FANCIES ABOUT FACES.
The sketch-book was undoubtedly gone, and the stranger had undoubtedly
taken it. How he took it, and how he vanished, remained a mystery.
The aspect of affairs, meanwhile, was materially changed. Müller no
longer stood in the position of a leniently-treated offender. He had
become accuser, and plaintiff. A grave breach of the law had been
committed, and he was the victim of a bold and skilful _tour de main_.
The police shook their heads, twirled their moustaches, and looked wise.
It was a case of premeditated assault--in short, of robbery with
violence. It must be inquired into--reported, of course, at
head-quarters, without loss of time. Would Monsieur be pleased to
describe the stolen sketch-book? An oblong, green volume, secured by an
elastic band; contains sketches in pencil and water-colors; value
uncertain--Good. And the accused ... would Monsieur also be pleased to
describe the person of the accused? His probable age, for instance; his
height; the color of his hair, eyes, and beard? Good again. Lastly,
Monsieur's own name and address, exactly and in full. _Très-bon._ It
might, perhaps, be necessary for Monsieur to enter a formal deposition
to-morrow morning at the Prefecture of Police, in which case due notice
would be given.
Whereupon he who seemed to be chief of the twain, having entered
Müller's replies in a greasy pocket-book of stupendous dimensions, which
he seemed to wear like a cuirass under the breast of his uniform,
proceeded to interrogate the proprietor and waiters.
Was the accused an habitual frequenter of the cafe?--No. Did they
remember ever to have seen him there before?--No. Should they recognise
him if they saw him again? To this question the answers were doubtful.
One waiter thought he should recognise the man; another was not sure;
and Monsieur the proprietor admitted that he had himself been too angry
to observe anything or anybody very minutely.
Finally, having made themselves of as much importance and asked as many
questions as possible, the sergents de ville condescended to accept a
couple of-petits verres a-piece, and then, with much lifting of cocked
hats and clattering of sabres, departed.
Most of the students had ere this dropped off by twos and threes, and
were gone to their day's work, or pleasure--to return again in equal
force about five in the afternoon. Of those that remained, some five or
six came up when the police were gone, and began chatting about the
robbery. When they learned that Flandrin had desired to have a sketch of
the man's head; when Müller described his features, and I his obstinate
reserve and semi-military air, their excitement knew no bounds. Each had
immediately his own conjecture to offer. He was a political spy, and
therefore fearful lest his portrait should be recognised. He was a
conspirator of the Fieschi school. He was Mazzini in person.
In the midst of the discussion, a sudden recollection flashed upon me.
"A clue! a clue!" I shouted triumphantly. "He left his coat and black
bag hanging up in the corner!"
Followed by the others, I ran to the spot where I had been sitting
before the affray began. But my exultation was shortlived. Coat and bag,
like their owner, had disappeared.
Müller thrust his hands into his pockets, shook his head, and whistled
dismally.
"I shall never see my sketch-book again, _parbleu!_" said he. "The man
who could not only take it out of my breast-pocket, but also in the very
teeth of the police, secure his property and escape unseen, is a master
of his profession. Our friends in the cocked hats have no chance
against him."
"And Flandrin, who is expecting the sketch," said I; "what of him?"
Müller shrugged his shoulders.
"Next to being beaten," growled he, "there's nothing I hate like
confessing it. However, it has to be done--so the sooner the better.
Would you like to come with me? You'll see his studio."
I was only too glad to accompany him; for to me, as to most of us, there
was ever a nameless charm in the picturesque litter of an artist's
studio. Müller's own studio, however, was as yet the only one I had
seen. He laughed when I said this.
"If your only notion of a studio is derived from that specimen," said
he, "you will he agreeably surprised by the contrast. He calls his place
a 'den,' but that's a metaphor. Mine is a howling wilderness."
Arriving presently at a large house at the bottom of a courtyard in the
Rue Vaugirard, he knocked at a small side-door bearing a tiny brass
plate not much larger than a visiting-card, on which was
engraved--"Monsieur Flandrin."
