Museum of Art of New York, there is one that always attracts a crowd,
on the free-days and holidays when the general public finds admission.
This is the picture called simply, "Friedland: 1807," and representing
the soldiers of Napoleon saluting the emperor at the battle of
Friedland. It was painted by Jean Louis Meissonier for the late A. T.
Stewart, of New York, who paid for it what seemed a very large sum,
$60,000; but when Mr. Stewart died, and his pictures were sold at
auction, this painting brought the still larger sum of $66,000,
showing that a great many people admired the work, and were willing to
pay a good price for it. The picture was bought by Judge Hilton, of
New York, and was presented by him to the Metropolitan Museum as a
memorial of the long friendship that had existed between himself and
Mr. Stewart. No doubt the facts of the high price paid for the
picture, and that a gift of such value should be made to the Museum,
have caused a great many people to look at the painting with more
interest than they would, had the circumstances been less uncommon.
But a great many more people find this picture interesting for its own
sake; they are moved rather by the spirited way in which it tells its
story, and find their curiosity excited by the studious accuracy shown
by the artist in the painting of every detail.
The scene of the action is a field that has been planted with grain
which now lies trampled under the feet of men and horses. The
turning-point in the battle has been reached, and in the joy of coming
victory, the body-guard of the emperor, spurring their jaded horses to
the hillock where he sits on his white charger surrounded by his
mounted staff, salute him with loud cries as they rush madly by him.
Napoleon, calm and self-possessed, returns the salute, but it is plain
his thoughts are busier with the battle that is raging in the distance
than with these demonstrations of his body-guard's loyalty. This
picture was the favorite work of the artist; he calls it, "the life
and joy of my studio," and he is said to have worked on it at
intervals during fifteen years.
[Illustration: Meissonier's Atelier.]
Somebody has said that "genius" means nothing but "taking pains." In
that case, Meissonier must have been a man of genius, for, with
whatever he painted, were it small or great, he took infinite pains,
never content until he had done everything in his power to show things
exactly as they were. Thus, in the picture we have just been
describing, we may be sure that we know, from looking at it, exactly
how Napoleon was dressed on the day of Friedland, and also how each
member of his military staff was dressed; not a button, nor a strap,
nor any smallest detail but has been faithfully copied from the thing
itself, while every head in the group is a trustworthy portrait. When
it was not possible to get the actual dress worn by the person he was
painting, Meissonier spared no pains nor money to obtain an exact
copy. How it was in the case of the "Friedland," we do not know, but
when he painted the "March to Paris," Meissonier borrowed from the
Museum, in Paris, where relics of all the kings of France are kept
(the _Musee des Souverains_), the famous "little gray riding-coat"
worn by Napoleon at the battle of the Pyramids and in other
engagements. This coat, Meissonier had copied by a tailor, with the
minutest accuracy, and it was then worn by the model while he was
painting the picture. The same pains were taken with the cuirassiers
who are dashing across the front of the picture in the "Friedland." As
will be seen on looking closely, one model served for all the men in
the front rank, but as the uniform was the same it was only necessary
to vary the attitude. The uniform and all the accoutrements were
carefully reproduced by workmen from originals of the time, borrowed
by Meissonier for the purpose, and the model was then mounted on a
jointed wooden horse and made to take the attitude required: the
action of the horse was as carefully studied from that of the living
animal. By the time that Meissonier came to paint this picture, he was
so famous an artist, and had gained such a place in the world, that he
could have almost anything he asked for to aid him in his work. So,
when, with the same desire for accuracy that he had shown in painting
other parts of the picture, he came to paint the trampled grain, the
Government, or so we are told, bought the use of a field of ripe grain
and lent Meissonier the services of a company of cuirassiers who were
set to dashing about in it until they had got it into proper
condition. We can see that the cost of all this accuracy would, in the
end, amount to a considerable sum, and when we reckon the time of an
artist so distinguished as Meissonier, it is not so surprising as it
may have appeared at first, that his picture should have brought so
much money.
