THE GOBELINS FACTORY (_Continued_)
And so it came about that tapestry fell from the walls, shrunk like a
pricked balloon and landed in miniature on chairs, sofas and screens.
How felt the artists about this domesticating of their art? We are not
told of the wry face they made when, with ideals in their souls, they
were set to compose chair-seats for the Pompadour. Her preference was
for Boucher. Perhaps his revenge showed itself by treating the
bourgeoise courtisane to a bit of coarseness now and then, slyly hid
in dainties.
The artist, Louis Tessier, appeased himself by composing for furniture
a design of simple bouquets of flowers thrown on a damask background;
but, with such surety of hand, such elegance, are these ornaments
designed and composed, that he who but runs past them must feel the
power of their exquisite beauty.
In this manufacture of small pieces the Gobelins factory unhappily put
itself on the same footing as Beauvais and much confusion of the
products has since resulted. The dignity of the art was lowered when
the size and purpose of tapestries were reduced to mere furniture
coverings. The age of Louis XV, looked at decoratively, was an age of
miniature, and the reign that followed was the same. When small
chambers came into vogue, furniture diminished to suit them, and not
only were walls too small for tapestries to hang on, but chairs, sofas
and screens offered less space than ever before for woven designs, now
preciously fine in quality and minutiae.
Tapestry weaving now entered the region of fancy-work for the
drawing-room's idle hour, and we see even the king himself, lounging
idly among his favourite companions, working at a tiny loom, his
latest pretty toy. Compare this trifling with the attitude of Henri IV
and Louis XIV toward tapestry weaving, and we have the situation in a
nutshell.
Louis XV passed from the scene, likewise the charming bits of
immorality who danced through his reign. However much we may
disapprove their manner of life, we are ever glad that their taste
sanctioned--more than that--urged, the production of a decorative
style almost unsurpassed. To the artists belong the glory, but times
were such that an artist must die of suppression if those in power
refuse to patronise his art. So we are glad that Antoinette Poisson
appreciated art, and that Jeanne Verbernier made of it a serious
consideration, for, what was liked by La Pompadour and Du Barry must
needs be favoured by the king.
When Louis XVI came to the throne, the return to antiquity for
inspiration had already begun, but did not fully develop until later
on, when David became court painter under Napoleon. Yet the tonic note
of decoration was classic. Designs were still small and details were
from Greek inspiration. As tapestries were still but furniture
coverings, this was not to be regretted, for nothing could be
better suited to small spaces, nor could drawing be more exquisitely
pure and chaste than when copied from Greek detail.
[Illustration: CHAIR OF TAPESTRY. STYLE OF LOUIS XV]
[Illustration: GOBELINS TAPESTRY (DETAIL) CRAMOISEE. STYLE LOUIS XV]
Count d'Angivillier kept the Gobelins factory from all originality,
sanctioned only the small wares for original work, and forced a
slavish copying of paintings for the larger pieces. It is not deniable
that some beautiful hangings were produced, but the sad result is that
pieces of so many tones lose in value year by year, through the
gentle, inexorable touch of time; and, more deplorable yet, the
ambition and the originality of the master-weavers was deprived of its
very life-blood, and in time was utterly atrophied.
In the time of Louis XVI, when Marie Antoinette was in the flower of
her inconsiderate elegance, the note of the day was for art to be
small, but perfect; the worth of a work of art was determined by its
size--in inverse ratio. It was a time lively and intellectual and
frivolous, and its art was the reflection of its desire for
concentrated completeness.
In the reign of Louis XVI ripened, not the art of Louis XIV, but the
political situation whose seeds he had planted. The idea of revolution
which started in the little-considered American colonies, took hold of
the thinkers of France, even to the king of little power. But instead
of being a theory of remedy for important men to discuss, it acted as
a fire-brand thrown among the inflammable, long-oppressed Third
Estate--with results deplorable to the art which occupies our
attention.
The Gobelins was already suffering at the debut of the Revolution.
Its management had been relegated to men more or less incapable; its
art standards had been forced lower and lower. Added to that its
operatives were engaged at lessened rates and often had to whistle for
their pay at that. The contractors asked for nothing better than to be
engaged as masters of ateliers at fixed rates.
Then came the full force of the Revolution with such deplorable and
tragic results for the Gobelins. In the madness of the time the
workers here were not exempt from the terrible call of Robespierre.
