/i^ 7:.l .l-?,^ '^l^^^mnSiZorCoUtgi iJiihifjCetony" ILLUSTRATED HAND-BOOKS OF ART EDUCATION. EDITED BY EDWARD J. FOYNTER, R.A., AND FROFESSOR ROGER SMITH, F.R.I. B. A. PAINTING SPANISH AND FRENCH BY GERARD W. SMITH EXETER. COLLEGE, OXON. ILLUSTRATED HAND-BOOKS OF ART HISTORY OF ALL AGES AND COUNTRIES. EDITED BY E. J. POYNTER, R.A., and Prof. KO&ER SMITH, F.E.I.B.A. Ea.Gh in crown Svo, cloth extra, per volume, 5s. ARCHITECTURE : CLASSIC AND EARLY CHRISTIAN. By Professor T. Roger Smith and John Slater, B.A. Comprising the Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Early Christian. Illustrated with upwards of 200 En gravings, including the Parthenon, the Erechtheuin at Athens, the Colosseum, the Baths of Diocletian at Rome, Saint Sophia at Constantinople, the Sakhra Mosque at Jerusalem, &c. ARCHITECTURE : GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE. By Pro fessor T. Roger Smith and Edward J. Poyntes, R.A. Showing the Progress of Gothic Architecture in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, and of Renaissance Architecture in the same Countries. Illustrated with more than 100 Engravings, including many of the principal Cathedrals, Churches, Palaces, and Domestic Buildings on the Continent. SCULPTURE : A Manual of Egyptian, Assyrian, Greek, and Roman. By George Redford, E.R.C.S. With 160 Illustrations of the most celebrated Statues and Bas-Reliefs of Greece and Rome, a Map of Ancient Greece, and a Chrono logical List of Ancient Sculptors and their Works. SCULPTURE: RENAISSANCE AND MODERN. By Leader Scott. Illustrated with numerous Engravings of Works by Ghiberti, Donatello, Delia Robbia, Cellini^ and other celebrated Sculptors of the Renaissance, And with Examples of Canova, Thorwaldsen, Flaxman, Chantrey, Gibson, and other Sculptors of the i8tb and igth centuries. {Neariy ready. PAINTING : CLASSIC AND ITALIAN. By Edward J. Poynter, R.A., and Percy R. Head, B.A. Including Painting in Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Pompeii ; the Renaissance in Italy ; Schools of Florence, Siena, Rome, Padua, Venice, Perugia, Ferrara, Parma, Naples, and Bologna. Illustrated with 80 Engravings of many of the finest Pictures of Italy. PAINTING : SPANISH AND FRENCH.. By Gerard Smith, Exeter Coll., Oxen, Including the Lives of Ribera, Zurbaran, Velazquez, and Murillo ; Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Le Sueur, Watteau, Chardin, Greuze, David, and Prud'hon ; Ingres, Vernet, Delaroche, and Delacroix. Corot, Diaz, Rousseau, and Millet; Courbel) Regnault, Troyon, and many other celebrated artists. With about 80 Illustrations. PAINTING: GERMAN, FLEMISH, AND DUTCH. By H. J. WiLvioT Buxton, M.A., and Edward J. Poynter, R.A. Including an account of the Works of Albrecht Durer, Cranach, and Holbein ; Van Eyck, Van der Weyden, and Memlinc; Rubens, Snyders, and Van Dyck ; Rembrandt, Hals, and Jan Steen ; Wynants, Ruisdael, and Hobbema : Cuyp, Potter, and Berchem ; Bakhuisen, Van de Velde, Van Huysum, and many other celebrated Painters. Illustrated with 100 Engravings. PAINTING : ENGLISH AND AMERICAN. By H. J. WiLMOT Buxton, M.A., and S. R. Koehler. Including an Account of the Earliest Paintings known in England ; the works of Holbein, Antonio Moro, Lucas de Heere, Zuccaro, and Marc Garrard, the Hilliards and Olivers; Van Dyck, Lely, and Kneller ; Hogarth, Reynolds, and Gainsborough ; West, Romney, and Lawrence ; Constable, Turner, and Wilkie ; Maclise, Mulready, and Landseer, and other celebrated Painters. And a Chapter on Painting in America. With 80 Illustrations. ILLUSTRATED HAND-BOOKS OF ART HISTORY. PAINTING SPANISH AND FRENCH BY GERARD W^'sMITH, EXETER COLLEGE, OXON. LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON CROWN BUILDINGS, 1 88, FLEET STREET 1884 {Jll rights reserved.) 2s^ S CLAY AND TA\L0I5, PIllNTERS, BUNGAY. ^- irVBI 'Viii N"^" ^^;^ NOTICE. THE present volume completes the series of brief histories of Painting in the Illustbated Hand-books of Art Education. They include an account of Painting in Egypt, and the classic works of Ancient Greece ; the Renaissance and various Schools of Art in Italy ; and the Schools of Spain and France : and on the Teutonic side, the early Flemish, the early German, Dutch, and later Flemish Schools ; a comprehensive view of Painting in England from the fifteenth century to the present time, and a chapter on American Art. All are as fully illustrated as the size of the volumes will admit. Should a treatise on Modern Artists he added to the series, it must include an account of the now celebrated painters of Russia, Hungary, Austria, and Scandinavia. The progress of Art throughout Europe and the United States of America is increasing so greatly both in quantity and excellence, that the chronicler of Art in the last quarter of the nineteenth century wOl undoubtedly have to provide for a book of many pages. Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street. Aug. 1884.- CONTENTS. PAINTING IN SPAIN. INTRODUCTION PAGE 5 Chapter I. (bbfoke a.d. 1500) EARLY ART IN SPAIN Chapter II. (A.D. 1501—1600) ... 11 ITALIAN AND OTHER PRECURSORS ... 16 SCHOOL OF CASTILE ... 22 SCHOOL OF ANDALUCIA ... 30 SCHOOL OF VALENCIA 35 SCHOOL OP ARAGON ... ... ... ... 37 Chapter III. (A.D. 1601—1682) Tfie Great Epoch of Spanish Painters. SCHOOL OF CASTILE SCHOOL OF ANDALUCIA SCHOOL OF VALENCIA SCHOOL OF ARAGON 395063 67 VllI CONTENTS. Chapter IV. (A.D. 1682—1800) Decadence of Spanish Painting. SCHOOL OF CASTILE SCHOOL OF ANDALUOIA SCHOOL OF VALENCIA SCHOOL OF ARAGON PAINTING IN PORTUGAL. SCHOOL OF LISBON SCHOOL OP VISEU PAINTING IN FRANCE. INTRODUCTION ... 68 7274 75 8185 93 Chapter I. (A.D. 1400—1650) early FRENCH ART ... ... ... ... 97 Chapter II. (A.D. 1650—1700) THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZB ... ... ... 114 Chapter III. (A.D. 1701—1800) PAINTERS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ... ... 157 DAVID, AND THE REFORM OF PAINTING ... ... 182 (A.D. 1801—1880) PAINTERS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY ... ... 197 MODERN FRENCH LANDSCAPE PAINTERS ... ... 222 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. SPANISH PAINTERS. 1. Isabella, Daughter of Philip II. 2. Descent from the Cross :i. Madonna Dolorosa 4. St. Peter and St. Paul .5. The Artist's Daughter 6. The Nativity 7. The Last Supper 8. The Entombment of St. Stephen 9. St. Francis receiving the Stigmata 10, 11. The Count Duke of OUvares 12. The Calling of St. Matthew ... 13. View of Saragossa 14. St. Basil dictating his Doctrine 15. St. Elizabeth of Hungary 16. The Immaculate Conception ... 17. The Deposition from the Cross 18. Charles II. of Spain .... 19. The Death of the Picador ... 20. St. Peter in Pontifical Robes 21. Calvary PAGE Coello. 10 Carducci. 21 Morales. 23 ... Navarrete. 26 Theotocopidi. 28 Vargas. 31 Cespedes. 33 ... Jiian de Jvxmes. 36 Juan Bizi. 41 Velazquez. 43 . . . Juan de Pareja. 48 Martinez. 51 Herrera the Elder. 53 Murillo. 59 Murillo. 61 Bibera. 65 Carreno. 70 Goya. 77 Velasco. 80 Velasco. 87 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FRENCH PAINTERS. Ill La Saint -Chapelle. By Fouquet. Ben-:, Kinrj of Anjou. Clouet. 22. Painting on Glass 23. Miniature Painting 24. Engraving from a Romance ... 25. Elizabeth of Austria 26, 27. The Guard Room 28. Diogenes throwing away his Sliul! 29. The Shepherds of Arcadia 30, 31. St. Paul Preaching at Ephesus 32, 33. The Entry of Alexander into Babylon ... 34. Catherine Mignard 35. Sainte Marguerite 36. Trajan giving Public Audience 37. Philippe le Hardi and the Body of St. Louis 38. Cardinal Bioheheu 39. Crossing the Ford 40. Ancient Harbour ; Sunset 41. Roses, Poppies, Jasmine, Larkspui- ... 4?. Reynard Surprised 43. Greyhound protecting Game ... 44. The Miraculous Draught of Fishes 45. Perfect Harmony 46. Fete ChampStre 47. Manhood 48. The Fhst Chapter of the Order " Le Saint Esprit " De Troy. 49. Carie Vanho's Studio ' Carle Vanloo. 59. La Fontaine Chardin. 51. The Village Bridegroom Greuze. .. Le Nai7i. Poussin.Poussin. . . Le Sueur. Le Brun. .. 3Iignard. . Dufresiwy. Coypel. De Boulogne. Champaigne. Claude Lorrain. ... Claude Lorrain. ... MIonnoyer. Jean Baptiste Oudry. Desportes. Jouvenet. Antoine Watteau. Pater. Lancret. PAGE 99 101 103 105 HI117121 122124129 130133137139141 143 147 148150153]58160 16316516917S181 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 52. The Sabine Women 53, 54. The Entry of Henri IV. into Paris 55. Phaedra and Hippolytus 56. Cupid Caressing his Victim 57. Francis I. and Charles V. at St. Denis 58. The Raft of the Medusa .59. Stratonice 60. Christus Consolator 61. Cinq Mars and De Thou 62. Adoration of the Magi 63, 64. Eventide 65. Halt of Harvesters 66. The Pleasure-Boat 67. Madame Le Brun 68. The Post through the Desert 69. A Turlcish School 70. Sunset 71. Dance of Nymphs 72. Woodland Scene 73. Sunrise, Oxen going to Labour 74. Arab Chiefs 75, 76. General Prim PAGE David. 185 Gerard. 188 Gu&in. 191 Prudlion. 193 Gros. 196 G&icault. 198 Ingres. 201 Ary Scheffer. 203 Delaroche. 206 Flandrin. 208 Gleyre. 209 Robert. 210 Isabey. 213 ...By Herself. 215 Horace Vernet. 217 Decamps. 221 Theodore Rousseau. 224 Corot. 227 Diaz. 229 Troyon. 231 ... Fromentin. 233 Regnault. 234 PAINTING IN SPAIN. INTRODUCTION. THE Art of Painting in Spain is inseparably bound up with her national history ; and in treating of this Art we must study it with a constant reference to those circumstances which made the Spaniards a peculiar people among the nations of Europe. The Inquisition, which gave a kind of unity to the thought it crushed, and the fanaticism of a religion which, in its fierce struggle against an opposing faith, had come to be almost identical with patriotism — these were the sombre influ ences beneath which Spain rose to a greatness that bore in itself the seeds of decay. This prevailing character of gloom is faithfully reflected in her Schools of Painting, the only branch of Art in which she attained the highest excellence. In other countries Art had received its first impulse from the Church, but new influences had in time sprung up to modify or transform the primitive ideal. In Spain alone did the Church triumphantly continue to direct artistic energy, to the utter exclusion of all extraneous influences. SPANISH ART. -Flemish and Italian Masters might settle in Spain, and enrich with their skiU the land of their adoption; Spanish scholars might find their way to Rome, and bring back thence new ideas, and improved methods of work ; but Spanish Painting, although entirely a plant of extraneous growth, while assimilating to itself this culture from without, never permanently assumed a foreign form. The semi-paganism of Italian Art found no place in the Churches and Palaces of Spain. It was tran.sformed there into a severe asceticism, which ignored antiquity, and inexorably excluded earthly ideals. An artist could at best only aspire to be a teacher of religious truth ;¦ if he turned aside from simple reality, his cramped imagination generally exercised its powers in bodying forthf the darkest aspects of a creed that was at once fanatically cruel and intensely realistic. The office of Inspector of Sacred Pictures, founded by the Inquisition, was no formal censorship. It exercised a minute control over the brush of the artist, exacting from him a strict decorum in his treatment of sacred subjects, and laying down for him express directions as to the dress of sacred personages. Nudity was especially to be avoided. Even the Virgin's feet were not carelessly to be ex posed. Again, it was a dispilted point whether the Saviour should be represented as nailed to the cross by three nails or by four. If he infringed any of these rules, the artist might expect to see the obnoxious feature actually painted out. Sometimes even a punishment was imposed by way of penance. This rigid discipline found, on the whole, a ready response from those on whom it was imposed. Vargas and Joanes, the founders respect ively of two great schools, were as eminent for piety as for artistic power. Many painters were themselves monks, or brought up ill the cloister. All, at least, had felt the influence INTRODUCTION. 7 of an imposing religion from their earliest youth. When to this it is added that the Church was a munificent patron, it will be understood how ready artists were to expend their zeal in her service. The Cathedral of Toledo, begun in 1226, the cradle of Spanish Art, was for four hundred years the noble home of artists. The Cathedral of Seville, built in the beginning of the fifteenth century, fostered the genius of Andalucia. The Esourial, at once a Palace and a Monastery, was the work of one who favoured monks along with painters, and was a fanatic before he was a king. If the Court also was not slow in leftding its countenance to Art, it scarcely offered a freer field for the display of talent. The moral laxity of the prince was not permitted to extend to the canvas of his painters. Here, too, the overshadowing power of the Inquisition reigned supreme. Eeligion, therefore, as understood and practised daily in Catho lic Spain, must be looked on as the basis underlying the whole structure of Spanish Art ; now appearing in all its solemnity, as in Campana's Descent from the Cross, now in its sternness and horror, as in the St. Stephen of Joanes, now with a picturesque realism, as in the haggard Carthusians of Zurbaran, the subtle Jesuits of Pvoelas, or the mendicant monk whom MuriUo loved to paint. An Art thus restricted could not fail to display a striking peculiarity alike in its excellences and its defects. Three great Schools of Painting arose in Spain — those of Castile, Andalucia, and Valencia. The first-named of these, which was also the earliest, took its rise in Toledo, in the first half of the fifteenth century, and having also centres at Badajos and Valladolid, found its final home in Madrid. b2 b SPANISH ART. The great School of Andalucia had its centres at Cordova, Granada, and above all at Seville, its glorious Art metropolis. It sprang up about the middle of the sixteenth century, about the same time as that of Valencia. To these larger groups may be added the lesser School of Aragon, with Saragossa as its centre, which, as early as the fourteenth century, produced a few good artists, and maintained its ground with more or less success till the end of the seventeenth century. The distinctive features belonging to these Schools, apart from the general character above indicated, were chiefly such as arose from the nature of the localities in which each flourished. The Castilian painters inclined to a dark and sober style of colouring, tempered, however, through the influence of Titian, by something of Venetian warmth. The deeper skies of the South naturally induced in the artists of Andalucia and Valencia a liking for more brilliant and mellower tones, and a fondness for imitating the more picturesque life which surrounded them. Few Masters in any of the Schools attempted or succeeded in landscape, but all the greatest Masters excelled in portraiture, a branch of Art in which Spain takes a prominent place. " In point of age, Spanish painting conies next to that of Italy and Germany ; in importance it is second only to that of Italy." * Beginning in the fifteenth century, it presents no individuality, but even in its earliest growth derives its strength entirely from Flemish or Italian sources. With the opening of the sixteenth century the Italian influence predominates, and, growing stronger and stronger, moulds the works of the distinguished group of artists -who, in the reign of Philip II., rose to excellence in their respective schools. It was not until late in the seventeenth century that Velazquez * Stirling : ' Annals of the Artists of Spain.' INTRODUCTION. 9 and Murillo, untrammelled by their previous study of foreign models, held the mirror up to Spanish nature, and reproduced on their canvases those splendid and faithful transcripts of it which, at the same time, embodied the highest excellence of their Ai't. The culmination, however, of Spanish Art was as short-lived as it was glorious. Those great Masters left none to carry on their work, and the few worthy names that come after them only serve to make the general decay more apparent. Faithful to its earliest traditions, Spanish Art, even in its decline, clung to foreign models, and it was left for France, at the close of the seventeenth century, to lead it into a depth of degradation from which it is only now partially beginning to recover. *»* The names and dates of the Artists are given as in the Catalogue of the MusBo DEL Prado de Madrid, by D. Pedro de Madrazo — 1878. Isabella, Daughter op Philip II. By Alokzo Sanchez Coello. In the Madrid Oallertj. [ge^ paije 2i CHAPTER I. !ARLY ART IN SPAIN. (Before a.d. 1500.) ALL traces of Art in Spain to the end of the fifteenth century, and for some time beyond, are few and scanty, and our information regarding them is correspondingly defective. The name of Vigila has come down to us as an illuminator of manu scripts in the tenth century, and in the Library of the Cathedral of Seville is a Bible which was transcribed for Alonso the Wise in the thirteenth century by Pedro de Pampluna. In 1291-2 RoDRiGO EsT^BAN is known (by the mere record of his name) to have been painter to King Sancho IV. , and a little earlier than this time certain accounts of works at Westminster show another Spanish painter, Petrus de Hispania, to have been employed in England by Henry III. On the celling of one of the courts of the Alhambra at Granada is a very curious series of pictures, painted about 1460, as to which some doubt exists whether they were painted by a Moorish or a Christian artist. The subject of one of the pictures — Ten bearded Moors seated in Council — gives to the Hall its name of "Sala de Justicia;" the other pictures represent chivalrous or 12 SPANISH ART. amorous subjects, from a Moorish point of view. Probably tjiey were the work of a Christian renegade.* As we reach the fourteenth century, it is interesting to n-ote how, on the very threshold, as it were, of Spanish Art, traces of contact with Italy and Flanders begin to appear. The contact is at first but accidental and imperfect, and arises apparently out of the wandering propensities common to artists of all nationalities in the middle ages. Gherardo Starnina, a Florentine (1354 — 1413), was the first Italian who appeared in Spain. Induced through a quarrel to leave his native city, he worked much for the King of Spaia, whither he was followed a little later by Dbllo (1404 ; d. aft. 1466), another Florentine. Both these artists achieved distinction at the Spanish Court, and returned rich to Italy. Equally noteworthy is the Flemish influence which touches Spain at this early date. The great Master, Jan van Eyck (ab. 1386 — 1440), had himself visited Portugal in 1429. Later in the century a pupil of hi.'', styled Maestro Eogel, is found at the Court of Juan II. of Castile, where he executed a portable altar-piece, which that monarch gave to the Carthusian Convent of Miraflores. Another foreigner, who painted at the same Court, would seem from his name. Maestro Jorge Ingles, to have been an Englishman. By command of the Marquis of Santillana, he executed in 1455 a retablo containing portraits of that nobleman and his wife for the church of the Hospital of Buitrago. Architecture had in Spain, as elsewhere, been the forerunner and harbinger of the otber Arts. Where church or cathedral arose, there artists were in request to beautify it. Whatever of sculpture was achieved in Spain may be traced back to the rude painted images which were reqiiired from the first to adorn a shrine, or figure in a procession. Already, before the close of the middle ages, the Cathedrals of Leon, St. Jago, Tarragona, and * Ford: ' Handbook of Spam.' early art in SPAIN. 13 Burgos, were in existence, and had proved to be bountiful homes of artists. But the highest associations of painting at this period centre round the ancient city of Toledo, which throughout the fifteenth century led the way in the arts. On the walls of the cathedral cloisters, which he had erected in 1389, Archbishop Tenorio had caused to be painted some curious frescoes represent ing the burnings of heretics, &c. , which are executed in imitation of the style of Giotto. These frescoes were almost wholly effaced in 177'5 by the barbarian chapter, who employed some feeble modern artists to paint them over with legends of the local saints.* Juan Alfon, in 1418, painted a retablo in the same cathedral. Another artist, of foreign birth, who worked here in 1495-99, was Juan de Borgona (d. 1533?), whose Nativity of the Virgin and other pictures in the winter Chapter-house closely follow in their style the School of Perugino. His Conquest of Gran in theMuzarabio Chapel is inferior. The series of portraits of the primates of Toledo were also painted by him. Pedro Berbuguetb (d. ab. 15C0), another Toledan artist, also worked in the manner of Perugino. The most important name connected with Toledo at this time is that of Antonio Eincon (b. at Guadalaxara, ab. 1446 ; d. 1533). His greatest work, however, was an altar-piece for the village of Eobledo de Chavela, near the Escurial. A Virgin and Child in the Louvre is attributed to him, and the Madrid Gallery has copies of his fine portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella. Eincon was the first native painter deserving of the name, and from the natural grace of style which he was the first to intro duce was supposed to have studied in Italy. Some pupils of Eincon, who also worked at Toledo, were his son, Fernando del Eincon, and the two brothers, Antonio and iSiGO de Comontbs, but their pictures have probably perished. A son of the latter, Francisco Comontes, was more noted than his father, and • Ford : ' Handbook of Spain.' 14 SPANISH ART. painted for the Chapter of Toledo from 1547 till his death in 1565. His best pictures were those of the Virgin and St. Bartholomeio, in the retablo in one of the chapels of the Cathedral. The name of Fernando Gallegos (b. Salamanca, towards the end of the fifteenth century, d. 1550) has been assigned indis criminately to numberless productions of early Spanish Art, though undoubtedly in many cases without foundation. His works are said to have resembled in style those of Albrecht Diirer, whom certainly he had never seen. Perhaps the altar-piece in the chapel of St. Clement, in the Cathedral of Salamanca, is authentic, as well as a few others in the same city. Stirling says his style sometimes had the sweetness of Eaphael's second manner. Con temporary with Gallegos was Juan de Villoldo, a distinguished painter of Toledo. He died after 1551. Of the Masters of Seville in the fifteenth century, the foremost was Juan Sanchez de Castro, "the Morning Star of Anda lucia," * who painted in 1 454 a retablo for the Cathedral of Seville, and a fresco of St. Julian in a church of the same city. He was alive as late as 1516. A pupil of his, Juan Nunez, was a good painter, and executed several pictures for the cathedral, one of which was a Virgin toith the dead hody of Christ. Alexo Fernandez painted some altar-pieces at Cordova and Seville. The earliest artists of the Aragonese School of whom we possess any certain information are found at Saragossa. Eamon Torrbnte, who died in 1323, and his pupil, Guillen Tort, were artists of some note there, and were succeeded after a Ion" interval by Bonant de Ortiga, who in 1457 was painter to the Deputies of Aragon. But the true' founder of the Ara^^onese School was Pedro de Aponte, who studied in Italy under Luca Signorelli and Ghirlandajo, and brought back their pre cepts to Spain. He was painter to Juan II. of Aragon and afterwards to Ferdinand V., whom he accompanied to Castile in * Stiriing. EARLY ART IN SPAIN. 15 1479. Thomas Pelbgret studied in Eome under Polidoro da Caravaggio, and returning to Spain in the reign of Charles V., settled at Saragossa, where he painted frescoes in chiaroscuro. It will have been noticed that up to this time Art has put forth all its efforts under the shelter of the Church, and that its methods are still tentative and imperfect. None of the three great Schools can as yet be said to have really begun, or founded its peculiar style. The conquest of Granada, in 1492, gave an important impulse to Art, and Painting, under the fostering care of Isabella of Aragon, slowly began to take its place among the dawning glories of Spain. No less important was the conquest of Naples by Ferdinand, an event by which Spain was brought into yet closer connection than before with Italy and her reviving Art. Already we have seen examples of single Italian masters working in Spain, and of Spanish artists studying in Italy. A native of the latter country, NicgolJ) Francesco Pisano, was painter to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1504. The movement thus begun reached its full consummation in the next period. CHAPTEE IL predominance of the ITALIAN INFLUENCE. RISE OF the three great native schools. (a.d. 1500—1600.) italian and other precursors. IT must not be supposed that early Spanish Art ends abruptly with the fifteenth centuiy. For some time after that date, it retains the stiff and unformed character likely to result from the attempts of artists who still work, for the most part, in the cloister, undisturbed by any promptings from without. Only gradually does this conventional Art come under the full power of the influence tliat is borne in upon it with the opening of the sixteenth century. At the accession of Charles V. in 1516, Europe had awoke, as it were, to a new life, and students were flocking from all parts to Italy, as the centre of this new bright ness. Spain did not escape the universal fascination. The intercourse between that country and Italy, fostered indirectly by a widening commerce, was now to become close and frequent. Throughout the greater part of the sixteenth century, Spanish Art appears like a captive led in willing chains by the superior ITALIAN AND OTHER PRECURSORS. 