Of course, Meissonier did not come all at once to fame and prosperity.
The rewards he gained were such as are earned only by hard and
constant labor. When he came to Paris about the year 1832, from Lyons,
where he was born, he was about nineteen years old. His parents were
in humble circumstances, and would seem to have been able to do
nothing to advance the lad, who arrived in Paris with little money in
his pocket, and with no friends at hand. He had, however, the
materials out of which friends and money are made: health, a generous
spirit, energy, and a clear purpose, and with these he went to work.
We do not hear much about his early life in Paris. When he first
appears in sight, he is working in the same studio with Daubigny, the
landscape-painter, the two painting pictures for a dollar the square
yard, religious pictures probably, and probably also copies, to be
sent into the country and hung up in the parish churches. Although
this may have seemed like hardship at the time, yet there is no doubt
it was good practice, for among artists we are told it is an accepted
doctrine that in order to paint on a small scale really well, you must
be able to paint on a larger. And it is said that Meissonier was in
the habit all his life of making life-size studies in order to keep
his style from falling into pettiness. So, after all, the painting of
these big pictures may have been a useful ordeal for the artist who
for the next sixty years was to reap fame by painting small ones.
While he was earning a scanty living by this hack-work, Meissonier
found time to paint two pictures which he sent to the Salon of 1836.
One of these attracted the attention of a clever artist, Tony
Johannot, who introduced him to Leon Cogniet, with whom he studied for
a time, but from whom he learned but little. The mechanism of his art
he had pretty well mastered already, as was shown by the Salon
accepting his early pictures, and the chief advantage he gained from
his stay in Cogniet's studio was a wider acquaintance with the world
of artists; for Cogniet was a favorite teacher, and had a great many
pupils, not a few of whom became distinguished painters. But his style
of painting was not one to attract Meissonier, who was ambitious to
paint like the old Dutch artists, Terburg, Metzu, Mieris, and others,
who have the charm that their pictures are finished with the most
exquisite minuteness, and yet treated in such a large way that, after
awhile, we forget the microscopic wonder of the performance and think
only of the skill the artist has shown in painting character.
Meissonier was the first artist to bring back into favor the Dutch
school of painting of the seventeenth century. Louis XIV., who set the
fashion in everything in his day, had set the fashion of despising the
Dutch painters, and the French people had never unlearned the lesson.
It was Meissonier who brought back the taste, and taught the public to
admire these small panels where interest in the subject is for the
most part lost in the exquisite beauty of the painting and where the
Dutch painters of similar subjects are successfully met on their own
ground and equalled in every respect except in the charm of color.
There is an old saying: "Imitation is the sincerest mode of flattery;"
and Meissonier's immediate success with the public was the signal for
a bevy of imitators to try to win a like success by like methods. Some
of these artists were very clever, but an imitator is but an imitator
after all, and is more apt to call attention to his model than to
himself. It must be admitted that Meissonier himself has suffered
somewhat in the same way: the evident fact that his methods of
painting were inspired by the study of the Dutch masters has led to
his being called an imitator, and his pictures are often compared, and
not to their advantage, with those of his models. Meissonier is,
however, very much more than an imitator; he was inspired by the Dutch
painters, but he soon found a way of his own, and he has put so much
of himself into his work, that the charge of imitation long since
ceased to be brought against him.
While he was still not much known to the public, the Duke of Orleans
bought of him, for six hundred francs, a picture that to-day is worth
thirty thousand francs. As is usual in such affairs, the purchase was
made, not by the duke in person, but by an agent: in this case, it was
his secretary, M. Adaline, who bought the picture from Meissonier, who
as an acknowledgment of the service gave the secretary a water-color
drawing which, to-day, like everything coming from the hand of
Meissonier, would bring the owner a good round sum if offered for
sale.