The almoner of the factory was arrested, and at the end of two months
not even a record existed of his execution, which took place among the
daily feasts of La Guillotine. A high-warp weaver named Mangelschot
met the same fate. Jean Audran, once contractor for high-warp, then
placed at the head of the factory, was arrested, but escaped with
imprisonment only.
During his absence he was replaced as head by Augustin Belle, whose
respect for the Republic and for his head made him curry favour with
the mob in a manner most deplorable. He caused the destruction by fire
of many and many a superb tapestry at the Gobelins, giving as his
reason that they contained emblems of royalty, reminders of the hated
race of kings. The amateur can almost weep in thinking of this
ruthless waste of beauty.
It was a celebrated bonfire that was built in the courtyard of the
Gobelins when, by order of the Committee on Selection, all things
offensive to an over-sensitive republican irritability were heaped for
the holocaust. As the Gobelins was instituted by a king, patronised by
kings, its works made in the main for palaces and pageants after the
taste of kings, it was only too easy to find tapestries meet for a
fire that had as object the destruction of articles displaying
monarchical power.
During the four horrid years when terror reigned, the workers at the
Gobelins continued under a constant threat of a cessation of work. Not
only was their pay irregular, but it was often given in paper that had
sadly depreciated in value. Then the decision was made to sell certain
valuable tapestries and pay expenses from this source of revenue. But,
alas, in those troublous times, who had heart or purse to acquire
works of art. A whole skin and food to sustain it, were the serious
objects of life.
Under the Directory, funds were scarce in bleeding France, and all
sorts of ways were used to raise them. In the past times when Louis
XIV had by relentless extravagance and wars depleted the purse, he
caused the patiently wrought precious metals to be melted into
bullion. Why not now resort to a similar method? So thought a minister
of one of the Two Chambers, and suggested the burning of certain
tapestries of the royal collection in order that the gold and silver
used in their weaving might be converted into metal.
Sixty pieces, the most superb specimens of a king's collection, were
transported to the court of La Monnaie, and there burned to the last
thread the wondrous work of hundreds of talented artists and artisans.
The very smoke must have rolled out in pictures. The money gained was
considerable, 60,000 livres, showing how richly endowed with metal
threads were these sumptuous hangings. The commission sitting by,
judicial, dispassionate, presided with cold dignity over the
sacrifice, and pronounced it good.
A hundred workers only remained at the Gobelins which had once been a
happy hive of more than eight times that number, and these were
constrained to follow orders most objectionable and restrictive.
Models to copy were chosen by a jury of art, and such were its
prejudices that but little of interest remained. Ancient religious
suites, and royal ones were disapproved. New orders consisted of
portraits. But if we thought it a prostitution of the art to weave
portraits of Louis XV in royal costume, or Marie Antoinette in the
loveliness of her queenly fripperies, what can be said of the low
estate of a factory which must give out a portrait of Marat or
Lepelletier, even though the great David painted the design to be
copied. The hundred men at the Gobelins must have worked but sadly and
desultorily over such scant and distasteful commissioning.
There were works upon the looms when the Commission began inspecting
the works of art to see if they were proper stuff for the newly-made
Republic to nurse upon. In September, 1794, they found and condemned
twelve large pieces on the looms unfinished, and on which work was
immediately suspended. Of three hundred and twenty-one models
examined, which were the property of the factory, one hundred and
twenty were rejected. In fact, only twenty were designated as truly
fit for production, not falling under the epithets "anti-republican,
fanatic or insufficient." The latter description was applied to all
those exquisite fantasies of art that make the periods Louis XV and
Louis XVI a source of transcendent delight to the lover of dainty
intellectual design, and include particularly the work of Boucher.
The mental and moral workings of the commission on art may be tested
by quoting from their own findings on the _Siege of Calais_, a hanging
by Berthelemy, depicting an event of the Fourteenth Century. This is
what the temper of the times induced the Commission--among whom were
artists too--to say: "Subject regarded as contrary to republican
ideas; the pardon accorded to the people of Calais was given by a
tyrant through the tears and supplications of the queen and child of a
despot. Rejected. In consequence the tapestry will be arrested in its
execution."
The models allowed in this benumbing period were those of hunting
scenes, and antique groups such as the _Muses_, or scenes from the
life of Achilles.