17 genius of Italy, yet beneath this apparent domination there is slowly growing up the germ of that native feeling, which is afterwards to find its full development in the works of Velazquez and Murillo. The Italians, whose immediate example had so great an effect upon Castilian Art, will be named presently in connection with their work at the Escurial. Two only need be mentioned here — Julio and Alessandro, who, early in the reign of Charles V. , were the first to introduce fresco painting into Spain. They were employed at tlie Alhambra, and afterwards founded iv school with some success in Andalucia. Meanwhile, artists of other nationality were still working in Spain, and contributing to form the native taste. Jerom Bosch (b. Bois-Ie-duc 1460-64), who painted pictures, of which the style is indicated by such subjects as the Fall of Lucifer, the Triumph of Death., and others, which well entitle him to the name of the " Hogarth of the lower world," if report is to be believed, paid a short visit to Spain. Jan Cornblis Vbrmeybn (ab. 1500 — 1559), a Dutch painter, was a special favourite of Charles V. ; he e.xcelled in portraits, landscapes, and .sacred subjects. By the Spaniards he was called " El liarhudo," or " de Barbalonga. A more prominent name is that of Pedro Campana (" El Maese Pedro "), (b. Brussels 1 503), who, after twenty years' study in Italy, lived long enough at Seville to rank as a Spanish Master. His Descent from the Cross, already mentioned, is unpleasing, from the nieagreness of the figures, and its antique harshness of execution. It was, however, greatly admired by Murillo. Campa.na's Purification of the Virgin, painted in 1553 for the Cathedral of Seville, is marked by Italian softness and beauty. Besides his other works, he was also noted for his por traits. He died old at Brussels in 1 580, leaving at Seville a son, Juan Bapttsta CampaSa, who was also a painter. Contem porary with Campana at Seville, lived FriVN Cisco Frutet (1548 — 1550). Flemish in colouring, he followed Italian models in SP c 18 SPANISH ART. composition. His best pictures were in an altar-piece represent ing the Adoration of the Three Kings. Sturmio, a native of Ziriczee, was employed in 1555 by the Chapter of Seville to execute nine pictures on panel, the colouring of which is noticeable as the earliest example of the fine brown tones peculiar to the School of Seville. The Spaniards who did most to promote the taste for Italian Art among their countrymen were Alonso Berrugubte and Gaspar Becerra, both of whom were sculptors and architects as well as painters. The former, born about 1480 at Valladolid, was universally allowed to be the foremost artist of his age in Spain. Passing from an attorney's office to the studio of Michelangelo, he assisted as a student in the Cartoon of the War of Pisa. Eeturning to Spain in 1520, he was employed by Charles V. at Madrid and Granada. His best pictures were painted for the Cathedral of Palencia, and the Church of Ventosa. For the stiff and angular style then prevailing, he substituted the free outlines and rounded contours of Italy. He also made improvements in the drawing of the human figure. All that was good in painting and sculpture between 1500 and 1560 was attributed to Berruguete. Becerra was born at Baeza in 1520, and studied in Italy, perhaps under Michelangelo. On his return to Spain, shortly after 1556, he became Court Painter to Philip II. , for whom he executed some frescoes in the Palace of Madrid and the Pardo. He also executed paintings and statuary i'or the Churches and Convents of Saragossa, Valladolid, and other places. Though chiefly a sculptor, his influence on Art in general was second only to that of Berruguete. He died in 1570. Contemporary with Berruguete, and, like him, sculptor and architect as well as painter, was Pedro Machuca, who studied in Italy, and was said to resemble Raphael in style. None of his pictures are left. Fernando YaSbz, who worked in Spain in 1531, may also possibly have been a pupH of Raphael, a sup- ITALIAN AND OTHER PRECURSORS. 19 position which is borne out by a painting by him on panel in the chapel of the Albernoces at Cuenca. Ford says that his style is rather Florentine than Eoman. Giovanni Spagnuolo, also called Juan de Espano, is said by Vasari to have studied under Perugino, but he belongs rather to the Schools of Italy than Spain. The works of Diego Corrba, some of which bear the date 1550, denote a close study of EaphaeL His colouring is rich, and he displays grace and feeling. In his figures and draperies he often follows Perugino. Pedro Rubiales gained great distinction in Eome, but he would seem, like Giovanni Spagnuolo, to have lived and died abroad. The building of the Escurial forms an epoch in the history of Spanish Art. Begun in 1563 by Philip IL, it became one of the greatest " shrines of painting, for which Titian and Velazquez laboured, where Rubens and Murillo studied, and a line of kings for two centuries, hived the treasures of European Art."* The steady rise in social estimation made by painting up to this time is summed up in a saying of Charles V. : " There are many princes; there is but one Titian." And that painting was not considered derogatory to rank is proved by the example of Don Felipe de Guevara, a nobleman in the emperor's service, who was also an artist. Under Philip, the royal favour was extended to Art even more freely, and Castilian Artists were allured from the shadow of church and convent to bask in the sunshine of the Court, and to share the labours and honours of the foreigners whom the king eagerly gathered round him to aid in his cherished undertaking. At the head of these, tliough not among them, we must place Titian, " Charh'S V.'s greatest service to Spain ;" t for although that great artist was perhaps never in Spain, the Escurial is filled with pictures by his hand, and his influence was strongly • Stiriing. t Liid. c 2 20 SPAMSH ART. marked in the colouring of the Castilian School. Juan Bautista Castello, born 1509, called, from the town of his birth, "El Bergamasco," entered Philip's service in 1567, and died at Madrid in 1569. He worked with Becerra at the Alcazar of Madrid and designed the staircase of the Escurial. His drawing and compo sition were in the Roman style ; his colouring had some of the splendour of the Venetian. In 1583 Luca Cambiaso (1527 — 1585), head of the School of Genoa, was specially engaged by Philip after painting, as a proof of his powers, ^& Martyrdom of St. Laiorence. He painted the frescoes on the ceiling of the choir of the Escurial, and other large works. He painted in a peculiarly < fierce manner, sometimes using both hands. His son, Osazio Cambiaso, and his pupil, Lazzaro Tavarone, executed in 1587 the frescoes of the Battles of Higueruela * and St. Quintin iu the "Sala de las Batallas," in the Escurial, a work in which they were assisted by the two sons of Castello, Nicolao Granelo,^! and Fabricio Castello. ' Romulo Cincinato, of Florence, was sent to Philip in 1569 by the Spanish Ambassador in Rome. An altar-piece representing < the Circumcision in the Jesuits' Church at Cuenca was his master-piece. He was accompanied by Patricio Caxes of Arezzo, who painted much in the Pardo. Of Peregrino Pellegrini, called TiBALDi (1527 — 1598), a native of Bologna, whose chief work at the Escurial was his frescoes in the Library, Ford says that he '' out-heroded Michelangelo, without possejssing a tithe of his grandeur or originality." He nevertheless returned to Italy, loaded with honours and rewards from Philip. Another less suc cessful painter, whose powers did not equal his excessive vanity, wasFEDBRioo Zuccaro. He was invited to Spain specially to aid in the decoration of the Escurial, but failing to satisfy the king, returned to Italy. He left, however, in Spain, a pupil who worked with far different results. * " Battle of the Fig-tree," in which the Moors were defeated by J lum II., in 1431. The costume is very curious. Descent from the Cross. By Bartolommeo Carducci. In the Madrxd Gallery. 22 • SPANISH AllT. Bartolommeo Carducci (1560—1608), a student of the Florentine School, was one of the Italian Masters who did most to promote the Fine Arts in Spain. His works show an imita tion of the antique, and are accurate in drawing, and harmonious in colour. He was a most conscientious artist, touching aijd re-touching his pictures continually till they reached perfection. Oae of his most important works, Tlie Descent from the Cross — in which Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus are carefully taking down the body of Jesus, while the Magdalene, seated by the side of a ladder, is weeping at the sight of the wound." in His feet, and the other Maries are spreading out a linen cloth for the dead Christ — is among the chief pictures of the " Museo DEL Prado" (No. 79). The figures are of the size of life. {See Illustration. ) The list of Italians may conclude with the two brothers, Antonio and Vincbnzio Campi, noted for their frescoes at Cremona, who were in Spain in 1583. The names of three Flemish artists occur in connection with the Escurial. Antonis More, Michibl van Coxcien, and Antonio Pupilbr. The first, who came to Spain in 1552, was so highly favoured by Philip II. as to excite much jealousy ; and falling under suspicions of heresy from the Inquisition, was glad to return to Brussels. More excelled in portraits. He finished his works with great care, and sometimes coloured in the rich style of Titian. Coxcien, being sent on a commission to Spain to copy a Van Eyck in the Palace of Madrid, was employed by Philip II. to paint some pictures for the Escurial Pupiler entered that prince's service in 1556, but none of his works seems to be known. school of CASTILE. It is time now to turn to the Spanish artists, who, while undergoing the influence of their foreign rivals, held theil own SCHOOL OP CASTILE. 23 beside them both in skill and fame. Hitherto the fairest efforts Madonna Dolorosa. By Morales. of native Art had been put forth at Toledo. Now Madrid becomes the Art metropolis of the great School of Castile, and the Court 24 SPANISH ART. begins to divide with the Church the labours of her artists. One of the noblest of these was Luis de Morales (born at Badajos about 1509), called "the Divine," "the first Spaniard whose genius and good fortune have obtained him a place among the great painters of Europe." * His life was obscure, and many of his pictures little known, from their being hidden in out-of-the- way places. Called from his quiet labours among the churches and oratories of Estremadura to work at the Escurial in 1564, he seems there to have painted only one picture, Cltrist going to Calvary, and then to have returned to Estremadura, where he died poor in 1586. Morales was the first Spaniard born and bred who invested the thought and feeling of his native laud with the beauties of Italian expression. He was never abroad, and yet he might have painted side by side with Raphael.! His subjects were always devotional, sad, and sublime in conception and expression. He loved to paint Saviours ci'owned with thorns, and Madonnas dolorosas. He was pure and graceful in design, warm and brilliant in colouring. He finished highly, his faces being sometimes too smooth, and his treatment of the hair was peculiarly elaborate. There are pictures by Morales in the Galleries of Madrid and in the Louvre, for some of the best in his native city of Badajos were taken by the French : sixteen of the finest are in the Parish Church of Arroya del Puerco, but they are in a neglected state. There is also a celebrated Christ on the Cross by him at Evora, in Portugal, in the chapel of the Monastery of St. Catherine of Siena. Morales left, as pupils, a son, Cristobal db Morales, a feeble imitator of his father, and Juan Labrador, who painted fruit and flower-pieces. The latter died at Madrid in 1600. In Alonso Sanchez Coello (b. in Valencia, early in the sixteenth century, d. 1590) appears the first of the great Spanish portrait-painters. A special favourite of Philip II. he painted almost as many portraits of that prince as Titian * Stirling. t Ibid. SCHOOL OF OABTlLE. 25 and with as much vigour as Velazquez. His style was Italian, but whether he studied at Eome is uncertain. Subsequently he became a pupil of Antonis More, and, on the retirement of the latter, was made painter to Philip II. Pope Gregory XIII., and other magnates, were also his munificent patrons. Compared with his portraits, Sanchez Coello's historic works were few, and many perished in the fires of the Prado and the Palace at Madrid. Several of the large altar-pieces of Saints in the Church of the Escurial were his work. There are ten pictures by him in the Madrid Gallery, and nine of his por traits are in the Louvre. We give an engraving of a typical work by him — a portrait of the Infanta Isabella. A similar female portrait is in the possession of Lord Northbrook, and another is in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, at Chiswick, where it is miscalled a Velazquez. Sanchez Coello's best pupil, Juan Pantoja de la Cruz (1551 — 1609), became painter to Philip II., and was a good hand at portraits, though not equal to his master. In two of his pictures, the Birth of the Virgin, and the Birth of Christ, the figures are said to be likenesses of the family of Philip III. Both his pictures and those of Sanchez Coello are interesting, apart from their merits, as showing the fashions of the old Spanish Court. Gaspar Becerra has been already named as a promoter of Italian taste. Some of his pupils were worthy of their master. Of these the most distinguished was Miguel Barroso (b. Consegra, 1538, d. 1590), who worked at Toledo in 1585, and, becoming painter to the king in 1589, painted some frescoes in the Escurial. His best works are correct in drawing, but feeble in invention. Three others of Becerra's pupils painted with some credit : Bartolomb del Eio Bernuis, at Toledo in 1607-27, Francisco Lopez at Madrid, and Geromino Vasquez at Valladolid. The next great artist to be mentioned is noteworthy as one of several who drew their first inspiration direct from the Church. Juan Fernandez Navarrete, surnamed "El Mudo " |YMM|M£i:^^Ei:^=?=; St. Peter and St. Paul. By Juan Fernandez Navarrete. In the Escurial. school of CASTILE. 27 (the Dumb), was born at Logroiio, in 1526, and brought up by a Fray Vicente de Santo Domingo, in the neighbouring Mon astery of Estrella. He was afterwards enabled to visit Italy, and worked at Venice, in the house of Titian. Eeturning to Spain, he executed several pictures for the Monastery at Estrella, and in 1568 painted for Philip at the Escurial, where his great productions must still be sought. One of his finest pictures there was the Abraham and the Angels, which was hung in the entrance- hall of the convent. This picture is remarkable for the peculiar effect of the light, and the rich glow of colour on the bending form of Abraham. According to the ideas of the Inquisition, however, he had sinned by representing the angels with beards. In another picture, too, a Holy Family, he had indecorously introduced a cat and dog quarrelling. Excellent examples of his style, also, are the eight pictures painted in 1576 for the side altar of the Escurial, all that he lived to finish out of thirty-two which he had contracted to paint. The figures of Apostles and Saints in these are very striking, both m dignity of form and beauty of colour. El Mudo well deserves his title of the " Spanish Titian.'' In freedom and boldness of design he was surpassed by none of his cotemporaries, and he possessed the powers of Eubens without his coarseness. He died in 1579 at Toledo. Some of the unfinished altar-pieces of El Mudo were completed with some success by Luis de Carbajal (b. Toledo, 1534), a pupil of Juan de Villoldo. Besides these, he painted a Magdalen and a Nativity. In 1591 he painted with Bias del Prado at Toledo, and is known to have worked at the PRAdo as late as 1613. The chief works of Blas del Prado were those above mentioned for the Minims, at Toledo, comprising a Holy Family, and others. He was also employed some time at Morocco. Bias was an able painter, and very skilful in fruit- pieces. Passing over several minor artists, whose works require no special mention, we come to a few Castilian painters, who were The Artist's Daughter. By Domenico Theotocopuli. SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 29 employed at this time chiefly by the Church. At the head of these we may place Domenico Theotocopuli, surnamed " El Greco" (b. about 1548). He first worked at Toledo, where he painted for the Cathedral his fine picture of the Stripping of Christ. The glowing splendour of the central figure, and the grouping of the secondary ones, give an unsurpassed value to this work. His masterpiece, also painted at Toledo, in 1584. the Burial of the Count Orgaz, resembles Tintoretto in execution. The upper part has the painter's faults of style, but the reality of the lower figures is wonderful. The subject of the picture is the miraculous burial of the Count by St. Stephen and St. Augustine in the presence of the frieuds and family. Finely painted also was a picture of Christ Crucified, once in the Church of La Eeyna, at Toledo. While such pictures show the admir able side of this extraordinary artist, his extravagance comes out in the Saint Maurice which he painted for the king at the Escurial. It is hard, dry, and harsh, and startles from its strange flashes of light. El Greco was noted for his un surpassed Titian-like colouring, and his extravagance probably arose from a desire to vindicate his originality. His portraits are very fine ; there is a remarkable one of his own daughter in the Louvre. El Greco, who was also a sculptor and architect, died in 1625 at a great age, and was celebrated in a sonnet by Gongora. Luis de Velasco was in 1581 painter to the Chapter of Toledo, and painted an Incarnation there in 1585. He had considerable acquaintance with antique sculpture, and the best Italian paintings. Isaac db Helle, who was also painter to the Chapter, executed in 1568 a picture of St. Nicasius, which was looked on as the work of Berruguete. His style had something of the bold manner of Michelangelo. Some artists of lesser note were Alonso de Herrera, who in 1590 painted six pictures for the high altar at Villacastin ; Martin Galindez (b. Haro, Old Castile, 1547, d. 1627), who painted 30 SPANISH ART. some fair pictures for the Chartreuse of Paular ; and Josef and Gregorio Martinez, who both flourished at Valladolid near the end of the sixteenth century. The former probably studied at Florence, and painted chiefly for thS Convent of St. Augustine, among other pictures, an Annuncia.tion. school of andalucia. While Castilian painters were winning wealth and honours at Madrid, those of the South were making steady progress under the fostering care of the Church. The School of Anda lucia now comes into prominence under its first real founder, the pious Luis de Vargas (b. Seville, 1502, d. about 1568), " the best painter of the Sevilian line from Sanchez de Castro to Velazquez." * His earliest known work is an altar-piece, in the Chapel of the Nativity, in Seville Cathedral, of the date 1555, but his best known picture is that called La Gamba, from the prominence given to the leg of Adam. One figure of a child might almost recall a Cupid of Raphael. In 1563-8 he painted the Moorish niches of the Cathedral, with figures of Ju.sta and Rufina, and other Sevilian saints, which are now faded. Faded, too, is the fresco of Christ bearing the Cross, or the Calle de Amargura (Way of Bitterness), which is outside the Court of Orange-trees. Vargas was admirable in portraits. On part of the retablo containing his Gamba he had executed the portrait of the Precentor, Don J. de Medina, which, it is related, the boys used admiringly to compare with the original as he said his prayers before it. Vargas is said to have been a pupil of Perino del Vaga, and his works are strongly imbued with Italian feeling. They exhibit a grandeur and simplicity of design, correct drawing, and fresh colouring. There i.s great purity and grace in his female heads. * Stirling.— Velazquez, though born at Seville, belongs, by his work, to the School of Castile. The Nativity. By Luis de Vargas. In the Cathedral at Seville. 32 SPANISH ART. Antonio db Arfian, a native of Triana, a suburb of Seville, painted in 1587, in conjunction with his son, Alonso"'de Arfian, a History of St. George for the altar of the Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene. His frescoes, none of which has been preserved, were the best till those of Vargas were painted, and he was the first Sevilian artist who painted landscape and per spective back-grounds for has reliefs. One of his pupils, Alonso Vasquez (d. 1649), beginning, like many another Sevilian artist, with " sargas " (pictures, that is, roughly executed on a sort of coarse cloth), attained to painting in fresco. He was famous for his fruit-pieces. Juan Bautista Vasquez was a Sevilian of genius, who did much to banish the stiffness and timidity of style which yet lingered. Pablo db Cespedes (b. 1538, at Cordova, d. 1608), was celebrated as sculptor, architect, poet, and painter. He twice visited Italy, where he studied either under Michelangelo or Zuccaro, but his style resembled that of Corie,i,'gio. His best works have either perished, or are decaying. A St. John, a St. Andrew, and a neglected Last Supper, once his masterpiece, ujay be seen in the Chapel of St. Paul, in the Cathedral of Cordova, of which he was a canon, and where he was buried. A panel painted by him is still in the Chapter-house of Seville, at which place he often worked. Cespedes became one of the best colour- ists of Spain. It was to him that the School of Andalucia owed the fine tone of its flesh tints. He was a careful worker. He studied anatomy, and was very skilful in foreshortening. Some good effects of liglit and shade were due to him, and he displayed truth of expression and invention. A friend of Montanes, Ids own literary reputation was great ; he wrote a poem on painting and an essay on the comparison between ancient and modem sculpture and painting. The fame of Antonio Mohbdano (b. Lucena, 1561, d. 162.^), rests only on tradition. His chief works were frescoes in the -;; 3 34 SPANISH ART. Cloister of the Franciscans at Seville, and at the Cathedral of Cordova. He is also supposed to have painted all the works attributed to Vargas in the palace of the Cardinal Archbishop Nino de Guevara, at Seville. He was one of the few Spanish artists who carefully studied the living model. The works of Pedro db Villegas Marmolbjo (b. Seville, 1520, d. 1597) display great grace and beauty of style. He studied in Italy, where he imitated the Florentine School Some of his pictures, which are now very rare, were a St. Lazarus, thought to be worthy of Campana, an Annunciation, and a Virgin and Christ. Other artists of reputation at Seville were Antonio Perez . (1548 — 1564) ; Luis Fernandez (at work in 1580) ; and Blas DE Ledesma, a successful imitator of the style of JuUo and Alessandro. The following were some foreign painters who worked at SevUle during this period. Cbsarb Arbasia, a pupil of the Zuccaros, executed some pictures of little merit at Cordova. His land scapes were better. He died probably in 1614. Mateo Perez DB Alesio was another Italian, who was in high favour at Seville. He painted a gigantic St. Christopher for the Chapter of the Cathedral in 1584, and a second for the Church of St. Miguel. He died in Eome in 1600. Lanzi says he was the same as Mateo de Lecce. From Portugal there came Vasqobz, whose Descent from the Cross, and St. Sebastian, both on panel, show skill in anatomy, though stiff; and Vasco Pereyra, who was in Seville in 1594, where he restored the Calle de Amargura of Vargas, and painted a Natieity. The latter shows some skill, but is dry and harsh in colour. school op VALENCIA. 35 SCHOOL OF VALENCIA. The School of Valencia, in a greater degree even than its rivals, arose under the protection of the Church. Thomas, Archbishop of ViUanueva, called "the Good," was its patron; its founder was the saintly Vicente Juan Macip, called Vicente Joanes, or Juan db Juanes (b. Fuente la Higuera, 1523, d. 1579), whose pencil was wholly dedicated to religion, and who habitually confessed and communicated before undertaking a sacred picture. He worked much for the Chapter, and the Monasteries of the Carmelites and Jesuits. His style, grave and austere, recalls that of the early Florentine or German Masters, but his colouring is splendid, and his vigour and variety of invention wonderfuL His numerous faces of Christ were unrivalled ; the best, perhaps, being that " With the Sacred Cup,'' once in the Chapel of the Franciscans, and an Immaculate Conception which he painted for the Jesuits' Convent, from the dream of a Jesuit, was universally known as La purissima. The greater part of his works are at Valencia. In the Cathedral is a Holy Family, which recalls Eaphael, and a Baptism of Christ. The six pictures, still existing, on the Life of St. Stephen, once in the Church of that name, now in the Madrid Gallery, and the Last Supper in the Church of St. Nicholas, are excellent examples of his style. {See Ilhistration.) The Martyrdom of St. Stephen, which represents Saul walk ing stern and resolute by the side of his victim, while the mob surround them in vulgar joy, might have been taken from an actual scene in Spain. Among other pictures in the Madrid Gallery attributed to Joanes may be mentioned the Visitation, and the Martyrdom of Santa lues. In portraits, Joanes has seldom been excelled. That of Don Luis del Castelvy is the finest, and in its force of character, and ease of execution, equal to Eaphael. A miniature Coronation of the Virgin is a highly remarkable D a 9^ r' The Entombment op St. Stephen. By Juan de Juanes. /// the Madrid Galleiy. SCHOOL OF ARAGON. 