In 1865, Meissonier's son Charles, himself a very good painter, went
to a costume-ball dressed like a Fleming of the seventeenth century
and looking as if he had stepped out of a picture by Terburg. The
costume had been made with the greatest accuracy, and Meissonier was
so pleased with his son's appearance that he made a study and sold it
for two thousand francs. Twenty years after, in 1884, hearing that it
was to be sold at auction, and desiring, out of affection for his son,
to have the study back again, he asked his friend, M. Petit, to buy it
for him, at whatever cost. A rich Parisian, M. Secretan, who had a
collection of pictures since become famous--it was to him that
Millet's "L'Angelus" belonged--and who had such an admiration for
Meissonier and his work that he had paid no less than four hundred
thousand francs for his picture "Les Cuirassiers," hearing from M.
Petit of Meissonier's desire for the portrait of his son, bought the
picture for twenty-five thousand francs and presented it to the
artist. These stories are told only as illustrations of the growth of
Meissonier's reputation and of the increased number of people who
desire to have an example of his work. The rise in value of a small
sketch of a single figure, from $500 to $5,000, in fifteen years, is
no greater in proportion than has happened in the case of every one of
Meissonier's pictures, drawings, studies, and even his slight
sketches, on some of which originally he would have placed no value at
all. Yet everything he left behind him, even unconsidered trifles, are
found to be of value, and the sale of the contents of his studio just
ended in Paris brought nearly five hundred thousand francs, although
the collection contained not a single finished picture of importance,
but was made up almost entirely of unfinished studies and of sketches.
Meissonier's industry was constant and untiring. It is told of him
that he rarely had the pencil or the brush out of his hand when in the
house, and that when he called at a friend's house and was kept
waiting he used the spare minutes in sketching upon the first piece of
paper that he found at hand. One of his friends, who knew of this
habit, collected in the course of many visits he received from the
artist enough of these scraps to fill a small album; while it is told
of another of his friends that he instructed his servant to put beside
Meissonier's coffee-cup after dinner a number of bits of paper of the
size of cigarette-papers but of better quality on which Meissonier in
his absent way would fall to drawing as he chatted with his
companions. After dinner these jottings remained as a valuable
memorial of his visit. Perhaps if they were all collected, these
slight affairs might bring enough at auction to pay for all the
dinners to which the prudent host had invited the artist.
The world of subjects included in Meissonier's art was a very narrow
one, and was not calculated to interest men and women in general. The
nearest that he came to striking the popular note was in his Napoleon
subjects, and beside the excellence of the painting, these pictures
really make a valuable series of historical documents by reason of
their accuracy. But the greater number of the pictures which he left
behind him are chiefly interesting from the beautiful way in which
they are painted: we accept the subject for the sake of the art. The
world rewarded him for all this patient labor, this exquisite
workmanship, by an immense fortune that enabled him to live in
splendor, and to be generous without stint. From the humble lodgings
of his youth in the Rue des Ecouffes, he passed, in time, to the
palace in the Place Malsherbes where he spent the latter half of his
long life in luxurious surroundings: pictures and statues, rich
furniture, tapestries and armor and curiosities of art from every
land. But the visitor, after passing through all this splendor, came
upon the artist in a studio, ample and well lighted indeed, but
furnished only for work, where, to the end of his life, he pursued his
industrious calling with all the energy and ardor of youth. He died in
1891, and was buried by the government with all the honors that
befitted one of her most illustrious citizens.
[Signature of the author.]
ROSA BONHEUR[8]
[Footnote 8: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]
By CLARENCE COOK
(BORN 1822)
A girl of something over ten, of sturdy build, with a dark complexion,
deep blue eyes, and strong features crowned by a head of clustering
curls, is sitting in the window of a plainly furnished room, high up
in an apartment-house in Paris. In a cage at her side is a parrot,
which, with its head on one side, is gravely calling out the letters
of the alphabet, while the child as gravely repeats them, interrupting
the lesson every now and then by a visit to the other side of the
room, where a pet lamb greets its young mistress with a friendly
bleat.