A vicious system of pay was added to the vicious system of art
restriction. And so fell the Gobelins, to revive in such small manner
as was accorded it in the Nineteenth Century.
Its great work was done. It had lifted up an art which through
inflation or barrenness Brussels had let train on the ground like a
fallen flag, and it had given to France the glory of acquiring the
highest period of perfection.
To France came the inspiration of gathering the industry under the
paternal care of the government, of relieving it from the exigencies
of private enterprise which must of necessity fluctuate, of keeping
the art in dignified prosperity, and of devoting to its uses the
highest talent of both art and industry.
The Revolution and the Directory both hesitated to kill an institution
that had brought such glory to France, that had placed her above all
the world in tapestry producing. But what deliberate intent did not
accomplish, came near being a fact through scant rations. Operators at
the Gobelins were irregularly paid, and the public purse found onerous
the burden of support.
But with the coming of Napoleon the personal note was struck again. A
man was at the head, a man whose ambition invaded even the field of
decoration. The Emperor would not be in the least degree inferior in
splendour to the most magnificent of the hereditary kings of France.
The Gobelins had been their glory, it should add to his.
Louis David was the painter of the court, he whose head was ever
turned over his shoulder toward ancient Greece and Rome, who not only
preferred that source of inspiration, but who realised the flattery
implied to the Emperor by using the designs of the countries he had
conquered. It was a graceful reminder of the trophies of war.
So David not only painted Josephine as a lady of Pompeii elongated on
a Greek lounge, but he set the classic style for the Gobelins factory
when Napoleon gave to the looms his imperial patronage. It was David
who had found favour with Revolutionary France by his untiring efforts
to produce a style differing fundamentally from the style of kings,
when kings and their ways were unpopular. Technical exactness, with
classic motives, characterises his decorative work for the Gobelins.
The Emperor was hot for throne-room fittings that spoke only of
himself and of the empire he had built. David made the designs,
beautiful, chaste, as his invention ever was, and dotted them with the
inevitable bees and eagles. Percier, the artist, helped with the
painting, but the throne itself was David's and shows his talent in
the floating Victory of the back and the conventionalised wreaths of
the seat. The whole set, important enough to mention, embraced eight
arm chairs and six smaller ones, besides two dozen classic seats of a
kingly pattern, and screens for fire and draughts, all with a red
background on which was woven in gold the pattern of wreaths and
branches of laurel and oak.
The Emperor made the Gobelins his especial care. He committed it to
the discretion of no one, but was himself the director, and allowed no
loom to set up its patterns unsanctioned by his order. Even his
campaigns left this order operative. Is it to his credit as a genius,
or his discredit as a tyrant, that the chiefs of the Gobelins had to
follow him almost into battle to get permission to weave a new
hanging?
Portraits were woven--but let us not dwell on that. That portraits
were woven at the Gobelins (portraits as such, not the resemblance of
one figure out of a mass to some great personage) brings ever a sigh
of regret. It is like the evidence of senility in some grand statesman
who has outlived his vigour. It is like the portrait of your friend
done in butter, or the White House at Washington done in a paste of
destroyed banknotes. In other words, there is no excuse for it while
paint and canvas exist.
Napoleon's own portrait was made in full length twice, and in bust ten
times. The Empress was pictured at full length and in bust, and the
young King of Rome came in for one portrait. The summit of bad art
seemed reached when it was proposed to copy in wool a painting of
portrait busts, carved in marble. This work was happily unfinished
when the empire gave place to the next form of government.
It is unthinkable that Napoleon would not want his reign glorified in
manner like to that of hereditary kings with pictured episodes, the
conquests of his life, dramatic, superb. David the court painter,
supplied his canvas _Napoleon Crossing the Alps_, and others followed.
Copying paintings was the order at the Gobelins, remember, and that
kind of work was done with infinite skill. Numbers of grand scenes
were planned, some set up on the looms, but the great part were not
done at all. Napoleon's triumph was full but brief; the years of his
reign were few. He interrupted work on large hangings by his
impatience to have the throne-room furniture ready for the reception
of Europe's kings and ambassadors. And when the time came that another
man received in that room, the big series of hangings which were to
picture his reign, even as the _Life of the King_ pictured that of
Louis XIV, were scarcely begun.