CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Cornell University Library N6850 .B12 Parisian art and artists olin 3 1924 030 658 938 ••■■N Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030658938 ?v>\ m Copyright, 1880 and 1881, By Scribner and Company. Copyright, ICC , By James R. Osgood and Company. All rights reserved. University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Introduction. Manet, Stevens, Duez, Merson, Lematte . n II. Bastien-Lepage, Butin, Jacquet, Gervex, Clairin, Poirson . 39 III. Detaille, De Neuville, Berne-Bellecour, Jourdain, Poir- son 62 IV. Tony Robert-Fleury, Duran, Dupain, Delance 82 V. Vibert, Chevilliard, De Beaumont 97 VI. Heilbuth, Frere, Schenck, Todd, Chialiva 109 VII. Beraud, Grandjean, De Nittis 123 VIII. Mmes. Lemaire, De Rothschild, La Princesse Mathilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Abbema 13S IX. Munkacsy, Wahlberg 1 55 X. De Madrazo, Ricardo de Madrazo, Ochoa, D'Arcos, Egus- quiza, Ribera, Gonzales, Rico 167 XI. English, American, German, and Russian Artists : Sar- gent, Stewart, Tuckerman, Knight, Von Beeker, Ed- elfelt, chelmonski 197 XII. Where is the Artists' Quarter? Le Salon; petit Salons; Dubufe, Vibert, Stevens, Le Patron 219 XIII. Conclusion 234 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Fragment of Ceiling for the Luxembourg Tt>7iy Robert-Fleury . . Frontispiece. Claude Monet J. Manet 16 Autumn Alfred Stevens 19 Studio of Duez on the Seashore .... Jourdain 23 By the Sea E. Duez 27 The Flight into Egypt Merson 31 The Naiad . . . . Femand Lematte 35 Study for Jeanne D'Arc Bastien-Lepage 41 Studies from Life Ulysse Butin 45 Queteuse G. Jacquet 48 VlDE-POCHE G. Jacquet 51 A Study H. Gervex 53 Sketch H. Gervex 55 Sketch H. Gervex 57 Sarah Bernhardt Georges Clairin 59 Prussian Cavalryman E. Detaille 63 Memorandum Sketches E. Detaille 67 Fragment from Rorke's Drift A. de Neuville -70 The Reconnoissance A. de Neuville 71 Battle of Malmaison . E. Berne-Bellecour 75 To the Rescue M. Poirson 79 The Good Samaritan E. Dupain 89 Sketching E. Dupain 91 Louis XVI. visiting a Potato-field . . . P. Delance 94 S LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Arachne's Web J. G. Vibert 99 The Salutation V. Chevilliard 103 "C'est Dommage" De Beaumont 107 At School . . . ... Ed. Frire . . 115 Frere in his Sketching Sledge Henry Bacon 117 Feeding the Calves L. Chialiva 119 After the Funeral ... J. Beraud ... ... 124 My Studio J. Beraud 127 Equestrian Study E. Grandjean 129 On the Quay De Nittis 133 Portrait . . .... Madeleine Lemaire .... 141 The Young Girl and Death Sarah Bernhardt 147 Four Portraits Louise Abbema 152 Sketch M. Munkacsy 156 Coast of Normandy A. Wahlberg .... . . 161 Study for a Picture R. Madrazo 169 Study from Life Ricardo de Madrazo 171 White Lily or Red Rose? S. Arcos 175 The Waltzers R. Egusquiza 179 Le Cafe Ambulant Ribera 183 Study from Life Gonzalez 187 In Venice Ri co 191 On the Beach Olivil 195 Portrait .... Stewart 205 The Reader . Tuckerman 209 Knight's Glass Studio Z>. R. Knight 213 Mme. Bernhardt's Studio (i) Escalier 220 Mme. Bernhardt's Studio (2, 3) Escalier 221 0aks Renii 225 Sket ch oiivii 233 Tailpiece H _ Bacon 239 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. CHAPTER I. Introduction. Manet, Stevens, Duez, Merson, Lematte. ,Y Parisian art I do not wish the reader to under- stand French art. Parisians are not all French. It is said " there are few born Parisians, and that foreigners .make the best." And it is true of Parisian artists : comparatively few, if French, are born in Paris, and a large portion are of foreign birth ; but by long association, taste, and habit they are as truly Parisian as natives, lending at the same time the natural qualities, character, and thoughts of their nationality to the sum of Parisian elegance and refinement. Sweden, Russia, Hungary, Spain, Italy, England, and America contribute to this com- mon fund of aesthetic talent, aspiration, and endeavor, each 12 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. maintaining the peculiarities of his national temperament.. Thus Parisian art is not alone the outcome of the French talent, nor the fruitage of any French school or fashion- All schools, all fashions, all manners of artistic expression bring their tribute, — Wahlberg from Sweden, Munkacsy from Hungary, De Nittis from Italy, Heilbuth from Prussia,, and Madrazo from Spain, each influenced by and having an influence upon the art-atmosphere of Paris,* lending to it the strength, vigor, or softness of his fatherland. It is of this art I speak in the following pages. French art, distinctively so called, might a few years back have been easily defined ; its peculiarities were definitely marked in the school of David and those which followed. Some twenty years ago the romantic school became the fashion, with Eugene Delacroix at the head, whose works are still treasured, inasmuch as they bear the stamp of origi- nality and are the productions of a great genius. But his- followers have long since disappeared, the student of to-day choosing to copy the method of some fashionable master of his own generation. Following Delacroix was the Couture furore, and at one time Couture's studio was the only one in Paris open to PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 13 foreigners ; as a matter of course, it was crowded, for already the students were becoming tired of Rome and Florence, and beginning to look towards Paris as the centre of modern art. Then came the realistic period, where subject and senti- ment were both ignored, and the habitues of the " Salon " crowded around strongly painted, vulgar, nude figures painted on huge canvases, or copper kettles, gridirons, and vegetables. Gautier in 1864 said: " The process is attaining a point of perfection, disquieting, for the hand is becoming so skilful that the painter will soon be able to produce without brains ; " and he might have added later, that the realists' pictures were much more agreeable when they did not em- ploy their brains to invent a subject, but painted simply what came accidentally before their vision. I wish to guard against a possible error. The question will be asked why well-known and honored names have been omitted, and others chosen with as yet only a local reputa- tion. My answer is, that what I speak of is the current or fashionable art of this generation, what exists to-day, what may be supplanted in a few years and forgotten in a few more, — a mere fashion of art, as transient as that of dress. 14 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. I do not speak of Gerome, Cabanel, Meissonier, Bougue- reau, and others, already at the height of their reputation, but mostly of younger men, many of whom will some day be classed as their peers ; men who have been in some degree formed by them, but who, with the freshness of youth and spontaneity of genius, have left the beaten track of the artistic principles which these men represent, and by new or erratic methods are forming others of their own. During all the fluctuations of fashion, these men that we have just named, and many of their confreres, have adhered fundament- ally to the old traditions of art, followed the well-defined paths, and in the confusion of conflicting theories and isms have been true to the great principles of art recognized in all ages. Each year the annual Paris art exhibition, " the Salon," has contained a larger number of works than the preceding year, although there are many private exhibitions, and two that are practically in opposition to the Salon. These are the " Inde- pendents," who condemn the Salon jury as illiberal, and the " Societe des Aquarellists," who condemn the same jury for over-liberality. These presented the antipodes of artistic skill, taste, and merit. The former exhibited works so crude . PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 15 and unfinished, that the Salon could not recognize them ; the latter, on the contrary, such perfection that they preferred to exhibit in a manner more exclusive and select, — only admit- ting the works of French citizens. The school of Independ- ents has often been obliged to change the name upon the advertisements of its exhibitions to conserve the interest of the public, by giving a semblance of novelty, and to please new members coming into its ranks, and so the catalogue of 1879 announces the fourth exhibition: it was, however, the first held by them under this name. " Intransigeants " was the name by which they were known in former years, and earlier still they were called '' Impressionists." It is to be supposed that, until the government did away with the " Ex- position des Refuse," this school exhibited there, inasmuch as it never opened private galleries until after that date. This " Refuse gallery " was composed of pictures refused at the Salon, that their authors desired the public to see and admire. The government allotted them a place in a room adjoining the Salon, and the artist might use his own pleas- ure in accepting or declining the opportunity to exhibit there. Of course, paintings of merit were unfortunate enough to be refused ; but comparatively few of these permitted their i6 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. pictures to be seen in this gallery, not wishing to be classed with the unsuccessful. The exhibit of the Independents is of a wonderfully low grade of art, mixed with a few talented sketches. They profess to ignore the teachings of art schools, the traditions of the old masters, — declaring them- selves followers of no dogmas, not considering elegance desirable in their art, ab- horring the graceful con- tours of the Greek and Roman Antiques and the elaborate manner of the Renaissance. Of the somewhat famous company of Impressionists or Independents, Manet ***^^? was the "chief-inventor and apostle," who, having a real and legitimate desire for art, became too conservative for his more radical followers, and finally dropped from their ranks. Manet began the fashion of representing nature out of tune, as some men begin great social or political revolu- tions. He saw it as a near-sighted person might see it in Claude Monet. (J. Manet.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. l*J masses, — it was an impression. What he saw he deter- mined others should see, and, not giving them credit for an eye capable of detail, insisted that what he saw was all. He sat down before nature, and put upon canvas, in crude masses of color, the impression it made upon his eye, and with simple values of the large masses endeavored to avoid all necessity for detail. He tried to sound all the notes in nature's gamut by a single octave in the diatonic scale, ignoring intervening notes, the beauties of chromatic intervals. Others might have been the founders of this school ; for instance, Alfred Stevens, had he not been so great a master, and so difficult to imitate. He produced in his works all the qualities of Manet's, besides many others with greater strength, never neglecting the delicate gradations of tones and values. His picture in the International Exhibi- tion was a perfect gamut of color. A symphony in brown it has been called, from the exquisite tones and harmonies of shades. It represents a beautiful brown-eyed girl, with brown hair and dress, in the corner of a park. She has risen from her seat, with a closed book under her arm, and draw- ing her mantle about her with a slight raising of the shoul- 1 8 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. ders, which expresses chill, she moves towards the house. The sun is down, the book is finished, the summer is ended; the autumn leaves, in rich and delicate brown, fall around her and cover the ground, and, as the hollow eyes fasten upon you, you feel that a life is ending with the falling leaves. Manet was considered by many the buffoon of the Salon during the years in which his erratic talent found admirers. While fighting for certain truths in the relative values of tones and the relation of figures to background, he did it in such a way that he became the laughing-stock of all Paris. A laugh is sometimes next to commendation, and he did succeed in eliciting the criticism of artists and writers. The merits of his work were disputed. Discussion ran high, ambitious youths thought they saw a sure and easy road to eminence in art apart from the severe rudiments of drawing and composition ; certain of them embraced Manet's fashion with ardor, and, leaving off where he began, produced crudi- ties which were miscalled pictures, paintings miscalled art. Those works for which Manet was derided, when separated from the falsities which surrounded them, had the srerms of vitality. His paintings, although falling short of what he Autumn. (Alfred Stevens.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 21 intended, did good in setting others to study, and in some cases to accomplish, where he failed. Among the jurors of the Salon of 1881 were many of the younger generation of painters, some of whom had been influenced in their studies by Manet, and they voted him a recompense which they termed a " Medaille de Reparation " for his efforts during twenty years. Naturally, as this medal was accorded by fourteen of the forty members, the vote met with much opposition, and at the distribution des recompenses after the close of the Salon, before an audience composed exclusively of artists and journalists, there occurred a scandal. The calling of Monsieur Manet's name was greeted with groans and hisses, and the attempt at applause on the side of his friends only created more confusion ; making it necessary for one of the critics who had vigorously opposed the Manet medal to declare next morning, " I would not have it thought I was one of those who received the name of Manet with hisses, and wish it known that I deplore such a manifesta- tion." Prominent among the Parisian artists of to-day who ac- knowledge Manet's influence is Duez. While at the Beaux- Arts he was a pupil of Pils, but like others, who, after years 2 2 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. of careful study at the school, had felt the influence of the modern movement and begun searching for themselves, he commenced with heroic, following with sentimental sub- jects ; but finally, being released from the influences around him, began painting with an increased vigor and a fuller expression of his own sentiments and taste. In 1874 he exhibited a picture called "Splendor and Misery," — two full- length figures framed together, that brought him into notice. It was after the manner of the Impressionist school, yet with more detail and "finish," and elicited much adverse criticism from those who considered it not sufficiently serieux. Albert Wolff, then writing in the " Gaulois," said : " ' Splendor and Misery ' will be the great success of the crowd, and I suppose Monsieur Duez desires nothing more. Let him be satisfied. This cocotte and this beggar in the same frame is much looked at, and the grandfathers who come on Sundays with their children will say to them, ' Children, see how they end.' There is no 'doubt the picture will be reproduced by photo- graph. . . . The double picture of Monsieur Duez will make its mark in the parlors of the bourgeois. As the romances are upon all the pianos, this ballad will be upon all their walls. But apart from the qualities of the painting, which I do not PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 25 dispute, his present exhibition is what might be called a coup de pistoles ; but a shot, only powder, — a little noise, a little smoke, and that is all. As to intrinsic value, it has that of a photograph." Contrary to M. Wolff's prophecy, the Englishman who purchased the picture refused his consent to any reproduction whatever ; consequently it has not found a place in the homes of the people. Neither did this judgment deter the critic — who is a buyer of pictures of " young artists " — from being presented to the painter, and giving him an order for a char- acteristic work. As might be expected, a work which would elicit criticism from so distinguished a pen as that of M. Wolff must find others to sincerely admire it, and through the discussion which followed M. Duez became famous. This was a work embracing many of the ideas which Manet had unsuccessfully tried to present, but going beyond him in attention to detail and finish. Through several salons he followed similar sub- jects, until, wishing to sound more strongly and deeply the notes he had as yet but lightly touched, he commenced a large canvas. In representing nature he must have the light of nature, and it being impossible to work out of doors at all 26 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. times, he constructed a studio, — a large, well-lit shed upon the seashore, to protect his canvas from the weather, — so that he could have his figures before him in the open air, with sea and sky for backgrounds ; thus gaining advantage of local tones against a natural and strongly lighted distance. Duez in this studio adopted a new line of subjects, attempt- ing the expression of a religious, or rather a church, tradition, called Saint Cuthbert. Duez, with the Legend of St. Cuthbert, was at once given a place with the masters of modern painting, and though the picture was out of the ordinary manner of rendering religious art, lacking what is generally known as ''religious fervor," yet being thoroughly realistic was in the extreme of the fashion, and found a place in the Luxembourg Gallery, being, as some one expressed it, a triumph of realistic art. Luc-Olivier Merson, a Parisian born, and a pupil of Pils, has of late brought religious art under the dominion of real- ism. In the Salon of 1879 he exhibited two pictures, the smaller representing the Legend of St. Isadore. A man knelt in prayer while his neglected plough was held by an angel, who turned toward the suppliant an earnest and ap- proving face. Here he attempted to illustrate the power of j ~l£-n ^-txu^o t ^l rt 'CC is. ^ By the Sea. (E. Duez.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 29 prayer. In this he failed. The idea was too subtle to be expressed in realistic form. The age was past when prayer might excuse the neglect of daily labor. Religious art is at present difficult, inasmuch as it must, in its methods of expression, bow to the manner and spirit of the realistic school. Bonnat, several years since, painted a Crucifixion. It was emphatically the Crucifixion of the nine- teenth century. It was suffering man, divinity being lost in physical anguish. In the presence of tortured humanity, the distorted countenance, the torn and bleeding flesh, the strained and quivering muscles, one lost sight of the redeem- ing Christ, and saw but the man crucified. Bonnat made a mistake, and gave us the thief on the cross, not the Saviour. Modern criticism has robbed religion of the fervor which characterized it in the days when the magnificence and power of the Church raised the minds of men to the highest degree of both superstition and devotion. The Church was the art-patron of those times ; and the artist formed by the Church, patronized by its wealth, honored by its magnifi- cence, conformed to its demands, as his only road to success. But all this has changed, and the artist of the present day 30 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. must supply the public demand for realistic subjects. Merson met the public taste by painting; in the second of the two . pictures exhibited, what may be called the Madonna of Real- ism. If the first was a failure regarded as religious art, the last was surely a success. As he has represented the subject, it might have been. It is the story of Joseph's flight into Egypt. Night has fallen ; the lustrous stars gleam brightly through illimitable space. At the base of a giant sphinx the Holy Family has encamped. The tethered ass crops the withered herbage which appears above the sand. From the smouldering fire rises a thin column of smoke, straight as an arrow, into the motionless air. Joseph, wrapped in his cloak, lies upon the ground asleep, his staff beside him ; while the sphinx, with stern, impassive face, looks outward through the deep hush of the Oriental night, as though watching for a new light to gild the Eastern portal. The tired mother has climbed between its protecting arms, and the Madonna and Christ-child sleep upon the dark breast of the carved super- stition. The picture's reality touches the heart. It will live, because of its true human sentiment. Any one, believer or sceptic, might imagine it as any tired mother crossing those pathless sands might do to-night. It is no truer to the Itf'y*- ♦ ^m m - / jft: jiiS"' * \ / The Flight into Egypt. (Meeson.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 33 faith of the past than to the sentiments that stir our hearts to-day. With what is best in realism, it is realistic. Lematte, like Merson, is one of the young artists who have obtained the grand Prix de Rome. At Rome he spent the four years customary with successful candidates, and there he imbibed that religious sentiment which we find in his pictures. He is a pupil of Cabanel, and in his composition and coloring we recognize something of his master's refine- ment and grace. He is fond of large canvases and grand conceptions. These seem to be considered as belonging to a past age ; but every salon shows that there are many, who, like Lematte, have not abandoned la grande peinture. In 1879 he exhibited a large composition entitled "La Fa- •mille," thus described by an art critic : " In the soft and balmy evening hour, a family of laborers meet together on the border of the farm ; the teams are unharnessed ; the hus- band, a young, strong man, stands in the centre of the com- position, the right hand upon the hip, and the left resting upon a plough, thinking of work done and of what remains for to-morrow. Beside him sits the wife, holding a small child upon her knees. A daughter kneels beside her, and an- other child plays with a dog at her feet. In the foreground, 34 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. to the left, women are occupied milking goats. On the right, an old man, the grandfather, is telling a story to an atten- tive group of young men. The country spreads out in the background as far as the eye can follow. A fine, sympathetic picture, where the real tones die away in a serious harmony, like an idyl of Theocritus." This picture was purchased as a decoration for the Mairie of the Thirteenth Arrondissement, and Lematte was recently married under the shadow of his own ideal of domestic happiness. All large canvases, and many of merit, have not the good fortune of this of Lematte; for often, even when purchased by the government, they are sent to the museums of provincial towns, and are never seen except by some one passing that way. Many ask, " Why do artists insist on painting such large pictures ? Why not confine their talents to smaller canvases, more convenient for hanging in an apartment, and more tempting to ' an American ' ? " for, let me say in passing, that while formerly the picture-buyer for whom the artist looked and longed was the titled Englishman, he is now the rich American. The explanation is easy. The promise of fame IV,. t -'J .. ._. ->3— -i-*-.