37 work. Of his pictures in the Louvre none is first-rate. A son of his, Juan Vicente Joanes, imitated his father. Two daughters, DoROTEA and Margarita, were even better than their brother. Like Joanes, Pedro Nicolas Factor, "El Beato" (b. Valencia, 1520, d. 1853), was early noted for his piety, which afterwards brought him the honour of canonization. He assumed the Francis can habit in 1538, and his works, none of which are known to exist, were painted in the intervals of an austere and self-denying life. His favourite subject was the Passion of our Lord. His pictures were poor in colouring, but skilfully drawn, and full of devotional spirit. The most eminent pupil of Joanes was Nicolas Borras (b. Cocentayna, 1530, d. 1610). His chief works were altar-pieces, and numerous pictures for the Jeronymite Monastery of Gandia, of whose Order he became a member in 1576. Two of his subjects were a Last Slipper, and the Dead Saviour in the arms of the Eternal Father. A great number of his pictures are in the Museum of Valencia. Borras's style resembled that of his master, but his outlines were hard, and his colouring colder. Cristobal Llorens was in repute near Valencia towards the end of the sixteenth century. It is uncertain whether his History of St. Mary Magdalene, and his St. Sebastian, painted for the Conventual Church of San Miguel de los Eeyes, still exist. SCHOOL OF ARAGON. In the painters of the School of Aragon belonging to this period the Italian influence is as marked as elsewhere. Paul EsQUARTB and Eolando Mois accompanied the Duke of Villahermosa from Italy to Saragossa in 1580, and theur work for the Duke's palace and the churches of that city gave a good example to native talent. Esquarte painted portraits, Mois 38 SPANISH ART. historic pictures. A pupU of the former, Antonio Galcbran, executed some historical pictures for the Cathedral of Barbastro. LuPiciNO, of Florence, exercised much influence on native painters by his pictures for the great altar of the Convent of St. Augustine, which are correct in drawing, and good in colouring. His example stimulated Geronimo de Mora, a native of Sara gossa, painter and poet, to go to the Escurial for the purpose of studying under Federico Zuccaro. Don Luis Pascual Gaudin (b. 1556, Villafranea, Catalonia, d. 1621) , may be included here, though his chief work was foj the Chartreuse of Seville. Antony Horfblin, son of a Frenchman, who had settled at Saragossa, was born in that city in 1597, and after studying at Rome with success, executed many works for the churches of his native city. A brief mention may be made of Pedro Pablo and Serafin, both Greeks, who painted the doors of the great organ in the Cathedral of Tarragona; Isaac Hermes, who in 1587 painted some pictures for the high altar of the same cathedral ; and Pedro Guitart who in 1576 executed six paintings for the high altar of San Pedro, at Reus. The close of the sixteenth century, which was almost coincident with the death of Philip IL, forms an epoch of no mean glory in Spanish Art. No subsequent time could show such a cluster of great masters as were then cotemporary in aU the schools. Fostered in the great centres by Church and Court, Art also found a welcome in the country-seats of the nobility, and by their help spread into the provinces. Still all this progress had been due to an impulse from without, and was, as it were, a mere pre paration for the change that was now to take place. As in Flanders Italian influence was arrested by the native vigour of Rubens, so in Spain it dwindled before the independent genius of Zurbaran, Velazquez, and Murillo. These great names will next claim our attention. CHAPTER III. THE GREAT EPOCH OF SPANISH PAINTING. (1600—1682.) THE birth of Velazquez was almost coincident with the opening of the seventeenth century. The death of Murillo took place in 1684. Within this period, which witnessed the political decline of Spain, was produced all that was most splendid in her Art— the works of those artists who were great at once by force of genius and nationality of sentiment. Among these the names of Velazquez and Murillo stand out prominent, but those of Zurbaran and Cano are well worthy to rank beside them. Each of these great masters will be treated of under the school to which he belongs. school of CASTILE. In Castile few of the immediate cotemporaries of Velazquez, even considered apart from him, were of much note, but sume who had flourished under Philip II. were still living to contri bute by their fame to the splendid " era of Velazquez." Of these the foremost was the Florentine Vincencio Carducho, who had accompanied his brother Bartolomeo to Spain in 1 585, and 40 SPANISH ART. been made painter to Philip III. in 1609. Though he was eclipsed by Velazquez, his high fame is vindicated by his works, the best of which were the fifty-four pictures for the Chartreuse of Paular, now in the Madrid Museum. The style of Carducho was marked by vigour, invention, and richness of colouring besides showing great skill in anatomy. His draperies were as grand as those of Zurbaran, and his Madonnas were famed for their pensive and delicate beauty. He died in 1638. The manner of Carducho was imitated by his pupil, Pedro de Obregon, (b. Madrid, 1597). Another pupU of good promise was Francisco Fernandez (1605 — 1646), who painted the portraits of the Kings of Spain for the Alcazar. EcJGENio Caxes, son of that Patricio Caxes, who had been in the service of Philip IL, was born at Madrid in 1577, and worked much, till his death in 1642, for the Court, and the churches of Madrid. He gained considerable reputation as a draughtsman and colourist, and his powers are fairly exhibited in his picture representing the English attack on Cadiz, now in the Madrid Gallery. An artist who had studied under the elder Caxes painted exactly in the style of the son. This was Antonio Lanoharbs (d. 1658), whose pictures, painted for various con vents, have mostly perished. A second pupil of the same master, Bartolomb Gonzalez, also acquired a style of colouring that was held brilliant in Castile, and in 1617 contested successfully with Roelas for the post of Court painter. Eugenio himself also trained a good scholar to his own style in Luis Fernandez, who worked in oil and fresco for the churches of Madrid till 1654, and who must not be confounded with that Sevilian artist who was the master of Herrera and Pacheco. Toledo claims two great artists of this time, whose pencils were inspired by the cloister rather than the Court. The first was the Carthusian monk, Juan Sanchez Cotan (1561 — 1627), a pupil of Bias del Prado, and one of the best painters of Spain. He painted many Virgins and Passions for the Chartreuse of school of CASTILE. 41 Paular, but his best work was the pictures on the Life of St. Bruno, painted between 1615 — 1617 for the Chartreuse of Granada. A Crucifixion by him was so well painted that the birds, it was said, would try to perch on the Cross. The second St. Francis receiving the Stigmata. By Fray Juan Rizi. In the Madrid Gallery. artist, to be noticed as" the last great pencil of Toledo," and one of the masters who influenced Velazquez, was El Greco's favourite pupil, Luis Tristan (1586—1640), who equalled his master while avoiding his faults. Tristan's best works were his 42 SPANISH ART. altar-pieces for the church of Yepes. His portrait of Bernardo de Sandoval, Archbishop of Toledo, unites the elaborate execu tion of Coello with the spirit of Titian. Another pupil, who ably carried on the methods of El Greco, was Juan Bautista Mayno (1569 — 1649), who worked for the Chapter of Toledo, and became a Dominican monk. It was he who introduced Alonso Cano to the notice of Philip IV.., and whose advice was much sought by that monarch. The Madrid Gallery has an allegorical picture by Mayno, representing the recovery of a heretic Flemish province by Philip IV. , in which the heads are well painted, but the attitudes constrained, and the colouring somewhat sober. Juan Rizi, the son of Antonio Rizi of Bologna, and a pupil of Mayno, was born at Madrid in 1595, and becoming a Bene dictine monk, painted for many religious houses, his best works, such as the Baptism of our Lord, being those executed for the convent of his Order at Burgos. His only picture in the Madrid Gallery is St. Francis of Assisi receiving the Stigmata ; the figures are life size. Juan died at Monte-Casino in 1675. His style, though wanting in finish, was simple, natural, and pleasing. Very different was that of his brother, Francisco Rizi (1608 — 1685), a pupil of Vincencio Carducho, who held the post of painter to the king under Philip IV. and Charles II. Largely employed at Buenretiro, and other royal palaces, his facile but inaccurate style was followed by many, and contributed much to the debasement of Art. DiBGO Eodriquez db Silva y Velazquez was born at Seville in 1599. After receiving a good education, he studied painting at first in the school of the elder Herrera, but soon leaving that rough master, found a gentler, if less able, instructor in Pacheco, whose daughter Juana he afterwards married. At the house of this learned artist Velazquez mixed freely in the best and most refined society of Seville, and varied his labours in the studio by studying anatomy in the writings of Albrecht The Count-duke- de Olivakes. By Velazquez. Ill the Madrid Gallery. (No. 1096.) ' SCHOOL OP CASTILE. 43 Diirer, or by reading poetry, for which he had a great taste. From the first, the bent of his genius unequivocally declared itself. He once said that he would rather be the first of vulgar painters than the second of refined ones, and to this sentiment he remained true. He took Nature unadorned for his guide, and followed her with unswerving fidelity. Yet the simple reality, as he conceived it, becomes invested naturally with such nobility that it never appears commonplace. And this gives his work its unique impress of distinction. Velazquez at first acquired facility by painting Bodegones,* and used also to keep an apprentice, a peasant boy, whom he sketched in various attitudes, thus laying the foundation of his certainty in portraits. His earliest style was much influenced by some foreign pictures which he saw at Seville, and by Spanish artists of other schools who came to that city. He thus profited by the Venetian colouring of Luis Tristan, and was also attracted by the bold style of Caravaggio and Eibera. Two pictures of this period attest the influence of the latter master. The Adoration of the Shepherds is coarse, but powerfully executed. The Water- Carriers of Seville shows wonderful force and truth to Nature, and already gives promise of future excellence. In 1622, having made a short visit to Madrid for purposes of study, Velazquez had been well received by Don Juan de Fonseca. In the follow ing year, at the invitation of this rich patron, he again visited the capital, and a portrait which he executed of Fonseca being shown to Philip IV., the fortunate artist found himself in high favour with that king and his powerful minister, the Count Duke d'Olivares. He was at once made pintor de camera, and after painting likenesses of the king and many members of the royal family, produced in 1624 his fine picture of the Bebedores, or Borrachos (the Topers), which represents a rustic Bacchus, him self vine-crowned, and investing with a similar wreath one of the * Literally "tavern-pieces," a term applied to pictures representing eatables, or still -life generally. 44 SPANISH ART. drurtken group around him. The technical execution of this picture is only surpassed by its humour, which entitles the artist to be called the Hogarth of Spain. In 1629 a picture of a very different kind was the occasion of further advancement for Velazquez. In competition with Eugenio Caxes, Vincencio Carducho, and Angelo Nardi, he painted The Expidsion of the Moors by Philip III., and received as the prize the post of Gentleman of the Chamber. The following year is rendered interesting by his friendship with Eubens, then on his second visit to Spain, and an event still more important in his artistic career occurred in 1629, when he received permission to gratify the wish he had long had of visiting Eome. Embarking at Barcelona with the Marquis of Spinola, he stayed first at Venice, where he studied chiefly Tintoretto's Crucifixion, and proceeding afterwards by Ferrara and Bologna to Eome, was there well received by Pope Urban VIII., who offered him every facility for study. The two pictures which Velazquez now painted are especially important, as showing the thorough independence of his genius. Fresh from the study of Eaphael and Michel angelo, he yet shows hardly a trace of their style, but seems bent on freely following the more ordinary forms of Nature. In the Forge of Vulcan much skill is shown in anatomy, and there is truth and character in the pathetic face of the ugly, brawny god, and his attendant Cyclops ; but the figure of Apollo, who has come to tell of Venus's infidelity, is quite commonplace. The Garment of Joseph shown to Jacob displays the same peculiarities. Anger and sorrow conflict in the face of Jacob ; the sons, standing sullenly around, are repetitions of the Cyclops. During a short visit which he made in 1630 to Naples, Velazquez painted the portrait of the Infanta Maria, Queen of Hungary, and made the friendship of Eibera. The following year found him at Madrid, and high in favour as before. At this time he painted many portraits ; among others, an especially SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 45 life-like one of Don Adrian Pulido Pareja, Admiral of the Fleet. To 1639 belongs the noble picture, Christ on the Cross, painted for the convent of St. Placido, which proves that although Velazquez rarely attempted the highest flights, he possessed the power to do so had he wished. The expression of agony could not be rendered with greater power ; the anatomy is precise ; the execution of the details perfect. In 1643 occurred the disgrace of Olivarez. Velazquez, however, without losing the favour of the king, maintained his intercourse with his former patron. About the same time an expedition by Philip into Aragon gave the artist an opportunity of studying military scenes, and doubtless helped him in the composition of his historic masterpiece, the Surrender of Breda, sometimes called the " Picture of the Lances," from the pikemen in the background. In this picture may once more be noticed the union of wonderful technical execution with truth of expression, the dignified view of the victor Spinola and his attendants being well contrasted with the awkward bearing of Justin of Nassau and his Dutch soldiers. The year 1648 again found Velazquez on his travels, this time on a mission to collect pictures and statues for the king. Stopping for a while at Venice, Parma, Naples, and other cities, he passed at length to Eome, where he painted the glorious portrait of Innocent X., and those of many of the cardinals. His progress in Eoman society was a continued ovation, and in 1650 he was made a member of the Academy of St. Luke. Shortly after his return to Spain in the following year a more burdensome honour was thrust upon him, in the post of " Apo- sentador Mayor," an onerous office, the duties of which left him little leisure for painting. He was also much consulted by the king on state affairs. In these later years he painted his wonderful picture of La» Mtninas (Maids of Honour), which Luca Giordano called " The Theology of Painting," and which is often held to be the artist's masterpiece. It represents a room 46 SPANISH ART. in the palace hung with pictures by Eubens. On the left of the picture stands the artist himself before his easel ; in the centre the little Infanta Maria is just taking a cup of water from one of her youthful attendants. It is "a chance group, fixed by magic for all time on the canvas." {Stirling.) The picture so pleased the king, that with his own hand he painted the Cross of Santiago on the breast of the artist. This was the last great work of Velazquez. In 1660 the duties of his office called him from Madrid to prepare lodgings for the Court on occasion of the marriage of the Infanta Maria Theresa to Louis XIV. The Court met at the Isle of Pheasants on the 5th of June, and on the 31st of July, soon after returning to Madrid, Velazquez died of fever, and was buried in the church of St. Juan. No cotemporary artist displayed such a wonderful variety of power as Velazquez. He attempted every branch of painting, and he succeeded in each. The most characteristic examples of his style have been already described. A few other pictures may yet be noticed. The Gallery of Madrid — where nearly the entire work of the artist is to be found — contains about sixty pictures, of which four only are sacred. Besides the Christ Crucified, a very remarkable one is St. Paul, the Hermit, and St. Anthony fed by a Raven in the Desert, in which, though the colour is sober, a lively effect is produced. The Coronation of the ^Virgin is in the style of Correggio, and brighter in colour than is usual with the artist. Another celebrated picture. Las Hilanderas {the Spinners), well illustrates the change from his first hard and precise style to his later and softer manner. Mengs said of it that " it seemed the work of pure thought without hands." Of Los ^orrachos we have before spoken. M Pre- tendiente {place-hunter) is a good example of his numerous single-figure pictures. In landscape, a field scarcely touched by Spanish artists, Velazquez was equally great, his work dis playing the richness of Titian, and the breadth and picturegque- ness of Claude and Salvator Eosa. Of the nine at Madrid SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 47 may be named A Dark Wood at Nightfall, and the Arch of Titus at Rom.e. A View of the Escurial by Sunset in the Louvre is also very fine. After Spain, England perhaps possesses, in private collections, more of the works of Velazquez than any other country. The Boar Hunt, in the National Gallery, is remarkable for its brilliant execution, masterly hand ling, and the historic truth of its figures. The National Gallery also possesses a portrait of Philip IV., acquired at the Hamilton sale. The celebrated Water-Carrier is at Apsley House. The excellence of Velazquez in portraits is universally acknowledged. They stand on the same level as those of Van Dyck or Titian. Ford says of them — " His portraits baffle description and praise ; he drew the minds ¦ of men ; they live and breathe, and are ready to walk out of their frames." Of the portraits of himself, " The most beautiful," says Stirling, " is that in the Breda ; the most authentic, that in the Meniuas." Among the scholars of Velazquez, a place must be given to his half-caste slave, Juan de Pareja, who, on receiving his freedom, stayed with his master and worked in his manner. One of his most important paintings. The Calling of St. Matthew, in which he has introduced a portrait of his master, is in the Madrid Gallery. Pareja excelled in portraits. Some brilliant pupils were produced by the school of Pedro DE LAS CuBVAS at Madrid, though he himself died in 1635, without having gained the coveted post of painter to the king. His stepson, Francisco Camilo (d. 1671), painted the portraits of the Kings of Spain for Buenretiro, and some sacred pictures for the monasteries of Madrid. His colouring was soft, brilliant, and agreeable. Antonio Arias Fernandez also worked at Buenretiro, and painted a high-altar for the Carmelites at Toledo when only fourteen. His fellow-pupil, Antonio Pbrbda (1599 — 1669), also displayed much precocity by painting a Conception when only eighteen, which led to his being employed at Buen retiro. In the Madrid Gallery is a St. Jerome by him, finished The Calling of St. Matthew. By Juan de Pareja. In the Madrid Gallery. school op CASTILE. 49 with great care, and a finely composed picture of The Virgin, St. John, and the Disciples round the dead body of the Lord. In richness of colouring no Castilian painter ever surpassed Pereda. A fourth pupil of Cuevas, Josef Leonardo (b. Cala- tayud, Aragon, 1616), painted a Surrender of Breda, which is well coloured, though wanting the life and movement of Velaz quez's work on the same subject. Juan Bautista Martinez del Mazo (d. 1687), the son-in- law, and perhaps the best pupil, of Velazquez, whom he succeeded as Court painter, imitated Tintoretto and Titian as well as his master. He painted landscape and portraits. There are sixteen examples of his work in the Madrid Gallery : among the more important is a View of Saragossa, in which it is said Velazquez painted the numerous figures in the foreground. Antonio Puga painted common subjects so well that they might pass for the early works of Velazquez himself. A Castilian painter, who might have won a high rank but for his early death, was Diego db Polo, who was born at Burgos in 1620. He studied at the Escurial, and painted a few pictures, which won the admiration of Velazquez. Among painters of lesser note, Francisco Collantes (1599 — 1656) may be mentioned as one of the few Spaniards who attempted landscape, and Juan de Arellano (1614 — 1676) as a most industrious painter of Bodegones. Benito Manuvl de Aguero (1626 — 1670), a pupil of Martinez del Mazo, painted many battle-pieces for Buenretiro and Aranjuez; and Cristobal Garcia Salmbran (1603— 1666), in his sacred pictures, imitated with skill and vigour the style of his master, Pedro Orrente. Several foi'eigners, both Flemish and Italian, visited the Spanish Court about this time. By far the most distinguished was Eubens, who, with another Fleming, Kasperdb Crayer, shared with Velazquez the honour of painting Philip IV. Michele Colonna and Agostino Mbtblli had attracted the notice of Velazquez when he T^as travelling in Italy, and being SP B 50 SPANISH ART. invited by him to Spain iu 1658, painted many frescoes at tlie Alcazar and Buenretiro. SCHOOL OP ANDALUCIA. The interest of the School of Andalucia centres during this period in Seville, which from 1600 to 1630 was at the height of its glory as a metropolis of Art. The most remark able, up to his time, of the artists who studied only in Anda lucia was Francisco de Herrera (1576 — 1656), called, in distinction from his son. El Viejo (the elder). He was the first who introduced into the school that bold and vigorous touch which was to characterize Velazquez. He was a man of violent temper, and quarrelled with his pupils and his own children. Being accused of coining, Herrera took refuge in the college of St. Hermenegild, and there painted the picture of that saint, which is now in the Seville Museum. Grand in design, and skilful in composition, this work recalls the force and colour of Eubens without his coarseness. The Last Judgment, another of his works, still hangs in the church of St. Bernardo. Fran cisco Herrera, El Mozo (the younger), fled from his father's stern temper to Italy, where he painted Bodegones with skill ; but his sacred pictures, painted on his return to Seville, are feeble and affected. The works of Herrera's cotemporary, Juan de las Eoelas (1558 — 1625), are not so well known out of Spain as they deserve to be. Eoelas probably studied at Venice, and after wards held a prebendal stall in the church of Olivares ; but his best works were executed for the churches of Seville, and it is there only that he can be appreciated. His noblest picture is the Death of St. Isidoro, in the parish church of that saint, which is remarkable for majesty of design, depth of feeling, and richness of colour. St. Santiago destroying the Moors in the Battle of Clavijo, in Seville Cathedral, is also a grand picture. !'iii'\ I I'll 52 SPANISH art. The Martyrdom of St. Andrew, in Seville Museum, is Venetian in colouring, and in the pictures of the Nativity and the Ador ation, in the University, the angels are peculiarly beautiful. Eoelas, the painter of the " sleek Jesuit," deserves, independently of his merits, to be remembered as the master of Zurbaran. Another of his best pupils was Varbla. Some artists now to be named owe their fame almost entirely to the illustrious pupils whom they taught. The name of Francisco Pacheco (1571 — 1654) is well worthy of record, both in this and other respects. Not only was he the teacher and father-in-law of Velazquez, whose superior merit he was proud to acknowledge, but the author of a learned and valuable ' Treatise on Painting,' and Inspector of Sacred Pictures to the Inquisition, an office which gave him the opportunity of apply ing practically the principles he laid down as an author. As an artist, Pacheco was versatile and painstaking, but deficient in vigour. His best work was a Last Judgment, painted in 1612 for the nunnery of St. Isabel, at Seville. It may be added, as illustrating a practice not uncommon among Spanish painters even of distinction, that he used to colour the statues of liis friend Montanes, and was the first to introduce that method into Seville. Juan db Castillo (1584 — 1640), who with his brother Agustin and the elder Herrera studied under Luis Fernandez at Seville, is only remarkable ' as the master of Murillo and Alonso Cano. Of the six great pictures painted by Juan, now in the Seville Museum, the Assumption is the best, the figure of the Virgin being very fine. The son of Agustin, Antonio Castillo (b. Cordova, 1603), obtained notoriety in a less envi able way, for the pictures of Murillo so filled him with envy that he died of vexation in 1667, after vainly attempting to surpass them. His drawing was good, but his colouring dry and dis agreeable. Besides Cano and Murillo, the school of Castillo produced a noteworthy artist in Pudro de Moya (b. Granada, St. Basil dictating his doctrine. By Herrera, the elder. In the l/)uvre. 54 SPANISH ART. 1610, d. 1666), who, having taken to a soldier's life, was sdi struck by some pictures of Van Dyck that he sought out that master, and became his pupil till the death of Van Dyck, shortly afterwards, in England. Moya, on his return to Seville, imi tated Van Dyck with much success, and it is said that, through him, the style of Murillo was influenced by the great Flemish portrait-painter. Francisco db Zurbaran was born at Fuente de Cantos, Estremadura, in 1598. He received his first instructions from some unknown painter, but being sent soon after to Juan de Eoelas at Seville, displayed extraordinary talent and industry. In 1625 he produced the grand allegoric picture which was his masterpiece, and one of the noblest works ever executed by a Spanish artist. Designed as a triple altar-piece for the College of St. Thomas Aquinas, it represents that saint ascending to join the blessed Trinity, the Virgin, St. Paul, and others in heaven. Lower down sit the venerable figures of the four Doctors of the Church. On the right kneels the Archbishop Diego de Dega, on the left the Emperor Charles V. , with a train of ecclesiastics. Though harsh in outline, the general effect of the picture is grand, and the colouring rich. The heads are admirable studies, and the atmospheric depth and distance are indicated -with great effect in the street view. Zurbaran was an admirable painter of the Carthusian monks. Three remarkable works on this Subject, which he painted originally for the Chartreuse of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, are now in the Seville Museum. They represent St. Bruno conversing loith Pope Urban II. , St. Hugo visiting a refectory whei'e the monies are unlawfidly feasting on flesh-meat, and the Virgin extending her mantle over a group of Carthusian worthies. Another able monkish study is the kneel ing Franciscan in the Louvre. Zurbaran's pictures of the Virgin are rare, but he painted many female saints, who are supposed to represent the reigning beauties of the day. Like MuriUOj Zurbaran passed nearly all his life in his native province. SCHOOL OF ANDALUCIA. 