direction of the Gobelins
itself, as a factory, was in the hands of architects, beginning with
the able De Cotte. As the factory had many ateliers, these were each
directed by painters, among whom appear such interesting men of talent
as Oudry, Boucher, Halle.
Although d'Antin was dead when it commenced, he is accredited with
having inspired and ordered the important hanging known as the
_History of Esther_. (Plate facing page 131.) The first piece, from
cartoons by Jean Francois de Troy, was sent to the weavers in 1737,
and the last piece, which was painted in Rome, was finished in 1742.
This set shows as ably as any can, the magnificent style of production
of the period. It had from the beginning an immense popularity and was
copied many times. Even now it is a favourite subject for those whose
perverted taste leads them into the dubious art of copying tapestry in
paints on cloth.
The serious accusation against this set, which in composition seems
much like the tableaux in grand opera, is that it invades the art of
painting. And that is the fault of woven art at that period. The
decline in tapestry in Paris began when both weavers and painters
struggled for the same results, the weavers quite forgetting the
strength and beauty that were peculiar to their art alone.
This fault cannot be laid to the weavers only, who numbered such men
as Neilson the able Scot, and Cozette, who, with wondrous touch, wove
the set of _Don Quixote_; nor were the artists at fault, for they
included such men as Audran and Boucher. No, it was the director who
blighted and subverted talent, and the vitiated public taste that
shifted restlessly and demanded novelty. The novelty that came in
large hangings was a suppressing of the delicate subjects that delight
the imagination by their playful grace, their association of human
life with all that is gaily exquisite. The mode was for leaving the
land of idealised mythology, for discarding the flowers, the scrolls,
the happy loves and charming crew that lived among them, and for
plunging into Roman history, real and ugly, enwrapped in drapings too
full, cumbered with forced accessory, or into such mythology as is
represented in _Cupid and Psyche_. (Plate facing page 132.)
The _History of Esther_ illustrates the loss of imagination sustained
by the border which had come to be a mere woven imitation, in shades
of brown and yellow, of a carved and gilded, wooden frame. At the
close of the reign of Louis XV, borders were frankly abandoned
altogether. Compare this state of things with the days when Audran and
Coypel were producing the sets of _The Seasons_, _The Months_, and
_Don Quixote_. It is aridness compared to talented invention.
[Illustration: CUPID AND PSYCHE
Gobelins Tapestry. Eighteenth Century. Design by Coypel]
[Illustration: PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE OF RUSSIA
Gobelins under Louis XVI.]
The top note of the imitation of painting was struck when the Gobelins
set the task of becoming a portrait maker. (Plate facing page 133.)
The work was done, it was bound to be, as royalty backed the demand.
Portraits were woven of Louis XV (to be seen now at Versailles), and
his queen, of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and others less well
known. A better scheme for limiting the talent of the weaver could not
have been suggested by his most ingenious enemy. He was a man of
talent or his art had not reached so high, and as such must be
untrammelled; but here was given him a work where personal discretion
was not allowed, where he must copy tone for tone, shade by shade, the
myriad indefinite blendings of the brush.
It is this practice, pursued to its end, that has made of the tapestry
weaver a mere part of a machine, and tapestry-making a lost art, to
remain in obscurity until weavers return to the time before the French
decadence.
The temper of those who hold in their hands the direction of the
people, these are the determining causes of the products of that age.
If d'Angivillier was responsible for displacing a transcendent art
with a false one, if he routed a dainty mythology and its accessories
with the heavy effort and paraphernalia of the Romans, on whom shall
we place the entirely supportable responsibility of diminishing
tapestries from noble draperies down to mere furniture coverings?
The result came happily, with much fluttering of fans, dropping of
handkerchiefs, with powder, patches, intrigues, naughty sports, and a
general necessity for a gay company to divide itself into groups of
four or two--a lady and a cavalier, forsooth--the inevitable man and
maid. In the time of the preceding king, Louis XIV, the court lived in
masses. Life was a pageant, a grand one, moving in slow dignity of
gorgeous crowds, but a pageant on which beat the fierce light of a
throne jealous of its grandeur. No chance was here for sweet escape
and no chance for light communing.
But all that saw a change. The needs of the lighter court and the
lighter people, were for reminders that life is a merry dance in which
partners change often, and sitting-out a figure with one of them is
part of the game.
Perhaps the huge apartments were not to the taste of Regent Philippe,
and certainly they were not convenient to the life of the king when he
came to man's estate. So, down came the ceiling's height, and closer
drew the walls, until the model of the Petit Trianon was reached and
considered the ideal--if that were not indeed the miniature Swiss
Cottage.
What place had an acre of tapestry in these little rooms? How could
yards of undulating colour hang over walls that were already overlaid
with the most exquisite low relief in wood that has ever been carved
this side of the Renaissance in Italy? No place for it whatever. So,
out with it--the fashions have changed.
But there was the furniture. That, too, was smaller than hitherto. But
this was the day of artists skilled in small design, and they must
fill the need.