^ ^^^y^-^hf^i^i <**Cts^ vi "iN* The Naiad. (Feenand Lematte, u PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. $7 is often more tempting to young artists than the promise of gold. Artists, I mean, not mere painters; for many true artists never become painters, and there are many more painters who never become artists. If the Luxembourg Palace would promise to hang all free gifts, every artist who could afford to work for fame, and many who could not, would at once order a huge can- vas, and begin the picture which is to make him immortal ; and the gossip of the studios would ever be about So and So's picture for the Luxembourg. But it is not easy to have a picture placed among the modern masters, as each year a committee is appointed " for the selection of works of art for the government." This committee is composed of artists and government officials, — artists who have the interests of the profession at heart, and officials who control the public purse. Before pictures are selected, a sum of money is voted for purchasing ; and, as a rule, pictures are chosen from among those which have been honored by the Salon. A painter receiving a recompense makes a written request to the committee, asking it to purchase his picture. It is generally understood that his request will be granted, for his written demand is supposed to imply his readiness to 38 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. accept the governmental price, which is always comparatively small. The hope of obtaining a prize in the Salon inspires the artist to paint large pictures. If, unfortunately, they miss both prize and Luxembourg, they still have left the hope that their work may find a place in some provincial city. Every large town in France has its public picture-gallery ; other- wise, many of these huge efforts would be returned to the studios where they had their origin. CHAPTER II. Bastien-Lepage, Butin, Racquet, Gervex, Clairin, Poirson. JULES BASTIEN-LEPAGE is a young man whose work has received the warmest praise from the public, critics, and his fellow-artists. The indi- viduality pervading his style already marks him as a leader of a certain art-fashion. He is essentially realistic, and to his realism adds fine execution. His course has been a triumphal march from the begin- ning. Competing for the Prix de Rome, he was unsuccessful, the jury having awarded the prize to one of less originality in treatment and composition, but who had conformed to academic rules. When the exhibition was reopened, after the prizes were awarded, Bastien-Lepage's picture was marked " No. 2." The prize had been given over him. This was the signal for a demonstration by the pupils of the 40 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. school, who proclaimed their indignation at the decision of the professors and other dignitaries, who were jurors, by covering the frame of Lepage's picture with laurels and bou- quets. These were removed every morning by the officers in charge, only to be renewed the following day; and during the entire exhibition there was an ovation around the unsuc- cessful (?) work. M. Castagnay wrote in '' Le Siecle : " " Since the debut of M. Lepage at the Salon of 1874 with his picture, ' Mon Grand Pere,' he has seemed to be searching for something. He has now found what he sought ; a path opens before him, large and fruitful, while he resolutely advances. With such individual sentiments, with simplicity that touches like that of the grand, early painters, with a sure observation and a freeness of hand, nothing is impossible to him ; although not yet thirty years of age, he has already produced a mas- terpiece." Of another picture, " Les Foins," he wrote : " What a picture! All the art of Jules Breton pales before it, and since Courbet no one has rendered a note so true and so brilliant." Paul Mantz wrote in " Le Temps : " " An initiation seems almost indispensable to appreciate the full value of Mm r J$V' ■-*■■ I J' ' X ■>■■■ M:§^J vv. ^•'f \K';1 V, \ ;SA ; W / V i 1 !■ to' Study for Jeanne D'Arc. (Bastien-Lepage.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 43 the merits of Bastien-Lepage, the author of ' Les Foins,' which does not seem to fully satisfy certain idealists. What a strange and powerful manner of painting is his ! They have mown all the morning upon the sloping ground, as- cending towards the horizon. A peasant woman is seated in the meadow ; her companion in labor is stretched out behind her. He sleeps, and she dreams vaguely. Here the green grass, a few accessories, and in the distance the country and the village smile under the gay light of a June sky. The landscape horizon, deluged with the brightness of a clear June day, is truly admirable." Bastien-Lepage has since produced a " Jeanne d'Arc." This subject is handled in his intense and realistic manner. He has taken for his model a peasant of to-day, whose people are the descendants of that race from which sprung the warrior- maid ; and while it disturbed, perhaps, the conventional idea of this illustrious heroine, was certainly the point of greatest attraction in the Salon of 1880. Butin's success is principally amongst connoisseurs, who admire his peculiar strength in rendering a subject ; but his pictures do not appeal forcibly to the uneducated public, as his motives are far from sensational, and are generally sad, 44 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. either in subject or key of color. In 187S he exhibited a large picture representing a funeral in a fishing-village. About the door of a humble fisherman's dwelling a group of comrades and peasants has collected. The coffin is dis- covered in the doorway. Candles are burning beside it, and sailors kneel around it. The sincerity and large treatment of this painting called forth a murmur of approbation from the art jury before whom it passed, and at the Salon of that year it was one. of the works which attracted the admiration of artists and connoisseurs ; but many of the less appreciative visitors passed it unnoticed. It was too serious for the public of the day, whose first lessons in art have often been from gaudily colored chromos. And not until they found it had received a medal, and afterwards was hung in the Luxembourg Palace, did they learn to appreciate the grandeur of its conception. In the Salon of 1879 the picture exhibited was that of a sailor-wife sculling a boat. The carefully studied figure is strong and statuesque. The poise of the boat in the water is light, and we can almost feel it swashing to and fro as it is rocked by her vigorous hand, while over all is a soft, gray atmosphere. The sketch for this picture was made at Viller- ville; but when the painter had placed the subject upon a large Ulyjie -~RuK Studies from Life. (Ulysse Butin.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 47 canvas, he found his material insufficient. The studies were not sufficiently complete to enlarge from. The relations of the figure in size and tone to its accessories were not clearly enough defined, either in the sketches or in the memory of the artist, and for a time he felt compelled to abandon the composition. The winter had set in. It was impossible to work upon the seashore, but it occurred to him to bring the seashore to his studio. He brought there a boat, and tilted it into the required position ; and a Parisian model, famous in many pictures as a mythological divinity, but who had never seen the sea, donned the costume of the sailor-wife, posed on the gunwale, oar in hand ; and here in his comfort- able studio this picture was painted, Butin's sketches in black and white are as much prized among his comrades as are his paintings. Last year a collection of them was exhibited, which was mainly loaned by friends, as we learned by reading a few inscriptions. On a portrait was written, "A mon ami Clairin ; " on another, " A mon ami Duez ; " on another, " A mon ami Detaille ; " and so on, through a list of friends. What has been said of his paintings may be repeated of these sketches, — powerfully conceived and honestly rendered. 4 8 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Jacquet in his early artistic career was much fascinated by the sumptuous costumes of the sixteenth century. He began painting at an epoch when a radical change was taking place in ladies' attire. Crinoline was falling into disuse, and no de- cided style was prominent. The fashion of to-day might be a subject of ridicule to- morrow, and the very ugly fashions of the transition period were too whimsical to be perpetuated in any serious work of an artistic character. In this condition of things he was driven, for any established manner of dress, into another age. He enjoyed the beautiful tX^*" costumes of the period we have mentioned, and em- « Qu i™.» ( G. j A c QUET ., ployed many of his student days at the Louvre, copying the finest works its galleries con- tain. This has so influenced him, that even when painting PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 49 modern costume, he modifies it that it somewhat resembles the ancient. While copying the modern fashion, he gives to it the exquisite refinement and severity of the style which first impressed him. This manner or talent is peculiarly his own, and marks his .specialty in art as distinct from other painters. He was born an artist, and especially a painter of single figures. He is not happy in composition, and contents himself with throwing all his skill into representing the human face, ideal heads, or portraits. When a boy, his tutor at one time patiently but vainly tried to teach him a problem in algebra. The future artist looked frankly up into his face and exclaimed, " Quest ce que ca ma fait?" It was not his affair. His problems could not be solved algebraically, nor his talent reduced to mathe- matic lines and angles. Though fond of painting lovely faces, he has sterner tastes, as the valuable collection of old armor in his studio will testify ; ' indeed, this studio is a mu- seum, the walls being hung with old ecclesiastical draperies, tournament standards, and ancient tapestries. Jacquet was for some time a neighbor of Duez. In 1876 he left the old studio, which, though large, was much encumbered with his collection of armor. Just before leav- 50 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. ing, he painted " La Reverie," for which he received a first- class medal in 1875. For some time he occupied an immense atelier in a different quarter ; here he enjoyed a prosperity so remarkable, that it enabled him to purchase a building-lot near the Pare Monceau, where he has constructed a fine house, with a large and luxurious studio. He is gradually abandoning the painting of ideal faces; for, being much sought after as a portrait-painter, he has but little time to indulge his imagination. The artists of Paris took an active part in its defence during the Franco-Prussian war. Several of the pupils of s the Ecole des Beaux-Arts were sub-lieutenants in the artil- lery and engineer corps. This brigade was in the engage- ment of Malmaison, where Cuvelier, the sculptor, and Henri Regnault, the celebrated young painter, were killed. Vibert had his clothes riddled with balls, but escaped with only a slight wound on the knee. Vannier, the architect, received a ball in the chest. Baudry stood guard on the ramparts. Marechal, who since has committed suicide, Gulani, Berron, Geraud, and Huas, were in the cavalry. Detaille, Olivie, and many others were in the infantry. Meissonier had quartered upon him a detachment of Prussian cavalry. Turquet, ex PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 51 Sous-secretaire d' Etat au Minis t ere des Beaux-Arts, then a ser- geant-major, received severe wounds. At Malmaison, Eugene Leroux was wounded, and Jacquet nearly lost his life in an unsuccessful but heroic attempt to carry him off the field. Jacquet's sang-froid cannot be better illustrated than by the relation of an incident which occurred during that day. Among the few straggling vines left by the trampling of contending armies, and amid the whistling of bullets, he gathered the few beans remain- ing, counted and strung them upon a thread, regardless of the danger around him. These his mother has carefully treasured, and embroidered them upon a vide-poche in the form of the vide-poche. (g. jacquet. date, "21 8bre, 1870." This memento of his hardihood she treasures among her keepsakes. When the war was over, and he returned to his studio, he 52 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. continued painting in the same style he had left, elegant costumed figures, although during his year of army experi- ence he had made sketches on the field that might have been developed into military pictures. Jacquet is the proprietor of quite a menagerie ; for, besides his horses and dogs, he has many birds, and at different times I have seen in his courtyard bears, foxes, deer, goats, and in his studio a large cage of monkeys. These monkeys, besides being amusing, assist him in his work. When Jacquet has a portrait of a young child to paint, the cage of monkeys is placed in the direction to which he wishes the child to look. No coaxing nor promises of bonbons will cause a child to keep quieter and give it a pleasanter expression than will the antics of these pets. Some six weeks previous to the opening of the Salon, which takes place usually about the first of May, all artists wishing to participate send their pictures to the Palais de V Industrie, where the exhibition is held, for examination by the jury of reception. During these six weeks the artistic world is profoundly interested in the proceedings of the jury, — what pictures have been accepted; what rejected. Not seldom it becomes known, through some indiscreet jury- A Study. (H. Gervex.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 55 man, what his compeers have remarked upon the merits of individual works. In 1877, just before the opening of the Salon, a rumor was current that a painting by Gervex had been refused. The artistic history of Gervex, although a young man, was quite notable ; having at the age of twenty-two years the assur- ance of immortality by having one of his paintings placed in l Sketch. (H. Gervex.) the Luxembourg Gallery, and at the age of twenty-four years having gained a sufficient number of medals to place him hors concours. The rules then of the Salon admitted the work of any artist who had obtained a recompense at any previous exhibition, without its passing the jury, "except for reasons of immorality or political prudence." Under these circumstances all understood that M. Gervex's painting, being 56 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. entitled " Rolla," could not be obnoxious to political order, but had been classed in the immoral category. Had the jur) accepted the work, and hung it high in some ill-lighted corner, we should have heard little, perhaps nothing more, of the painting. But, of course, all Paris wished to see a paint- ing which could have shocked such .an august body of painters and journalists, and the picture was at once put on exhibition at a private gallery in the Rue de Chaussee d'Antin. Gervex became a martyr, whose talents all Paris disputed. The papers had long articles upon the work ; crowds came and went, a large number of photographs were sold, and Gervex was for a time the most-talked-of painter in Paris. As this subject had been so much criticised, he chose for the Salon of 1878 " Premiere Communion a l'Eglise Saint-Trinite," which, from an artistic point of view, was a success, as the canvas, large and luminous, treated the white robes of the young communicants in a free and original manner. The public, however, did not acclaim the artist. It looked for something eccentric, rather than original, and its attention was not caught. For the Salon of 1879 Gervex chose a subject more in the "movement" of the realistic art of the present fashion, and exhibited a picture entitled PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 57 " Apres le Bal," when he once more became the talk of the city, and received flattering notices from most of the art crit- ics. In the last Salon, still keeping in the movement of the times, he has met with further success, painting a large pic- ture, — " The Civil Marriage at the Mairie; " for all the world is interested in the struggle between Church and State, and consequently all Paris was attracted by his canvas. Sketch. (H. Gervex.) Georges Clairin is a young, dark-complexioned man, with sharp-cut features, black hair, and bushy mustache, whom Velasquez would have been delighted to paint. He was the companion of Regnault, the much-lamented young painter who was killed at Malmaison ; with him Clairin worked in 58 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Algiers and in Spain, and on him it is said his friend's mantle fell when he died, inasmuch as he painted the same class of subjects. When in 1877 he exhibited at the Salon the por- trait of Madame Sarah Bernhardt, the originality of the work caused him to be rated at once amongst the notable artists of the day. During the Exposition year he made a balloon ascension in company with Madame Bernhardt from the Place de la Carrousel, — not in the captive, but in a smaller free balloon, — making pencil sketches which served as illustrations to a book written by his fair companion, giving a history of the voyage. The book was pleasantly received. It was lightly written, being a pastime for her, not serious work. The studio of Clairin is a luxurious apartment, on the first floor of a building in the Rue de Rome ; a conservatory leading from the studio is filled with luxurious furniture rather than plants. Altogether the place has an air of ease ; the unfinished canvases on the easels, and painting materials about, show that it is, after all, a place where serious work is done. This conservatory we recognize as the background of Clairin's famous portrait of Madame Bernhardt, which now decorates her studio. There are many painters in Paris who do not exhibit in Sarah Bernhardt. (Georges Clairin.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 6r the annual Salon, preferring to be represented in private galleries or artistic club-rooms. Rosa Bonheur has for many years sent nothing there, most of her pictures going to London, where she is better known than even in- Paris. Ma- drazo, Ribera, Rossi (who lives so quietly that he is personally known to but few), Egusquiza, and Rico are only seen at international exhibitions. Lepic has also withdrawn from the Salon, but in many of the private salons of his confreres are pictures by his brush ; the dining-room of Mdlle. Abbema is decorated with panels by him; De Nittis treasures a long flat beach with a stranded ship ; Vibert numbers one in his collection ; Tony Robert- Fleury has one upon the walls of his studio ; and so we might go the round. In the studio of Mdlle. Abbema is a picture by Lepic which has never been exhibited, the artist never having discovered its beauties, and being unwilling to accept the opinions of his friends as to its merits. It represents a fleet of fishing-boats upon a calm, moonlight sea. Lights are hung out at bows and sterns. They are herring-fishers, and across the waters can be seen the dark lines of the nets ; a motive often found off the Normandy coast, but one so difficult to render, that few painters dare attempt it, and fewer succeed, as Lepic has done. CHAPTER III. Detaille, De Ncuville, Bcrnc-Bcllecour, Jourdain, Poirson. "WRITING of Detaille, Albert Wolff says : "Seeing this young man, blond, slender, always dressed J83k in perfect taste, one would think him English. He is of an esprit fin, studious, and in love with his art. Born with a vocation, he has but to follow his instincts to arrive at fame." Others have said that no trace of the conventional artist was found in his personal appearance. "He has no flowing locks, no unkempt beard, nothing of the traditional guise or abandon of the artist. His head is expressive, but like that of any other gentleman. He is handsome and refined, with a quite reserved manner. His exterior is cool and soldier-like. His atelier is always elegant, and he will paint a masterpiece without soiling his Prussian Cavalryman. (E. Detaiixe.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 65 coat with the slightest speck of color. His muse neither ex- cites him to tears nor unduly fires his imagination. Superior to the freaks of conception, he paints so much every day, and this whether he feels like it or not." Now, while this highly wrought description is true of Detaille, it is also true of the majority of Parisian artists of to-day. " Flowing locks," " unkempt beards, ' " traditional guise," and " abandon" above alluded to, belong to a class of commercial painters, not recognized as artists, and are the unmistakable stamp of mediocrity, even in that sphere. Any one meeting one of the elder successful artists of the present day would find nothing to distinguish him from other successful men. Gerome, in his daily rides to the Bois, might easily be mistaken for a re- tired cavalry officer. Cabanel, in neat dress, with head bien soignee, cold smile, and courtly manner might be an ambassa- dor. Bouguereau, with his hearty, whole-souled greeting for every one, might be a successful business man, in the whole- sale line. Detaille's talents and their fruits have already placed him in the highest social ranks. In fashionable salons his pres- ence is a familiar and important one, as it also is in the civil and political gatherings of the nation's greatest men. 66 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. In France, a country whose monuments are the records of its history, he whom art makes great occupies an important relation to the state as well as society. France fosters art, provides for its necessities, endows it richly, because it rec- ognizes in its growth not only a magnificent industry, but a means of education and refinement that nothing else can produce. She throws around it the same laws which protect her commercial interests, making art a legitimate profession, and socially opens to her artists the same doors that she does to her scholars, soldiers, literati, and statesmen. Detaille's water-colors became known while he was young and yet in the schools. In 1865 he entered the studio of Meissonier, from which, in 1867, he sent to the Salon a small picture remarkable for the minuteness of detail and clearness of conception, which have always characterized his work. From the first he has preferred military subjects ; and in 1868 he produced with much truth and vigor what might properly be called his first picture, sufficient in itself to make his fame. The same year he exhibited at the Salon a picture called " The Halt of the Drummers," of which Edmond About wrote, " Its author will some day become a master;" and Meissonier, when called in to criticise it after its com- PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 6 7 pletion, added, " My boy, you can work by yourself now ; I can teach you nothing more." At the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war, Detaille at once donned the uniform and shouldered the musket of the volunteer soldier, and in the sharpest fighting was seen alternately shooting at the enemy and sketching the scenes around him. After the war, a wider field opened to the artist. Actual experience of battle increased his knowledge CfcEB\ and enabled him to depict more vividly its thrilling scenes. Where he was once forced to choose subjects from tradition or history, he now found them in the events of his own ex- perience. Painters of soldiers and bat- tle-pieces years ago painted sketches, (e. detaille.) their pictures by a small side-light, which naturally threw upon their models the light and shade of an interior, and horses and military baggage were in a measure necessarily painted from studies. I remember a life-size painting (some ten years ago, at the Salon) of a Jeanne d'Arc on horseback 68 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. in full mail. The armor was brilliantly polished, and in the reflections could be seen the square window of the studio; and not only the window, but the artist had conscientiously and innocently painted the crossbars of the window-sash. This work created a deal of comment from disciples of real- ism, who believed the armor of a soldier on horseback should reflect the sky, and not a studio window. At present, if a painter represents a scene which occurs in the open air, the picture is painted as much as possible out of doors ; but as the weather makes it impossible to work outside at all times, Detaille has covered the court-yard of his house with glass, and there he arranges, by means of manikins and living models, the tableau, which he transfers to the canvas with all the freshness, values, and qualities of life. By these means he is enabled to imbue his pictures with truth, that he could not obtain by copying hasty sketches, no matter how exact and careful they may be. It is said of Detaille that he has a camera in his eye, while his drawings from memory are so accurate that it is difficult to convince even professional artists that they are not drawn from life. At Champigny, lines of Saxons were cut down by the RARISIAX ART AXD ARTISTS. 