55 painting with untiring brilliancy and success numerous pictures for the churches and convents. It is uncertain when he went to Madrid, but before the age of thirty-five he was painter to the king, and being summoned by Velazquez to the Court in 1650, painted ten works on the subject of the Labours of Hercules for the palace of Buenretiro. He died at Madrid in 1662. Zurbaran has been called the Spanish Caravaggio, whc^e broad handling and strong contrast of light and shade he loved to imitate. In his adherence to Nature and his strict nationality of style, he stands side by side with Velazquez and Murillo. Though inferior to the former in ease and truth, and to the latter in the contour and life-like appearance of his figures, he equals both in colouring, and his tints, though sober, have some times the depth and brilliancy of Eembrandt. {Stirling.) He is one of the few Spaniards whose works are to be found in many of the galleries of Europe. The Louvre alone professes to have ninety. Alonso Cano was born in 1601 at Granada, and studied first at Seville under Pacheco, and afterwards with Juan de Castillo, and perhaps the elder Herrera. His earliest works were some pictures for the Carthusians, and other convents and churches of Seville, but in 1637, having wounded a brother artist in a duel, he escaped to Madrid, where he received aid from Velazquez and Olivarez, and again began to work for convents and churches. Our Lord at Calvary, painted for the church of St. Gines, shows great skill and power, and a St. Isidoro which he executed for the church of Santa Maria was so admired that it led to his bsing made painter to the king. In 1644, being .suspected of the murder of his wife, he took refuge for a time in the Char treuse of Portacoeli, near Valencia, and there painted many pictures ; but returning not long after to Madrid, he was excul pated after a judicial inquiry, and soon became as busy and as popular as before. In 1651 he obtained from the Crown a stall as minor canon at Granada, and settling in that citv, employed 56 SPANISH art. himself till his death in 1667 in working for the cathedrals and churches. Of Cano's pictures in the Madrid Gallery, a fine full-length of the Virgin may be noticed. In the Louvre a Deposition from tlie Cross is one of his best works, and Balaam and his Ass shows the artist's simplicity and natural feeling. A Virgin of the Rosary in Malaga Cathedral is also a fine example of his powers, and in one of his latest works — a beautiful picture of Our Lady of Bethlehem, in Seville Cathedral — may be seen the extreme care with which this painter always finished the hands and feet. The portraits of Cano are few, but excellent. Those of CaJderon in the Louvre, and a rosy-faced Monk in the National Museum at Madrid, may be noticed. Alonso Cano was one of the greatest of the artists of Anda lucia. He has been called the Michelangelo of Spain, but he merits the name rather from the variety of his powers than his style. He excelled in sculpture and architecture as well as p anting, but his somewhat stormy character is not reflected in his works, which throughout exhibit a singular sweetness free from any feebleness. Although he was never in Italy, his fine feeling for form, and the natural charm and simplicity of his com position, suggest the study of the antique, while in painting, the richness and variety of his colouring could hardly be surpassed. Bartolom^ Esteban Murillo was born at Seville in 1617. He first studied under Juan de Castillo, but on the departure of his master to Cadiz, remained in his native city, painting rough pictures for the dealers in the " feria," or market. A Blessed Virgin, now in the Murillo room at Seville Museum, belongs to this early time. It is feeble in colouring, but there is promise in the pose of the heads. It was now, also, that he imitated Zurbaran and Eoelas, whose infiuence is visible in the Virgin and St. Joseph. While Murillo was thus making his way unassisted, the return of his fellow-pupil, Pedro de Moya, to Seville raised in him a longing for Italy, and in 1642 he set out for Madrid, school OF ANDALUCIA. 57 with the intention of asking help and advice from Velazquez himself. This was the turning point of his life. Eeoeived with the utmost kindness by the generous Court artist, he was enabled to study in the Escurial the works of Titian, Van Dyck, and Velazquez himself. The expeiience thus gained seems to have completely satisfied him, for the idea of Italy faded from his mind, and in 1645 he returned to Seville to enter on an un interrupted career of work. The name of Murillo will always be associated with the Franciscan monks he so loved to paint. The first works which brought him into notice were the pictures — since burnt — which he painted for the cloisters of that brotherhood in Seville. In these was exemplified the first of his three styles, the frio (or cold), in which the outline was hard, and the tone of the shadows and treatment of the lights imitative of Zurbaran, or Caravaggio. Borne on to prosperity by the success of these pictures, the artist gradually adopted his second style, the calido (or warm), in which a softer outline and mellower colouring are apparent. His earliest work in this manner was Our Lady of the Concep tion, painted in 1652 for the Brotherhood of the True Cross. Other examples are : The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, and the fine St. Leander and St. Isidor, both painted in 1665 for the Chapter, and the celebrated St. Anthony of Padua receiving the Infant Christ, painted in 1656, and still in the cathedral. The latter picture, though restored in 1833, still shows the splendour of the original colours. In 1665 Murillo painted some pictures for the church of Santa Maria la Blanca, Seville, of which the Last Supper alone remains. Finer than this, how ever, were those carried off by the French, two of which are now at Madrid, illustrating the legend of Our Lady of the Snow. The Virgin in The Dream is one of the loveliest of Murillo's Madonnas, and an example of his third style, the vaporoso, in which the outlines are lost in the light and shade, as they are iu the rounded forms of Nature. 58 SPANISH art. Between 1660 — 1674, Murillo painted for the Hospital of the Caridad the eleven gi-eat pictures which form the noblest work of his life, and show in their full extent the variety and jiower of his genius. Five of the series were taken by Soult ; of those that remain, the finest are : Moses striking the rock, the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, and the Charity of St. Juan de Dios. In the first, which as a composition could hardly be surpassed, the noble face of the chief figure is well contrasted with those of the people around him, who think only of quench ing their thirst. Each figure is a study. In the second the composition is unequal, and the head of the Saviour inferior to that of the Moses. The third picture, which represents an angel appearing to St. Dios, as he sinks under the burden of a sick man, is notable for its powerful colouring, Of the five pictures removed, the finest is St. Elizabeth of Hungary wash ing the feet of beggars, now at Madrid. The management of the composition and the lights, the brilliant colouring, and the manual skill of the execution, are beyond praise. In this masterpiece all the excellencies of Murillo are combined. The figure of St. Elizabeth shows his power in portraying the ideal ; the beggars, his grasp of the picturesque reality of Nature. Equal in its rich colouring to the St. Elizabeth, the Pool of Bethesda contains, in the head of the Saviour, the finest ideal of manly beauty ever painted by Murillo, while the figure of the paralytic man is wonderful as a study of anatomy. Of the Return of the Prodigcd, Wilkie says — "It seems to speak the very language of Scripture, as with Raphael and Rembrapdt.'' It is now at Stafford House. The Capuchin Convent at Seville was also rich in the works of Murillo. The immense altar-piece of the Poreiuncula, now in the National Museum, Madrid, has been spoilt by restoring. It represents the Saviour and Virgin appearing to St. Francis, while lovely cherubs shower red and white roses on his head. The Guardian Angel is now in Seville Cathedral; SCHOOL OP ANDALUCIA. 59 the drapery of the child, whom the angel leads by the hand, is distinguished by a transparency of texture seldom seen in St. Elizabeth of Hungary washing the feet of Beggars. By Murillo. In. the Madrid Gallery. Spanish painting. Seventeen of the Capuchin pictures are in the Seville Museum. The St. Lea.nder and St. Bonarentura 60 SPANISH ART. are remarkable for the grand disposition of the drapery; the St. John Baptist in the Desert, and the St. Joseph with the Infant Christ, as noble studies of youthful models. The Santa Justa and Rufina are the fairest ideals of those saints that Seville possesses, and the Virgin in the Nativity is one of Murillo's loveliest ]\Iadonnas. There are also two Immaculate Conception.^, both representing the Virgin in the bloom of girl hood, the finest being that in which she tramples the evil one in the shape of a dragon beneath her feet. But the gem of the col lection is the Charity of St. Thomas of ViUanueva, by far the best of the numerous portraits of that saint which Murillo ever painted. St. Thomas, as he stands pale and venerable, relieving a lame beggar at his cathedral door, recalls in motive and treatment the St. Elizabeth. Unequal to the pictures in the Caridad and the Capuchins were those which Murillo painted in 1667-8 for the chapter house of Seville Cathedral. The most interesting is a magnifi cent dark-haired Virgin of the Conception. Three pictures may also be mentioned which he was commissioned by his friend, the Canon Justino Neve, to paint in 1678 fur the Hospital de los Venerables. These were an Irnmaculate Conception, of remark able beauty in the colouring, a St. Peter weeping, in which Eibera was imitated and excelled, and a charming Blessed Virgin, reposing on the clouds with the Divine babe on her lap, who he- stows bread on three aged priests. Murillo executed at the same time a portrait of Neve, finished with perfect clearness and care. A fall from the scaffolding, which occurred while he was painting the high-altar for the Capuchins at Cadiz, put a sudden close to the busy life of Murillo. Obliged to return to Seville, he gradually grew worse ; and dying on the 3rd of April, 1682, was buried in the church of Santa Cruz^* beneath Campana's picture of the Descent from the Cross. As a religious painter, Murillo ranks second only to the great * The church lias since been pulled down. The Immaculate Conception. By Murillo. In the Louvre. 62 SPANISH ART. Italian Masters, and it is astonishing to think with what scanty means he achieved such a result. He drew no inspiration from the examples of pagan art. His only model was the Spain that he saw around him, and the method by which he gave it ex pression was purely national. He has been called the painter of the Conception, and a grace and feeling peculiarly his own always appear in his frequent treatment of that diflicult subject. His Virgin is sometimes a fair-haired child, who gazes adoringly up to heaven ; sometimes a dark-haired woman, who bends a pitying look upon the earth. As a painter of children, he is the Spanish Titian, or Eubens. St. John with the Lamb and the Good Shepherd are charming examples. In landscape Murillo is second only to Velazquez, but at some distance, his eftbrts in this line, though graceful in design, wanting colour and vivacity. His portraits are few, but of great excellence. That of Canon Neve has been mentioned. In the Louvre, those of Don Andres de Andrade, and an old woman called the Mother of Murillo, are truthful and effective. The great storehouse for Murillo's pictures is Seville. Thpie are also some very fine examples at Madrid. The Louvre has about thirty, of which the most famous is a Conception of the Virgin; in England there are many scattered about in private collections, besides some in the National Gallery, and in the Dulwich College Gallery, which boasts of two of his best beggar subjects. It is probable, however, that many of the so-called Murillos dispersed throughout Europe, especially those repre senting ragged beggar boys, were the works of his pupils. Ignacio de Iriarte (b. Azcoitia, 1620 — d. 1685), is famous as the most distinguished landscape painter in the School of Andalucia. He has been called the Spanish Claude Lorrain, but his rugged glens and headlong streams recall rather the style of Salvator Eosa. Examples of his work may be seen in the Madrid Gallery and the Louvre. Iriarte sometimes painted the l.indscape for the figures of Murillo. SCHOOL OF VALENCIA. 63 Juan db Zamorra, who was living at Seville as late as 1671, also painted landscapes, but in a Flemish style. Murillo, like Velazquez, had a slave who turned painter. This was Sebastian Gomez (d. 1682), whose works show something of the rich colouring of his master, but are faulty in composition. Fernando Marqubz Joya (d. 1672) was another 'who copied the style of Murillo with some success. Zurbaran, too, found clever imitators in his pupils, Bernabb db Ayala, and the brother.^ Polancos. The latter painted an altar-piece in the church of St. Stepben so well that it was thought to be the work of their master. Cristobal db Vera, Juan Penaloso, Zambrano, and Antonio DE Contreras, were all pupils of Cespedes, and worked with some repute at Cordova in the first half of the seventeentli century. Juan de Toledo (b. Lorca, 1610 — d. 1665) was an excellent painter of battles, and Henrique db las Marinas (b. Cadiz, 1620 — d. 1680) was so called from his skiU in sea-pieces. school of VALENCIA. In Valencia the fame of the school was maintained by some painters worthy of being the successors of Joanes. Among them was one of the most remarkable artists of Spain, Francisco RiBALTA (b. about 1551, at Castellon de la Plana — d. 1628). After studying Eaphael and other masters in Italy, he returned to Spain, and having married the daughter of his. former master, soon rose to high fame in Valencia, the only place where he can be really studied. The College of Corpus Christi forms a kind of Museum of his works. Here may be seen one of his master pieces, painted in a style between Titian and Van Dyck, St. Vicente de Ferrer visited on his sick bed by the Saviour and Saints. Over the high-altar is a grand Last Supper, and above this ¦ a Holy Family, in which the child is painted in the style of Titian. There are also a superb Christ at the Column, painted in the style of Sebastiano del Piombo, and a Christ in 64 SPANISH ART. the Garden of Olives. His pictures are also to be found at Madrid, Saragossa, and Toledo, and Ford thinks that to him must be attributed the fine altar-piece in the Chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford. The style of Ribalta exhibits a grandeur and freedom in drawing, a good taste in composition, and a knowledge of anatomy. In colouring he is sometimes admirable, sometimes harsh. The manner of Eibalta was exactly imitated by his son Juan db Eibalta (1597 — 1628), to whom are attributed all tliti Eibaltas in the Madrid Gallery. His Crucifixion, in the convent of St. Miguel de los Eeyes, painted when he was only eighteen, is admirable. He died, unfortunately, quite young, " leaving a name never eclipsed, and a blank never filled up in the School of Valencia." {Stirling.) Jacinto Geronimo db Espinosa (b. Cocentayna, 1600 — d. 1680) was the pupU of his father, G. Eodriguez de Espinosa, and of Francisco Eibalta. After passing some time in Italy, he settled at Valencia, where he, too, like Eibalta, must be studied. _ M'"hen only twenty-three he painted his Christ of the Rescue, and in 1638 eight large pictures for the cloisters of the Carmelite Convent. The Museum of Valencia has many pictures of this pious and prolific artist. Some of them are little inferior to those of Eibalta, to which they bear much resemblance. One of the finest is Christ appearing to St. Ignatius Loyola. Others are the Communion of Mary Magdalen, and St. Luis Beltran on his bier. Of the pictures attributed to him in the Louvre, the Bearing of the Cross is one of the most remarkable. JosEP DB Eibera (or Lo Spagnolbtto), though his life was spent in Italy, belongs, both by his birth and his peculiarly national style, to the painters of Spain. It seems clearly established that he was born at Xativa, in Valencia, in 1588, and was a pupil of Francisco Ribalta, but very early found his way to Rome, where he studied chiefly the congenial style of Caravaggio. Driven to Naples through a quarrel with Domeni- chino, he there painted a Flaying of St. Bartholomew, j The Deposition prom the Cross. By Josef de Eibera. In the Carthusian Convent of St. Martina, Naples. 66 SPANISH art. which led to his being made painter to the Viceroy, and the high position he thus won was maintained, partly by his genius, partly by his shameless intrigues against brother artists, till his death in 1656. The popularity of Ribera was not confined to Italy. His works aje more widely diffused throughout Spain than those of Velazquez himself. He was, in fact, the ablest exponent of the fiercer and more brutal side of the Spanish character. He applied his great skill in anatomy to depicting suffering in its most hideous forms, and his favourite subject, the Martyrdom of St. Bartholomeio, serves as a general type for all his pictures. There are, however, some exceptions. His Depo sition from the Cross, in San Martino, at Naples, is generally considered to be hi.s masterpiece, and has rarely been equalled by any painter. In the Madrid Gallery, Jacob watering the, flock of Lahan shows dignity and grace, and Jacob's Bream expresses repose in a wonderful manner. In the Louvre, there is an Adoration of tlie Shepherds, in which the Virgin is a niodel of calm and stately beauty. Ribera also painted portraits with great force and spirit. Pbdro Orrbntb, a native of Murcia, was born about 1560, and died at Toledo in 1644. His masterpiece was a grand St. Sebastian, painted at Valencia, where, as also at Madrid, some of his works are to be seen. He has been called the Spanish Bassano, from his numerous, but somewhat monotonous, cattle- pieces, painted in the manner of that master. Orrente taught his brilliant colouring to Estedan March (d. 1660), many of whose pictures may be seen in the Madrid Gallery. His battle- pieces are vigorously painted ; his sacred subjects are inferior. His son, Miguel March (1633 — 1670), studied at Rome, and returning to Valencia, painted battles and sacred pictures in the style of his father, but with a feebler execution. Another pupil and imitator of Orrente was Pablo Pontons, m.my of whose works are in the Convent of Mercy, Valencia. SCHOOL OF ARAGON. 67 SCHOOL OF ARAGON. The only painter of the School of Aragon at this time who requires mention was Jusepe Martinez, who was born at Saragossa in 1612, and studied early in life at Rome. In 1642, after his return to his native citj^, he was made painter to Philip IV., but rejecting all offers to settle at Court, remained and painted chiefly for the Cathedral of the Seu, where he left many good pictures. Martinez also wrote a book on painting, which showed great knowledge of the rules of his art. His death in 1682 was a severe blow to the School of Aragon. F 2 CHAPTER IV. THE DECADENCE OF SPANISH PAINTING, FROM THE DEATH OF MURILLO TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. DURING the latter years of Velazquez and Murillo, the Spanish School of Painting had stood almost unrivalled in Europe, but from the death of the latter in 1682 it entered upon ,1 slow but sure decay. That Art still received some feeble patronage from the Court is shown by the" fact that a public School of Art was founded by Philip V. (1700—1746), and afterwards raised to a royal institution under the name of the Academy of St. Ferdinand, by Ferdinand VI. (1746 — 1759). Moreover, up to the end of the ei.i^hteenth century, the names of painters of undoubted merit occur in all the schools ; but their efforts seemed to die away for want of successors to carry them on, and Spanish painting came at length to follow the shifting fashion set by the particular foreign artist whose influence chanced at the time to be in the ascendant. SCHOOL OF CASTILE. The interest of this period of decadence centres almost vAolly at Madrid, which, as the Court and Capital, naturally attracted to SCHOOL OF CASTILE. 69 itself whatever talent yet remained. Among the later artists of Castile a high place is due to Don Juan Carreno db Miranda (born at Aviles, in the Asturias, in 1614, died at Madrid in 1685), who was aided by Velazquez, and became painter to Philip IV. and Charles II. He painted much tor the churches at Madrid, and elsewhere ; his Immaculate Conceptions, in especial, being highly esteemed. His portraits were easy and life-like, and in colouring recall Van Dyck. There are sixteen examples in the Madrid Gallery, two of which are of Charles II. With Claudio Coello (b. Madrid, about 1630 — 40), the line of the greater artists of Castile may almost be said to close. He at first imitated the style of his master, Francisco Rizi, but being aided by his friend Carreno to study in the Alcazar, he greatly improved himself by a study of Titian. Coello subse quently became painter to Charles II. , and supreme in all matters relating to Art. His best work was a picture forming the screen of the Santa Forma,* in the Escurial, which had been left unfinished by Francisco Rizi. This jjicture, which represents Charles II. and his Court receiving the sacredotal benediction at the dedication of the altar, contains fifty portraits, and is exe cuted with great power and splendour. The works of Coello, many of which were executed for churches, were finished with the most careful labour. His oil paintings are better than his frescoes, and " combine much of the graceful drawing of Cano with the rich tones of Murillo and the magical effect of Velaz quez.'' {Stirling.) The death of this artist in 1693 was said to be due to envy of Luca Giordano, a Neapolitan artist, whose arrival in Madrid the preceding year inaugurated the downfall of Spanish Art. The faults of this artist were the more perni cious that they sprang from qualities which might have made him great. His fertility of invention and rich colouring, his • The Santa Forma was a miraculous Holy Wafer, ejdiibited for ador ation at stated intervals. !{vA; ^ Charles II. of Spain. By Don Juan Carreno de Miranda. In the Madrid Gallery. school op CASTILE. 71 grandeur of conception and freedom of execution, were all rendered useless by his lo^4 of glare and glitter, and that furious haste which earned him the name of Luca fa presto. This dashing style pleased while it corrupted the artists of Spain, already, from the difficulties thrown in the way of studying the nude, too much disposed to careless and inaccurate drawing. The Battle of St. Quintin, on the Escurial staircase, is a type of all the work of Giordano. After being caressed by Charles II. and Philip v., and filling churches and palaces with countless pictures and frescoes, he returned to Naples, and died there in 1705. One of the best pupils of Carrefio was Mateo db Cerbzo (1635 — 1675), who worked at Burgos, Valladolid, and Madrid, where his favourite subject, the Virgin of the Conception, was in great request. His best work was the Risen Saviour and His Disciples at Emmaus, painted for the Eecolete Friars. The work of this able painter shows the chaste richness of colour and roundness of form characteristic of Murillo. Sebastian Munoz (1654 — 1690) studied in Eome under Carlo Marratti, and was also a pupil of Coello, whom, he assisted in his work at Sara gossa. In 1688 he was made painter to the king, and executed many works for the palaces and churches of Madrid. His Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, now in the Madrid Gallery, a picture of rich and splendid colouring, is the last work of first-rate merit which the School of Castile produced. With the reign of the Bourbons a French influence becomes apparent at the Spanish Court, and is marked by such names as Jean Eanc, painter to Philip II. in 1724, and Louis Michel Vanloo, who succeeded to that post in 1736. They were followed in 1761 by the Saxon, Anton Eaphael Mengs, a painter ineet to rule over the second-rate artists of Castile. His was the very genius of mediocrity, and his correct and insipid pencil was long employed in producing an endless series of pictures for Charles III. His portraits, however, must be excepted, as being life-like and well coloured. Mengs finally 72 SPANISH art. died at Eome in 1779. Of his mediocre Castilian cotempor aries, whose ranks furnished painters to the king, or directors to the Academy of St. Ferdinand, scarcely any deserve notice.. The best, perhaps, was Antonio Gonzalez Velazquez (1729 — 1798), who painted frescoes for the new palace,* and some of the churches of Madrid. At Badajos Alonso Mures (1700 — 1761) painted for the Franciscan and other convents many pictures, which were designed and coloured with grace, and composed with spirit. school of andalucia. In this school the interest of this decaying time centres in those artists who had caught some of the inspiration of Murillo, or who in any way carried on big work. Some independent genius was shown by Juan de Valdes Leal (b. Cordova, 1630 — d. 1691). The life of this artist was embittered by jealousy of Murillo, whom he was nevertheless induced to help in found ing the Academy of Seville, in 1660. Valdes was the last of the better artists of Andalucia, though his style, unequalled for invention and taste in drawing and colouring, was marred by hasty execution. His best picture was the Virgin bestovring the Chasuble on St. Ilde/onso, in Seville Cathedral. The Caridad, also, has many of his works. It was one of these, representing a crowned corpse lying amidst the mocking emblems of worldly splendour, that called forth the remark of Murillo : " That is something to be looked at with the nostrils closed." Pedro Munbz db Villavicencio (1635 — 1700), in whose arms Murillo died, was a successful imitator of his great master, whose " ragged urchins " he chiefly copied. He also painted portraits with vigour and fidelity. Francisco Mbnbses Osorio (d. 1700), Estbban Marqubz (d. 1720), and Alonso Miguel * The new palace had been built to replace the Alcazar, burnt, with all the art treasures collected by Velazquez, in 1734. SCHOOL OF ANDALUCIA. 