THE VANITY OF GREUZE
Mention has already been made of the overweening vanity which was
Greuze’s most pronounced personal characteristic. He had, above all,
the highest possible opinion of his own talent, and could not brook
the slightest adverse criticism of his work.
Even when he first came to Paris and had not proved his abilities, he
made enemies by stupid remarks like his reply to Natoire, who had
suggested some alteration in a detail of one of his pictures.
“Monsieur, you would be only too happy if you were able to do anything
so good yourself.” Later, when success had come and he was surrounded
by admirers, the desire for praise became a mania, and he fell into a
violent passion if any one made a remark that suggested anything but
flattery. A great friend of his, and one of his patrons, a Madame
Geoffrin, at whose house he had met many of his most influential
friends and kindest critics, said laughingly, and with truth, that
there was a “_véritable fricassée d’enfants_” in “La Mère Bien-aimée.”
Some one repeated this to Greuze.
“How dare she venture to criticise a work of art,” he cried violently.
“Let her tremble with fear lest I immortalise her by painting her as a
schoolmistress, with a whip in her hand and a face that will terrify
all children living or to be born.”
Under the influence of his infatuation for himself, he lost all sense
of the proportion of things--witness the scene when the Dauphin,
delighted with his own portrait, asked him to begin one of the
Dauphine. The presence of the lady did not prevent Greuze, ordinarily
well-mannered, and particularly so to women, from replying shortly
that he did not know how to paint heads of the kind, making reference
to the paint and powder all society women wore at the time. Small
wonder that thereafter royal favours were scarce, and he had to wait
several years longer than was necessary for the _logement_ in the
Louvre to which his position entitled him.
This same trait played a prominent part in his historic quarrel with
the Academy over his diploma picture. It was the rule for every member
to present to the Academy on his election some representative work,
but Greuze, satisfied that the honour was theirs, and that he was in a
position to form his own precedent, let years go by without offering
the expected _chef d’œuvre_. It was only when the delay had lasted
fourteen years, and they wrote saying they would be obliged to forbid
him to show his pictures in the Salon unless he fulfilled his
obligation, that he conceded to the rule, and having replied by a
letter that was “a model of pride and impertinence,” set to work on
the picture.
Believing he could do any form of subject equally well, he chose a
grandiloquent historical subject, a style absolutely unsuited to his
limitations. “Septime Sévère reprochant à son fils Caracalla d’avoir
attenté à sa vie dans les défilés d’Écosse, et lui disant, Si tu
désires ma mort, ordonne à Papinien de me la donner” was its title;
and if you look at it where it hangs skied in the Louvre above the
violently outstretched arms of “La Malédiction paternelle,” you see
that it is a most faulty and insignificant production. The Academy
could not refuse it, but they told him frankly what they thought of
it.
“Monsieur,” said the Director, calling him in from the room where he
awaited the congratulations of the associates, whose approval he
believed he had now fully earned, “the Academy receives you as
_peintre de genre_. It has taken into account your former
productions, which are excellent, and has shut its eyes on this one,
which is worthy neither of them nor you.”
The disappointment of Greuze, who had counted on the dignity and
material advantages conferred by the title of Historical Painter, can
be imagined, but amazement and fury dominated. For days he could
neither sleep nor eat; and he covered reams of paper in writing to the
papers to prove by technical laws and logical arguments that the
picture was not only good, but a masterpiece. But for once the adoring
public remained unresponsive. The last straw was his friend Diderot’s
criticism, published in the usual way.
“The figure of Septime Sévère is ignoble in character. It has the
dark, swarthy skin of a convict; its action is uncertain. It is badly
drawn, it has the wrist broken; the distance from the neck to the
breast-bone is exaggerated. Neither do you see the beginning of
the right knee nor where it goes to beneath the covering of the bed.
Caracalla is even more ignoble than his father, a wooden figure,
without suppleness or movement. Those who force their talent do
nothing with grace.”
[Illustration: PLATE VI.--LES DEUX SŒURS
“Les Deux Sœurs,” or “The Two Sisters,” has been until
recently in the private collection of Baron Arthur de
Rothschild, who bequeathed it to the Louvre, where it now hangs.
If it lacks some of the charm of Greuze’s other pictures of
girls, it possesses many of his most charming
qualities--delicacy of colouring, graceful figures, appealing
gesture. The arrangement of the scarves and draperies is
essentially “Greuze.”]
Having exhausted all other means of protest, Greuze took refuge in the
sulkiness of a naughty child, and more or less independent now that he
was at last to have the coveted _logement_ in the Louvre, he declared
he would never again send a picture to the Academy.
Nor did he, for when, years later, he was obliged to fall back on its
aid, the Academy as he had known it was swallowed up in the whirlpool
of the Revolution.