69 mitrailleuse before the eyes of the painter, who afterwards drew the scene so vividly as to astonish his comrades ; the drawing having all the qualities of a sketch direct from nature. Of this peculiarity of the artist a critic writes : " His memory is wonderful. What he sees is at once engraved upon his brain with the impress of photography." He is one of the painters de precision, who has at the same time an imagination and a sense capable of creative art. Most of this school are satisfied with handling a picture much like a photograph ; but Detaille gives the accuracy of outline and detail, beside ideas and expressions of thought. De Neuville is often spoken of in connection with Detaille, for they paint similar subjects, and they are inseparable friends. De Neuville was first known as an illustrator, being one of the best in France, and his drawings were eagerly sought by publishers, abroad as well as at home. This early training gave him such facility of drawing, such readiness of composition, that, when he entered the wider field of painting, he had but to add color to an almost perfect talent, and stood at once foremost among his competitors. It has been said " the studio is the artist." Never was the 7° PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. thought more justly applied . than to the military specialty of M. de Neuville. Guns, helmets, pistols, everything that be- longs to the trade of war, is found in the place where the artist paints his pictures. Fragment from Rorke's Drift. (A. de Neuville.) While painting his celebrated picture, entitled " La Der- niere Cartouche," he caused a running fire of musketry to be discharged by his models, in order that he might catch The Reconnoissance. (A. de Neuville. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 73 the spirit and fix it upon his canvas. His models were placed in all positions, — scaling walls, loading, firing, pros- trate upon the ground, as if wounded or dead. It is not un- common for him to take with him on his summer vacation two models, dressed as soldiers ; one is his valet de chambre, the other his cook. Their household duties completed, they pose for some military episode. De Neuville has recently completed an order from England, — a large picture, the sub- ject of which is taken from the Zulu war. and the episode that of Rorke's Drift. The time is early twilight; the savages are attacking the fort in masses. In the foreground are the red-coated English troops, with the chaplain in the centre, a prominent figure, distributing extra cartridges ; the sur- geons on the left, among a number of wounded. The picture is full of action and red-coats. Mrs. Butler (Miss Thompson) painted the same subject for a royal order; but instead of any jealousy between the celebrated painters, there is the best of feeling and a spirit of cordial co-opera- tion ; Mrs. Butler sending to De Neuville photographs she had received from Zululand. In the Salon of 1881, De Neuville's picture of " Le Cime- tiere de Saint-Privat (18 Aout, 1870)," was placed in a salle 74 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. near an entrance ; and from the other room, looking through the door, we would look into the faces of the crowd before De Neuville's painting. The picture represented the last struggle of the day's fight, ending in a churchyard, — a day which had cost the Prussians more than ten thousand men ; and King William telegraphed to Queen Augusta, " My guard has found its tomb before St. Privat." No words could do more honor to the talent of the painter than this mute crowd standing transfixed before this work ; for generally visitors at the Salon are full of wordy comments, either of criticism or approbation ; but before this canvas, full of move- ment and color, they stood silent. A peculiar feature of some of the modern battle-pictures is that but one of the contending armies is visible, — a modern- ism in war with long-range guns, when often, during a day's fighting, nothing is seen of the enemy but the flash and smoke, obliging the realistic artist so to reproduce the epi- sode. Among the painters of this class is Berne-Bellecour. The painting which added greatly to his reputation is well- known through reproductions, entitled " Le Coup de Canon." A gun has just been fired, and the battery officers and men are peering through the smoke to see the result. :->"l>- f -Pi '-"'il/i < - . • '?-<■■■ \\'<>M -, <3><~^C* 3c 4. -JOcM, «-/ ,?/ *C~vj \ Battle of Malmaison. (E. Berne-Bellecour. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 77 His Salon picture of 1879 was in rather a different strain,. " Sur le Terre." A duel is about to be fought between two soldiers, personal enemies, but of the same regiment. At the battle of Malmaison, where the artists' brigade was engaged, many were killed or wounded. Berne-Bellecour painted a picture of this engagement, with portraits of some of the regiment, — Leroux wounded, Jacquet firing a last shot, Cuvelier supported by comrades. In the extreme distance was the Prussian army, represented by a line of smoke and a. few microscopic figures. This was a remarkable contrast to the old-fashioned battle-piece with the conventional group in the foreground, — a soldier just about to run a bayonet through a wounded man, an officer behind the soldier about to cut off his head ; and so, ad infinitum.. Berne-Bellecour finishes with the utmost detail the backgrounds of earth forti- fication and barricade. These accessories are not easy to obtain in times of peace, and, in order to render truthfully his work, he models miniature earthworks of clay, small tim- bers, and stones, after hasty pen-and-ink sketches which he had made during the war. His picture of the " Attaque du Chateau de Montbeliard (campagne de 1870-71)," Salon of 1881, varied slightly from 78 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. his usual compositions. A long line of French soldiers is visible, creeping up to surprise a stronghold, while in the fore- ground only one Prussian is seen, — the sentinel, who has just been slain, — and through the smoke in the entrance, where the struggle has commenced, a glimpse of other Prussians. Berne-Bellecour is tall and well proportioned, has a fine, military bearing, and might easily be an officer of the legions he depicts. Fashions change the art of a period, and the direction of travel in search of it. Some years ago it was thought neces- sary that Parisian artists should seek their inspirations in distant lands ; but recently they have learned to appreciate the material nearer home, and have found that their own fresh landscapes are as beautiful backgrounds for modern figures as the sandy desert for a Hagar in the Wilderness. Jourdain has deserted the East, and obtained the medal for a picture, " Le Charland," a canal-boat upon the Seine ; while Detaille, De Neuville, Mdlle. Abbema, and Poirson, instead of going South in the winter, go North in the summer as far as London, with which they declare themselves charmed. They do not speak of the fog and smoke in the usual terms, but admire their picturesque qualities. They have visited TO THE RESCUE. (M. POIRSON.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 8r England as artists in company, not as forced exiles, — a man- ner in which so many French painters made the acquaint- ance of what they consider gloomy London. Detaille has brought back sketches of the quays and the Tower. De Neuville studies for a battle-scene in South Africa. He did not, of course, study English landscape for his backgrounds, but he obtained documents for his work much more easily there than in Paris, and at the same time studied types of the English soldiery. He was there when some of the regiments returned from Zululand. Poirson has not as yet painted a picture from any subject composed on English soil, for he wishes to understand more perfectly Northern character before making the attempt. Already he has shown a predilection for the English, and in many pictures has introduced them. 'He has run up the English flags on the yacht he is so fond of painting, and in a late Salon picture introduced young girls of decided English type. CHAPTER IV. Tony Robert-Fleury, Duran, Dupain, Delance. J HE generation of art professors who have had charge of the government art schools for the 11 past fifteen or twenty years are fast reaching maturity, although still holding honored places in the pro- fession. Although younger men are fast rising in public estimation, those who have educated and directed their talent are not pushed into the background, nor ignored. These younger men never seem to forget the master, and no matter how high they rise, they are always ready to accept, and are honored by, advice from the teacher of their youth. Nor are the masters jealous of the brilliant success of their pupils, while in the catalogue of the annual Salon the pupil PAH IS IAN ART AND ARTISTS. 83 always subscribes himself as the pupil of M. , although he may only have belonged to his studio in early youth. Perhaps one reason that the scholar always respects the advice of his " patron," even after he has launched out into the artistic world with ideas and rendering of his own, is, that he seldom enters an atelier before he has completed a common-school education and chosen his profession. Then he chooses for himself the master whose paintings and style of handling has most charm for him. On entering the studio he recognizes the superiority of the master's maturer talent over his, yet undeveloped ; and, recognizing this superiority at the beginning of his studies, as he grows in knowledge and skill he does not depreciate what he has acknowledged when he was a nouveau. It is a Parisian custom for the old scholars to give each year a dinner to their former and still recognized master. It is a curious sight to see the group of men that will congre- gate at these reunions. Down each side of the table, the scholars, bearded in every fashion, and hair fast growing thin and gray, and at the head, with on either side those who have gained highest honors, presides the " Patron," the most ven- erable of the assembly, nearly a generation in advance of the 84 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. rest, whom, in the happy after-dinner moods, they toast with the old-time respect. The scholars, in their turn, are beginning to take rank as masters, and will by and by step into the patron's place. The eldest of the artists, M. Robert-Fleury, — the first di- rector of the present Ecole des Beaux-Arts, — has withdrawn of late years from actual connection with the school, but, when his health permits, presides at the numerous artistic councils. To the three classes of drawing and painting which were established at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1863 were appointed, as professors, MM. Gerome, Cabanel, and Pils. Gerome and Cabanel still hold their places. Pils died in 1875, and has been succeeded by M. Lehmann, although several younger men were proposed to fill the vacancy. There are private studios outside the jurisdiction of the administration, which are supported by the pupils, in most of them the teachers giving their time, which is of no small account, as several days of each week are broken into by these tasks. Tony Robert-Fleury, son of Robert-Fleury, is a professor in one of these schools. He obtained the Medal of Honor PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 85 at the Salon of 1870, which honor placed him at once, when hardly thirty years old, amongst the masters of his time. It has been written in reference to a painter who has made an unequivocal success at the Salon, that, instead of being the happiest of men, he should be the most miserable. " He will now, in every picture, be in competition with his own past. I do not know of any more tragic situation for writer or painter than to be continually having to beat himself at his best, each hard-won victory necessarily making the next harder." This idea can be thoroughly applied to Tony Robert-Fleury, for having attained the highest rank in the official acknowledgment at a time when most men of his own age were struggling for recognition. M. Tony Robert-Fleury is generally ranked among the preceding generation, while, in truth, he is younger than most of those who are now coming into notice. A young artist is not necessarily a young man. Many men whose heads are gray fail of recognition and of their highest excellence in their earlier years. There are three studios under the charge of M. Julian in the Passage du Havre, where Tony Robert-Fleury, with his confreres, Lefebvre, Boulanger, and Bouguereau, are profes- 86 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. sors. These studios are supported by the pupils, who pay a certain sum each month for the room, models, easels, etc.; and whatever surplus remains goes to form a prize. One hundred francs is given for the best study made during the season. Two of these studios are for men, and one of them for women, which latter is under the especial supervision of Tony Robert-Fleury. These studios, which are somewhat of an unofficial succur- sale to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, are in a remarkably prosper- ous condition. The entrance fees are comparatively small, and the nouveau system (hazing), which is still in vogue in the Beaux-Arts, is not the fashion here. The professors are men who have obtained an enviable position in Parisian art. Carolus Duran received the Medal of Honor in the Salon of 1879, for a portrait of a lady. This honor was obtained in competition with many fine works, and is more marked when we consider the number of portrait-painters — perhaps the finest in the world — over whom it was gained. Had it been intimated a few years before that a portrait of his would have been voted the highest recompense of the Salon by his confreres, the idea would have been ridiculed, for Du- ran's works had been the subject of great discussion. And PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 87 inasmuch as the jury held the same conservative ideas as heretofore, it is doubtless true that the painter has somewhat modified his peculiar methods. His portraits, for with them he has made his greatest successes, were most audacious ; the draperies predominating to such a degree that they made the face of secondary importance. From time to time he exhibited pages of his talent, and those who were opposed to his manner and sen- timent were obliged to admit they possessed marks of gen- ius; and, as we have said, he at last triumphed, and received the highest honor Paris could bestow. The. portrait was of a lady dressed in white satin, a fur cloak falling from her shoulders ; the tones of the picture were silver and brown, the flesh being the only part which approached color ; the harmony of the whole being perfect and original, recalling the portraits of that prince of portrait- painters, Van Dyck. In the exhibition at the Champs de Mars he had an in- teresting collection of portraits. There was great variety among these pictures, each one differing from the other in arrangement and color, displaying remarkable versatility of talent. 88 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Duran's talent is very attractive to the rising generation ; and he has gathered quite a school, which is known as the " Atelier Duran," near the Luxembourg ; and of all private ateliers on that side of the river, is most frequented by Eng- lish and Americans. It has formed several pupils, who are takine a front rank in Parisian art. Edmond Louis Dupain has lately obtained a professorship in the Polytechnic school, receiving the appointment over forty applicants by competitive examination, — a great honor in Paris, the artistic centre of the world. Dupain's favorite subjects at one time were sentimental sportsmen and rustic peasants, or rather the opera comique sportsman and soubrette. From these well-painted but commercial subjects he sud- denly turned, and showed his knowledge of high art and his power of treating large subjects. He made a decided success with a picture entitled " Le Bon Samaritan." " And sat him on his own horse, and brought him to an inn. . . . He took out two pence and gave them to the host, and said unto him, take care of him." 1 For this picture, which is well composed, strongly and agreeably painted, Dupain received a first-class medal. 1 French Testament. ,,:m mM^W m ir^ L |l 'Li 1 ;/' p J; 4' i ' If ! L'v'. ■• The Good Samaritan. (E. Dupain.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 91 Charles Clement, in the " Journal des Debars," alludes to this work. " M. Dupain, I think, is a young artist, for I do not remember to have remarked his work before. < Le Bon Sa- / 1 Sketching. (E. Dupain.) maritan ' that he exhibits shows qualities that promise well for his future. Two vigorous men are carrying a wounded man — one supporting the head and the other holdino- the feet. 9 2 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. They have just lifted him from the horse and are approaching the inn, that serves as a background to the group. Le Bon Samaritan, in a sombre dress partially covered by a burnous of a brilliant red, stands behind them. He still holds his horse's bridle, and talks with the innkeeper, who, standing in his doorway, shows by his gesture pity and astonishment. The arrangement of light in the picture is excellent, the whole group coming out strong in a clear and harmonious manner against the brilliantly lighted wall. " The wounded man, almost entirely naked, with extended arms, and torse thrown back, stands out boldly from the bright-colored garments of one of the carriers and the sable tones and flesh-tints of the other. This figure forms the clear and dominant note of the composition, and the interest is thus naturally centred upon the principal personage in the picture. This figure is a fine study ; it is correctly drawn and well modelled, showing a thorough but not obtru- sive knowledge of anatomy. We are happy to find these serious qualities in an artist, who also searches for color effect. This work in its ensemble has a fine appearance; the color is rich, harmonious, and powerful. The figures are per- fect in situation, and I only reproach M. Dupain that his PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 93 characters are too modern, and have too much of the Arab in costume." Delance has a studio at Les Ternes, Rue Saint Ferdi- nand, a part of the city lying beyond the Arc de Triomphe. The court where he is located is a hive of artists. Cele- brated painters and sculptors have begun their art-life here, and from its humble door have passed out many famous pro- ductions. Here Carpeaux made the sketches for the group which now adorns the facade of the new Opera House. Here Jacquet lived for several years, and painted himself into fame and history in the " Reverie." Duez once occupied the same studio now used by Delance, and here was painted his first success, " Splendor and Misery." The entrance is through a court, upon which the doors of the studios on the ground-floor, mostly of sculptors, open directly. The buildings on either side are of the simplest construction, covered with a coat of paint originally red, now clingy and faded ; a few flowers and bushes planted along each side of the court ; a fence covered with ivy, a tree at the far- ther end ; and added to these the half-cut busts, now moss- covered, left by a former landlord, give the place a quaint and 94 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. picturesque appearance. On the left a flight of stairs leads abruptly from the court to a landing, where you find De- lance's studio. A piece of chalk hung to the door-post ena- Louis XVI. visiting a Potato-field. (P. Delance.) bles you to leave your autograph on the panel of the door, in case the artist is not at home ; for Delance, being a teacher PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 95 in a government school, is often absent. Delance has now- reached that epoch in an artist's life when he stands be- tween what he has been taught in the schools and his own individual sentiments in art. The art of to-day has a strong influence upon him. The tender grays that modern painters so much affect, he feels more purely than many, and is able to fix them upon canvas with strong and charming effect. His studio-walls tell of industry, being covered with sketches of landscape, heads, and other bits from nature. These sketches are mere pockades, — impressions of form and color, very effective, but unsatisfactory except to artists ; they are devoid of detail, yet delicious in tone, serving as memoranda or suggestions to the memory of the artist, who, if he pos- sesses a peculiar talent, is able to reproduce in picture the original effect with greater finish. Delance is forming the character of his artistic career, hav- ing within a few years left the schools, and being not yet free from the traditionary fetters of academic bondage. His first exhibition at the Salon was the stereotyped " Adam and Eve." After this his choice of subjects varied, until he was attracted by the paintings of Duez, whose work apparently had greater influence oh him than that of his master, Gerome. 