73 DE ToBAR (1678 — 1758), were also successful imitators of Murillo. The last indeed copied the style of his master too closely for his own fame. Our Lady of Consolation, in Seville Cathedral, and the Divine Shephei'dess in the Madrid Gallery, are his best works. The Divine Shepjherdess, was also a favourite subject with Bernardo German Llorbntb (1685 — 1757), whose pictures were sometimes taken for productions of Murillo. Josef EisnbiJo (d. 1721), painter and sculptor, worked at Granada, and may be named as one of several pupils who imi tated Cano with success. At Granada, too, worked Juan db Sbvilla Eombro y Escalante (1627^1695), a pupil of Pedro de Moya. The colouring of Escalante was rich and forcible, and his influence might have arrested the decay of painting, had he not refused to take pupils. The roU of Andalucian artists may be fitly closed by two names, to whom every historian of Spanish painting must stand indebted. To the earlier part of this period belongs Acisclo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco (b. Bujalance, 1653 — d. 1725), who, as painter to Charles II., assisted Coello and Giordano, and also executed many works at Valencia, Salamanca, aud Granada. But he is famous, not for his feeble pictures, but the work on painting which gave him the name of the Vasari of Spain. The last and most interesting part of this treatise con tains the lives of Spanish painters and sculptors. Inaccurate as a historian. Palomino yet interests by the nurherous anecdotes he has handed down. At a later date lived Juan Agustin Cean Rbrmudez (1749 — 1829), who assisted in founding the Academy of Seville, and studied for a time under Mengs at Madrid. Bermudez, like Palomino, owes his fame to his writings, but is unlike his predecessor in being accurate, clear, and concise. These qualities distinguish his great work, the 'Dictionary of the Fine Arts' in Spain, which, published in 1800, before the ravages of the French war, constitutes the best authority on Spanish Art. 74 SPANISH ART. SCHOOL OF VALENCIA. Valencia presents, in this declining period, an array of mediocre painters, some of whom show talent, but few any marked indi viduality. Juan Conchillos Falc6 (1641 — 1711), was a pupil of Herrera, and studied at the Galleries of Madrid. Of his works for various religious houses in Valencia, the best was a beautiful Immaculate Conception for the Franciscan nuns. Louis de SoTOMAYOR.(1635 — 1673) was another painter of sacred pictures, and noted for his fine colouring. Murcia, which in Art may be reckoned as a province of Valencia, produced two artists who deserved to have lived in a better time. The first of these was Nicolas de Villacis (d. 1690), who had worked under Velazquez, and studied in Italy. Being rich, he painted chiefly for his friends, but he executed a few pictures of saints for the Dominican Convent, und some frescoes for the Convent of the Holy Trinity in Murcia The second was Mateo Gilarte (1648 — 1700), a native of Valencia, who settled in Murcia. His best work was a largo picture for the Convent of Mercy, containing thirty-six figures, and representing the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. A pupil both of Villacis and Gilarte, Josef Garcia Hidalgo (1656 — 1711), painted sacred pictures with great success in Valencia, after having studied at Eome. He often assisted Carreno, and was made censor of pictures and painter to Philip IV. Almost the last of the great artists of Valencia was Senen Vila, who, from 1678 to 1708, painted for the churches and convents of Murcia. The church of St. Isabel contains his best works. He was a pupil of Esteban March, and besides drawing and composing well, possessed a good knowledge of anatomy. Like Castile and Andalucia, Valencia, in her decline, was not without an institution designed, though vainly, by its promoters to encourage Art. This was the Academy of San Carlos, founded SCHOOL OF ARAGON. 75 by Charles III., and chiefly through the efforts of Josef de Vergara (1726 — -1799). The works of this prolific artist abound in nearly every town on the east coast of Spain, but they are totally uninteresting. The same remark applies to those of Mariano Salvador Maella (1739 — 1819), who de serves to be mentioned as a representative of painting in its worst days. This "feeble reflection of Mengs'' was painter in ordinary to the king, and director of the Academy of St. Ferdinand. SCHOOL OF ARAGON. Aragon, in the first part of this period, produced, as usual, few painters of distinction. Joaquin Juncosa, a Carthusian of Scala Dei, born near Tarragona in 1631, painted for his own and other convents many works correct in drawing, and forcible and brilliant in colour. He died in 1708 at Eome, which he had once before visited. Geronimo Seoano (1638 — 1710) and Bartolom^ Vicente (1640 — 1700) both painted in oil and fresco for the churches of Saragossa. To Barcelona belongs the glory of having produced Antonio ViLADOMAT, who was bom there in 1678, and whose pictures are to be seen in the cathedral and many of the churches. He was justly called by Mengs the first Spanish painter of the day, and Ford says of him, that " The last ray of Murillo lighted on his palette." Besides sacred pictures, he painted landscapes of considerable beauty, and was also successful in portraits. In all his works there is exhibited a grasp of mind, and a knowledge of the principles of composition, drawing, and colouring, which are the more remarkable as he owed everything to himself, for he had never been abroad or studied under a good master. He died in 1755. Saragossa, again, produced a painter of merit in JosEP LuxAN Martinez (1710 — 1785), who, after studying the works of the best Italian masters at Naples, settled in his native 76 SPANISH ART. city, and executed many works, which were correct in drawing and agreeable in colouring. But his chief claim to remembrance rests on his efforts to maintain in Saragossa the School of Design, which was afterwards promoted to an Academy by Charles IV. Martinez left several pupils. Of Francisco Baybu (d. 1795), it is sufficient to say that he imitated Mengs, and naturally became painter to the king, and director of the Academy. of St. Ferdinand. Another pupil of far greater power was Francisco Goya y Lucibntes (b. Fuente de Todos, Aragon, in 1746), who studied at Eome, and afterwards became Court painter under Charles IV. and Ferdinand VII. Gifted with extraordinary originality and imagination, Goya must not be judged by his sacred pictures, which are either feeble or coarse. His portraits are of far greater merit, though some of them, like his sacred subjects, show the influence of David. He also painted episodes in the French invasion of Madrid in 1808, and scenes in the Bull-fights. But the full force of his fantastic genius was poured forth in the numerous sketches, prints, and etchings in which, with the humour of a Hogarth and the coarse ness of a Swift, he satirized the church or society. Of Goya it has been justly remarked that he was far more national in style than many other Spanish painters of greater eminence, and, in his degree, as representative as Velazquez. The last years of the artist were spent at Bordeaux, where he died in 1828. With the death of Goya, shortly after the close of the eighteenth century, all native genius and originality seemed to have died out from the Spanish School of Painting. It was indeed roused to a fictitious enthusiasm by the example of the French painter, David (d. 1825) ; but this revival rested on a purely servile imitation, which exaggerated the defects while it overlooked the excellences of the master, and led to no independent efforts on the part of the scholars. Towards the middle of this century, however, the long slumber was broken, and the line of Spanish The Death or the Picador. By Francisco Goya y Lucientes. In the Lefort Collection. 78 SPANISH ART. painters restored by the advent of Fortuny, who, during his short life, achieved a European reputation. Mariano Fortuny was born at Ecus, in Catalonia, in 1838. He went early to Eome, but he was as well known at Paris and Madrid, and gained a yet wider artistic experience in Morocco, whither he accompanied General Prim and the Spanish army in 1859. A large picture of the Battle of Tetuan remained un finished at his death ; but he was best known for his smaller genre pictures, which, by their originality, colouring, and dramatic force, gave him a unique position among modern artists. His style was much influenced by the study of his own countryman, Goya, and of Meissonier. The career of this great and versatile artist was cut short by fever in 1874. Of the contemporaries and successors of Fortuny it is not necessary to speak here. Their productions, which betray the influence of the modern French School, are for the most part confined to genre pictures, brilliant and amusing tours deforce, sure of popularity, but devoid of high and enduring qualities. The activity, however, thus displayed, is at least an indication that Spain has shaken off her old sloth, and may yet, in the artistic epoch now opening, once more have a School of Painting of her own. PORTUGUESE PAINTERS. St. Peter in Pontifical EoEES. By Velasco. In Vism Cathedral. [Seepage b6. PAINTING IN PORTUGAL. THE history of Portuguese Painting has still to be written, although the proved existence of abundant materials, and the interest lately aroused on the subject, make it probable that this will not long be the case. Here, not so much a sketch, as an indication of what has already been accomplished in this direction, can alone be attempted. Certain very marked characteristics, which distinguish it from all others, warrant us in speaking of a Portuguese School of Painting ; which, in its brief bloom and long decadence, reflects in a marked degree the vicissitudes of the national history. Like the Schools of Spain and France, it is, in its origin, of wholly derivative growth. Its originality consists in the strong workings of the native genius under the foreign influences by which it was moulded. These influences were perhaps more varied in the case of Portugal than in that of any other country. There were first those Flemish, German, and Italian tendencies by which it was affected in common with Spain. Another disturbing current was introduced into Portugal through her contact with the East, which contributed to the mother country not only great wealth, but peculiar artistic types. Lastly, the spirit engendered by the SP G 82 PORTUGUESE PAINTING. conquests of her kings, and the discoveries of her navigators, gave a quickening impulse to the genius of her greatest artists, and inspired them with a national ideal. The result of all this was that combined originality and rich confusion of style which form the prevailing feature in Portuguese Painting. Three periods may be roughly distinguished in the develop ment of the Portuguese School. An early epoch of unformed and uncertain efforts; a second and culminating epoch of splendid achievement, covering the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries ; and a third period of decadence, which has lasted almost down to the present day. In the earliest period such Art as there was in Portugal flourished under the kings ; but though many names of painters occur in the archives, even so far back as the reign of Denis (1279), aU that can with any certainty be aflflrmed of them is that there was nothing important or distinctive about their work. The first real Portuguese painters were the illuminadores (illu minators), who were famous throughout Europe from the first, and retained their reputation on into the great era of painting, a strong Flemish tendency being observable in their later work. The Chi'onicle of John I, in the National Library of Madrid, is a fine example of about the end of the fourteenth century. The colouring is harmonious, but sober. Later, we find Garcia de Ebzbndb (b. about 1470) iUumrnating much for John IL, under whom he held the office of Chronicler. Garcia tells us in his ' Memoirs ' that in his time " painters and illuminators were at the height of their glory." Alvarus, who illuminated the Books of Reform of Emmanuel the Great, was another noted name. Important also was Antonio db Holanda (d. after 1549), who flourished under Emmanuel and John III. Besides being famed throughout Europe as an illuminator, he was the first, according to his son, " to invent and introduce into Portu gal a harmonious style of painting in black and white, superior to all the processes known in the other countries of the world." PORTUGUESE PAINTING. S3 It was this Holanda of whom the Emperor Charles V. said that he had painted his portrait better even than Titian. The name of Holanda belongs to the second period, and we must go back a little to trace the beginning of painting in its larger sense. The originating impulse came solely from without, and was very gradual, though very certain, in its development. Portugal was closely connected by its sea-commerce with Flanders, and was affected in the first place and most distinctly by Flemish Art. This is evidenced by the continual occurrence of such names as Juan Flamenco, Juan de Borgona, and the like. The first important step in this direction was the visit of Van Eyck to Lisbon, in 1428, to paint Isabel, the daughter of John I. Van Eyck's influence was marked and lasting, and from his time to well into the sixteenth century Portugal was invaded by Flemish artists, and sent her own students to learn from Flemish masters in Flanders. Damian de Goes, the friend of Diirer, had a special commission from Emmanuel to procure specimens of Flemish, German, and Dutch Art for the Court of Lisbon. The same king, about 1520, sent native artists to Italy, and summoned Italians to his Court. The Italian influence, however, was at its height later, towards the end of the sixteenth centuiy. After Flanders, Germany, owing to her close political connection with Portugal, exercised the most important influence. Holbein was among the artists who visited Lisbon. The second period, which was developed from the fusion of all the above influences, and to which belongs all that is most memorable in Portuguese Painting, may be roughly computed as lasting from 1480 to 1550, and covering the reigns of John IL, Emmanuel, and John III., but its most brilliant results are almost coincident with the reign of Emmanuel (1495 — 1521), a period cotemporary with that of the great outburst of Art in Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, Portugal was first in a position to avail herself to good purpose of her foreign models, and to contribute, on her own side, G 2 84 PORTUGUESE PAINTING. native genius and national aims. By that time she had achieved her conquests in Africa, made settlements in the East, and become one of the foremost maritime nations in Europe. .The voyages of Vasco de Gama and the discovery of Brazil were not merely events in the national history, but directly stimulated the imagination of artists. In the period under review, Lisbon and its Court were the resort of visitors or envoys from the Old and New Worlds. It was in the midst of this medley of foreign artistic traditions, New World ideas, and the feeling, of national ascendancy, that Portuguese Painting arose, and to which it owes that rich confusion of style already alluded to. In Portugal, as in Spain, Art made its first efforts in the service of religion. Paintings were in request to adorn the churches and monasteries which gradually arose as the Moors were driven out. Many such were built in the reign of John II. , but still greater progress was made under Emmanuel, in whose time flourished the famous architect, Boytaca, and who gave his own name to the so-caUed Emmanuelesque style of architecture. In spite, however, of the undoubted brilliancy of painting at this epoch, and the evidence of pictures belonging to it still extant, the most singular obscurity prevails as to the artists themselves. A School of Lisbon, and a School of Viseu have been distinguished. The identity of the masters who constituted the former is for the most part lost in the names of particular pictures supposed to be by them, or that of the particular place in which they worked. Hardly less obscurity shrouds the latter. They were long assigned by tradition to a single great artist, named Gran Vasco, who holds the same mythical position in regard to Portuguese Painting, as Van Eyck to that of Flanders, and Gallegos to that of Spain — all early Portuguese paintings marked by the older Flemish style being attributed promiscuously to him. The confusion is increased by the fact that Vasco is a common Portuguese name, and was borne by several weU-authen- PORTUGUESE PAINTING. 85 ticated artists. One, for instance, is known as the miniature painter of Alphonso V., in 1455, and a second, to be mentioned presently, painted at Viseu. The question has to some extent been cleared up by an English critic* His investigations may be taken to have proved the fact that a great artist named Vasco really existed, but that all we can actually assign to him is a single picture t bearing his signature, which points to " a great artist, who worked mainly during the first quarter of the sixteenth century." The pictures, on the other hand, commonly ascribed to Vasco, were really by his great cotemporaries, and " show the existence of a National School of A.rt in the sixteenth century." The painters of the School of Viseu may thus be given con- jecturally as follows : A painter, name unknown, who must have worked about 1500 — 1520. By him were the fourteen pictures in the Chapter House of Viseu Cathedral on the Life and Passion of Christ, which probably formed a retablo. Portuguese in character, they belong in technique to the older Flemish style. Velasco (painted about 1520 — 1540). To him are ascribed : (1) The Calvary forming the altar-piece of the Capella de Jesus, in Viseu Cathedral (once attributed to Vasco). (2) The pictures in the Sacristy, including the St. Peter (also once supposed to be Vasoo's). " St. Peter, clad in Pontifical robes, and seated on a throne, is apparently a typal representation and impersonation of the Catholic church." (3) A Pentecost, at Coimbra. The style of Velasco is marked by depth of dramatic expression. It recalls that of Campana, and is more advanced than that of the painter of the Chapter House pictures. • J. C. Robinson. Early Portuguese Art. His criticisms are founded mainly on certain pictures in the Chapter House and Sacristy of Viseu Cathedral. t This picture is now in the collection of the Director of the Academy of Fine Arts at Lisbon. 86 PORTUGUESE PAINTING. Vasco Fernandez, called Gran Vasco. The one picture bearing his name consists of three panels, apparently forming the divisions of an altar-piece. " The centre represents a Descent from the Cross, the two wings respectively St. Francis in Ecstacy, with fine landscape and background, and St. Anthony of Lisbon on the sea-shore, preaching to the fishes. It was pro bably painted about 1520. In style it is Italian and Flemish, and occupies a middle place in the Viseu School between the pictures in the Chapter House and those in the Sacristy. Other painters of the Viseu School are : Francisco Fernandez (living in 1552), and Vasco Fernandez, his son, both of whom have been previously confused with Gran Vasco. " Ovia,'' the painter of the Clu-ist shown to the Multitude, in the monastery of Santa Cruz at Coimbra ; and lastly, the painter (name un known) of the St. John in the Lisbon Academy. The Flemish influence — which was the predominating feature in the works of Gran Vasco and his cotemporaries — lasted long, and was persisted in by a certain group of painters down to the early part of the seventeenth century. Towards the end, of the sixteenth century, however, it began to be supplanted generally by the influence of Italy. Francisco de Holanda (1517 — 1584), son of Antonio de Holanda, and himself a painter, though inferior to his father, had been sent by John III. to Italy to study painting. Here he remained long, and became the friend of Michelangelo. It was with the return of Francisco to Lisbon in 1548 that the reaction set in. He disparaged the efforts of the native Portuguese School, and endeavoured success fully to spread among his countrymen the principles of the Italian cinque-cento. Among the numerous Portuguese artists who went to Rome to study, we may name Antonio (or Em manuel) Campello {floruit about 1540), a historical painter in the reign of John III., who was said to recall Michelangelo; and Gaspard Diaz {floruit about 1534), who was called the Portuguese Eaphael. Calvary. Altar-piece by Velasco. In the Capella de Jesus, Viseu Cathedral. 88 PORTUGUESE PAINTING. The death-blow of Portuguese Painting came with the down fall of the national greatness, and the loss of national prosperity. An expedition into Africa, undertaken by King Sebastian, ended in disaster. In 1578, at the battle of Alcazar-kebir, the king himself was slain, the power of Portugal destroyed, and the way paved for the Spanish domination. From this date begins the third period, during which the history of Art in Portugal is one merely of long decay. Henceforth the influence of Italy, which, under John III., had produced some very noble results, exercised only a deteriorating effect. The few Portuguese artists who worked on took their examples from Eome, but with few exceptions were content with a servile imitation. The Inquisition, which had been established in 1526, helped still further to restrict the limits of painting, and confine it to devotional themes. The political domination of Spain also naturally brought some in fluence to bear upon Art, and Sanchez Coello was only one of numerous Spanish artists who found their way to Lisbon. During the eighteenth century, as Art still continued to decline, the French style of the day became in vogue ; and later still, with the beginning of the nineteenth century, the influence of David was strongly felt in Portugal. That the decline was due to external conditions, and did not result from the want of individual talent, is shown by a few names that stand out prominently from time to time. Bbnto CuELHO DA SiLVBiRA (d. Very old in 1708) was a prolific artist, most of whose works are now lost. His style shows in turn the three manners of Tintoretto. Gioseffo d'Avellar {floruit about 1640) was the favourite painter of John IV. One of his princi pal works was a series of seventy-two large pictures on the Life of Christ, painted between 1639 — 1648 for the ceiling of the church of the Dos Martyres. These are now replaced by stucco. Emmanubl de Castro was a pupO. of Claudio Coello, who, it may be noted, was himself, though a Spanish painter, of PORTUGUESE PAINTING. 89 Portuguese parentage. Castro worked much in Spain, whither he went in 1698. Still later, three Portuguese painters attained a fame that may be called European, and proved that more favourable external conditions were alone wanting to found anew the School of Portugal. These were the two Vieras and Sequeira. Francisco Viera de Mattos (surnamed Lusitano) was born at Lisbon in 1699, and studied for many years in Eome. His works were historical and religious, and in style followed with some success the models of the best Italian time. He died in 1783. Francisco Viera (surnamed Portubnse) was born at Oporto in 1765, and died at Madeira in 1805. Like his namesake, he studied much in Italy, and from the best models, but his style displays far less energy, and was marked by sweetness and melancholy rather than strength. He once visited England. A more remarkable artist than either of the above was Domenico Antonio Sequeira (1768 — 1837). With much vigour and originality, Sequeira was very unequal. His style suffered many fluctuations, and betrays the bad influence of cotemporary taste. His disgust at the low condition of Art in his time, and his exaggerated estimate of his own powers, may also have helped to distract his artistic aims. One of his most noted pictures, the Death of Camoens, was painted at Paris in 1823. His latest and best works were all of a religious charac ter ; but though painted at Rome, show resemblance to Eem brandt rather than the Italians. To these names, though at a long distance, we may add Joseph d' Almeida Furtado (surnamed Gata) (1778 — 1831), the " best Portuguese miniaturist of his time," and Cyrillo Volkmar Machado (1748 — 1823). Cyrillo, feeble as an artist, deserves some slight mention as the Cean Bermudez of Portugal. His ' Memoirs,' published the year of his death, give many notices of Portuguese artists of the eighteenth century, and some of their earlier predecessors. 