It is quite in accordance with the tendencies displayed by these
masters, that towards the end of the seventeenth and the beginning
of the eighteenth century an increasing number of artists preferred
to devote their talent to recording the life of their own days to
the endless repetition of the “grand-manner” subjects which had
occupied the energy of the preceding generations. Thus Jean Alexis
Grimou (1678-1740), who was Swiss by birth and entirely self-trained,
introduced into French art the drinking scenes beloved of the Flemish
masters. From his painting of _A Drinker_ (No. 385) and the two
_Portraits of Young Soldiers_ (Nos. 386 and 387), it may be seen how
little he was in sympathy with the official art of his time; this is
scarcely to be wondered at, since, instead of undergoing the customary
course of academic training, he had formed his style by copying the
works of Rembrandt and other Northern masters.
Pierre Subleyras (1699-1749) was not quite so emancipated. In his large
religious compositions he still follows the affectations of the grand
style. His chief work of this kind is the _Mass of St. Basil_, at Sta.
Maria degli Angeli in Rome, of which No. 857 at the Louvre is a reduced
version. Of far more artistic significance are his small genre pieces,
in which he attains to a rich quality of pigment and a justice of
tone-values unique in French painting of his period. Subleyras is said
to have been of Spanish descent; and there are in his scenes from La
Fontaine’s “Fables”—notably in _The Hermit_ (No. 862)—clear indications
of his intimate acquaintance with Spanish art. The best of all his
pictures at the Louvre is _The Falcon_ (No. 861), which, apart from its
general quality of tone, contains some still-life passages worthy of
the brush of Chardin.