96 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Following this new influence, he exhibited a picture, "Faith, Hope, and Charity," — three canvases in one frame. Faith was represented by a child praying at its mother's knee ; Hope, by a fisherwoman standing' upon the seashore, holding a child, both looking out over the waters to catch sight of a tiny sail in the far distance ; and the last, a Sister of Charity feeding the poor. This was the beginning of his success, and now he is profiting by his talents, which are bringing him good fortune. Delance received a medal at the Salon of 1881 for a large canvas representing '' Le Retour du Drapeau " (14 Juiller, 1880). It was in strong contrast to the official paintings of the subject, several of which were in the same exhibition. His might be called an unofficial view of the subject, for the " people " were prominent in the foreground, the soldiers and flags occupying a secondary plain in the picture. The work was full of light, open air, and audacity. CHAPTER V. Vibert, Chevilliard, De Beaumont. I BERT stands high among the first artists of the IBRliff day, as one °^ t' ie ^ ew w ^ 10 can te '^ a complete story on a small canvas, combining wit and good painting. He often carries sarcasm to such an extent that were he not so acute, and did he not know so well where to draw the line, his pictures would degenerate into caricature. A picture well known through its reproductions is a fair example of his talent : the interior of an Episcopal palace. At a table, before a huge fireplace, are seated a Cardinal and a Bishop ; but they are back to back. The Bishop, whose face is visible, has his head upon his hand and wears a look of anger and contempt. The back of the Cardinal expresses the same by the manner in which he sits in his chair and swings his foot, with the slippers hanging from his toes. 98 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Upon the floor between them is a volume, ponderously bound and clasped, open, and face downwards. The book tells the story : a quarrel never to be healed, which will draw forth endless documents and expoundings on either side. It is aptly called " The Schism." Another picture represents some monks in the act of burning objectionable books from a library; but, before consigning them to the flames, they are reading them and laughing heartily at their contents. It is often worth one's while to examine the post-bills on the public walls. Many of them are works of art ; and if one looks closely he will see the signatures of celebrated artists. I have seen many signed Brion or Gustave Dore, and lately one by Vibert. There was no text : it represented a spider in a web (the spider being a woman), and was evidently in- tended to excite inquiry ; for Paris needs some new idea each day to interest and amuse her. Unluckily, the day the design was posted a heavy snow fell, which monopolized the atten- tion of the public, and the design proved a failure. A more successful trial was made with this engraving, a proof being enclosed in each copy of a morning paper. It proved to be an announcement of a new story, — " The Spider." PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. ioi Vincent Chevilliard was born in Rome, of French parents, but came early to Paris. He studied first with Picot, and afterwards entered the painting class in the Ecole des Beaux- Arts that was formed in 1863 under the professorship of Monsieur Cabanel. Some years ago at Barbizon I found an old-time friend, a fellow-student in Cabanel's atelier. He was living oppo- site the artistic tavern, in an old ivy-covered house, where Theodore Rousseau had lived and died, and where he painted his last pictures. On approaching by the quaint street, one would scarcely suspect that behind the high wall and huge gate there were flower-bordered walks overhung by fruit-trees. Here we found Vincent Chevilliard, who had taken the place before- the Franco-German War ; and here he had lived, undecided as to what genre of art he should adopt, and aimlessly (so far as a definite object was concerned) he painted exquisitely finished landscapes one day, and richly costumed figures of by-gone ages the next. These pictures were exceedingly well drawn and finely finished, but conventional, and consequently did not bring Chevilliard success ; for one must show an original style of execution, or an original esprit in the choice of 102 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. subjects, to make him a successful artist of the nineteenth century. But an apparently insignificant circumstance brought to light Chevilliard's latent originality. A confrere on a visit to Barbizon carried a priest's costume, intending while there to finish some draperies in a picture on which he was then engaged. One afternoon he dressed himself in it; and Chevilliard — who, as usual, was undecided what to paint next — besought his friend to grant him a sitting. The result was a picture called " An Easy Conscience." It was sold to Goupil, who immediately resold it to an English dealer, it finally became the property of the Prince of Wales, and fame was at once assured the artist. Orders poured in on all sides, always for priests ; and in the backgrounds of these pictures we find picturesque corners of the familiar house and garden, and recognize the faces of the Barbizon peasants under the priest's hat. He has recently moved to Paris, and occupies a charming little studio, on whose walls we see sketches, — souvenirs of his Barbizon life. The esprit manifested in choice of subjects, the Jinesse with which he tells a story of quiet but exquisite humor, are indi- vidual. A priest sits in his garden by a table after dinner ; his cup of coffee, half finished, is before him ; he lolls back, ft £/& /nU. "Z^c-r A<****..4>£~~- ' /tsz."*/* The Salutation. (V. Chevilliard.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 1 05 contentedly smoking a short clay pipe. We criticise at first the short pipe in the mouth of a priest, until we detect the red ribbon in his button-hole. It is the decoration of the Legion d'Honneur, showing us that by valiant public service he has now earned his right to private comfort; and showing, too, the painter's finesse d' esprit and acuteness of observation. Another : The priest stands upon a doorstep, holding at arm's-length, by the tips of his fingers, a radical journal which the postman, in his haste, has left in the place of the usual orthodox sheet ; and the story is plainly told in the disgust and disdain upon his face. Chevilliard's wit, though intense, is never bitter ; and by no class in France are his pictures more really appreciated than by that which he seems to mock. Chevilliard's appartement has the appearance of a priest's home, — a priest fond of bric-a-brac. He dines off a long, narrow table like those we find in monkish refectories, in carved, high-backed chairs, and makes his coffee in a strangely formed pot, over a spirit-lamp upon the table. " Enfin" says Chevilliard, "always painting cures, I have come finally to live like one." Ulysse Butin is especially known by his portrayal of fisher 106 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. life on the Normandy coast, rendering it with both pathos and strength. He has built a studio at Villerville by the sea, where he passes the summer, and makes his studies from nature for his winter's work in Paris. He first attracted the public by a picture representing Normandy fish-wives clustered together on the pier, awaiting the arrival of the fishing-boats, which, just visible on the horizon, are scudding in before the rising storm. With some painters, youth and esprit always remain. They never forget their student days, and the little grisettes that used to haunt the studios. Who would imagine, on seeing some of De Beaumont's pictures, that he had long since become a stranger to the Latin Quarter and the Sun- days at Bas-Meudon and Bougival ? We wonder whether his pictures are mere inventions or souvenirs. As a sample of his peculiar ' esprit, where the character of the personages is explained without their being brought from behind the scenes : A pair of boots outside a chamber door, — a huge pair of masculine affairs, worn and patched, — while beside them, a jaunty pair of tiny boots in the height of fash- ion. The story is plain : the owner of the first pair is ready to sacrifice everything — yes, even personal appearance — to the caprices of her he lovea PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 107 The water-color in the possession of M. Alexandre Dumas is perhaps more spiritu- elle. A studio door, an attic studio to which the concierge would probably direct : " The fifth story, at the end of the corridor, then up the flight of stairs you find there, the first door to the right." The iron ring in the wall, with the rope at- tached to serve as a banister, shows that the stairs are steep. To the bell-cord is tied a deer's foot, for a handle, and in the cord is twisted a full-blown rose ; while on C'est Dommage. (De Beaumont.) the wall is written with chalk, 108 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. " C'est dommage. Marie." Will not the dullest imagination understand the little poem without an explanation ? will not the heart sympathize with Marie, who has taken advantage of a holiday to slip away from homely toil, and don her gala-day dress, thinking to while away with her friend the long sunny hours of the afternoon ? She climbs the interminable stairs, passes the corridor, up the last steep flight, daintily grasping her skirts with one hand, while with the other she clasps the rope, to assist the ascent. Now she rings gently and listens ; no sound but her own quick breathing. She rings again and still again, but no response ; and she gathers up her neat draperies, and turns away, disappointed, to descend. A thought makes her smile: she takes a rose from her corsage, — the only one, — and twists it into the bell-rope. Then she writes upon the door (the story of her disappointment. — do we not pity her?) " C'est dommage. Marie." CHAPTER VI. Heilbuth, Frkre, Schenck, Todd, Chialiva. IGH among Parisian painters, both in oil and aquarelles, is Ferdinand Heilbuth. Before one IKfflll of his exquisite compositions the observer feels instinctively that he is in the presence of a personality which has seen widely and felt deeply. He was born in Hamburg, and early in life was involun- tarily made a Prussian. His love of art led him out of the Fatherland into southern countries, where his artistic nature was kindled to more intense aspirations. He lived and worked many years in Rome. He afterwards settled in Paris, and was particularly attracted by the delicate tones and atmosphere of its environs. At the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian War he left France, though with regret, HO PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. and took refuge in London, where he remained during the siege. At the close of the war he returned, and at once placed himself " so that, if God should reserve for France more battles, he would not need to leave her." Thus choosing between three cities, — London, Rome, and Paris, each of which would be pleased to claim him as a citizen, — he has become civilly what he has for years been at heart, a Parisian. On his return to Paris, although a Prussian, not a review, not a journal, not an artist, but ex- tended to him across the breach of national prejudices the hand of welcome and of friendship; and he again took the distinguished place which he had made for himself in Parisian art. A writer in the "Soleil" of April, 1879, re- marks : " I know no artist more thoroughly French — I will say, none more truly Parisian — than Heilbuth. I am ac- quainted with none more sympathetic, amiable, and spiritual. He is a Parisian, as was Henri Heine, gifted with the finest and most delicate wit and a warm heart, and at the same time with an original and personal talent. So his re-entrance has been welcomed with most lively sympathy, — as much by his brother artists as by the public, oif whom we are the echo." PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 1 1 1 Heilbuth has high idealization and accurate observation. What he sees he expresses clearly, with a broad and breezy strength, full of the subtilty of nature and poetic grace. Equally happy in landscape or figures, he combines them with wonderful harmony, — not in a stilted or academic man- ner, but so justly that we hardly know which to admire most, the sincerity of the handling or the choice of the subject. One of his larger pictures is a scene upon the Pincio at Rome : A broad open foreground ; at the left children play around a fountain, sailing their ships ; in the distance, on the right, a second group, so familiar in a pleasant day, — a mother, nurse, and still younger brood of children, seated in the shadow of overhanging trees ; near the centre, in the foreground, the principal group, — a white-f rocked company of boys in their daily walk, under the surveillance of a master, has met a red-coated Cardinal, who takes the opportunity to put them through their catechism. Some show by their faces that they have passed the ordeal triumphantly ; others are a little downcast ; while still others, who have not yet been summoned, are being surreptitiously crammed by the master in attendance. These groups stand against a tender back- ground, arranged with such a perfect management of values 112 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. that the eye is led from one feature to another by an easy and natural gradation. The whole picture is characterized by a large manner, a general harmonious tonality, and an exquisite grace and sentiment which give to all his work its especial charm. Although he is happy in painting the scarlet dress of the Roman Cardinal, one sees that in the environs of Paris he is more especially at home ; the backgrounds that he loves being those of Bougival, which, although outside the city walls, combine with nature something of Parisian coquetry and elegance. Nothing can be more attractive and melancholy than the " Beach at St. Adresse : " An autumn day, — one of those tender, regretful hours among the last of the season. The sea is green and troubled ; the sky is overcast. In the dis- tance, a family sitting, looking out upon the sea for the last time before going home to Paris. In the foreground, a lovely woman has found a solitary corner, and, in the quiet of her retreat, has sat down to read a letter. A wistful, far-away look is upon her face. Love's dream, and the friend of a summer : the dream is broken ; the summer is ended ; and the friend, — who knows ? It is the exquisite harmony of PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 113 the minor chord, thrilling the whole melody of this work, that touches you. And yet the vigor of every note, the decided step of every interval, the finish and detail of every phrase of the " symphony," is, too, perfectly felt. Although his art is not always in a minor key, it is always mondaine, of a grand elegance, and charming in color. " How shall we describe them ? " says a French critic ; " how explain the accord of tones, — grays and rose, for example, — relieved against the dark lines of the landscape ? how explain the har- mony provocante of a rose corsage and a gray skirt, a bare arm half shaded by a parasol, while the rest reflects the clear mid- day light ; the whole blending together in most delightful effects ? " Imagine one more : Two young women in a boat, resting on their oars at the approach of a swan. Nothing as a subject; but, interpreted by Heilbuth, it is not only attrac- tive but fascinating. Ecouen is a small town a few miles north of Paris, which has become famous not only as the site of a grand old cha- teau built by the Montmorencys, but as the residence of many artists. Although Ecouen is outside the city limits, the painters living there are intimately connected with the art interests of Paris, and it belongs by right to the circle of artists there. 114 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. The Ecouen School is known thoughout the art-world as designating a class of pictures representing peasant home-life. Its founder was Edouard Frere, whose pictures are prized as masterpieces of what Moncure D. Conway, in an article in " Harper's Monthly," some years ago, terms " sympathetic art." Frere is personally beloved by all who have come in contact with him and his home. Working from life was once considered unnecessary: it is now the fashion; and, all admit, the best. Once a few hasty sketches sufficed ; and the artist, in the quiet and comfort of his studio, composed his picture, which was the result largely of mental evolution guided by his sketches. The public knew more of the reality than these pictures represented. It saw in the snow-storm what the picture did not possess ; and the artist, to meet the knowledge of the public, was driven out of doors to paint nature more intimately. Winter scenes are peculiarly difficult in this climate, snow remaining upon the ground but a little time ; and all effects which are desirable must be caught at once, — or they are lost. Edouard Frere was particularly fond of painting chil- dren in the snow, but found it difficult to get his background. One evening, when sitting around his library table with a At School. (E. Frhre.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 117 number of his pupils, one of us proposed a novel carriage, or rather sledge, — with a box half covered with a light top, a charcoal foot-stove for the artist inside. He, having his canvas on a shelf before him, in this way might work leisurely and comfortably. Frere as well as other Ecouen artists at once adopted it, and it is now no un- usual thin? in the winter to see these miniature ateliers standin°" at the frere in his sketching sledge, (h. bacon.) corners of the village streets, the occupant comfortably at work with his slippered feet upon a chauffe pied, and his wooden shoes, that have brought him dry-shod through the snow, outside. Frere was the first artist to locate in this quaint old town; but others, feeling his strong influence, soon gathered around him. Most artists who made their residence in Ecouen be- came his pupils. 1 1 8 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. At Ecouen resides, during the summer, Charles Frere, son of the master, who is a painter like his father, and has built a house and studio adjoining his grounds. Schenck, the well- known animal painter, has lived here for years, making ex- cursions to Auvergne and other picturesque resorts during the summer months to make studies for backgrounds. He has turned into a studio a large, stone building, originally intended for a barn, which is lined with sketches and studies. Next to his dwelling he has animals and cattle enough to stock a farm, and is always preceded in his walks about the village by a pack of dogs of all species and breeds. Here we also find George Todd, an -Englishman and an owner of a fine house and grounds. Todd at one time made a specialty of painting flowers, but has of late changed to figure subjects of out-of-doors peasant life. In these he utilizes his former studies by giving flowers importance in the foreground of his pictures. A few years since Luigi Chialiva, a native of Italy, pur- chased an old place here, which rumor says Louis XVI. built for a favorite. Chialiva has added a modern glass studio to the old house, large enough to pose in inclement weather the animals and figures he wishes to paint. This overlooks Feeding the Calves. (L. Chialiva.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 121 the open meadow, with distant trees and clouds, and here, unmolested by the changeable weather, he can paint his fig- ures against the background. His truthful painting and con- tagious enthusiasm attracted numerous pupils. Chialiva is a cosmopolite, — an Italian born, English bred, and Parisian by choice, married to an American, his interests and sympathies are unusually broad and liberal. He is fond of painting English landscape, which he treats with tenderness and exqui- site sympathy. Speaking in a general way, one would de- scribe his art as landscape with figures, which would scarcely do it justice. He sees a landscape as a portrait-painter sees a face: it is a living thing, with ever-varying expression. The art of the portrait-painter lies in catching the slightest beauty or expression of which the face is capable, and in this manner does Chialiva treat landscape : each of his pictures is a portrait, with one of Nature's finest expressions. To paint such pictures, one must sit long and lovingly before Nature, until her face is familiar and the heart en rapport with her life. This is the secret of Chialiva's success. He is fond of putting into his pictures children and animals; which add interest, but do not take such prominence as to detract from the landscape, thus making it a mere background. 122 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. These figures add the moral element in a perfectly natural and harmonious way, and the eye wanders pleasantly from one object to another, — from the amusing heads of the chil- dren to the sunny distances, the rolling clouds; then back again to the foreground, — in fact, wherever the artist by exquisite gradations in values leads the eye. The habits and peculiarities of different animals he studies carefully ; and each picture is an agreeable page of natural history, where the atmosphere is always beautiful, be it in the time of apple-blossoms or of falling leaves; of long sunny distances, with glimpses of church spires or tiled roofs ; of cloud-shadowed foregrounds dotted with buttercups, poppies, daisies, or golden-rod. CHAPTER VII. Beraud, Grandjean, De Nittis. ,ERAUD is a Parisian by birth, sentiment, and \ art, and paints the most characteristic Parisian types. His studio is in Rue Washington, with an entrance — between a charcoal shop and a crockery store, sufficiently realistic for any taste — to a long court filled with the ateliers of sculptors and painters. Here Edward H. May, of New York, has occupied a studio for nearly twenty- five years; and next door to him is W. P. W. Dana. Here could be found at one time Jules Stewart, Saintin, Madrazo, and Rico ; and many foreigners, some of whose names are now noted, have here temporarily made their home. It was here that Beraud worked during his early years ; and now, although successful, he still remains in the old place. 124 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. !^> You climb one, two, three, four flights, — this must surely be the end; but no, — another little stairway is discovered, and again you mount, pausing at last before a small door. In answer to your knock, the door is opened by the artist himself. He has a striking figure : tall, dark-complexioned, with full beard trimmed to a point at the chin, mustaches en croc, a restless, laughing eye. His brusque, cordial welcome puts you at ease, and he explains with nervous gesticulations the pictures before you. Except the pictures, you see nothing in the room to suggest an artist's studio, — and these give it rather the air of a picture- merchant's store-room. In fact it is a store-room ; for Beraud's real studio is a cab, and this is but a place where he can exhibit his work, and study it under more favorable light than in After the Funeral. (J. Beraud.) a carnage. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 125 Here are two Salon pictures in his earlier manner which form a striking contrast to his later style ; for Beraud is one of those who, having commenced art in a classical school, has changed his style radically, and become modern and realistic. One of these pictures is a fresh and vigorous handling of the old theme of Jupiter and Leda, in which the form of Leda is life-size, an admirable piece of drawing and color. The other is a full-length portrait, also life-size, of a lady, in full evening dress, admirably modelled. Both of these pic- tures are true to the old traditional methods, in which the artist (like all others who have been successful) has received a severe and careful training; for beneath what may seem the easiest and freest method lies the knowledge which can only be acquired by unremitting toil for the mastery of those principles of art which have been recognized as true and necessary since the earliest times. After making several unsuccessful attempts for the " Prix de Rome," he suddenly surprised and amused all Paris by a picture called " L'Enterrement," but which his comrades and the public understood as the burial of the mother-in-law: The ceremony at the church is over. The more distant rela- 126 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. tives — the first to leave — are seen disappearing around a street corner. The wife and husband are alone in the fore- ground; she clings to his arm, convulsively weeping for the loss of one so dear to her ; the husband, with tearless eyes, glances sideways towards her, and lights a cigarette. Beraud is not only a perfect Parisian, but he is one who appreciates and can depict Parisian life on its boulevards, cafes, and gardens. He paints his pictures in the open air, as we have said, using a cab for his studio, which can be moved to any point he wishes. On coming up the Champs Elysees one day, I met him thus engaged. A cab, with the green blind down, next the walk, attracted my attention ; for it showed that some one was paying two francs an hour for the privilege of remaining stationary. Presently up went the curtain, and the familiar head of Beraud appeared. At his invitation I put my head into the miniature studio to see his last picture. His canvas was perched upon the seat in front, his color-box beside him ; and with the curtain down on one side to keep out the reflection and to hide himself from the prying eyes of the passers-by, he could at ease paint, through the opposite window, a view of the avenue, as a background to a group of figures. Who originated this idea it is hard to PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 127 say ; but Detaille, De Neuville, De Nittis, Duez, Beraud, and others have employed it for years, since pictures of modern Paris have been so popular. It seems the only practicable method, after the sun is up, by which one may sketch unmo- lested in the city thoroughfares. Firmin Girard made a sen- sation some years ago by a flower- J^W- a43&f market ; and Victor Gilbert has won ^[#^^*A^y a reputation by pictures of the fish- ^-" " markets; and the public has become so familiar with the best class of this genre of picture, that are done with care 128 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. and precision, upon the spot, that they recognize the touch of Nature, and pronounce at once the old-fashioned studio work as chic. To Beraud belongs the credit of adopting a novel style of portrait-painting. His subject, a young lady, has had her carriage drawn up for a word with you. She looks you full in the face, and holds a parasol carefully over her shoulder, throwing a coquettish shadow across the figure. The whole picture is highly finished ; but the horse and carriage are made entirely subordinate to the portrait. The background is a careful study of the Champs Elysees, and gives, in subdued tones, the busy life of a sunny morning. The favorite method of the artist seems to be the placing of dark, strongly painted figures against a light background, the prevailing colors of the city being favorable for this effect. I have said that Beraud's studio is always a cab. This statement must be qualified ; for sometimes he sets up his easel in one of the public ball-rooms, and, regardless of the crowd, paints .some nocturnal scene ; or, in one of the cafe concerts, sketches, by gaslight, from the balcony. Not only are Beraud's pictures entertaining as works of art, but they £tV (lio^'.^wrca Equestrian Study. (E. Grandjean.\ PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 131 will be preserved as history; for each picture is a truthful page of the manners and customs of our epoch. Georges Grandjean, like Beraud, uses a cab as his studio; and, after the manner of De Nittis, devotes himself chiefly to the portrayal of the life of the public streets and squares of Paris, making portraits of the backgrounds as well as the personages which give them interest. At one time he exhibited at the Salon the Avenue de Bois de Boulogne, with the Arc de Triomphe in the extreme, distance ; and at another, the Arc and the Champs Elysees. In 1879 his Salon picture was a full view of the Place St. Georges, with the well-known residence of Monsieur Thiers, the principal building in the picture. There is an animation and life in these street-scenes : the different types of men and horses, the gentlemen and ladies on horseback, the large wagons and elegant landaus, the ouvriers and sergents de ville, all contribute to and form a part of this busy thoroughfare. After exhibiting, for several successive years, small minutely finished pictures in this line, he surprised the public by a colossal picture, " Automedon," proving his power to handle a large canvas as well as one of smaller dimensions. Luigi Loir also reproduces scenes from the streets and 132 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. boulevards, after a passing shower, with silvery clouds and clear reflections, which have brought him renown ; and quite a catalogue of names might be added of others who find their inspiration within the walls of Paris. De Nittis is a native of Italy. His first exhibits did not seem to take the public fancy to any great extent, — partly because his thought was unfamiliar or too subtle, and partly because of a certain foreignness in his subjects ; a picture, to have a Parisian success, must have some link to connect it with substantial realities, or else be wholly allegorical or imaginative. It must at least explain itself. A work of art is robbed of much of its pleasure if it needs an expla- nation to make it comprehensible. Among the pictures depicted by De Nittis was one of a party of tourists lost in the crater of Vesuvius, being sud- denly enveloped in the noxious steam and gases which exhale from the fissures. So confounded and frightened are they as to take no heed of the guide, who shouts franti- cally to them to follow him. Beneath them glow the streams of molten lava ; and into their faces rise the hot, sulphurous vapors, made luminous by the fires under them. The vapors hide their feet ; and the idea given the observer is that they PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 13: are in the clouds, though in a state of mind decidedly earthly. One is much in doubt as to the idea the artist intends to convey, unless he have a page of letter-press, or practical experience, to guide him. De Nittis immediately attracted attention when he began painting pictures of /*'" On the Quay. (De Nittis.) Paris: its streets, boulevards, and monuments, — using them as backgrounds, subordinate to figures. De Nittis carried his peculiar art to London, and sent to the Paris International Exhibition of 1878 remarkable representations of the English metropolis. These pictures 134 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. were afterwards sent back to London, on exhibition ; and of them Professor Calvin, in the " Fortnightly Review," writes : " De Nittis has caught and turned to pictorial account the physiognomy of modern cities with a justice and an insight that hardly any other painter of similar sub- jects has equalled. One picture was taken at the level of the Thames, beneath one of the great railway-bridges, and showed the very color and flow of the muddy tide overshad- owed by the black mass of the bridge : bringing out with admirable effect the grimy grandeur of the black girders over- head, their hard outlines softened with straggling waifs of black smoke ; while across a space of open, copper-colored sky, on either hand, drifted trails of black smoke and white steam from passing engines. " In another picture we looked from the parapet of the Thames embankment in a fog ; and the value and power of the work depended entirely upon the subtle sense of space and mystery expressed in the color of the dense atmosphere, with its shifting gleams of lilac or coppery light, and in the perfect physiognomical truth of the three laborers who were represented, with precisely the right measure of force, defi- niteness, and value in atmosphere, as they leaned, smoking. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 135 on the parapet, and a gleam from the sky caught the wreaths which issued from their pipes. " The third exhibited the very life of the city crowd as it may be seen on any wet day, looking across from the Man- sion House towards the Bank of England. . . . Each type is an admirable study of English character, physiognomy, attitude ; and, if the critic wishes to convey a sense of the excellence of the work, it is in these parts ; he must drive home his words as best he can ; and then, the surprising justness of observation and rendering by which the retreat- ing figures are dimmed and softened in the atmosphere ! " Another : Architecture and gas-lamps receive their exact value against the sky ; and the colored wares in the wagons, and umbrellas of the omnibus drivers, serve as points of color." De Nittis has improved upon the system of painting in a cab by painting in an omnibus. This he has had built like the ordinary small, passenger omnibus, except that the roof is made of thick glass plates. Curtains close the windows at the side, save on the one from which he has his view ; and passers- by never think, when they see this vehicle stationed at some corner, that it is a studio on wheels, and that the artist is 136 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. probably there at work. As the light enters from the roof of this studio, he may sit in any part of it and still have a proper light on his canvas. By this means the window-sash forms a frame for the original landscape, and enables the painter to decide upon the composition and values of his copy with greater precision. Often in looking from an ordi- nary window one sees how the view gains by being framed in by the casement ; but, if a painting is to be made from this same window, the painter must also use the light from that window to lighten his canvas, and consequently to sit so near as to lose the effects of the frame. This De Nittis found was also the case in painting from cabs ; so he in- vented the omnibus studio. In this he has light, space, and comfort. De Nittis, instead of sending to the Salon, now his suc- cess is accomplished, makes a private exhibition of his works, after the English fashion. He has thus the advantage of displaying together an unlimited number of his pictures. He has lately presented to the public a collection of pastels. The fashion of pastels was at its height a century ago, and since then has been neglected, until it was considered almost an effeminacy to work in them ; but it has been revived of PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 137 late by some of the modern painters, who have dignified it, and pastels can no longer be spoken of slightingly or passed by unnoticed. De Nittis chooses for these the same line of subjects al- ready familiar in his oil-paintings, and produces them with a subtle power and sweetness that has elicited much praise from the critics and his brother-artists. CHAPTER VIII. Mmes. Lemaire, De Rothschild, La Princesse Mathilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Abbema. IT is only in modern times that women have taken a prominent place amongst painters. We do not find them amongst the ancients, in sacred or pro- fane history; and not until the last century, when Madame Lebrun came into notice, with her brilliant genius, was a woman painter of exceptional talent known to exist in France. After Madame Lebrun came Rosa Bonheur, who was first recognized in 1845, then receiving a medal at the Salon. Madame Henriette Browne's talent has been recognized since 1855; and Mile. Nelie Jacquemart's (Madame Andre), since 1868, when she exhibited the celebrated portrait of M. Benoit Champy. Since then a group of female painters- PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. [39 have appeared. In the Salon catalogue of 1881 there are more than six hundred madames and mademoiselles in- scribed. Amongst these painters should be noted : Madame Made- leine Lemaire, Madame la Baronne Nathaniel de Rothschild, Madame la Princesse Mathilde, Madame de Chatillon, Miss Gardner, Madame Luminais, Mile. Guillaume, Madame Fleury, Mme. Bernhardt, Mile. Abbema, and last, but not least in talent, Mile. Berthe Delorme. The new French Society of Aquarellists at present has but two lady members, Madame la Baronne Nathaniel de Roth- schild and Madame Madeleine Lemaire. This society was formed by a number of the most promi- nent French painters, who were not satisfied with the insig- nificant position accorded to water-colors at the annual Salon ; and their first independent exhibition was so success- ful that it has become permanent and annual. They now receive oil-paintings as well as water-colors, but retain the name of Societe d' Aquarellists. This may eventually be- come a French salon to which no foreigners will be admitted, and where the contributors' pictures will not be crowded by a mass of mediocre- work. l 4 o PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Madame de Rothschild exhibited at the Salon of 1878 two brilliant pages, — the old houses at Vitre, with the pictu- resque carvings and mossy roofs ; and a Breton fountain in the midst of a cluster of trees, with long distances and shady foreground. Madame de Rothschild gives her pictures to charity sales, of which there are many, and these are the only places where her pictures may be bought. She thus has a double pleasure, — amusing herself and relieving others. As we have said, the other lady contributor to this exhibi- tion is Madame Madeleine Lemaire, descendant of a race of painters, who resides in a charming little hotel, where she has surrounded herself with the luxuries of a true Parisian home. On entering an elegantly furnished room, you may at times find her working there, seated near a large window, her model comfortably posed in satins of royal texture and color. At a large table on the opposite side of the room a child plays, — a miniature copy of the mother ; and, though the room is a studio, it has all the cosiness of a family home. From the window looking across the courtyard is seen a little chalet that formed a part of the Alsacian department at the Exposition Internationale. This she has converted into a studio ; and it is in its arrangements and decorations a model Portrait. (Madeleine Lemaire.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 143 of refined, womanly taste. The dark, natural wood in which the interior is finished tones well with the elegant tapestries, which almost entirely cover the walls. Over the entrance is a balcony, reached by a spiral staircase ; from it you look over a heavily carved balustrade into the studio below. This " petit salon " is fitted up with Persian draperies ; the walls and ceiling being arranged to represent a tent, the effect of which, look- ing up from below, is unique. A window cut in the roof and down the side nearly to the floor affords a strong, steady light for painting. The canapes in Turkish and Indian stuffs, the fur rugs, the quaintly carved oaken chairs, — each differing from the other, but always harmonious, — suggest the realiza- tion by Madame Lemaire of artistic luxury and delightful toil. This room is heated by an original method. In order that all discomfort arising from coal dust and ashes and the usual disorder of a stove might be avoided, and the exquisite arrangement of her appartement preserved, she placed her furnace outside in the garden, and enclosed it with a hot- air chamber, from which the studio receives its heat through apertures in the wall. Madame Lemaire is one of those rare artists who possess the ability to finish with a legerete of touch, which delights 144 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. us the more from the fact that the freshness of her execu- tion is no way destroyed. There is a grand freedom in her figure pictures, as well as in her flower pieces, of which the " Figaro " says, " Flowers so energetically painted and with such a delicious vigor and color that they are chefs- d'oeuvre." Madame Lemaire, like Madame de Rothschild and la Prin- cesse Mathilde (who is a painter of recognized talent, having received a medal at the Salon), is always represented by some work in charitable sales. Her gifts to her friends are doubly precious, for she decorates them with her own talented fin- gers. The grandchild of Dumas fils received, as a welcome into the world, a blue satin coverlet edged with valenciennes, and on which she had painted a garland of tea-roses. Since the stormy days of September, 1870, when the Em- press Eugenie in disguise fled from the Tuileries, Paris has had no one woman whom it could worship. English and American adventuresses have made the talk of the town for a few weeks, by their extravagancies, startling equipages, and strange adventures. But one whom it could praise, blame, ridicule, and worship, it had not found until the appearance of Madame Sarah Bernhardt, who first attracted attention PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 145 by her wonderful acting, then by her sculptures, then by her painting, literature, and eccentricities, — all of which have combined to make her the most notorious woman in France. Whenever she appears in public, she is the centre of all eyes ; when she travels, her movements and the incidents of her voyage are the gossip of all circles, as were those of imperial character in the palmy days of the Empire. Years ago at the Salon, when the Empress walked through the galleries surrounded by her suite, a large crowd was seen following to get a glance at or a smile from her Majesty; but we doubt if the crowd was more numerous, more curious, than when, on the opening day of the Salon, Mme. Bernhardt is recognized making the tour, accompa- nied by her friends. On that day the notables of the capital are gathered together, — painters, sculptors, and journalists side by side, and yet all turned to catch a glimpse of the great delineator of French drama. Any picture which she stops to admire has a momentary success. Of later years each Salon is honored with her portrait. In 1877 Clairin ex- hibited one representing her in one of her principal roles, — r " L'Etrangere." It was one of the sensations of the season. The same year Mile. Abbema exhibited a full-length por- 146 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. trait. There was also a statue representing her in the role of Roland, while morning visitors at the Salon could often see her in propria persona. Mme. Bernhardt has always been the companion of paint- ers and sculptors ; but when, a few years ago, she exhib- ited a group in plaster, " Apres la Tempete," representing an old mother with her drowned son on her knees, the artistic circles of Paris were surprised, expressing no little wonderment or doubt as to her being the author of the work. However, as a public expression of these doubts would have been certainly followed by a summons before le juge de paix, and as touch, subject, and rendering were publicly admitted to be in the spirit and temperament of Mme. Bernhardt, the " Grundys " confined their talk to private assemblies, or "damned with faint praise." In the Salon of 1879 there was a bust by Mme. Bernhardt which attracted much atten- tion. A small portrait of her by Bastien-Lepage was difficult to approach, being hung in a corner; and at all hours there was a crowd gathered around it. It was doubly in- teresting, — both original and author being popular favorites. After Mme. Bernhardt had made a reputation as a sculptor, and exhibited for several successive years pieces / x 7/ fimmfs,. J':-V'/.0, The Young Girl and Death. (Sarah Bernhardt.