90 PORTUGUESE PAINTING. At the present time Portuguese Art shows a distinct tendency to revive. Many living artists might be named who " want not talent, but a public," in order to form a National School. The present king, Don Luis, is a ^staunch patron of Axt, and the Retrospective Exhibition of Spanish and Portuguese Art, held at Lisbon in 1882, revealed the existence in Portugal of a wealth of Art treasures hitherto unsuspected. Under these favourable external conditions, and with the revived interest of the artistic world, it is almost certain that there will again be before long a Portuguese School of Painting. At the same time it is hardly less certain that a close investigation among the archives, and in the churches, palaces, and museums, will throw fuller light on the history of Portuguese Art, and lead to the reconstruction of national traditions, which may give a direction to coining efforts. FRENCH PAINTERS. PAINTING IN FRANCE. INTEODUCTION. THE Art of France, like her Literature, is pervaded by a distinct tendency which takes its rise from the national temperament. The French mind, with its ready tact and quick intelligence, seems to hold the mean among the nations of Europe. It has neither the poetry nor the melancholy of the North, nor the fervid enthusiasm of the South. In its early history it shows little appreciation for simple nature, and is not deeply stirred by the sentiment of religion. But it interests itself keenly in all that concerns the thoughts or actions of men : and while less apt to originate ideas, it is quick to seize on those of others, to formulate them with precision, and to disseminate them in a form which appeals to many. This love of clearness and precision has its corresponding defects. It is inimical to imagination and originality, and condemns the too free play of individual fancy as eccentric. These general features can be traced running clearly, on the whole, through the French School of Painting. Its artists have the " seeing eye," but not the informing imagination. Rich in tact and skill, and lavish of resource in that clear presentation of an 94 PAINTING IN FRANCE. idea, which depends in painting on what is called composition, they are defective in colouring, and in all that concerns form and method dependent on foreign models. If the development of a distinct manner be taken as the criterion of a school of painting, the French School loses its identity. Poussin was a Greek ; Valentin imitated Caravaggio ; Lesueur, Eaphael. A host of mediocre painters took for their own the eclectic style of the Carracci. Even the really national genius of Watteau sought a medium for the expression of its grace and fancy ni the touch and colouring of Flanders. The limitations of its ideal, and the external conditions of its development, serve to explain the vein of paradox which runs through French painting. The very qualities which make it peculiarly French deny it the breadth and largeness of character belonging to some of the other great European schools. Its sensitiveness to every breath of external opinion, while it banishes eccentricity, fosters conventionality ; its strict adherence to rule and tradition provokes a reaction to the opposite extreme. We continually find its sobriety and sense of measure passing into theatrical glitter and extravagance ; its grace, skill, and precision, exchanged for incoherency and exaggeration ; its fine feeling for form diverted to grotesqueness, or indecency. When, as in the case of David, it makes a serious attempt to discard shams and affectations, and become genuinely great and original, there is a taint of spuriousness about the effort. It is thus that French painting fascinates, yet disappoints; that it pleases, perhaps, the largest general public, but fails to satisfy the more exacting criticism of the few. No school can present a more unbroken tradition, maintained by a continuous line of workers, than that of France ; it can show, in nearly every epoch, groups of artists of high excellence, but hardly affords a single figure who can take unchallenged rank among the greatest painters of the world. Poussin is the only master who combines the national qualities at their best with true PAINTING IN FRANCE. 95 greatness and originality. These attributes can liardly be claimed by David. They can only partially apply even to such men as Ingres and Delacroix. The same limitations which cramp its development, make the history of the French School, considered in its distinctively national aspect, really a short one. It takes its origin directly from Italian models, which it fails properly to understand, and is overshadowed from the beginning by the exclusive patronage of the French monarchs. From the time that she possessed any distinctive school at all, France never had any independent centres of Art ; no rival schools, such as those of Italy, or Spain. All art activity gravitated to Paris, as the centre of life and thought. The dreary list of the painters of Louis XIV. is succeeded by the still more monotonous one of the painters of the eighteenth century. Only with that century does French painting become really national with Watteau — and Watteau is distin guished, not by greatness, but by fancy and grace. After Watteau, a higher effort of reform is initiated by David. The movement itself is futile, but it prepares the way for a new departure uncontemplated by itself Eomanticism comes to infuse an invigorating breath of genuine enthusiasm into painting, and the pagan sentiment, always more or less predominant in French Art, is modified by the growth of an influence hitherto strange to it — a genuine feeling for simple nature. The development of this new modern spirit, in accordance with the external conditions of the time, constitutes the latest phase of French painting, which wiU be considered in its place. Apart from its artistic importance, the French School has an interest of a different kind attaching to it. Something of the national history enters more or less into every great school of painting, but it is the peculiarity of the French School, that it is interpenetrated, more closely and continuously than any other, with the fluctuating pulse of the national life. It is essentially of the world, and the world is always with it. It 96 PAINTING IN FRANCE. takes the very " form and pressure " of contemporary thought and manners ; is sensitive to every changeful emotion of the passing hour. The decorative compositions of Lebrun express the very spirit of the age of Louis XIV. Conversely, the " patriotism " of the Eevolution, and the "glory" of the Napo leonic era, take fresh glow in the classical themes of David, and the epic battles of Gros ; and in this latest period, the realism of a more material age finds its counterpart in the " impression ism " of painting. At whatever point we compare them, French Art and French history are found to mutually illuminate and interpret one another. Viewed in this light, even defects assume importance. French painting becomes a mirror, in which are brilliantly reflected the successive phases of the French spirit. *^* The names and dates of the Artists are given as in the "Notice des Tableaux du Musee du Louvre" par F. VUlot, Secretaire. ^gs^?r ^^i^i^^ "^m CHAPTER L EARLY FRENCH ART. BEGINNING OF THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE. (1400—1650.) FEOM the time when Charlemagne gathered Byzantine artists round him at Aix-la-Chapelle, to the dawn of the Renaissance, there are evidences of an uninterrupted Art activity in France ; but besides that the interest attaching to such efforts is, in many cases, antiquarian rather than artistic, those in which the germs of French painting can be traced were long in assuming any national character. The vestiges of the mural paintings, wliich from the ninth to the thirteenth century covered the walls of church or abbey, seem at flrst sight to open up a fruitful field of inquiry, but a closer examination shows them to be quite disconnected with any development of later Art. They were not the result of a wide-spread artistic enthusiasm devoted to the service of the Church, but were executed at the bidding of particular prelates, and to symbolize the formulas of a rigid creed. In style they merely continued Greek or Italian traditions ; sometimes among their stiff archaic forms there even appeared incongruous touches of the classic manner, but nowhere do they show traces of a sentiment peculiarly French. 98 PAINTING IN FRANCE. The first gleam of any national character affecting French art appears about the middle of the twelfth century, when the rise of the pointed Gothic architecture drove painting from the walls to the windows. Glass painting not only reached its highest perfection in France, but from its peculiar style, indi cated far more surely a future School of Painting than the mural frescoes. Splendid examples of these " pictures on glass " are afforded by the Cathedral of Chartres, and the Sainte Chapelle at Paris. Glass-painting began to decline in the sixteenth century, and later on we shall find Jean Cousin, one of' the earliest French artists, passing from the painting of glass to paint in oil on canvas. The same influences that drove painting from the walls of churches turned the attention of artists during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to such subjects as retablos and altar- pieces. But these so-called artists do not pre-suppose an im proved school of painting. In fact, before the fourteenth century, painting had no standing as a separate art, hut was strictly subordinated to sculpture or architecture. The painter was still merely a decorator, who assisted in the embellishment of church furniture, and the adornment of oratory or palace, or contributed to the decorations of royal pageants. Of this character were the paintings of Jean Coste and Girard d' Orleans, who worked at the Chateau of Vandreuil for Charles V. Such painting as stood alone was typified by the work of Gringonneur, who painted playing-cards for Charles VI., or else it was a development of the branch of miniature. It is in this last that the origin of modern French painting must alone be looked for. While frescoes and decorative painting supplied only a temporary want, miniature was from the first the real medium for the exercise of whatever artistic zeal existed, and the ex ponent, in as wide a variety as was open to it, of cotemporary thought and sentiment. The Carlovingian School of miniature. r. m^m H 2 Painting on Glass. In La Sainte-Chapelle, Paris. 100 PAINTING IN FRANCE. in which the Byzantine type predominated, branched out into various schools, which during the barbarism of the Middle Ages gradually became debased by the introduction of a gro tesque Gothic element. Architecture probably borrowed many of its motives from the illuminators, but, as the predominant Art, it ended by completely overshadowing them. With the four teenth century, however, miniature began to put off its fantastic character, to follow nature more closely, and to display the rudiments of all the branches of painting. Dante, in the eleventh canto -of the Purgatory, alludes to the superiority of Parisian " illuminators." During the fifteenth century this improvement was still more marked, and the French School of miniature, though surpassed in seriousness aud originality by those of Flanders and Italy, was yet skilful in appropriating many of the excellences of both. The French artists had not the firm grasp of nature or the brilliant colouring of the Flemings, nor the taste and precision of the Italians ; but they surpassed the former in the general composition of their subjects, and the latter in their perspective. The artist in whom this eclectic style was best represented, and who forms the link in France between the Art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, was Jehan Fouquet, of Tours (born 1415, died 1485), the court painter of Louis XL Though his costumes recall Italy, his types are French, and he shows a happier variety in his groups and attitudes than Van Eyck or Memlinc. He is perhaps most original in his accessory landscapes, and his architec ture is also good. The pictures by him in the illuminated 'Josephus,' in the Paris Library, show freedom, invention, and great artistic genius, and the compositions in his ' Titus Livius ' are admirable for their naturalness and life. That representing the Daughter of Servius Tullius driving over the dead body of her father displays these qualities in a high degree, as weU as a charming naivete characteristic of the artist Miniature-Painting by Jehan Fouquet. From the MS. ' Titus Livius. ' In the Bibliotheque, Paris. 102 PAINTING IN FRANCE. and the time. A specimen of Fouquet's work on a larger scale, which entitles him to the name of painter, may be seen in one of the wings of an altar-piece, containing the portrait of Etienne Chevalier, Treasurer to Louis XL, which is now at Frankfort. The most notable artists next to Fouquet, before the Renais sance, were Jehan Bourdichon, and Jehan Perreal, the first of whom is known as a painter of historical subjects and portraits in the reign of Louis XI. The second was in repute at Lyons, in the reign of Charles VIII. , and in the Italian expedition of that prince, attached himself to the French army, and painted many battle-scenes. Rbn:6 of Anjou (1408 — 1480) should also be mentioned as a royal artist. He, too, besides illuminating manuscripts, painted larger pictures, in which he partially adopted the style of the Van Eycks. The Cathedral of Aix possesses a good example of his work in an altar-piece representing Moses and the Burn ing Bush : * on the wings are portraits of himself and his queen (Jeanne de Laval), each attended by three patron saints. In the Royal Library at Vienna is an illuminated Romance " de la tres douce Mercys," with miniature paintings by him, excel lently done in the quaint style of the age, France, following as yet no definite direction in painting, seemed still to hesitate between -the influences of Italy and Flanders. The latter country, from its close connection with Burgundy, which during the hundred years' war formed the chosen retreat of French artists, had not only influenced but been influenced by French Art. This may be seen in the Flemish tapestries of the fifteenth century, which distinctly recall the French miniatures. Had the connection between the two countries been kept up, it is probable that France, contributing as much as she received, might gradually have developed an independent school ; but circumstances turned her * Engraved in Sir Edmund Head's ' Handbook of Painting. painting in FRANCE. 103 attention wholly to Italy, and confronted thus with an Art far more perfect than her own, her native originality was quickly absorbed. As early indeed as 1305, Giotto had been employed By Eene, Kino of Anjou. From the Romance " de la tres douce Mercys." In the Library, Vienna. at the Papal Court at Avignon, and Simone di Martino had also painted for a time at the same place, but there is no record that the works of these artists in any way infiuenced French painting. It was the Italian wars, begun in 1494 by Charles 104 painting in FRANCE. VIII. , that first brought the artistic treasures of Italy promi nently before the eyes of the French monarchs, and the real history of French painting begins with those Italian artists who, in the reign of Francis I. (1515 — 1547), were employed by that prince at Fontainebleau, and formed the school called by that name. Leonardo da Vinci died in the service of Francis in 1519, and from 1530, Rosso, or MaItre Roux, assisted by many other Italian artists, worked at Fontainebleau till his death, in 1541. His unfinished work was carried on by Francisco Primaticcio of Bologna, who was held in high esteem by Francis I., and his successors, Henry II. and Francis II. Two others, Jacopo Pacchiarotto and Niccolo Albati, also painted in France in the reign of Francis I. The only artists who, in opposition to this School of Fontainebleau, displayed any national feeling, were Jean Cousin and the Clouets. Jean Cousin (born at Soucy, near Sens, 1501 — died 1589) may be called the founder of the French School. The facts of his life are uncertain, and it seems doubtful whether, as F^libien says, he ever went to Paris and became a favourite of Henry II. and his successors. It is interesting to note that he began bis career by painting on glass, an art which he was one of the last to practise. The examples of his work, still to be seen in the Cathedral of Sens, representing the legend of St. Eutropius, give a high idea of his skiU ; it is finely executed in a broad, free style, and as if on canvas rather than glass. Cousin is said to have been the first Frenchman who painted oil pic tures. The only specimens now extant are, his Last Judgment, in the Louvre, the picture called Eva prima Pandora, which was found at the artist's chateau of Monthard, and a Descent from the Cross, at Mayence. In the Eva, the tones are sober but delicate, and there is a simplicity in the contour of the forms. In the Last Judgment the artist has tried to equal Michelangelo, but failed. He ranks high as a sculptor, and was undoubtedly the greatest French painter before Poussin ; and in the grace. Elizabeth op Austria, wife of Charles IX. By Fran<;ois Clouet. In the Louvre. 106 painting in FRANCE. moderation, and taste he displays, well exemplifies the severer side of the French School. Cousin wrote a book on the pro portions of the human body, which, considering the time at which it appeared, is said to be good of its kind. The Clouets were of Flemish origin. Jean, the founder of the family, was born at Brussels in 1420, and going to France in 1460, was made painter in ordinary to Francis I. His son, also named Jean, was born about 1485, and was noted for his portraits. He painted the equestrian portrait of Francis I. , in the Gallery of Florence, attributed to Holbein, and the half- length of the same prince at Versailles, attributed to Mabuse. FRANgois Clouet (born at Tours about 1510 — died 1572), son of the lastnamed Jean, succeeded as painter to the king, and was the most distinguished of the family. His works are spread over Italy and Great Britain,* as well as France. The Antwerp Museum has a portrait by him of Francis I. when a child, and the Louvre admirable portraits of Charles IX., Eliza beth of Austria, and other courtly personages. The works of all the Clouets are distinguished by a naive adherence to nature, combined with great care and delicacy in the details. Fouquet, Cousin, and the Clouets — to whom may be added the sculptors, Colombo and Jean Goujon — form a group, remarkable as showing that France possessed artists capable of forming a native school. But the tradition was not carried on, and these artists stood isolated in the midst of the foreign influences growing up around them. Francois Clouet is often called Janet. At the end of the sixteenth century, there was a dearth of artists in France, owing to the Civil Wars and the League. After the death of Primaticcio in 1570, born at Antwerp, Ambroise Dubois (1543 — 1614) and Toussaint Dubreuil (d. 1604), both .painted at Fontainebleau. The latter copied exactly the style of his predecessor, but Dubois, who was by birth a Fleming, inchned to a colder and less animated style. His work comprised a series * Castle Howard, Stafford House, Althorp Park. painting in FRANCE. 107 of pictures for the decoration of the chamber of Marie de Medicis on the subject of Theagenes and Charicles, one of which is now in the Louvre. At Fontainebleau, too, Dubreuil's fellow-pupil, Martin Frbminet (1567 — 1619), who had long studied in Italy, was employed by Henry IV. in 1608 to de corate the ceiling of the chapel, a work which he continued under Louis XIII. Freminet, like Cousin, imitated Michel angelo, but in a very different way. His violent and pretentious style caught something of the grandeur of his model, and his anatomy was good though ostentatious ; but in colour, a thing which he despised, he was entirely conventional and untrue to nature. These traits may be seen in his work in the Louvre, Mercury bidding Eneas leave Dido. The School of Fontainebleau, initiated and fostered by royal patronage, had given to French painting a direction which it was long submissively to follow. The way to Italy had been opened, and Rome became the goal of every French student. To those who could not go to the fountain-head of painting, Fontainebleau itself offered a smaller Italy in the rich collec tion of pictures that Primaticcio had brought together for Francis I. The Italian influence, thus begun, insensibly carried all before it, and wiU be seen at its height during the latter half of the seventeenth century, in the works of those artists who helped to form the age of Louis XIV. This result was largely due to Simon Voubt (b. Paris 1590 — d. 1649), who, in distinction to Jean Cousin, may be called the founder of the Italianized School of French Painting. His tend encies were naturalistic. Having given very early proofs of ability, he in 1611 accompanied the Baron de Sancy to Con stantinople, and performed the feat of painting the Sultan's portrait from memory. Going shortly afterwards to Eome, he studied Caravaggio and Guido, and being patronized by Cardinal Barberini, soon attained a brilliant position, and in 1624 was made a member of the Academy of St. Luke. In 1627, being 108 painting in FRANCE. recalled by Louis XIII., Vouet returned to France, to find tiie highest honour awaiting him. As painter to the king, he executed the royal portrait, drew endless designs for tapestry, and worked unceasingly at the royal palaces. He found time, besides, to fulfil many commissions for Eichelieu, and to fill the churches of Paris with his pictures. The only artist who for a moment disputed his supremacy was Blanchard, wilh whom he decorated the famous Gallery of the Hotel de Bullion, but death removed this rival from his path. The fame of Vouet has not lasted to the present day. The style he brought from Italy was, in fact, one of decadence. Endowed with great facility, inven tion, and skill in decoration, he painted at first with care and vigour, but attempting more than he could properly perform, he allowed his style to degenerate into mere mannerism. The character of his painting is, above all, superficial, and devoid of feeling, or depth of thought. These defects are apparent even in his masterpiece, the Presentation in tJie Temple, now in the Louvre. The real merit of Vouet consists in his great skill as a teacher. His studio was a very nursery of painting, and from it issued Lebrun, Lesueur, and nearly all the artists of distinc tion whom we shall meet with in the next period. The naturalistic tendencies of Vouet were carried to a still greater extreme by Valentin* (1600 — 1634), one of the most remarkable of French artists. Born at Coulommiers, in Brie, he went early to Eome, and became intimate with Poussin, who sought, though in vain, to win him to a more thoughtful style. for Valentin had found in the works of Caravaggio the manner that exactly suited his own genius. To paint nature as he saw her, with a certain rude earnestness and passion, without regard to minor shades of expression, was the sole aim which Valentin allowed himself. His conceptions were further limited by the nature of the life he led; the influence of the low company in * This artist, often wrongly called Moise Valentin, probably belonged to the family of Boulogne. Valentin was his Christian name. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 109 whom he found his models is noticeable even in his sacred subjects, which are such in name rather than in feeling and expression. His Martyrdoms, indeed, such as the well-known one of the Saints Processus and Martinianus, in the Vatican, recall Ribera, but his Susannah is simply a girl of the lower orders. His works in the Louvre display all the qualities of his style. Two Concerts are good examples of his ordinary subjects. The Fortune-teller is an instance of the admirable truth and force of his execution, in a subject not needing the finer traits of expression. There are several of his pictures in Rome, where he died in his thirty- fourth year. If Poussin could not draw Valentin from the, imitation of Caravaggio, he found a more apt disciple in Jacques Stella (1596 — 1657). This artist, who was of Flemish extraction, was born at Lyons, and setting out when twenty years old for Eome, was attracted to the Court of Cosmo de Medici, at Florence, where he stayed seven years. Proceeding then to Rome, he gave himself up entirely to the imitation of Poussin, a part well suited to his fine but unoriginal genius, of which the distinguish ing traits were grace and sweetness. These qualities are seen in his sacred pictures, such as Jesus led from the Temple, and The Return from Egypt, and also in his pastoral pieces, which are singularly beautiful, though even his peasants have something of the severer classicism of Poussin. In fact, the nobility of thought and moderation in expression of the master, are repeated in the feebler work of the pupil. In 1634 Stella went to Paris, and, dissuaded by Richelieu from a journey which he meditated to the Spanish Court, was made painter to the king, and invested with the order of St. Michael. The name of Stella has been made famous by the engravings of his works executed by his three nieces, Claudine, Antoinette, and Fran- foise Bouronnet. Jacques Blanchard (1600 — 1638) has already been men tioned as a rival of Vouet. That which brought him into notice 110 PAINTING IN FRANCE. was the skilful and agreeable style of colouring which he had acquired in Italy from a study of the Venetian masters, and which, though it has not preserved for him his name of the " French Titian," yet deserves to be noticed as the first attempt of any French artist in that direction. Blanchard, like Vouet, worked with great facility, and his Holy Families and half- length Virgins were much sought after. Laurent db la Hire (1606 — 1656) was a pupil of Vouet, whom he resembled in facility, but his style was formed on that of Primaticcio. After studying at Fontainebleau, he worked for some time in the studio of Lallemant, an artist then in repute at Paris. La Hire speedily found employment for his gentle and agreeable pencil in executing commissions for Richelieu and the Chancellor, Seguier, painting for the churches and private mansions, and drawing many designs for tapestry. By far the best work of this artist was the picture representing Pope Nicolas V. visiting the tomb containing the body of St. Francis of Assisi, painted originally for the Capuchins of the Marais du Temple, and now in the Louvre. The composition is good, the light well arranged, and the colouring firm and true, while the spirit in which the whole is conceived recalls Lesueur. La Hire, however, though gifted with fertility and imagination, was only a painter of the second order, and his style in general is cold and feeble. Later in life he painted chiefly landscapes, into which he introduced architecture with good effect. The superficial manner and crude colouring of Vouet reappear in his cotemporary, Franqois Perribr (1590 — 1656), a native of Burgundy (lb Boubguignon), who made his way when very young to Italy, and studied for some time under Lanfranco. On returning to France, he painted the cloisters of the Carthusians at Lyons, and also assisted Vouet ; but tired of playing only a secondary