This is our first glimpse of Rosalie, known now to all the world as
Rosa Bonheur, the painter of "The Horse Fair" and of many another
picture, which have earned for her the distinction of the best
animal-painter of her time.
Her father's family belonged to Bordeaux. Raymond Bonheur had gone up
as a youth to Paris to study art. After the usual apprenticeship to
privation which art exacts from her servants, he had become moderately
successful, when the condition of his parents, now old and
poorly-off, moved him to return to Bordeaux and do what he could to
make their life easier. As the chances for a professional artist were
small, he adopted the modest employment of drawing-teacher. His skill
soon brought him pupils; among them a young lady from Altona, between
whom and her teacher a mutual interest sprang up which led to their
marriage. Raymond Bonheur brought his wife home to his father's house,
where she was welcomed as a daughter, and for the brief term of her
life all went well. What the husband earned by his drawing-lessons,
the wife supplemented by her lessons in music; but this happiness was
not to last. The parents of Raymond Bonheur died, and then, after not
more than twelve years of marriage, the wife died, leaving behind her
four children, Rosalie, Francois-Auguste, Jules-Isidore, and Juliette.
[Illustration: Rosa Bonheur.]
Rosalie is the best known of these four children of Raymond Bonheur;
but each of them has honorably connected his name with the art of
modern France. Francois-Auguste has a reputation as an animal-painter
almost equal to that of his sister Rosa. A fine picture painted by
him, "Cattle in the Forest of Fontainebleau," was once the property of
the late A. T. Stewart. His merit secured him the Cross of the Legion
of Honor in 1867. He died in 1880. The other brother, Jules-Isidore,
has gained distinction as a sculptor of animals; most of his work is
on a small scale, but he has designed some large pieces that decorate
his sister's chateau near Fontainebleau. Juliette Bonheur married a M.
Peyrol, and joining her family-name to his, is known in the art-world
as Mme. Peyrol Bonheur. It is thus she signs her pictures, mostly
still-life and animal subjects, which have gained for her a good
position among the minor artists of France.
Rosa, the eldest of the family, born in 1822, was ten years old when
her mother died. Not long after, Raymond Bonheur decided to leave
Bordeaux and to return to Paris, where the chances for professional
success were better than in a provincial town, and where there were
greater opportunities for the education of his young children. The
change proved very distasteful, however, to the little ones.
Accustomed to the comparative freedom of the town in which they had
been brought up, and where their family had been so long rooted that
their circle of friends and relatives gave them playmates and
companions in plenty, they found themselves very lonely in Paris,
where they were reduced for a good part of the time to such amusement
as they could find in the narrow quarters of their rooms on the sixth
floor of an apartment-house. It is not the custom in Paris for the
children, even of the poor, to make a playground of the street, and
our little ones had nobody to walk out with them but an old servant
who had come with them from Bordeaux, and who was ill-fitted, for all
her virtues, to take a mother's place to the children. She was honest
and faithful, but like all of her class, she liked routine and order,
and she could make no allowances for the restlessness of her
bright-minded charge. Rosa was her especial torment; the black sheep
of the brood. Household tasks she despised, and study, as it was
pursued in the successive schools to which her despairing father sent
her, had no charms for her. Her best playmates were animals; the
horses and dogs she saw in the streets and which she fearlessly
accosted; the sheep that found itself queerly lodged on the top floor
of a city house; and the parrot which, as we have seen, was not only
her playmate but her schoolmaster.