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 149 of her works, she declared her talent and ability in another artistic line, by a picture entitled " The Betrothal of Death " (1880). This picture was painted under the guidance of Alfred Stevens, her master, and showed decided signs of the influence of his distinguished talent. Mme. Bernhardt took a number of her works, both of sculpture and painting, when she visited America, and the picture above named was the principal one in this collection. Mme. Bernhardt's hotel is in the Avenue de Villiers, and is a charming structure, designed by the architect Escalier, and furnished with original, artistic taste. In the anti- chambre hangs her portrait by Mile. Abbema, and pictures by Dore, Garvani, Courant, and others. A large greyhound generally lies upon the rug. The studio is the grand reception-room of the house, and is fitted up accordingly. Over the huge mantel-piece that supports two life-size, bronze tigers hangs the portrait painted by Clairin, well known through numerous reproduc- tions by photograph and engraving. On each side of the fireplace are cosy niches filled with divans richly covered with furs and rugs. One side is almost occupied by the window ; the other is hung with draperies and strange deco- ISO PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. rations, — tiger skins mounted, like works of art, on back- grounds of blue velvet ; and at the farther end is a carved, winding staircase leading to the apartments above. The room is otherwise filled with rich furniture, easels, busts, and plants, — everywhere something artistic and interesting. Here every day, from five to six, when in Paris, Mme. Bernhardt is at home to her friends, who generally take advantage of this leisure hour, when the room is filled with the artistic and literary notabilities of the day. Across the courtyard is the studio for sculpture, filled with half-finished statues and projects ; and here are portrait-busts that show the personal talent of Mme. Bernhardt, — nervous and erratic, but decidedly artistic and individual. When at work modelling, Mme. Bernhardt dresses in male attire of white flannel, with white Turkish slippers, — a mas- culine costume very feminine, and rendered more so by the ample tie of soft white tulle about her neck and under her chin. It is what might be expected upon the stage, and nat- urally belongs to the actress, but is in strange contrast to the masculine attire worn by Rosa Bonheur, which any man might wear without attracting notice, if he were small and delicate ; for Mile. Bonheur's costume is not ornamental, PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 151 being adopted only for convenience in working in the fields or on the mountains. She adopted it years ago when painting in the mountains of Auvergne ; and by constant use, wearing it generally at her country home, only donning long skirts when she travels, she has become accustomed to the change and wears it easily. A stranger meeting her in her walks about her chateau would scarcely remark her except to think, " This- small, gray-haired man has a fine face." Sarah Bern- hardt's male costume is simply a costume ; and, although it is arranged with a certain charm, you feel that she is ill at ease : this she betrays, as she turns in talking, by giving the motion with her foot as if she imagined skirts about her feet and the stage arrangement of the train had become second nature. Although there is a small skeleton (the only one) of some animal above the fireplace, she declares that the old longing for death which once haunted her, and gave rise to the exaggerated and fantastic tales which were so commonly afloat, is of the past, her life now being so full and complete that she has no time for the old morbid thoughts. The first picture judged by the jury of the Salon, the first picture hung by the committee, the first name recorded in the catalogue, is that of Mile. Louise Abbema. Her !5 2 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. father was the last page of Louis XVIII., and her mother an English lady. On entering her studio, one instinctively feels the spirit of art which pervades the place. Of this Carolus Duran. Louise Abbema. ntf*f$\ \ » Jules Bastien-Lepage. Sketches by Louise Abbema. studio Mile. Abbema is the centre, and in her presence you realize the personality not only of the artist, but the re- fined woman, whose art is neither forced nor superficial, but PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. !53 the true expression of her nature. In her slightest sketch there is an artistic spirit and movement ; while her paintings combine with these an attraction giving the same pleasant sensation to the observer that one feels when she gives her hand in welcome. Mile. Abbema is fond of making portraits and sketches of her friends ; her especial delight is an album of " Mes Amis ; " it is already a large volume, composed of pages on which portraits have evidently been drawn at odd moments, and inserted at different times. Under each portrait is the autograph of the original and some verse or musical phrase. Among these friends we find that of Gamier, the architect of the new opera-house, Carolus Duran, Bastien-Lepage, Clairin, and Mme. Sarah Bernhardt ; for the latter is a friend of the owner of this album, and on the opening of the Salon she always appears with her and shares her success. In these sketches there is so much expressed by so little : a few strokes of an intelligent pen give the likeness, — not the detailed likeness of a photograph, or the labored portrait of a good mechanic, but lines which seize the prominent traits of the character, sometimes mere outlines ; and yet the 154 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. resemblance is at once recognized, and the spirituelle manner in which it is caught enjoyed. In the anteroom of the office of the " Vie Moderne " was held, in the spring of 1879, an exhibition of Mile. Abbema's paintings and drawings, which was for the time one of the " sights " of Paris. But she has made her real success at the Salon : two portraits in 1879 were the principal attractions of the room in which they were placed; and among those artists who were recompensed for portraits at the Salon of 1 88 1 was Mile. Abbema. CHAPTER IX. Mtmkacsy, Wahlberg. :N 1869 an acquaintance from Philadelphia told me of a painting he had purchased in Dusseldorf. As he had only begun forming his gallery, he did not entirely trust his own judgment, but before buying asked •the advice of whatever friends or acquaintances might be near him at the time. He, as well as they, imagined that he was influenced by their opinion ; but I noticed that he was never persuaded to buy an inferior picture, though the advice of some of his friends, if followed, would have led him to do so. He selected with natural good taste ; and, although he may at times have been influenced by the opinions of others, it was only when they confirmed his own. His new purchase was different in style from any of his former acquisitions; and after the transaction had been concluded, and he had left Dusseldorf and returned to Paris, he remembered that 156 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. he had been strongly pressed to buy this work, and doubted whether he had acted wisely. The painting was " Le dernier Jour d'un condamne a Mort," by the then unknown Munkacsy, who had been looking unsuc- cessfully for a purchaser until his picture found favor in the eyes of the Philadelphian. It was sent to Paris and exhibited in the Salon, where it was ac- corded an honorable place and was rewarded by the jury, upon which the doubting owner was offered a large bonus to part with it. His confidence was restored, he invited the artist to visit him in Paris, and at a family dinner there I first met Munkacsy. He was then a sketch, (m. munkacsy.) young man of striking ap- pearance, which is all I recall about him ; for he spoke neither 't IfaAwMiXfe PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 157 French nor English, and all communication at the table was through an interpreter, — the young daughter of our host, who spoke German. The early life of Mihaly Munkacsy is given as follows : Born in Munkacs (Hungary), where his father held an offi- cial position, he lost his mother soon after his birth. His father, an ardent patriot, was arrested in 1848, and died in prison, leaving six children, without resources, but who were cared for by different relatives of the family. Mihaly was adopted by his father's sister, who was assassinated some time afterwards by bandits, and thus he became for the second time an orphan. He was then adopted by an uncle, who apprenticed him to a carpenter in Csaba, but, being forced to leave his first trade on account of illness, was placed with a furniture-painter, who gave him the first rudi- ments of a trade that he was afterwards to develop into a profession. Munkacsy first studied at Pesth, and, upon beginning his artistic career there, he dropped his family name, adopting that of his native town, to which for euphony he added another letter. He here produced a picture (a peasant interior) which was bought by the art society of Pesth. 158 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. He afterwards studied in Vienna, Munich, and Dusseldorf. At the latter place he painted, under the influence of Knauss, the picture which first brought him into notice. The Franco-Prussian War occupying the Parisians in 187 1, there was consequently no Salon. In that of the following year we do not find Munkacsy's name : but in 1873 he had a large canvas of an episode in the war of Hungary (1848); and in 1874 he exhibited two pictures, " The Pawnbrokers " and " Rodeurs de Nuit," which gained him a medal of the second class; in the Salon of 1875, "Village Heroes;" in 1876, "The Interior of a Studio;" in 1877, "Story of the Chase," and a portrait ; and in 1878 he received the Medaille d ' Honneur for his painting of " Milton and his Daughters." Since then nothing has been seen of his paintings in the annual Salon ; but he intended to send his last, — ■ " Christ before Pilate," — had he finished it in time. Munkacsy settled in Paris, but did not meet with the suc- cess he coveted. His paintings were vigorous and masterly; but they were black and bituminous in color, causing him to be dubbed the " Raphael of the Blacks," and he missed in Paris the influence of his German master, Knauss. His PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 159 pictures were not commercial, and circumstances prevented him giving free vent to his talent. Happily, at this epoch he contracted a marriage which placed him beyond the struggle for a livelihood, and gave him freedom of esprit and the comforts of home. The talent of Munkacsy soon de- veloped, and a noted transformation took place in his sub- jects, — from prison scenes, shoemakers' apprentices, and "Rodeurs" to Milton dictating "Paradise Lost," "The Family," and "Christ before Pilate." The last was on exhi- bition at the gallery of Mr. Sedelmeyer, and was visited by two hundred thousand people. Munkacsy was pronounced a prodigious artist, a colorist of rare power, one of the first of the epoch. In the background of the canvas, to the right, is Pilate upon his throne, surrounded by the doctors ; near him are the accusers. In the centre Christ stands serene, and assured of the end, and awaits the close of the accusation, heedless of the cries of the populace, who strive to enter the palace and are scarcely prevented by a Roman soldier, who bars the passage with his lance. Only a woman, with a child in her arms, looks compassionately upon the Christ, though there are many people present. The scene lives and moves and is truly impressive. Quoting from 160 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. one of the eminent critics of the day, " It is one of the grandest works that has glorified painting for half a cen- tury. Just twelve years after his first small reception, a large banquet was tendered him. It was attended by artists of all nationalities; and in the modest speech of thanks made by Munkacsy he said, " I attribute the sole success of my ar- tistic career to the hospitalities of the great metropolis of art, — Paris, my beloved, adopter 1 !' city." Alfred Wahlberg is a Swede by birth, but for years has made Paris his home. His first public appearance was as a fifer in a Swedish regiment. Some one, observing his musi- cal ability, gave him instruction on the clarionet, and by his quickness in learning and skill in playing he soon obtained a local reputation. A wider field was opened before him. A merchant, who was an amateur artist, invited Wahlberg to accompany him into the country on sketching excursions, and in this way gave him some idea of the rudiments of oil- painting. It was not long before the pupil rivalled his mas- ter. The interest of the kind-hearted merchant increased in proportion to Wahlberg's success ; and, by calling the atten- tion of others to his works, he secured their good-will in his ?5f* (aw/A* ^ •"■^^fc Coast of Normandy. (A. Wahlberg.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 163 behalf. Through his efforts an annual pension for a number of years was assured Wahlberg, and he set out on the road to fame. Accordingly, in 1856 we find him at Dusseldorf, where his talents and earnestness won success. During these years of study he made a tour through Holland, and was greatly influenced by the painting of Achenbach ; but, his annual pension having expired, he was thrown upon his own re- sources. In a strange country, without friends or reputation, he was forced to make many shifts for a livelihood. He played upon and taught the piano and clarionet, painting at the same time in imitation of Achenbach. Unsuccessful in both these occupations, he was obliged to relinquish further study and return to Sweden. Disappointing as this was to the young artist, it proved to have been his greatest fortune. His pictures attracted the attention of Charles XV., who at once gave him several important orders. This opened to him a new era of pros- perity, and in 1867 he came to Paris, where he learned to blend her elegance with the strong character and poetry of his native land. He exhibited at the Exposition Internationale of 1867 1 64 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. several large canvases, which did not win the success he had hoped for. This disappointment threw him into a deep melancholy. About this time he and Von Becker, a Russian and old Dusseldorf acquaintance, took up their abode at Ecouen, sharing the same studio. His despondency was increased by a fall from a horse that injured him seriously. While he was laboring under this depression, an English dealer pur- chased one of his pictures for a comparatively small sum, selling it immediately at a large increase. From that time the tide of his prosperity rose ; the dealers in England demanding more of his peculiar work than he could do, even offering to increase the prices first paid. In 1870 he received a medal at the Salon; in 1872, a second- class medal; in 1874, the Legion d'Honneur; in 1878, at the Universelle Exposition, a first-class medal, and was made Offi- cier de la Legion d ' Honneur. He has several times declined the position of principal of the School of Fine Arts in Sweden, preferring the life of a Parisian artist. If rumor is true, he has again the proposi- tion under consideration. The style of Wahlberg has been greatly influenced by PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 165 Corot and Daubigny since his residence in Paris, becoming more tender and expressive. With no less of boldness or originality, he mingles the strong tones of the North with the softness of the South. Upon the wall of his studio hangs a little study, — a key- note of his talent : water and sky, without incident of any kind, it yet charms the observer by the silvery effect of moonlight. The moon is veiled by light clouds, which obscure the direct rays and fill all the horizon with a soft suffused light. These moonlights of Wahlberg are beyond description : there is no black in them ; full of color, inexpressibly tender, they are yet luminous to such a degree that the distance has a life and value, harmonious in tone and true in relations. Many of these effects can be found only under that Northern sky to which his heart turns so often and so truly, which he portrays with a tenderness perhaps unequalled by any other painter. It is not strange therefore that they appeal so strongly to Northern taste. In Wahlberg's pictures there are soft, sunny tones, unlike the cold clear atmosphere generally pervading the pictures of the painters of his country. Believing as I do that the birthplace of a painter — its climate and atmosphere — 1 66 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. influences his nature more than years of association and study, I wondered at this peculiar charm in Wahlberg's productions. I understood better this warmth of tones in the nature of a man of Northern birth when I learned that his mother was a native of sunny Italy. CHAPTER X. De Madrazo, Ricardo de Madrazo, Ochoa, D'Arcos, Egusquiza, Ribera, Gonzalez, Rico, TSTORIANS tell us that Queen Elizabeth insisted that her features should be copied upon canvas without shadows. This they considered an ab- surdity ; but she was only in advance of her age, for painting thus is now the fashion. Were the maiden queen alive to- day, she would be satisfied with Madrazo's portraits ; for painting as he does under a diffused light, the different tones in the modelling of the flesh are scarcely recognizable as shadows. Charles Blanc says : " His portraits of ladies are specimens of refined taste, which seem to express the happiness of life, serenity of mind ; gay, with a fresh rich coloring shining upon the silken ribbons and satin draperies, without being strengthened by any part being thrown into shadow." 1 68 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. The brilliant portraits for which he is noted are painted either in a studio which admits a vast amount of light, out of doors, or in a hot-house. This hot-house, which he had hung with white curtains to soften reflections, was once a part of an old hotel belonging to the Errazu family, but has recently been torn down to make way for more modern structures. Wishing to paint a picture with open-air effect, and the season being unfavorable, he conceived the idea of using this hot-house for the purpose ; after which his old studio seemed dark and stuffy, and he never returned to it. More curtains were arranged, a stove was added, the old, unoccupied salons of the deserted house adjoining were used for hano-incr cos- tumes, the orange-trees and acacia blossoms made charming backgrounds for figures : it was a place in which his bril- liant talent, strong color, and correctness of design could luxuriate. This old house served as background, while the courtyard, now filled with debris, formed the scene of the famous " After the Ball," shown at the Exposition Interna- tionale of 1878, for which he received a first-class medal and the decoration of the Legion d'Honneur. It is now in the possession of Mr. Stewart of Paris. Study for a Picture. (R. Madrazo.) Study from Life. (Ricardo de Madkazo.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 173 Madrazo was finally driven out of this unique studio by the workmen, who began tearing it down over his head ; and he reluctantly moved to a magnificent studio adjoining that of Arcos, an historical painter and illustrator. Madrazo, in an individual way, produces a flash of color and harmony in the arrangement of light. One of the most typical of his portraits is a symphony in red. A child, dressed in rose satin, sits in a crimson arm-chair. Near her is a china vase filled with red petunias, pinks, and gera- niums. There is a red carpet in the foreground. This pic- ture is audacious and fantastic ; but its success pardons it. There is perhaps no finer or more interesting suite of stu- dios in Paris. They are three in number, in a large modern house. A winding stair leads to a roomy, strangely lighted studio. The light falls from above, and enters from the side, and gives an intense brilliancy to the rich satin hangings and costumes. The walls are hung with Chinese draperies em- broidered with dragons. Swords, guns, trappings of all descriptions, fill the corners. On one side runs a gallery hung with curtains, through the folds of which are seen small dressing-rooms. There is always a picture upon the easel, and a group of friends around. Adjoining Madrazo's studio 174 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. is one under a dome. Here we find Jules Stewart at work painting a fashionable group upon a beach. Beyond this we find Mr. Arcos in a charming studio, resembling a Spanish interior, with rich draperies over wide divans piled with luxurious cushions, guitars, mando- lins, and a piano. A curious fireplace, arranged in a quaint and original manner, occupies nearly one side of the room. Sketches in oil are hung upon the walls, and with the many curtains any arrangement of light that may be desired can be obtained. These studios were built by Comte d'Arcos, father of the painter, for him, and Madrazo, his master. The Madrazo family is essentially artistic. The father, Frederico de Madrazo, was director of the Museum at Madrid, and is Commandeur de la Legion d 'Honneur. The elder of the two sons stands at the head of the Spanish-Parisian artists. The younger, Ricardo de Madrazo, often con- founded with the elder, is making for himself a worthy place within their ranks. He exhibited in 1881 a picture, fine in spirit, color, and composition, called "Maure der Sus." Madrazo, although not yet forty years of age, is the master of quite a circle of successful young artists, who show his White Lily or Red Rose? (S. Arcos.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 177 strong influence in the works they exhibit. Among these is Ochoa, a young Spaniard residing in Paris, who, while study- ins: with Madrazo and under the influence of his domina- s tive talent, spends his mornings at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, in the class of M. Gerome, thus combining the fundamental principles of art with brilliant color and exquisite effects. His " Messe a Saint Phillippe du Roule," in the Salon, was a remarkable piece of painting ; and, although showing the influence of the master, it displayed a personality and origi- nality peculiarly his own. Arcos, whose studio I have mentioned adjoining that of Madrazo, is a Chilian by birth. He is well known as an illus- trator of high life, with which he is acquainted by personal contact ; and many of the programmes of charity sales and mondain fetes are designed by his facile pencil. Egusquiza is another of the same group who never exhibits at the Salon, and is perhaps better known in London and New York than in Paris, except to the profession. His pictures pos- sess the brilliant qualities of the modern Spanish School, — real flesh tints, glossy satins, and delicate laces rendered with- the charming facility of a master. With this he combines poetic ideas, thus giving to his rendering of so much gor- 178 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. geousness a raison d'etre. His rendering of the waltz in a ball-room is exquisitely poetic. The two figures float to the music. The girl's beautiful dress of rose satin is moved to one side by the motion of the dance, displaying the tiny, satin-shod foot, just poised for the next step. The back of the lady is turned towards you, the delicate profile outlined against the shoulder of her partner. A pendant to this is the corner of a boudoir: A shaded lamp burns dimly upon a table loaded with bouquets ; on a sofa a young girl, in full ball-dress, has fallen asleep. The revel is ended ;,the guests have departed ; fatigued by pleasure, the youthful beauty sleeps and dreams. The dream takes form : she still hears the strains of the music, and moves again in the rhythmical dance. Her lips part in a joyous smile ; and we see faintly what she sees in dreams, as the morning light breaks through the eastern window and falls softly on the quiet form, the slippered feet, and the deserted room. The decorations of Egusquiza's studio are, like his paint- ings, in the movement of Parisian fashion. The walls, in- stead of being tinted with some sober or neutral color, are hung with old white brocade ; the doors having light, delicate- tinted hangings. Two grand pianos — for the artist is a fine The Waltzers. (R- Egusquiza.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. I8l musician, and fond of having a friend to play duets — stand back to back in the corner. The floor is carefully waxed, and the furniture richly carved. The artist is always well dressed, and in harmony with his surroundings. Odd in- deed would be the appearance of the old-style painter, with long hair and velvet coat, in this room, or the not yet extinct type of woman painter, with besmeared, long- sleeved apron; for now it has become a fashion to put all the paint upon the palette or the canvas. For, as I have said, fashion has changed not only in painting but painters. Ribera is a Spanish-Parisian, who seldom exhibits here publicly. He is yet a young man, but already occupies a prominent position in Parisian art. His pictures obtained success in the International Exhibition, where they were shown among the works of other Spanish artists. These were " Le Cafe Ambulant," " Le Cafe Chantant," and "Le Marchand de Volailles." The illustration is a pen- and-ink drawing of a corner of Le Cafe Ambulant. He is noted for the facility and elegance of his figure group- ings, and the exquisite detail with which he carries out the idea he desires to portray, sometimes searching for months 1 82 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. for a peculiar type, sparing neither time nor trouble. For a picture made not long since, he looked nearly a year for a typical Jew ; whom he at last found, the picture waiting only for this feature to be added. His studio strikes you curiously as you enter: a bit of carved oak, an old, Spanish coat-of-arms, a collection of cos- tumes from all countries, equipments for travelling, great- coats, valises, fire-arms, swords, and foils. Out of this armory the artist is able to select the paraphernalia with which to dress his models, and need not go beyond the limits of his own collection for the setting and accessories of his pictures. Upon the walls are many charming sketches and studies in clouds and skies, groups of strongly marked faces, charac- teristic figures, — materials for compositions. His untiring search for types and material enables him to give to large groups that variety without which they would be common- place and uninteresting. The art of grouping is a rare gift ; and it is seldom that an artist is found who succeeds in bringing together a number of figures, each with its indi- vidual character, and each true to life and to its relation with others. Life on canvas and life by the way are often far apart ; the latter is so full, the former so void, of the tragedy Le Cape Ambulant. (Ribera.