The door opened by some invisible means from within, and we entered a
passage dimly lighted by a painted glass door at the farther end. My
companion led the way down this passage, through the door, and into a
small garden containing some three or four old trees, a rustic seat, a
sun-dial on an antique-looking fragment of a broken column, and a little
weed-grown pond about the size of an ordinary drawing-room table,
surrounded by artificial rock-work.
At the farther extremity of this garden, filling the whole space from
wall to wall, and occupying as much ground as must have been equal to
half the original enclosure, stood a large, new, windowless building, in
shape exactly like a barn, lighted from a huge skylight in the roof, and
entered by a small door in one corner. I did not need to be told that
this was the studio.
But if the outside was like a barn, the inside was like a beautiful
mediæval interior by Cattermole--an interior abounding in rich and
costly detail; in heavy crimson draperies, precious old Italian
cabinets, damascened armor, carved chairs with upright backs and twisted
legs, old paintings in massive Florentine frames, and strange quaint
pieces of Elizabethan furniture, like buffets, with open shelves full of
rare and artistic things--bronzes, ivory carvings, unwieldy Majolica
jars, and lovely goblets of antique Venetian glass laced with spiral
ornaments of blue and crimson and that dark emerald green of which the
secret is now lost for ever.
Then, besides all these things, there were great folios leaning piled
against the walls, one over the other; and Persian rugs of many colors
lying here and there about the floor; and down in one corner I observed
a heap of little models, useful, no doubt, as accessories in
pictures--gondolas, frigates, foreign-looking carts, a tiny sedan chair,
and the like.
But the main interest of the scene concentrated itself in the unfinished
picture, the hired model (a brawny fellow in a close-fitting suit of
black, leaning on a huge two-handed sword), and the artist in his
holland blouse, with the palette and brushes in his hand.
It was a very large picture, and stood on a monster easel, somewhat
towards the end of the studio. The light from above poured full upon the
canvas, while beyond lay a background of shadow. Much of the subject was
as yet only indicated, but enough was already there to tell the tragic
story and display the power of the painter. There, high above the heads
of the mounted guards and the assembled spectators, rose the scaffold,
hung with black. Egmont, wearing a crimson tabard, a short black cloak
embroidered with gold, and a hat ornamented with black and white plumes,
stood in a haughty attitude, as if facing the square and the people. Two
other figures, apparently of an ecclesiastic and a Spanish general,
partly in outline, partly laid in with flat color, were placed to the
right of the principal character. The headsman stood behind, leaning
upon his sword. The slender spire of the Hôtel de Ville, surmounted by
its gilded archangel glittering in the morning sun, rose high against a
sky of cloudless blue; while all around was seen the well-known square
with its sculptured gables and decorated façades--every roof, window,
and balcony crowded with spectators.
Unfinished though it was, I saw at once that I was brought face to face
with what would some day be a famous work of art. The figures were
grandly grouped; the heads were noble; the sky was full of air; the
action of the whole scene informed with life and motion.
I stood admiring and silent, while Müller told his tale, and Flandrin
paused in his work to listen.
"It is horribly unlucky," said he. "I had not been able to find a
portrait of Romero and, _faute de mieux_, have been trying for days
past to invent the right sort of head for him--of course, without
success. You never saw such a heap of failures! But as for that man at
the café, if Providence had especially created him for my purpose, he
could not have answered it better."
"I believe I am as sorry as you can possibly be," said Müller.
"Then you are very sorry indeed," replied the painter; and he looked
even more disappointment than he expressed.
"I'm afraid I can't do it," said Müller, after a moment's silence; "but
if you'll give me a pencil and a piece of paper, and credit me with the
will in default of the deed, I will try to sketch the head from memory."
"Ah? if you can only do that! Here is a drawing block--choose what
pencils you prefer--or here are crayons, if you like them better."
Müller took the pencils and block, perched himself on the corner of a
table, and began. Flandrin, breathless with expectation, looked over his
shoulder. Even the model (in the grim character of Egmont's executioner)
laid aside his two-handed sword, and came round for a peep.
"Bravo! that's just his nose and brow," said Flandrin, as Müller's rapid
hand flew over the paper. "Yes--the likeness comes with every touch ...
and the eyes, so keen and furtive. ... Nay, that eyelid should be a
little more depressed at the corner.... Yes, yes--just so. Admirable!