There came a time when the charge of such a child, so averse to rules
and so given to strange ways of passing her time, became too much for
the old servant with her orthodox views of life, and she persuaded
Rosa's father to put her as a day-scholar with the nuns at Chaillot, a
small suburb of Paris. How it happened that she was allowed to go back
and forth alone, between home and school, we do not know; but it is
not to be wondered at if she were irregular in her hours; if, one day,
she set the nuns wondering why she did not appear at school-opening,
and another day put the old servant into a twitter because she did not
come home in season. The truth was, she had found that there was
something better in Paris than streets and shops and tall houses; she
had discovered a wood there, a veritable forest, with trees, and pools
of water, and birds, and wild flowers, and though this enchanted spot
which citizens called the Bois de Boulogne--not then a formal park as
it is to-day--was off the road to Chaillot, yet it was not so far that
she need fear getting lost in going there or in coming back. No
wonder, then, if, once this way discovered of escape from tiresome
school duties, it was travelled so often by Rosalie, and that her
school-work became in consequence so unsatisfactory that at length the
patient nuns remonstrated. They advised Rosa's father, since she
neither would nor could learn anything from books, that it would be
better to put her to some useful trade by which she might earn her
living; and the good sisters suggested--dressmaking! The wisdom of
these ladies, who could not see that they were dealing with the last
woman in the world to whom dressmaking could be interesting, was
matched by that of the father, who showed himself so blind to the
character of his daughter that he resolved to act at once upon the
advice of the nuns; and without consulting the wishes of poor Rosalie
he apprenticed her straightway to a Parisian dressmaker. The docile
girl allowed the yoke to be slipped over her head without complaint,
but the confinement wore upon her health and spirits, and after a
short trial the experiment had to be abandoned. Her father yielded to
her entreaties and took her home.
[Illustration: Rosa Bonheur.]
The girl was long in coming to a knowledge of herself. Although she
was to be, in time, a famous artist, the familiar legend of the
biographers is wanting in her case; we read nothing about scribbled
books or walls defaced by childish sketches, nor does she appear to
have handled a pencil or a brush until she was a girl well grown.
Her father's means were not sufficient to give Rosa or his other
children an education such as he could wish; but an expedient
suggested itself in his perplexity over this latest experiment in
providing for his eldest daughter: he proposed to the principal of a
young ladies' school where he taught drawing, that his services should
be accepted in payment of Rosa's education. The offer was accepted,
and in the regular course of study Rosa became a member of her
father's drawing-class. It was not long before she surpassed all her
school-fellows in that department, and found herself for the first
time in her life in possession of the key to that happiness which
consists in knowing what we can do, and feeling the strength within us
to do it. Some of the biographers of Rosa's life speak of unhappy days
at this school: the richer girls made sport of the dress of the
drawing-master's daughter, and of her independent, awkward ways. Her
progress in drawing, too, was counterbalanced by her slowness in her
other studies; in fact her new accomplishment was such a delight to
her, that in her devotion to it she became less and less interested in
her books; and as for dress--that it should be clean and suited both
to her means and to the work she was doing, was all that concerned
her, then or since!
At the end of her first year in school, Rosa obtained her father's
permission to give up her other studies and to enter his studio as
pupil and assistant. From that time, though as yet she had not found
the reason of her vocation, yet her true life had begun. She worked
diligently under the direction of a master she loved, and her father,
in his turn, delighted at the discovery of a talent so long hid,
redoubled his efforts to advance his pupil and to make up for lost
time.
Rosa worked for some months at copying in the Louvre, but though she
worked with such diligence and skill as to win the praise of the
director, she came, after a time, to feel that the mere copying of the
works of other men, however great, was not the goal she was striving
after; so one day she took a sudden determination, left the Louvre,
packed up her painting materials, and started off for one of the rural
suburbs of Paris, where she sat herself down to sketch from nature.
Her love of animals, hitherto an aimless pleasure, now took on a new
phase as she saw her beloved cows and sheep in their place in nature
giving life and animation to the landscape.
In the winter season, when work out-of-doors was no longer pleasant or
profitable, Rosa made what use she could of the few opportunities
Paris had to offer for the study of animals. She spent what time she
could spare from work at the horse-market; she visited the
slaughter-houses, and the suburban fairs where cattle and horses,
sheep and pigs compete for prizes, and in these places she filled her
portfolios with sketches.