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 185 and pathos that are everywhere in human experience, but Ri- bera succeeds in touching some fine chords ; and if at times his work is unfinished, its seriousness and earnestness raise it above all cavil. The following is quoted from the " Nuova Illustrazione Universale " in recognition of Ribera : — " All the painters of this name are of Spanish origin ; but they are destined to flourish in foreign schools. A Ribera came to Italy when a child, and poor ; his early years were passed in Rome and Naples ; and he finally became a great master in the Italian school, under the name of Spagnoletto. " A second Ribera now appears in the modern French school. May we hope for a French Spagnoletto, now that two centuries have passed ? The picture of which we give the engraving, and which was exposed in London in the French section, places the present Ribera amongst the num- ber of artists who will not remain unknown among the crowd. He has not followed in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor and namesake : he has no passion for quivering flesh, nor for the human form writhing in agony. The Riberas are modi- fying their style, and are bringing themselves down to the ideas of the present day. The one of whom we are writing 1 86 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. belongs to the school of genre painters ; he studies the people so as to understand and sympathize with them in their sor- rows or joys, and enters even into the feelings of children. His pictures are thought out with the genius of a novelist, and are carried through with the penetration of a keen ob- server of human nature." Juan Antonio Gonzalez, a native of Spain, though brought up in the French school, shows hardly a trace of its in- fluence. A student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and a pupil of Pils, his pictures manifest the force of early associa- tion, and testify to his Spanish blood. The old saying, that blood will tell, finds few more decided verifications than in Gonzalez. His love for bright colors, characteris- tic handling, and brilliant costumes could hardly be more pronounced had he received his art education in his native land. Rico is another painter of the Spanish group. He is of the race of Guardi, and, like this master, has a touch spark- ling, sharp, and daring; like him, he prefers to treat the views of cities with architectural perspective ; and he has given us many views of Toledo, Seville,. Venice, and Paris. His pictures of the canals and squares of Venice are not I It"'/} S«» S 1/ J WKgU% Study from Life. (Gonzalez.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 189 handled in the conventional manner, but with more realism, and to this he adds remarkable fine finish. In Paris he finds subjects for his brush, and makes a market-scene on the Avenue Marceau, with its booths and miscellaneous country wagons, as interesting as his picture of the Bridge of Sighs, with its dark gratings and rich carvings, under the silvery light of a Venetian spring. Rico's first master was a captain of cavalry, an amateur painter who made landscape pictures by "composing"' from engravings, changing about the figures in them accord- ing to his fancy. Being shown some drawings of Rico's, he sent for him, accusing him of being a " little liar;" but when the boy, with a piece of chalk, drew with remarkable preci- sion, for his years, the cast of a foot, his incredulity changed to admiration, and he loaded him with praise, and predicted for him a brilliant future. While studying in the Academy at Madrid he occupied his temps perdu in drawing and engraving on wood, and, by practising many economies, saved a small sum ; then, when the spring came, he disappeared into the mountains, giving no news of himself to his friends until September, when he returned, bringing back the spoils of the summer. 190 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Through the long winter's work at the figure in the Acad- emy he never forgot his love for landscape, and longing for the vacation. During these summer escapades Rico lived most frugally; and his travelling-pack was not much more than a color-box well filled, and his provisions, chocolate, a chocolate -pot, and cigarettes. ' Thus provided, he took up his abode with the shepherds on the steeps of the sierras of Grenada, and lived and painted in the open air of the moun- tains. Without prejudice or preconceived ideas he copied all that came before his eyes, — the profound valleys, the tower- ing rocks, wild goats, the flowers, the flocks of sheep, and the rolling clouds. He slept with the shepherds under the sky ; and, as the summer advanced, mounted height after height, living a frugal life, reluctantly descending with the herdsmen in the autumn. It is said that Rico is only attracted by the sunlight to paint and that his talent, like a mar- mot, sleeps during the winter, and he exceeds the Spaniard in frugality ; that with a few cigarettes and his guitar Rico might make a voyage round the world. In 1862 Rico took at the Academy of Madrid the first prize of Rome ever given for landscape. This prize allowing In Venice. (Rico.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 193 him to reside for four years either in Rome or Paris, he chose the latter. Zamacois introduced him to Meissonier, before whom Rico expressed a desire to study with Daubigny ; and to him Meissonier obligingly gave a letter of recommenda* tion. Daubigny asked him to show him something by which he might judge of bis attainments. Rico showed a landscape of the environs of Paris, which he had just made at Meudon. Daubigny looked at it long, and then returned it to the artist without a word. " But what ought I to do ? " timidly asked Rico. " Bien" said Daubigny, " go to the Louvre and copy Claude Lorraine and Poussin ; copy without cessation ; copy them always ; it is the only remedy that remains for you." Rico thanked him for the advice, and returned to Meudon. During four years he lived in the environs of Paris, in perpetual commune with nature, and made enormous prog- ress. Mr. Stewart, the celebrated amateur, visited his studio, recognized his talent, and bought his pictures, at once beginning his renown ; and to-day there is hardly a gallery that does not possess a landscape by Rico. His water- colors are equally sought for, and he is one of those artists 194 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. who have contributed to restore water-colors to public favor. Charles Blanc says, " The finely finished and sparkling landscapes of Rico, who has a strong liking for white houses and walls, are the best that have come to us from Spain." On the Beach. (Olivi£.) CHAPTER XI. English, American, German, and Russian Artists : Sargent, Stewart, Tuckennan, Knight, Von Beeker, Edelfelt, Chelmonski. 'T present the influence of English upon Parisian art is not perceptible, save indirectly. The best English pictures which are produced here are purchased at home, and do not remain in France. England protects and encourages her artists in a most sensible and substantial manner ; and, as a general rule, only indifferent or positively bad pictures are allowed to go per- manently out of the country ; while some of the finest French pictures are found in English galleries. Individual English painters have, however, in former years exerted a remarkable influence on French art, and have even revolutionized it ; and thus it is indirectly an important factor in the present fashion. 198 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. The English landscape-painter, Bonnington, was not only the fashion of his time in Paris, but his sketches are highly valued even now, not as curiosities or as historical treasures, but for the same qualities for which modern landscape- painters seek. Daubigny, lately deceased, held the first place in modern landscape art in France, and was a close follower of Bonning- ton ; while Constable inspired Troyon, who founded a school whose influence is still felt. A few years ago a picture by Constable, which had been shut up in a private gallery, was willed to the Louvre. All lovers of art — students and art- ists — went to see the picture, and praised it in the same terms that they would use in praising the production of some notable painter of the present fashion. Stevens is an authority for this statement of his intimate friend Paul Delacroix : The latter, when finishing a picture for an exhibition, called at the Administration to ask for more time, and saw among the pictures already hung one by Con- stable. It made so great an impression upon him that, when he returned to his studio, he who had painted after the man- ner of Gericault now recommenced his picture, and was so influenced by the works of the Englishman that his style of painting was wholly changed. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 199 French critics, who do not, by the way, change their opin- ions as readily as those who have not a practical knowledge of art, are still apt to oppose all that is English ; but they were loud in their praises and sincere in their admiration of the collection of English paintings displayed at the last In- ternational Exposition. The United States has not yet formed a distinctive school of art. Throughout all her history she has been obliged to depend on foreign influence. In her infancy she relied mainly upon England, where Stuart, Trumbull, Copley,. and West received their training, and where they often, resided. Afterwards Rome offered the most inviting field;. and Buchanan Read, Chapman, and others sought their inspi- ration there, among her romantic ruins, the tombs of her heroes, and in her wonderful galleries of art. The few Americans who have enjoyed a local reputation in figure-painting have evinced, to a remarkable degree, the power of English blood. Though they never have studied outside of their own country, they still show, by a striking similarity of treatment, their line of descent, and, like Mount, proclaim the stock from which they sprung. To the young American artist from the United States, 200 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Paris presents the most attractive aspect, not because she is the cosmopolitan city, but because her art is cosmopolitan. Americans may be found in every art school in Paris, estab- lished by reputable masters, both for men and women ; for no city opens her treasures more freely, no masters take greater pride in the success and triumph of their pupils. With few exceptions, American artists have sought their art education abroad in Paris or Munich, the former city being preferred ; and the present art of the United States, being under the influence of those who have studied in the two named capitals, might easily be divided into two classes ; namely, German and French. Although there are several hundred American artists and students residing in Paris, I can only here mention a few of those who have identified themselves, to some extent, with Parisian art. George P. A. Healy received a medal at the Salon as early as 1840, and has, without doubt, exhibited in each succeeding exhibition a portrait of some notability, for the painting of which he is famous. Since that first medal he has absented himself from Paris many times, painting distinguished heads in many lands; but he has always returned, reopened his PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 201 studio, so widely celebrated, and his salon, where he gives not only to the fashionable world, but to the younger struggling members of the profession, a generous, kind-hearted welcome all his own. Edward H. May, a pupil of Couture, has occupied the same studio for over twenty years, and received a medal in 1855. His principal paintings are in the United States; and one of these was, at one time, in the old Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, one of the finest of the collection. It was a " Dying Brigand," and now hangs in the new Art Academy. One of his later works, '' Le Chanson," has lately been added to a Philadelphia gallery. W. P. W. Dana, a pupil of Picot, has lived many years in Paris, occupying a studio in the well-known artistic building in the Rue Billault. Here was painted his celebrated picture of " Solitude," a solemn moonlit ocean, which gained him a medal at the last International Exhibition. Frederic A. Bridgman, a pupil of Gerome, studying in his class at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, has lived in Paris some fifteen years, where he has gradually but surely won for himself an enviable reputation, finally receiving the Legion d'Honneur in 1878, which was also bestowed on Albert Bierstadt in 1869. 202 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Mentions Honorable have been awarded at the annual exhibition to Henry Mosler, W. Picknell, Charles Sprague Pearce, William M. Chase, D. R. Knight, Alden Weir, Marcus Simons, and Miss Elizabeth J. Gardner, a pupil of Bouguereau, the only American lady who has ever been recompensed at a Parisian exhibition. One of the medals of the Salon of 1881 was awarded to John S. Sargent, and was unanimously considered well be- stowed ; for Sargent has one of the fresh talents of the day, and his portrait of two children, for which he received the recompense, was one of the finest that year. It is not strange that Americans claim Sargent, and extol his works as " showing the progress of American art ; " but, looking in the catalogue of the annual Salon, one will read, " John S. Sargent, ne a Florence de parens americains, eleve de M. Carolus Duran." Sargent was born in Italy, in Florence, among artistic surroundings and in an artistic at- mosphere. The language of his childhood was Italian, and works of art among his earliest recollections. He studied in Europe, and was never in America until after he had reached maturity, and then only for a few weeks. He has gone through the school training necessary to develop and The Rehearsal. (John S. Sargent.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 203 balance his talent ; but he possesses an inborn genius which cannot be taught or learned, and which never has been pos- sessed by natives of new or Northern countries. Although I am happy to claim Sargent as a compatriot, his parents being Phiiadelphians, I do consider it egotism to claim his art as American. The English never claim Chap- lin's pictures as English works of art, although he was born in France, of English parents, and is undeniably an English subject. He was, at one time, chosen as one of the Art Jurors ; but, being a foreigner, was not allowed to serve or exhibit in the French section of the International Exposition. In the Anglo-Saxon race artists have arisen who could draw and model as well as those of the Latin. The ideas they have expressed have often been purer and nobler; and they have learned to color agreeably, even happily, arousing often a pleasant emotion, but never like the masters of Spain and Italy, the first sight of whose art thrills you with delight. Spain and Italy seem to give to those born under their sunny skies a heritage of warmth of color especially their own. They sometimes bestow it upon those of foreign birth who are brought into the country and under the influence of the climate when children. They then imbibe this poetry of 204 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. color as purely as a child learns a foreign language, if he begins at his nurse's breast. Looking into the window of one of the shops in Venice, with a friend, we noticed some views of Naples, freely painted and full of luminous gray tones. " Who painted them ? " I asked of my companion, who was a resident of the island. " Quite a young man, Hay, an English artist." " I think you must be mistaken," I replied ; for I could not understand how they could have been painted by an English- man. " Are you sure ? " " Certainly," said my friend, " I know him well. He is an Englishman, as Sargent is an American. He was born in Italy." Afterwards, when I had come into possession of one of the sketches, and had been presented to the author, I found that we had met before. It was one of those chance meetings in a crowd, and we had then spoken French. I thought he belonged to that nation, as he spoke the language so purely. Now, I found he spoke English too, but with a foreign accent. I am still in doubt. Can a man be claimed as an English or American painter who has neither been born nor educated in those countries, and has never exercised his art there ? Mil Portrait. (Stewart.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 207 Jules L. Stewart, a Philadelphian, has had the advantage, from early youth, of being the pupil of Zamacois and Ma- drazo. The latter is an intimate friend of the family of Mr. Stewart, whose father has one of the finest collections in Paris, and was the first Parisian who recognized the extraor- dinary talent of Fortuny, and who now possesses the choicest works of this regretted artist. Since -the death of Fortuny, Madrazo has been the leader of modern Spanish art. The influence of intimate youthful associations with fine works of art and close personal relations with Spanish painters is shown in the works of Jules Stewart, for his paintings are as brilliant and full of color as though he had been born in Spain or Italy. Ernest Tuckerman, of New York, but for many years a resident of Paris, has for some time declined to exhibit at the Salon, choosing rather the Cercle artistique, a club of which he is a member. He is a pupil of Gerome ; and, like his master, his pictures are remarkable for fine finish, delicate handling, and careful drawing ; and, like many other painters, Tuckerman is also a sculptor, and is at present engaged upon a large statue. The only American pupil of Meissonier is D. Ridgeway 208 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Knight, who has passed his student days, — although profes- sional men always remain, in a certain sense, students, — and has settled down near his master, in the town of Poissy, a few miles from Paris. Here he paints pictures of peasant life ; for, although a pupil of Meissonier, he is not a copyist of his subjects. Knight had studied in Paris, in Gleyre's atelier, for some years before he returned home in 1863; then he was occu- pied in painting portraits, small pictures, and whatever struck his fancy while searching for his genre ; but in 1872 he re- turned to Paris, and painted costume pictures of the romantic school. Having a studio next to Steinheil, with whom he formed a pleasant intimacy, he naturally made the acquaint- ance of Steinheil's brother-in-law, Meissonier, who afterwards became Knight's master, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, his counsellor and adviser. Knight chooses his subjects mostly from out-of-doors life, such as " Les Laveuses," exhibited in the Salon of 1875, "The Vintage," of 1879, and " Apres un Dejeuner," 1881. These pictures possess careful finish, correct drawing, and truthfulness, which, added to a quality that many good paint- ers lack, a happy choice of subjects, make them popular. The Reader. (Tuckerman.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 211 Knight's " Une Halte " (1880) was 'one of his most im- portant works. It represented two peasant women who had stopped by the roadside to rest ; they stand leaning against a loose stone wall, one having dropped her burden, while the other rests hers on the top of the wall ; the leafless branches of a clump of trees make a background for the figures; be- yond them blue hills in the distance, and a streak of clear sky. Mr. Knight has built in the garden attached to his house at Poissy a studio entirely of glass, like an ordinary hot-house. Here the artist can work in all weathers except the warmest, and in winter, with snow upon the ground, is able to sit comfortably and finish pictures commenced in the sum- mer, posing the model in a diffused light similar to that in which it had been begun, by a country roadside. There cannot be a more perfect illustration of how the fashion of art, or the art of making pictures, has changed during the last few years, than comparing this, which is a good sample of modern studios, with the old darkly tinted and heavily curtained ones, a few of which still exist. Here we have only a work-room with white shades upon the south side, that can be drawn if the sun should be too powerful, and a stove for warmth in cold weather. 212 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. Verschagin, a Russian artist, who resides at Maisons La- fitte, has added an improvement to the glass studio, by- making it revolve with the sun, so that a model or drapery- will always have the same horizontal direction of the sun's rays upon it. The house is turned by a windlass, beside which the painter's easel is placed. Inclement weather having prevented Knight from finishing a picture begun in the autumn, he imitated the mossy bank upon which he had posed his model by raising a mound in one end of his hot-house studio, sodding and planting it with weeds ; but the weeds grew so rapidly, that what he began in the morning he was obliged to finish the same day, as the next morning they had entirely outgrown his picture. The presence of a distinctive German element in Parisian art is hardly to be recognized, although, without doubt, the artists who have resided here from time to time have tempo- rarily contributed something of their national characteris- tics to the common fund of art education. Many Germans, among whom may be mentioned Carl Becker, Richter, and Knaus, now pursuing their profession in German cities, have been at some time students in Paris. There they have gained the training which gives them that popularity Knight's Glass Studio. (D. R. Knight.