There!--don't attempt to work it up. The least thing might mar the
likeness. My dear fellow, what a service you have rendered me!"
"_Quatre-vingt mille diables_!" ejaculated the model, his eyes riveted
upon the sketch.
Müller laughed and looked.
"_Tiens_! Guichet," said he, "is that meant for a compliment?"
"Where did you see him?" asked the model, pointing down at the sketch.
"Why? Do you know him?"
"Where did you see him, I say?" repeated Guichet, impatiently.
He was a rough fellow, and garnished every other sentence with an oath;
but he did not mean to be uncivil.
"At the Café Procope."
"When?"
"About an hour ago. But again, I repeat--do you know him?"
"Do I know him? _Tonnerre de Dieu_!"
"Then who and what is he?"
The model stroked his beard; shook his head; declined to answer.
"Bah!" said he, gloomily, "I may have seen him, or I may be mistaken.
'Tis not my affair."
"I suspect Guichet knows something against this interesting stranger,"
laughed Flandrin. "Come, Guichet, out with it! We are among friends."
But Guichet again looked at the drawing, and again shook his head.
"I'm no judge of pictures, messieurs," said he. "I'm only a poor devil
of a model. How can I pretend to know a man from such a _griffonage_
as that?"
And, taking up his big sword again, he retreated to his former post over
against the picture. We all saw that he was resolved to say no more.
Flandrin, delighted with Müller's sketch, put it, with many thanks and
praises, carefully away in one of the great folios against the wall.
"You have no idea, _mon cher_ Müller," he said, "of what value it is to
me. I was in despair about the thing till I saw that fellow this morning
in the Café; and he looked as if he had stepped out of the Middle Ages
on purpose for me. It is quite a mediæval face--if you know what I mean
by a mediæval face."
"I think I do," said Müller. "You mean that there was a moyen-âge type,
as there was a classical type, and as there is a modern type."
"Just so; and therein lies the main difficulty that we historical
painters have to encounter. When we cannot find portraits of our
characters, we are driven to invent faces for them--and who can invent
what he never sees? Invention must be based on some kind of experience;
and to study old portraits is not enough for our purpose, except we
frankly make use of them as portraits. We cannot generalize upon them,
so as to resuscitate a vanished type."
"But then has it really vanished?" said Müller. "And how can we know for
certain that the mediæval type did actually differ from the type we see
before us every day?"
"By simple and direct proof--by studying the epochs of portrait
painting. Take Holbein's heads, for instance. Were not the people of his
time grimmer, harder-visaged, altogether more unbeautiful than the
people of ours? Take Petitot's and Sir Peter Lely's. Can you doubt that
the characteristics of their period were entirely different? Do you
suppose that either race would look as we look, if resuscitated and
clothed in the fashion of to-day?"
"I am not at all sure that we should observe any difference," said
Müller, doubtfully.
"And I feel sure we should observe the greatest," replied Flandrin,
striding up and down the studio, and speaking with great animation. "I
believe, as regards the men and women of Holbein's time, that their
faces were more lined than ours; their eyes, as a rule, smaller--their
mouths wider--their eyebrows more scanty--their ears larger--their
figures more ungainly. And in like manner, I believe the men and women
of the seventeenth century to have been more fleshy than either
Holbein's people or ourselves; to have had rounder cheeks, eyes more
prominent and heavy-lidded, shorter noses, more prominent chins, and
lips of a fuller and more voluptuous mould."
"Still we can't be certain how much of all this may be owing to the mere
mannerisms of successive schools of art," urged Müller, sticking
manfully to his own opinion. "Where will you find a more decided
mannerist than Holbein? And because he was the first portrait-painter of
his day, was he not reproduced with all his faults of literalness and
dryness by a legion of imitators? So with Sir Peter Lely, with Petitot,
with Vandyck, with every great artist who painted kings and queens and
court beauties. Then, again, a certain style of beauty becomes the rage,
and-a skilful painter flatters each fair sitter in turn by bringing up
her features, or her expression, or the color of her hair, as near as
possible to the fashionable standard. And further, there is the dress of
a period to be taken into account. Think of the family likeness that
pervades the flowing wigs of the courts of Louis Quatorze and Charles
the Second--see what powder did a hundred years ago to equalize
mankind."
Flandrin shook his head.
"Ingenious, _mon garçon_" said he; "ingenious, but unsound The cut of a
fair lady's bodice never yet altered the shape of her nose; neither was
it the fashion of their furred surtouts that made Erasmus and Sir Thomas
More as like as twins. What you call the 'mannerism' of Holbein is only
his way of looking at his fellow-creatures. He and Sir Antonio More were
the most faithful of portrait-painters. They didn't know how to flatter.
They painted exactly what they saw--no more, and no less; so that every
head they have left us is a chapter in the history of the Middle Ages.
The race--depend on't--the race was unbeautiful; and not even the
picturesque dress of the period (which, according to your theory, should
have helped to make the wearers of it more attractive) could soften one
jot of their plainness."
"I can't bring myself to believe that we were all so ugly--French,
English, and Germans alike--only a couple of centuries ago,"
said Müller.
"That is to say, you prefer to believe that Holbein, and Lucas Cranach,
and Sir Antonio More, and all their school, were mannerists. Nonsense,
my dear fellow--nonsense! _It is Nature who is the mannerist_. She loves
to turn out a certain generation after a particular pattern; and when
she is tired of that pattern, she invents another. Her fancies last, on
the average about, a hundred years. Sometimes she changes the type quite
abruptly; sometimes modifies it by gentle, yet always perceptible,
degrees. And who shall say what her secret processes are? Education,
travel, intermarriage with foreigners, the introduction of new kinds of
food) the adoption of new habits, may each and all have something to do
with these successive changes; but of one point at least we may be
certain--and that is, that we painters are not responsible for her
caprices. Our mission is to interpret Dame Nature more or less
faithfully, according to our powers; but beyond interpretation we cannot
go. And now (for you know I am as full of speculations as an
experimental philosopher) I will tell you another conclusion I have come
to with regard to this subject; and that is that national types were
less distinctive in mediæval times than in ours. The French, English,
Flemish, and Dutch of the Middle Ages, as we see them in their
portraits, are curiously alike in all outward characteristics. The
courtiers of Francis the First and their (James, and the lords and
ladies of the court of Henry the Eighth, resemble each other as people
of one nation. Their features are, as it were, cast in one mould. So
also with the courts of Louis Quatorze and Charles the Second. As for
the regular French face of to-day, with its broad cheek-bones and high
temples running far up into the hair on either side, that type does not
make its appearance till close upon the advent of the Reign of Terror.
But enough! I shall weary you with theories, and wear out the patience
of our friend Guichet, who is sufficiently tired already with waiting
for a head that never comes to be cut off as it ought. Adieu--adieu.
Come soon again, and see how I get on with Marshal Romero."
Thus dismissed, we took our leave and left the painter to his work.
"An extraordinary man!" said Müller, as we passed out again through the
neglected garden and paused for a moment to look at some half-dozen fat
gold and silver fish that were swimming lazily about the little pond. "A
man made up of contradictions--abounding in energy, yet at the same time
the dreamiest of speculators. An original thinker, too; but wanting that
basis which alone makes original thinking of any permanent value."
"But," said I, "he is evidently an educated man."
"Yes--educated as most artists are educated; but Flandrin has as strong
a bent for science as for art, and deserved something better. Five years
at a German university would have made of him one of the most remarkable
men of his time. What did you think of his theory of faces?"
"I know nothing of the subject, and cannot form a judgment; but it
sounded as if it might be true."
"Yes--just that. It may be true, and it may not. If true, then for my
own part I should like to pursue his theory a step further, and trace
the operation of these secret processes by means of which
I am, happily, such a much better-looking fellow than my
great-great-great-great-grandfather of two hundred years ago. What, for
instance, has the introduction of the potato done for the noses
of mankind?"
Chatting thus, we walked back as far as the corner of the Rue Racine,
where we parted; I to attend a lecture at the École de Médecine, and
Müller to go home to his studio in the Rue Clovis.
* * * * *