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 215 many imagine to be the fruit of a distinctive German school. Even Piloty, the founder of the modern Munich school, spent much time in Paris when forming his style, being a pupil of Paul Delaroche, and contracting much of his manner. At the International Exhibition of 1878 each national exhibit showed unmistakably the influence of Parisian art. The recompenses awarded by the International Jury to for- eign departments were, for the most part, received by those who might be called Parisians. From Sweden Wahlberg and Cedarstrom. Austria Munkacsy. Italy Pasini and De Nittis. Russia Hariamoff and Von Becker. Spain Madrazo, Rico, and Ribera. United States Bridgman and Dana. And all these artists were not only residents of Paris, but there painted most of the pictures they exhibited. Russian art is as yet an unimportant factor in " l'art Parisien." It has not yet crystallized into any peculiar or distinguishing method. It has a vigor and freshness which arise, perhaps, more from its novelty of subject than from its manner of presentation. The quaint and unfamiliar scenes of Russian peasant life awaken more curiosity than admira- 216 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. tion, and lose much of that when one learns most of them are painted in Paris from French models. A private exhibition, opened for a few days in honor of the Grand Duke, showed clearly that Russian art is in a formative state, though with vital principle at its centre. Charles Clement, writing on this subject, says: "Russian artists have more ability and intelligence than originality. They are more anxious to imitate the manner of the masters they adopt, than to create a style wholly theirs, and obey only their own inspiration. In the Russian department of the International Exhibition one finds himself much more in Paris than at Moscow." Charles Blanc says : " Respecting Russian pictures, they are made at Paris when good, at Rome when they are ' du style.' " Theophile Gautier, who better than any man in France can express an opinion on this point, has said: " There exists in Russia the elements of a school ; but it cannot be self- consistent and really interesting until it ceases to be under foreign influence." "One could have seen at the Exposition of 1878 that those Russian artists who dared to speak a native language PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 217 were few in number. It was among a few painters of land- scape and genre that was found genius peculiar to the race. The stamp of originality being less dependent on manner, they give more minute attention to the matter, — costumes, types, customs, of their native country. The subject has thus a greater prominence than the artistic element." Notwithstanding the above criticisms, there are those whose talent has enabled them to throw off in a measure the mannerisms of other nations, and paint with true and forcible originality. They are already giving some addi- tional value to Parisian art; and I venture to say that a few years will witness the development of a Russian style or school which will be as characteristic and interesting as their nationality is marked and vigorous. Among the Russian painters who reside in Paris are Bogaluben, a retired naval officer, who paints fine marines ; and Harlamoff, the water-colorist ; and Dimbdoff, who, though painting peasant life from Parisian models, succeeds in giv- ing his figures true Russian characteristics. Willie is the son of a Russian mother and English father, who lived as physician in St. Petersburg. A. von Becker obtained a medal in the Exposition of 218 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 1878, and Lippart, the illustrator, the reproductions of whose sketches are well known in the " Monde Illustree." Albert Edelfelt and Chelmonski are regular contributors to the Salon. Edelfelt is a native of Finland, and a pupil of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, of Gerome's class. Although the painting, " Le Convoi d'un Enfant (Finlande)," which obtained him a medal, was composed from sketches made in his native land, and the types of the peasants undoubtedly of Finland, the facture was Parisian, and the picture was decidedly a page of modern French art. Chelmonski has not lost any of the hardihood he brought with him from Varsovie, his pictures of dashing horses hav- ing a force and spirit almost barbaric. Vereschagin, the much-talked-of Russian painter I have before mentioned, lives and works near Paris, but never ex- hibits in the Salon, nor has he in any way identified himself with Parisian art. CHAPTER XII. Where is the Artists' Quarter? Le Salon; Petit Salons; Dubufe, Vibert, Stevens, Le Patron. WHERE is the artists' quarter?" is often asked ■ by the stranger in Paris, who, as a rule, imagines «sHimgli» it to be located in what is known as the Latin quarter. The government art schools and a few private studios are situated there, but artists live and have their studios in every part of the city. Along the quays their large windows may be seen, and on every side of the Luxem- bourg gardens are single studios and studio buildings. In all the exterior boulevards they are numerous, while on the Boulevards Clichy and Batignolles almost every house con- tains one or more, and there are buildings arranged specially for them. Within a few years the Pare Monceau has become the 220 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. fashionable quarter. Cabanel's studio, with the entrance on Rue de Vigny, looks directly out upon the park ; and Paul Vallois's. in Avenue Velasquez, is entirely enclosed by it. Meissonier has built a large house and studio, of remarkably fine architecture, on the corner of Boulevard Malesherbes Mme. Bernhardt's Studio, i. (Escalier.) and the Rue Legendre. Adjoining, on the Malesherbes, is the house and studio of his pupil, Detaille ; and on the other side, in the Rue Legendre, is the hotel of De Neuville. A few steps farther on Berne-Bellecour has a studio. At the junction of Avenues de Villiers and Malesherbes are the ho- tels and studios of Leloir, Poirson, Mme. Bernhardt, Dubufe, Mme. Bernhardt's Studio, 2. (Escalier.) Mme. Bernhardt's Studio, 3. (Escalier.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 223 Munkacsy, Jourdain, and others. Bastien Lepage has re- cently removed to the Rue Legendre. Armand Dumaresque has a hotel near by, in the Rue d'Offremont. Jacquet is in the Rue Prony, and Jadin also. The large windows in the fronts of many new buildings, and in others not yet com- pleted, show that the artistic element in this quarter of the city is rapidly increasing. It is yet new ; but Jourdain occu- pies one of three studios he has already built, planned by the architect Escalier, who also built the charming little hotel of Mme. Bernhardt. Escalier is a painter as well as architect, and has already been recompensed at the Salon. He is fond of painting decorative panels, which are fine in color, and does not trouble himself to seek a subject, but is content to harmonize the brilliant tones, whose individual reality in an ensemble are pleasing to the eye. During the Empire, Baron Haussmann planned an artist quarter in the vicinity of Passy and the Bois de Boulogne. The city offered land to sculptors and painters on very favor- able terms, and proffered assistance in building. Several hotels and studios were constructed, among them that of Madame Claude Vignon, the sculptor and writer. This 224 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. enterprise of artistic colonization was terminated by the war. After it was over, a few artists built in the vicinity of the Pare Monceau ; and the power of comradeship has proved more potent in forming an artistic quarter than the munifi- cence of municipal authorities. Paul Vallois, whose winter residence and studio is in the Pare Monceau, has also a charming studio on the Route du Havre in Etretat, where there are many other summer studios. Parisian artists migrate in flocks during the warm months, and Etretat, on the Norman coast, is one of their, principal resorts. Here Merle, Fichel, Olivie, Renie, and many others are to be found; and in the summer of 1879, on the occasion of Olivie's marriage, the church was filled with artists, who' gathered to witness the wedding of one of their confreres. Merle, at certain hours in the afternoon, coasted up and down the shore in his boat, with a merle (blackbird) on the flag; while Lambert, Landelle, Boldini, and Vallois were to be^ met every night at the Casino. But when the long lines of migratory birds fly southward and the northern winds begin, Parisians return to the gayeties of their " cher Paris." Renie comes to Etretat for the bathing, and he, with his numerous boys, may be seen in the water every morning Oaks. (Reni£.) PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 227 during the season. His pictures heretofore have generally- been of Fontainebleau Forest, its ferns and oaks ; but of late he has deserted it for smiling Venice. The first art exhibition in France was held in the year 1673. It is doubtful where, but several years later we find a series of exhibitions in the open court of the Palais Royal, or under its arcades. In the year 1699 Mansard inaugurated a series of regular exhibitions of paintings, sculptures, en- gravings, and designs by living artists in the Grand Salon of the Louvre. From these the present Salon took its name. Between 1737 and 1848 the Salon was held regularly at the Louvre, being in 1849 transplanted to the Tuileries, which was at that time unoccupied. In 1850 and 1852 it returned to its cradle, the Palais Royal; and in 1855 it found a home at Menus-Plaisirs, in the Faubourg Poissoniere. In 1855 ^ was held in a wooden building, temporarily con- structed for the purpose, on an unoccupied lot at the junction of Avenue Montaigne and the Quai de Billy, — now covered with buildings. The first Salon, in the Palais de l'lndustrie, on the Avenue des Champs Elysees, was in 1857, from which time to 1863 it was biennial. Since then it has become annual. 228 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. In 1 87 1 there was no Salon, for it was the year of the war, and art was but little thought of, and the Palais de 1' Industrie was a storehouse for cannon, horses, and ammunition. At the moment the fete of arts should have shone in all its splendor, shot and shell were falling upon the dome, crushing the glass, and disfiguring the statue of La Patrie, which is over the principal entrance. The private salons or receptions of the Parisian artists have their importance in the politics of art. For years the receptions at Dubufe's, held weekly during the winter months, were the centre of many art movements ; and so powerful did they become, so potent was the influence they excited, that the circle received the name of " The Church." From the church several chapels sprang up, which are still in a flourishing condition. One of the principal is at Vibert's, on Sunday evenings, where many of the younger painters can be found during the winter. The company arrives late, engages in conversation, music, art-gossip, and sometimes singers and actors of renown are heard. During the evening there is tobacco and beer a discretion ; and just before the company breaks up, at the wee stria' hours, choco- late and tea are served, or frequently they sit down to a bountiful supper. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 229 Vibert's reception-room is on the first floor, is large and airy, with marble fountain on the right and Japanese bronzes on the left. Half the floor is raised, the elevated portion being reached by two steps covered with Turkish rugs. This is the true reception-room, and is furnished in a lux- urious manner, with divans along the wall, arm-chairs of different degrees of comfort, and a choice collection of pic- tures by the prominent men of the day. The room, which is built into the garden, is lighted from above through large glass windows, and in the evening by gas from burners high up in the corners of the room, where the light falls through Japanese shades. Here the new art club, the " Cercle de St. Arnaud," was formed. Those who chanced that even- ing to be present signed the articles of organization as cor- porate members, and since then the roll has been increased by several hundreds. • Among the " petits salons " that of Stevens is one of the richest and most harmonious. It is upon the first floor, and as the folding-doors close behind you, you find yourself in a large Japanese cabinet. The walls are of old dull gold, with decorations representing grotesque carts full of flowers, — a single design covering an entire wall. In three corners of 230 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. the room are exquisite pieces of furniture in Japanese work, — black and gold lacque, — while in the other hangs a Japanese shrine in form of a crescent. The window-shades are white silk, richly embroidered ; the curtains are brocaded in old gold, and numerous small cabinets occupy places upon the walls. The inner surface of the entrance-doors are of black lacque, with raised gold figures. Inside this room one may imagine that he is in a royal boudoir in Japan, but glancing out of the window he sees one of the beautifully kept gardens often found in the heart of Paris, and realizes that he is still in France. One morning, while waiting for Stevens in his grand salon, I was examining a picture, not signed, but evidently from his hand. It represented a mother and child in a cur- tained bed. The mother's face is in profile, and of an ivory whiteness against the pearly tones of the pillow, while the child who sleeps beside her has the rosy tint of a new-born babe. While admiring its exquisite tones, Stevens entered, profuse in excuses for not having kept an engagement punctually, but he had been in the midst of trouble. " Imagine," he continued, " my son of only eighteen years started for Belgium to fight a duel, and I was obliged to run after him." PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 231 " And you caught him ? " " Yes, and another gamin with him. They had been quar- relling at school, and thought it necessary to fight it out in Belgium." " And you brought him back ? " " Certainly, and put him in the Chasseurs d'Afrique for three years ; so, instead of going to Belgium, he will go south to Africa. It is a great pity, for he has all the talent of a superb painter." " But," I suggested, " he will have an opportunity to study the effects of sunlight." Just then his eye caught the picture of mother and child, and he exclaimed, " That is he ; that is my son when he was but two days old ; that is the Chasseur d'Afrique." The Patron's Salon — where the pupils wait for their pro- fessor, Cabanel, who receives them every Sunday morning, or after five o'clock, p.m., during the week — is not only filled with those who have brought their compositions for his criti- cism, but also with those who have finished their pupilage, and now come to show their appreciation and regard of their old-time friend and master. With a canvas or portfolio under his arm, the pupil rings at the Rue de Vigny. The 232 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. door is opened by a dignified servant, to whom he gives his name, and who ushers him into a small reception-room on the first floor. The room is lighted by a window, opposite the entrance, in such a manner that it is difficult at once to dis- tinguish those already there, who bow in silence to the new- comer. After his eye becomes accustomed to the light, he finds a number of his acquaintances already assembled, some of whom engage in low desultory conversation, while others listen or look out of the window across the rolling lawn of the Pare Monceau. They are of all ages, from the beard- less '' nouveau " of the master's class at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts, to the grizzly " ancient." The youth brings a crayon sketch of a picture, — largely ideal, something heroic, — while the decorated pupil will pray Monsieur Cabanel to come and see the plafond he is about finishing for some palace. There is a sound in the hall ; conversation ceases, and the door slowly opening admits the patron, a well-preserved and finely formed man of about fifty years. He carries himself as one in authority; his hair and beard are white, and his mustache is waxed to points. He wears a small black velvet cap, which shows strongly by contrast the whiteness of his hair. All rise, and he takes each in turn by the hand, call- PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 233 ing them by name. To many he has a word to say about a picture he has seen by them, or an inquiry to make as to the progress of their present work. Each has thus his inter- view with the patron, and an opportunity of asking a favor. Another shake of the hand, thanks for encouragement or advice, and the pupil takes his leave. Sketch. (Olivie.) CHAPTER XIII. Conclusion. RICH, dashing style of painting, with good draw- ing, was once characterized as French art ; but now there is no school which counts so many men of talent, each having originality and a different tendency of genius as the French school. And it is the government, not the rich foreigners, which encourages youthful talent and is the principal purchaser ; for the government protects art, not only by free education, but by purchasing for museums the artists' productions. With the new republic, and the decline in church interests, the demand for church decorations, which once incited the artists to produce large compositions and canvases, lessened. To supplement this demand, and to keep up the interest in high art, the minister of fine arts was obliged to find some new outlet, which he did by sending to the prefet of each department, asking information as to public locals in need of decorations. PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 235 The replies were prompt and numerous from different cities. Chateaudun, Montpellier, Lyons, Nancy, and Toul ordered paintings for their municipal buildings, These orders were no longer for saints and Madonnas, but for sub- jects of more recent history and of local interest ; such as the " Civil Marriage," by Gervex, or what might be termed mod- ern classic, as " La Famille," by Lematte. The distribution of the flags to the regiments (14th of July, 1880) gave the reason for an order to several artists, the principal being Detaille and Gamier, for representations of that fete ; and one of the finest and most poetic canvases of Cazin — more ideal and symbolical than historic — was painted of this sub- ject. It was a relief to the eye, after the others with their realistic crowd of dragoons under a hot July sun. As in literature the author of a work of decided freshness, touch- ing a new current of ideas, creates a number of followers and imitators, so with artists who exhibit at the Salon something out of the ordinary line. Since Regnault seized the public attention, which he held until his death, by the picture of " Salome " with the yellow-curtained background, yellow backgrounds have figured each succeeding year. Carolus Duran's " Boy in Red" has been followed by a regiment in the 236 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. same uniform. Phillipe Rousseau's "Coin d'une Cuisine" — a gorgeous yellow pumpkin, which, by the way, was changed from room to room in the Salon, other exhibitors praying it might not be placed next their exhibit — was followed the next year by a load of pictured pumpkins that looked as if they might have been painted from the same model, after it had passed the winter in some very dry garret. There has been a crusade against the sentimental in art, which is now over ; but at one epoch, it seemed by many to be considered a superfluous quality. All required by them was fine-art mechanism, and the fashion was to crowd around a picture of a jewelled casket, copied with microscopic pre- cision, or a slashing painting of a copper pot. This craze bore its fruits, raised the standard of technique in the art of painting, and crushed out a mass of mediocre stuff, which, although it may have contained ideas, presented them to the public in a manner unworthy of its attention. Art in France is not only the outcome of genius, it is not merely decorative, it does not belong only to that finer side of life to which we are in the habit of relegating pictures with other luxuries : it goes deeper, — into the root of seri- ous matters, and becomes an exponent of the country's his- PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 237 tory. Questions of politics, religion, literature, — at least all that in them is sensational or appeals to general interest, — are crystallized into pictures, which are hung upon the walls of the Salon each succeeding year. Thus, in one exhibition there were numerous illustrations of Zola's " Assommoir," which had been the previous winter the subject of sensa- tional theatrical interest ; in another, scenes from Dumas's " Tue-la " and Victor Hugo's " Quatre-vingt-treize." News- paper stories, senatorial combats, scandal in law courts, are fruitful fields for illustration, — nothing which interests the people being too high or too low to furnish a motive for a sensational painting sensationally rendered. It is not difficult, if one keeps au courant of the move- ment of thought during the winter, to predict the subjects of this class of pictures ; and, on the other hand, those en- tirely ignorant of it may come yearly, and read it pictured plainly, — " the handwriting upon the wall." A few of them are successes, artistically considered ; the others serve their turn. If not successful as works of art, they have that transient success which waits upon the eccen- tric and sensational : they bring the artist at least into tran- sient notice, and his name is in a manner linked with that 238 PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. of the author, politician, or movement he has attempted to illustrate. The popular taste must be the criterion of modern art. The public chooses the pictures that appeal to them and that they understand, and they consider there must be some- thing false or incomplete in those works that have to be explained. They congregate before a portrait of Cabanel or Bonnat, Vibert's spirituelle scenes, and De Neuville's dramatic pages ; and do not neglect Schenck's flock of geese examining a picture that has been left for a moment by the artist unpro- tected in the field. This they imagine is a reference to the jury, and press laughingly nearer, hoping to recognize in- dividual likenesses in some of the geese's heads. Before the painting of Hawkins's " Orphans " they stand with quiet interest, for the tender sentiment of the children in the deserted church-yard touches every one. If successful pictures could be classified into subjects, I think those referring to death, a funeral, or something connected with the last rites and ceremonies, would be most numerous. The works of poets, sculptors, painters, have ever been best when they touched upon some incident con- PARISIAN ART AND ARTISTS. 239 nected with the end of the long tragedy of life ; they have made their most complete work, and told the tale plainer; and the public have comprehended more fully when they touched this last note. It was so when Titian painted his " Entombment," that now hangs in the Louvre. There is nothing more pathetic than Landseer's picture of a shep- herd's dog watching beside his master's coffin ; and Knauss's child's funeral, with the circle of little ones, waiting in the snow, while their former comrade's last remains are brought down the steps, is full of pathos. Did you ever see an old engraving, from the picture of a hearse entering a cemetery, the only mourner following, a faithful dog? The original made a sensation at the Salon years ago. This was the one and only production of the artist's life ; but he had succeeded where many more have failed, — by impelling the public fully to understand the idea he had created.