part, again retired to Rome, where he busied himself chiefiy with engraving. In 1645 he settled at Paris, and exe cuted the work by which he is best known, the paintings for the The Guakd-Rook. i In the pmm^ If Louis Le Nain. ofM. George. \_Siepage 111. PAINTING IN FRANCE. Ill Gallery of the Hotel de la Vrilliere, in which the influence of Vouet, Lanfranco, and Carracci, is apparent. Besides Valentin, there were two artists of this time who went directly to nature for their subjects, although they studied it from different points of view. These were Le Nain, and Jacques Callot. The name of Lb Nain belonged to three artist brothers of Picardy, whose respective works it has as yet been found impossible to distinguish. Antoine, the eldest (b. 1588 1), is said to have painted portraits of a miniature size ; Louis (h. 1593) and Matthibu worked together at historical subjects, landscape, and scenes of humble life. The latter, in which alone they excelled, are full of truth and character, and are marked off from the works of Valentin and Callot by a sturdy simplicity and gravity, to which the sober tone of their colouring well corresponds. The children and peasants of Le Nain are sturdy, but not joyous, and the nature of their subjects, which they probably copied from the lowly life around them, is indicated by such names as the Drinking-place, the Family Meal, the Black smith, all of which are in the Louvre. The three brothers were received into the Academy in 1648. Antoine and Louis both died in that year, Matthieu in 1677. Jacques Callot (1592 — 1635),anative of Lorraine, is known by his engravings rather than as a painter. Much of his life was spent in vagabond wanderings, in the course of which he several' times visited Rome, and mingled in the fetes of the Medici at Florence. The whole age of Louis XIIL, in its higher no less than in its ignoble aspects, lives in his engravings and etchings, which have thus a historical as well as an artistic interest. In composition and effect the sketches of Callot are not technically correct, but they charm by their force, their endless variety, and their truth of detail. The series of sketches called the Miseries of War shows the artist's power of vividly depicting the lower phases of society, the Temptation of St. Anthony his fantastic ingenuity and invention. The great defect of Callot is that lack 112 painting in FRANCE. of ideality so peculiarly French. There is nothing in his work that " touches the heart, or opens horizons to the fancy, as in Rembrandt." * The middle of the seventeenth century was the opening for France of a period of great activity in Art, in which two strongly- marked tendencies are apparent. The Italian influence, the growth of which has been traced, assumed during this time its greatest ascendancy over French painting, but more remarkable was the form impressed on the latter by the peculiar circumstances of the reign of Louis XIV. French artists have always been prone to reflect the fashionable mood of the hour, and at no other period of French history were the Court and society so thoroughly leavened, in their minutest details, by the will and character of a single man. It was natural, therefore, that a race of painters should spring up, who were eager to transfer to their canvas the form and spirit of the history which was weaving itself around them, more especially as they might flatter themselves that, in depicting any phase of the " grand reign,'' they were at once obeying the instincts of patriotism, and assuring their own immortality. The school of Vouet had trained up a numerous band of scholars, who might seem to have been specially prepared for such a task. * Charles Blanc, ' Histoire de la Peinture Fran^aise,' a work which has been constantly consulted in this sketch. CHAPTER IL THE AGE OF LOUIS XIV. (1650-1700.) THE tendency of French painting to depend too exclusively on royal patronage had, as we have seen, steadily been gaining ground from the first, but with the extraordinary personal ascendancy of Louis XIV. it gains additional strength, and assumes a definite and peculiar character. Louis encouraged Art sincerely if not altogether wisely, and his example was followed by the nobility. He was abl}- seconded in this respect by his minLsters, Colbert and Louvois, and his favourite painter, Lebrun, and to their efforts were due at least aU the outward and material appliances which could serve to promote the progress of Art. Pictures were eagerly gathered together from almost aU the countries of Europe, or from the galleries of private individuals, to enrich the collection begun by Francis I., and continued by ilarie de ]\Iedicis. Still these were not as yet accessible to the pulilic, and were strictly the private property of the king. ]\Iore important was the foundation by Louis XIV, of an Academy of Painting and Sculpture. It was designed to supersede the existing Academy of St. Luke, a relic of the old guilds, dating from the thirteenth century, whose teaching had now become effete and injurious to Art. The new SP I 114 painting in FRANCE. Academy, in spite of great opposition from its older rival, was actually formed in 1648, with twelve sculptors and painters, who were called ancients, as its original members, including La Hire, Bourdon, Le Sueur, andLe Brun. Soon after, fourteen Academicians were added, among whom were Louis and Henri Testelin, and Philippe de Champaigne. Another Academy, founded in 1675, in Rome, enabled a certain number of young artists to draw direct inspiration from the great masters in the very country of painting itself. All this fostering care of Art was, however, rendered nugatory, to a great extent, by the prevailing tendencies of the time, which forced every artist to follow in the same groove. If the Escurial may be said to embody the gloomy ascetism so characteristic of Spanish painting under Philip II. , Versailles is a standing monument of the Art that flourished in France under Louis XIV. This Art had its favourable side. It was not wanting in an element of dignity and grandeur, which contrast favourably with the triviality and indecency of the succeeding period ; but the grandeur was prone to become . theatrical, and the dignity to sink into bombast. Moreover, it was an Art purely conventional, and dedicated to outward show. It would be vain to seek in it for any underlying thought, or expression of finer emotion; any of the truthfulness which comes from a sincere study of nature. How little simplicity was understood or valued at this time is shown by an anecdote of Louis XIV., in which he is said to have ordered some pictures of Teniers to be removed from his apartments, with the words ; " Qu'on m'ote ces magots" ("Away with these baboons"). Before turning to those painters whose work was but an echo of their age, there are two masters who, both from their pecuhar position as artists, and the typical character of their genius, demand particular mention. These were Poussin and Le Sueur. Living isolated from their countrymen, the one in his self- chosen retirement at Rome, the other near a Court which had PAINTING IN FRANCE. 113 nothing congenial to offer him, they stand outside the influence of the France of their day, yet sum up in their work many of the characteristic merits and defects of the French School. Nicolas Poussin, the greatest painter whom France can claim, was born at Andelys, in Normandy, in 1594. He first studied under Quentin Varin, but at the age of eighteen, having made his way to Paris, became successively the pupil of Ferdinand Elle aud of TAHemand. He probably owed most at this time to the kindness of a young nobleman of Poitou, who introduced him to the house of Courtois, mathematician to the king, where he was enabled to study some prints of Raphael and Giulio Romano. Shortly after this, Poussin made two vain attempts to get to Rome, but poverty hindered him, and the year 1623 again found him at Paris. Here some pictures, which he painted for the College of the Jesuits, attracted the notice of the Italian poet Marino, and in the following year Poussin followed this new patron to Rome. His cherished wish now at last fulfilled, Poussin, in spite of the death of Marino, and the abject poverty which at first threatened to overwhelm him, set forth undismayed on the severe path that was to lead him to such triumphant success. His genius, though strongly original, was one that ripened slowly, and owed much to study ; and among the rival schools then dividing Rome, Poussin did not hastily attach himself to one particular style. His natural inclinations led him to Romano, but study and reason tempered this impulse ; Titian he also studied, but only to avoid his rich colouring ; and he could listen to the advice of Domenichino, over whose Descent from the Cross he spent much time. Gradu ally, however, one thing only came to absorb him — the antique. His studies in architecture, anatomy, and perspective, were aU made subservient to this end, and he read the classics eagerly, that he might the better grasp the spirit of antiquity. The zeal with which he pursued his aim is expressed in the saying of Fuseli, that "Poussin painted bas-reliefs," but his I 2 116 PAINTING IN FRANCE. work, as will be noticed more particularly presently, remained original and French by the thought and the execution. The features of his now maturing style appear in some pictures which he painted for his patron, the Cardinal Barberini. The Death of Germanicus is remarkable for the grand unity of its composition and expressive action of the figures, by which all the interest is made to centre on Germanicus. In the Taking of Jerusalem by Titus, is apparent the antiquarian learning which yet does not lessen the artistic effect. The same remark applies to the celebrated picture of The Philistines smitten by the Plague, in which the historical research shown in every detail is subservient to the pathos and horror excited by the scene. Poussin was now enjoying at Rome the most enviable position that a painter even of his genius could have desired. Some of the greatest foreign artists were his friends, and although he had no pupils, in the proper sense of the word, his influence was great among the numerous French artists, such as Valentin and Stella, who came to study at Rome. He was able to devote himself to the work he loved best, and whatever he painted for his numerous Italian or French patrons was received with applause ; in particular, a series of the Seven Sacraments,* which he executed for the Cavaliere del Pozzo, had brought him an immense reputation. It was from this congenial sphere that he was at length drawn by the repeated solicitations of Richelieu,. and nothing can better illustrate some of the tendencies that beset French painting, both at this time and afterwards, than his two years' stay at the French Court. Arriving in Paris in 1640, he was received with the greatest distinction by Louis XIIL, and made painter in ordinary to the king, Vouet being the first. One of the earliest pictures painted by Poussin in France bears the impress of his peculiar style. It is a Last Supper — not that at Belvoir, but one forming part of a second series of the * Now in the possession of the Duke of Rutland. t3o Pi a H M 118 PAINTING IN FRANCE. Seven Sacraments, now in the Bridgewater Gallery — and is remarkable not only for the solemn impression it leaves on the spectator, but for the historical truth which represents the Saviour and Apostles reclining, instead of sitting at table. Poussin soon found, however, that the first duty of a French painter was not to paint, but to please the king and bafde the intrigues of rivals. Besides his larger works at St. Germain, or Fontainebleau, for the king and Richelieu, he had to prepare drawings for the royal tapestry, and to descend even to make designs for furniture. Simple in his habits, and unable to jlatter, he found the atmosphere of the Court intolerable, while at the same time Vouet, who looked on him as an interloper, fomented against him intrigues which he disdained to notice. At last, in 1642, Poussin obtained leave to visit Rome under a promise to return, but Eichelieu and the king dying shortly after, he held himself absolved from his word. At Rome the artist resumed his old life, and for more than twenty years his pencil continued unremittingly to work. He died on the 19th of November, 1665, and was buried in San Lorenzo in Lucina. Poussin is not only the greatest, but the most typical of French painters, and this as much by his long absence from his country as by the character of his work. In living at Rome, he only pushed to its extreme the principle that led the artists of France to imitate the manner of all other schools ; his thorough originality was vindicated by his mode of expression, or style, the growth of which may now be noticed. It presents three stages of development, the first of which is seen in his earlier works at Rome. These are somewhat harsh in outline, and dry in execution. Moreover, the composition is often defective, and the colouring shows traces of the Lombard and Venetian schools. The Philistines smitten by the Plague is the most com plete specimen of his manner at this period, to which also belong most of his Bacchanalian pieces. His middle manner begins about the time of his visit to France, and culminates after his PAINTING IN FRANCE. 119 return to Rome. Thought, the prevailing characteristic of Poussin, now begins to appear in his works ; he is philosopher as weU as artist. To this nobler and purer period, in which are combined beauty of composition, greater expression, and more harmonious colouring, belong the Arcady — perhaps his master piece — the Israelites collecting Manna, and Rebecca and Eliezer. The last period of the artist is that of his old age, when his hand grows heavy, and his colouring becomes gloomy, and there is a certain monotony in his imitation of the antique form, but the pervading " thought " is as noble and clear as ever. To this latter period belong the Woman taken in Adultery, and most of his landscapes, of which some of the most notable are the series caUed The Four Seasons. In the extraordinary fertility and variety of his genius, Poussin recalls Rubens and Murillo. He attempted, and with success, historical, sacred, and mythological subject, as weU as landscape. But through all the changing variety of his work runs the unity of the artist's " thought." This constitutes his peculiar excellence, as it was the cause of some of his defects, and must be dwelt on as affecting not only Poussin, but through him a great part of the French School. Poussin's own definition of painting, as " an image of things incorporeal rendered sponsible through imitation of the form," will help to explain this principle. It stands in direct opposition to that of the natural ist school, which, as has been seen in the case of Valentin, is content to take nature as it finds her, and reproduce merely her external variety on the canvas. But the school of Poussin, the school of thought and reason, first endeavours to conceive clearly the idea it would express, and then to reproduce it in the picture by way of external forms, used as symbols, and by such a method of composition and execution as shaU make it clear to the spectator. It must be added that Poussin assumed that the ideas of the painter would always be noble. In works painted on these principles, we should expect to find a sense of 120 PAINTING IN FRANCE. measure and proportion, a pervading sobriety and judgment, combined with a rigid adherence to truth in the details ; but also a certain coldness and formality in the forms, and a disdain of mere colour, as being only secondary ; and this is what we really find in Poussin. There is a gravity even in his Bacchan alian scenes ; a philosophic motive even in his landscapes. In these last, which he oftenest selected from the scenes of classic fable, the composition is always excellent, the accessory figures are finished with perfect care, and every detail of sky or moun tain, tree or flower, is faithfully studied and accurately painted. But Poussin is not content to let this rich nature speak for itself. Presented to us in its most majestic and solemn aspects, it is employed only as a medium for conveying some moral from history, some lesson from philosophy. Two pictures will serve as examples of these qualities in the master, and the general working of his mind. The Arcady represents three shepherds and a shepherdess in the bloom of youth and health, suddenly called from their enjoyment of the present, by the warning inscription on a tomb — " Et in Arcadia ego " (I too once lived in Arcadia). The artist has imbued this picture with the whole melancholy of his soul, and so clearly is the meaning shown by the action and expression of the flgures, that none can fail to understand it. The second picture, and the last which Poussin painted, was a series of the Four Seasons, which he undertook for Richelieu. Instead of representing each season conventionally by a mere symbolical figure, or through a ¦ bare imitation of nature, he bases it, as it were, on an underlying thought. Thus Spring is represented 'by the Earthly Paradise, Summer by Ruth gleaning. Autumn by the Promised Land, with its wealth of fruits, and Winter by the Deluge. To sum up, then, Poussin is great and national by his thought, and by the wise and skilful execution of the forms in which he embodied it. But his character had, too, its defective side, and in this he is equally typical of his countrymen. No enthusiasm PAINTING IN FRANCE. 121 was mingled with his clear thought; on the side of the imagina tive, the ideal, the spiritual, he was utterly deficient. His mind was cast more in a Pagan than a Christian mould, and found its fuU strength only in antique themes ; such, for instance, as the Shepherds op Arcadia. By Nicolas Poussin. In the Lauvre. Will of Eudamidas, which strikes by its classic simplicity, its antique presentation of the grandeur and solemnity of death. But for sacred subjects his powers were inadequate. His Virgins have no virginity or tenderness, his Christ is only a hero ; and sometimes his very excess of thought leads him astray, as when, in the Woman taken in Adultery, the expression of irony on the 122 PAINTING IN FRANCE. face of Christ robs it of all elevation. In one other direction, and that where we should least expect it, Poussin exemplifies the French spirit. That he could sometimes err on the side of exaggeration, when the limits of convention were once passed, is proved by his Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, in the Vatican, a picture conceived in the spirit of Eibera. The infiuence of Poussin needs the more to be insisted on, as it seemed at first to bear so little fruit. But, in fact, the principles of his painting, congenial as they were to much that was in the French spirit, reappear now and again, even when they seemed temporarily obscured by widely different theories, and were destined later on to exercise a powerful influence on French Art. In the Louvre there are no less than forty of his pictures. The qualities which were wanting in Poussin, and the absence of which is characteristic of the French School generally, were the distinguishing traits of the artist next to be named. EusTACHE LB SuBUR was born at Paris in the year 1617. The facts of his life are uncertain. The story of his retreat among the Carthusians of Lyons has no foundation in fact, but it indicates the variance between his surroundings and his aspir ations, and suggests a reason for the melancholy which habitually overshadowed him. He began by being a pupH of Vouet, under whom he executed many designs for tapestry, but it was the sight of some of Eaphael's works at Lyons that first inspired his enthusiasm, and showed him the real strength of his genius. His celebrated work for the Carthusians at Paris was executed between 1645 and 1648. The remainder of his short life appears to have been divided between works for the Louvre, and for many churches and private mansions of Paris. He died in 1655, and was buried in the church of St. Etienne du Mont. The character of Le Sueur may be read most clearly in his works. In him the paganism of Poussin is replaced by a spirituality, a deep religious fervour, which give him his unique place among French artists. And if, for a moment, he seems St. Paul puEjiCHiNG at Ephesus. By Eustache le Sueur. In the louvre. [SfC page 122. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 123 akin to Poussin by his thought and the sobriety of his style, he is at once seen to differ from him in the greater naivete and grace with which the thought is expressed, and the sweetness and tenderness by which its austerity is tempered. If Poussin speaks to the mind, Le Sueur appeals rather to the heart, and his sentiment clothes itself in an unstrained dignity of style, as free from affectation or pedantry on the one hand, as it was from glitter and ostentation on the other. The defects of his style lay perhaps in the weakness of his colouring, and an occasional feebleness of outline. Le Sueur has left a worthy monument of his powers in the celebrated series of twenty-eight pictures on the Life of St. Bruno, which were painted for the Carthusians of Paris, and are now in the Louvre. The separate pictures vary in merit, but the whole series show the mind of a great painter. The best, perhaps, for its depth of colour and the transparency and soft ness of its execution, is St. Bruno refusing the Mitre, while the Death of St. Bruno is a masterpiece of composition and expres sion. The dramatic instinct of the artist may be seen in the picture representing The Pope presiding over a Consistory which approves the founding of the Chartreuse, in which the haughty prelates contrast with the humbler monks of the other scenes. St. Bruno Preaching, and St. Bruno teaching Theology in the School of Rheims, are excellent as studies of action and expres sion. In the St. Bruno at Prayer much is told in little by the face and attitude of the kneeling form, and naivete is the characteristic of St. Bruno reading the Letter from the Pope. Throughout the series, the good taste of the artist is shown in the treatment of the accessory landscape, and his abundance of ideas in the introduction of picturesque details. In his mytho logical paintings, Le Sueur shows the same poetry and imagin ation, the same grace and modesty, as in his sacred works. In 1649 he assisted Le Brun in the decoration of the Hotel Lambert, and some of the paintings he there executed, such as the Birth 124 PAINTING IN FRANCE. of Love, may stiU be seen in the Louvre. They show that Le Sueur had acquired some of the facility of Vouet, but without aUowing it to dominate his genius ; and it is remarkable that, although he was never in Italy, he seems to have been inspired with the very spirit of antiquity. Le Sueur has been called the " French Eaphael;" and although the comparison must not be strained too much, it is not wholly unjust, especially when we consider the diff'erent surroundings of the two painters. His picture of St. Paul preaching at Ep>hesus, in the Louvre, at once recalls the celebrated cartoon of Eaphael. To the unsurpassed power, by which the Italian charms and overcomes, the Frenchman can lay no claim, but his work breathes a purity and tenderness which irresistibly touch the heart. The qualities of Le Sueur are the more notice able, that they were entirely alien to the French spirit. Exercising no influence on his cotemporaries, or successors, he stands almost alone in the history of French painting ; and if we seek a revival of his spirit, it will only be found in more recent times, when many external influences had greatly changed and widened the traditions of French thought. Turning now to those painters who were immediately the representatives of their age, we find one who seemed to have been born to carry out its vigorous ideal. The long career of Charles le Brun (born in Paris, 1619 — died 1690) covers nearly the whole extent of the period under review, the most striking qualities of which he sums up in his work as an artist. He was justly called the Louis XIV. of Art, and at the zenith of his fame might well have said, in the sentiment of his royal master, la peinture, c'est moi. He developed early the vigour and industry which characterized him through life, and while a mere boy obtained the patronage of such men as Eichelieu and the Chancellor, Siguier. The kindness of the latter enabled him to study under Vouet, and later, in 1642, to visit Eome with Poussin, who was assiduous in giving him care and advice. So TheJEntry op Alexander into ., In the Loti .KLON. By Charles le Brun. «• (No. 74.) [See page 124. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 125 well did Le Brun follow the teaching of the great master, that he painted, at this time, some pictures which were attributed to Poussin, such as the Mucins Sccevola, now in the Louvre. A few of his later works also recall the same influence. But after his return to Paris in 1646, whither his great reputation had preceded him, his natural talent, favoured perhaps by circum stances, soon led Le Brun in a different direction. His success was great and uninterrupted, and it was equalled by his industry. His works, however, though numerous, were all stamped with the same character, and to consider the most notable is to consider them all. Introduced by Mazarin to Louis XIV., the favour in which Le Brun was held at Court was increased by the picture of Christ with the Angels, which he painted for the queen-mother. But to 1660 — the year in which he was made Director of the Gobelins, by Colbert — belong the first important works which he executed for the king. These were the celebrated series of pictures on the Life of Alexander, now in the Louvre, com prising the Entry into Babylon, the Tent of Darius, the Passage of the Graniais, and the Battle of Arbela. They are completely typical both of the artist and his time. There is a significance even in the huge scale on which they are planned, and the ostentation which they throughout display. They are splendid decorative pictures, in which great subjects are represented with an inexhaustible fertility of invention, nobility of conception, and a power of vividly expressing outward action. Their technical excellence is also great, and the costumes are carefully studied. But they have no real feeling, and show the incapacity of the artist to express any of the inward sentiments of the soul. These pictures were the work of several years, but on the completion of the Darius, Le Brun was made first painter to the king, and thenceforth became supreme in the world of Art. The whole appointment of the royal palaces and mansions, from the most ambitious efforts of the pencil, to the smallest details of 126 PAINTING IN PRANCE. '¦ the decorations and the furniture, was submitted to his direction, and bore the impress of his mind. It is unnece^ary to do more than refer to his gigantic labours at Versailles — a standing monument of his genius — his reconstruction of ihe Louvre, his works for Colbert, and for churches and private mansions. The sacred pictures of Le Brun have the nobility and dignity of his other works, and also their affectation. The Christ on the Cross, in the Louvre, is an example. The Stoning of St. Stephen, in the same gallery, shows the influence of Poussin. That Le Brun, like several other French artists, could adopt a better style when forced to follow nature, is shown by the portraits of himself and the artist Dufresnoy, in the Louvre. The efforts made by Le Brun to promote Art must not be passed over. The foundation of the Academy of Painting, in 1648, was chiefly due to him, and it was on his solicitation that Louis XIV. established the French School at Eome, the artist himself being made its first director, though absent. It was only natural that such pre-eminence should be pursued with jealousy, and the success of his implacable rival, Mignard, who was opposed to him by the Marquis de Louvois, Colbert's suc cessor, is said to have hastened Le Brun's death. Among the artists who assisted him, and were completely dominated by his manner, were Claude Audban (1639 — 1684), Eenij; Antoine HouASSE (1645—1707), and FRANgois Verdier (1651—1730). With the last, who was the ablest of the three, ended the school of painting which had been inaugurated by his master. Pierre Mignard, called " Le Eomain," the persistent and suc cessful rival of Le Brun, whom he equalled in industry and versatility, though not in vigour and originality, was born at Troyes in 1610. After studying two years at Fontainebleau, he became the pupil and docile imitator of Vouet ; but in 1636 he went to Eome, and during his long residence in that city his style underwent a gradual but thorough modification. His favourite model was Carracci, whose works in the Farnese PAINTING IN FRANCE. 127 Palace he copied for the Cardinal de Lyons, but the influence, among others, of Carlo Dolci, Sasso Ferrato, and Domenichino, is also visible in his works. A visit which he made to Venice, in 1654, materiaUy improved his colouring. At Eome Mignard gained a great reputation by his historical pictures and frescoes in the manner of the Carracci, as well as by his portraits, some of the first which brought him into notice being those of Urban VIII. and Innocent X. It was not tiU 1657 that the artist returned to France, where he painted the portrait of the king with such success, that to sit to Mignard became a fashion which no one of distinction could omit to follow. Mignard was also much employed in decorating private mansions with allegorical subjects. A work of greater importance, and his chef-d'oeuvre, was the cupola of Val-de-GrSce, executed for the queen-mother, a vast' composition in fresco, representing Paradise, and contain ing more than two hundred figures. A work stOl better suited to his talents was the decoration of the great haU of St. Cloud, for Philippe d' Orleans. By way of opposing Le Brun, Mignard had long attached him self to the older Academy of St. Luke, of which he was made the head in 1664 ; but in 1690, on the death of his rival, he became first painter to the king, and was at once made Director of the Academy of Painting, all the grades being conferred on him in one sitting. Death, however, overtook him in 1695, while he was attempting to execute with his own hand the designs he had drawn for the dome of the Invalides. A certain nobility characterizes the genius of Mignard. His great defects were want of originality, and a proneness to affecta tion. His fresco at Val-de-GrSce recalls Michelangelo, and his work at St. Cloud is fuU of reminiscences of other Italian masters. Among his works in the Louvre, the same defect again appears in the St. Cecilia, which is in imitation of Carlo Dolci and Domenichino ; the St. Luke shows his affectation, while the Virgin with the Grapes — the type of many others painted by 1 28 PAINTING IN FRANCE. him — is marked by sweetness carried to excess. What redeems his work and justifies his fame is the propriety and elegance of his composition, the smoothness of his' finish, and the harmonious charm of his colouring. His success was perhaps greatest in por traits. His pencil had the skill to flatter without sacrificing the resemblance ; and the term, la mignardise, still survives to com memorate a style which fascinated his cotemporaries. The por trait of Madame de Maintenon, and of the artist himself, in the Louvre, are good examples. That of his daughter, Comtesse de Fouquieres, is weU known from the engraving by DauUe. Louis XIV. sat to him ten times. The ready answer of Mignard to the monarch on one of these occasions is too characteristic of the artist and the age to be omitted. Louis, then very old, had asked the painter whether he did not see him much changed. " I see," replied Mignard, " a few more victories on your Majesty's forehead." Nearly aU the qualities of Pierre Mignard .were repeated, but in a less eminent degree, in his elder brother, Nicolas Mignard (1605 — 1668), who .styled himself always d' Avignon. He, too, after studying at Fontainebleau, visited Eome, and adopted the style of Annibale Carracci, but returned after two years to Avignon. Among his larger works were two large pictures for the Chartreuse of Grenoble on the Martyrdom of Carthusian monks under Henry VIII. of England. He also painted por traits, which were highly successful, of Louis XIV., the Queen, and many of the nobility. The name of Pierre Mignard will always be associated in the history of Art with that of his friend, Charles du.Fresnot (1611 — 1665), who began his career as a pupil of Perrier and Vouet. In 1633, he met Mignard at Eome, and the two artists thence forth lived and worked together. In 1653 they paid a short visit to Venice, after which Dufresnoy was obliged to return to Paris, where his friend rejoined him in 1658. The style of Dufresnoy was formed partly on that of Annibale Carracci, partly Catherine Mignard, Comtesse de Fouquiere.«. By Pierre Mignard. SP prom the eiigrariiiy by Daulle. K 130 PAINTING IN FRANCE. on that of Titian. In design he adhered closely to the former, but he was captivated by the rich colouring of the latter. Two of his pictures may be seen in the Louvre ; but the whole number he ever executed, even including his copies of Titian, was ex- Saikte Makguehitk. Bv Dufresnoy. In the Louvre. tremely few. His genius led hini tn consider rather the theory than the practice of his art, and his fame rests less on his paint ings than his poem, De arte graphica, which was begun before he went to Italy, often revised during his life, and published only after his death. It was translated by Dryden, and com mented on by Sir Joshua Eeynolds. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 131 A painter who with more patience and judgment might have risen to the foremost rank was Sebastian Bourdon (1616 — 1671). As it is, while reminding us sometimes of Poussin, he remains generally on the level of Vouet. The wayward restless ness of his life seemed to reflect itself in the inconstant variety of his style. We find him, when only seven years old, in the studio of a certain Barth^lemy, at Paris ; then vainly seeking employment at Toulouse, and other towns ; enlisting for a time as a soldier ; and finally located at Eome, where his poverty com pelled him to copy the pictures of Poussin, and other notable artists, for the dealers. The fear of being denounced to the Inquisition as a Calvinist at length drove him back to Paris. Bourdon had brought from Italy that facile and universal style which lends itself to popularity, but is fatal to excellence. With a fine but undisciplined imagination, he could turn from historical or sacred subjects to Bohemian scenes, adopting in turn, according to the character of the work, the style of any master with which his ready memory supplied him. Of his pictures in the Louvre, the Sacrifice of Noah recalls Poussin, but is deficient in keeping, and disagreeable in colour. The Crucifixion of St. Peter is vulgar in colour, but shows great facility, and a broad, free touch. Other good examples of his higher style are, Ccesar at the Tomb of Alexander, and a Descent from the Cross. In his landscapes Bourdon deserves high praise. They are painted in the serious style of Poussin, but it must be noted that they have none of that accuracy in regard to geography and costume which distinguished the great master. A favourite subject of the artist was the Flight into Egypt. The Return of the Ark, now in our National Gallery, was favourably noticed by Sir Joshua Eeynolds for its poetical treatment. But with all his power and imagination. Bourdon succeeded best in genre subjects and portraits. The Halt of Gipsies, in the Louvre, is admirable for its freedom and naturalness. In the same gallery is an exceUent portrait of himself. He also painted Christina of * K 2 132 PAINTING IN FRANCE. Sweden, at whose Court he lived for a time. His genius was eminently suited for decorative painting, and his History of Phaethon, for the Hotel Bretonvilliers, now pqrished, was a masterpiece in this branch of Art. Among the etchings executed by him, the Works of Mercy are the most noted. The name of Coypel is associated with an element of decad ence in Art — the theatrical. This, however, applies only sUghtly to NoBL Coypel (1628 — 1707), the first of this family of artists. Although he had some obscure masters, he for the most part formed himself, and this with such success, that he was chosen, while quite young, to assist Charles Errard in some paintings at the Louvre. Henceforth his long life was chiefly employed hi works for the king, including many designs for tapestry, his labours being only varied by a three years' residence in Eome, whither he was sent in 1672 to succeed Errard as Director of the French School. His zeal in this post was exemplary. He caused the school to be removed to a palace, and brought every material means within reach of the students, while he assisted their progress by his untiring personal efforts. In 1702 Coypel succeeded Mignard as Director of the Academy. He died at the age of seventy-seven, from over-exertion, while attempting to execute a fresco of the Assumption of the Virgin, in the church of the Invalides. In the elegance of his taste, as in the essentially mediocre and imitative character of his genius, Coypel resembles Mignard. But his work, with all its reminiscences of various masters, displays a greater simplicity and thoughtfulness — a reflex, however faint, of the spirit of Poussin. The desire, at least, to attain a higher ideal than was within his reach, is trace able in his work, the best examples of which are his pictures in the Louvre. The Reprobation of Gain after the death of Abel, painted on his reception for the Academy, is but feeble. The other four, destined originally for the Council chamber at Versailles, were painted at Rome when Poussin formed the object of his imitation. The best are Ptolemy Philadelphiis s 134 PAINTING IN FRANCE. releasing the Jews, and Solon explaining his Laws to the Atheni ans. Severus distributing Corn, and Trajan holding an Audience, are more theatrical. The latter shows the study of Le Sueur. The defects observable to some extent in Noel Coypel took a more pronounced form in his son and pupil, Antoine Coypel (1661 — 1722), whose successful career as an artist unfortunately tended to spread the corrupt principles he inculcated. Taken by his father to Eome at the age of eleven, Antoine Coypel derived little profit from a study of the old masters. It is pro bable that what contributed far more to form his talents was the influence of the high literary society in which he mixed on his return to Paris. His repute soon opened to him the doors of the Academy, and induced the Duke of Orleans to make him his first painter — a post which he afterwards held successively under the king and the regent, by the former of whom he was also ennobled. Both by his position and his talents, Antoine Coypel stands forth as the continuator and corrupter of the tradition of Le Brun and Mignard. He exaggerated the theatrical style of the one, the affectation of the other. , His real strength, like that of Le Brun, lay in so arranging and combining vast subjects as to produce a whole full of play and movement. Like Le Brun, too, he carefully studied costume. But he sought to refine on his predecessor by applying to the expression of the soul those formal methods which the latter had only employed to give the effect of external life and movement. In thus trying to attain the noblest end of painting by mere mechanical rules, Coypel only succeeded in imparting to his personages an emotion that was strained and theatrical. The pictures of Sii.f'tntiah, Esther, and Athalia, exhibit these defects to the full. When he was not theatrical, he fell into the vices of prettiness and affectation. Whether he took his scenes from the Bible or from classic antiquity, he could not for a moment divest himself of the manners and fashion of the day. Thus in his paintings at the PAINTING IN FRANCE. 135 Palais Eoyal, for the regent, illustrating fourteen scenes from the ^neid, the characters of antique Italy appeared travestied in all the airs and fopperies of the Court of Louis XIV., and the same incongruous French element mars the otherwise graceful Eliezer and R.ebecca, now in the Louvre. Among Coypel's numerous decorative works for the king, that of the ceiling of Versailles, representing God the Father sending His Son to redeem the world, was perhaps the most important. Death overtook the industrious artist while he was employed on designs for tapestry taken from the Iliad and the Bible. We shaU ha^'e to notice, later on, more members of this artist family. The tendency to imitate the styles of different masters, dis tinctive of the Bolognese School, will have been noticed in more than one of the artists already named. This feeble eclecticism — a sure sign of want of individuality in those who pursue it — was carried to its greatest excess in the succeeding period, but it also characterized the artists of the seventeenth century : Carracci and Guido were the models to whom they naturally turned, but they also easily caught the more striking traits of their own co- temporaries or predecessors. The character of such artists was — to have none. Their style presented no striking beauties, and was marred by no gross defects ; and if they produced no works of genius, they contrived by dint of industry and technical skill to paint many trderable pictures. These remarks apply with much force to the family of Boulogne, no less than five of whom were painters. Louts DB Boulogne (1609 — 1674) who settled in Paris after studying in Italy, was noted for his skill in copying the old masters. His sons were better known than himself. The elder, Bon Boulogne (1649 — 1717), was taught by his father, and, as pensionary of the king, lived for five years at Eome, where he studied the Carracci. But the styles of Le Brun and Jdignard, Antoine Coypel and Jouvenet, were also transferred to his canvas. His imitative method once admitted, the merits of facility, vigour, 1-3 PAINTING IN FRANCE. and aptitude in expression, must be conceded to Boulogne. The Assumption is perhaps his best picture at the Louvre. St. Bene dict restoring a Child to life is theatrical. As an artist, at once facile, and not too original, his aid was much sought for decorative painting. He thus assisted Le Brun in the chapel and staircase at VersaiUes, but his best work of this kind was a series of pictures on the Life of St. Jerome, in the chapel of that saint at the Invalides. These, though stiU conventional, present an animated and picturesque effect. To characterize the career and talents of the younger son, Louis DB Boulogne (1654 — 1733), would be hardly more than to repeat what has been said of his brother Bon. Although continual reminiscences form the style of both, it may be said that, on the whole, Bon shows more affinity to Le Brun, while Louis recalls the softer manner of Mignard, and the affectation of Antoine Coypel. He was less vigorous than his brother, but excelled him in sweetness of colouring and delicacy of touch. Little as his style was suited for sacred subjects, his pictures were much in request for churches. He painted two "Mays," * Christ and the Centurion, and Christ and the Woman of Samaria. Another of his most characteristic works was the Life of St. Augustine, in the cupola of the Invalides : in this Domenichino forms his model. In 1724 the artist was ennobled, and in the following year succeeded Antoine Coj'pel as first painter. Two sisters of this family, Genevij^ve and Madeleine de Boulogne, were received at the Academy in 1699 as fiower painters. Another artist whose style was formed on the eclectic prin ciples adopted by the Boulognes was Michel Cornbille (1642 — 1708), sometimes called from his work for tapestry, Cor- NEiLLES DBS GoEELiNS. He was the son of Michel Cornbille (1603 — 1664), one of the twelve founders of the Academy of Painting in 1648, who had been one of the best pupils of Vouet. * It was the custom of the Company of Goldsmiths on each first of May to dedicate to Notre Dame a picture, which thus caiue to be called shoitly, " the May." Philippe le Hardi bearing the body op St. Louis to Saint-Denis. By Louis de Boulogne. 138 painting in francb. ^ The graver side of the age — an age that produced Pascal — found its representative artist in Philippe db Champaigne (1602 — 1674). Although belonging by his style to the French School, he was born at Brussels, where he studied under the Flemish landscape painter, Fouquieres, and it was here that he acquired the transparency of colouring, and the feeling for nature, which are apparent in many of his works. His friend- sliip with Poussin may also have indirectly influenced him. He was only nineteen when he came to Paris, already skilful in portraits and landscape. Afterwards, being made first painter to Marie de Medicis, he painted many sacred pictures for the churches which she either founded or patronized. It is, how ever, with the Port Eoyalists that his name wUl always he associated. He was intimate with some of the most famous among them, and their portraits, drawn by his grave and sym pathetic pencil, still seem to show us how they breathed and thought. Jansenius, St. Cyran, Lemaltre, the Arnaulds, were among those who sat to him. The portrait of Eobert Arnauld may be seen in the Louvre. There, too, is the artist's Last Supper, painted for the altar of Port Eoyal, and finer than all, his masterpiece, Les Religieuses, representing the Sister Agnes and the artist's own daughter. The execution is careful, the expression of the faces most touching. The whole picture is impressed with the grave and profound character distinctive of the artist's genius. The portraits of Eichelieu and Louis XIIL, also in the Louvre, are colder and less interesting. An artist who, in the grave seriousness of his style, somewhat resembled Champaigne, was Claude le FivRE (1633 — 1675), a ])oi'trait painter of great popularity and fashion in his day, few of whose works now remain. These, however, are of high merit. A pupil of Le Sueur and Le Brun, Le Fevre has a manner entirely his own. Firm and true in drawing, and just in colour, his portraits have simplicity without losing expression and life. His defect lay in concentrating all his strength on the heads Cardinal Richelieu. In By Philippe d^ Champaigne. the Louvre. 140 painting in FRANCE. only, the rest of the composition being rendered indistinct by the too great depth and unequal distribution of the shadows. This peculiarity is observable in his picture in the Louvre, The Preceptor and his Pupil. With Philippe de Champaigne and Le Fevre maybe associated two other artists, who resembled them in the possession of )i certain dignity and elevation of stjde which separated them to some extent from their cotemporaries. These were Nicolas CoLOMBEL (1646—1717), and Thomas Blanchet (1617—1689). The former, sometimes wrongly called a pupil of Le Sueur, showed a praiseworthy, if inadequate, attempt to follow Poussin and Eaphael. A spirited, and by no means servile, imitation of the last-named master is apparent in the picture in the Louvre, St. Hyacinth miraculously carried across the Borysthenes while saving an Image of the Virgin from the Tartars. Blanchet painted in the style of the Bolognese School, but the exquisite grace and dignity of his genius rendered him one of the most notable French artists, after Poussin and Le Sueur. The ceiling of the Hotel de Ville at Lyons was his work. In entering on the landscape Art of this period, we come to a name which stands second only to that of Poussin among French painters. Poussin himself had, as we have seen, treated land scape in his peculiar spirit, and carried it to a high degree of excellence ; bu.t even he was to be surpassed in this branch by Claude Gell^ib, born in 1600, at the chateau of Cha- magne, on the banks of the JMoselle, better known from the place of his birth as Claude Lorrain. It is, in fact, by this accident of birth, as it may be called, that Claude belongs to the French School, for almost the whole of his long life was spent at Eome, and his style, although infiuenced by the example of Poussin, was on the whole not French. His earlier pictures were painted in a peculiar bluish and cool tone, but this was gradually exchanged, from the time of his arrival iu painting in FRANCE. 141 Italy, for the warmth and glow of his later manner. Claude is the artist of the air and sun. His scenery is mostly that of the environs of Rome. Rounded groups of the evergreen oak often fill the foreground ; ruins, or imaginary palaces, form the ¦Ik I y i,Sff*W- - ^ Crossing the Ford. By Claude Lorrain In the Louvre. (No. 231.) accessories. But the magic of the artist lies in tran.^fusing these forms with the living breath of nature, by means of aerial effects, or varied play of light. The sun, as it changed at every moment of the day, was the constant theme of his pencil ; and whether quivering on the foliage, or gleaming on the morning dew, or 142 painting in francb. tinging the waves as it sets, sheds an ethereal glamour over aU his pictures. Like Poussin — although sojuetimes with question able effect — he peoples his landscapes with figures ; but as his ideal was freer and more joyous, so his scenes breathe a more Arcadian serenity. Almost from the first the supremacy of Claude in landscape was undisputed. It was in order to frustrate the attempts of worthless imitators to give his name to their productions that the master instituted his ' Liber Veritatis ' * or Book of Truth, in which he kept a sketch of every picture painted by his own hand. After his death his influence went on increasing, and we shall find his manner dominant in the French School of landscape till the beginning of the nineteenth century. The works of -Claude are to be found in nearly aU the museums of Europe. There are sixteen of his paintings in the Louvre, of which A Harbour at Sunset, painted in 1639, is one of the most characteristic {See Engraving). England is fortunate in possess ing many pictures of his matured style at Windsor, and in the Dulwich aud National Galleries. In the latter. The Embark ation of the Queen of Sheba, and St. Ursula, may be especially pointed out. Claude le Lorrain died at Rome in 1682 f in his eighty-second year. When Poussin was at Rome, he had met with great kindness from a French family of the name of Dughet. In requital, he married one of the daughters, and at the same time adopted two of his wife's brothers. One of these, Gaspar Duqhbt % (1613 — 1675), painted landscape with great success, and somewhat in the style of Poussin himself. He was, however, more purely a painter, resting satisfied with imitation of the external aspect of nature, which he represented in a style less severe, and marked with greater freedom, warmth, and softness, than that of his * Now in the possession of the Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth. t The Queen possesses at Windsor a drawing by Claude, dated 1682. + Often called Gaspar Poussin. Ancient Harrour Sunset. By Cl.aude Lorrain. In the Louvre. 144 PAINTING IN FRANCE. master. His strength lay in the vivid representation of atmo spheric effect, and is most apparent in his celebrated land-storms. Some of these may be seen in the National Gallery. Some duubt exists as to the name and date of Pierre (or Paul) Patel (?1620 — 1676). The date 1654, sometimes as signed as that of his birth, should probably be referred to his son. He is said to have been a pupU of Vouet, and to have studied in Italy. A great feature in the landscapes of Patel was the architecture, or ruins, which he often introduced, and on which he bestowed great skill and care. In its general brilliancy and harmony his colouring bears an external resemblance to that of Claude ; but the imitation is cold and lifeless, and betrays no genius or originality. It is said that he sometimes painted landscape for the figures of Le Sueur and Lahire, and his style would seem to have been better suited for this than for purely original work. His son, who is often confounded with him, painted in a less skilful and darker style. Jean Francois Millet (1642 — 1680), commonly called Fran- ciSQUB, was a native of Antwerp, but went early to Paris. In him we find again a follower of Poussin, whose works he deeply studied, and whose style completely dominated him. In his method of work he also resembled Claude, often painting from memory the detnils which he had stored up from a patient observation of nature. Like his master. Millet regards nature from the " heroic '' side. He overlooks, or purposely omits, all trivial and familiar details, selecting only what is noble and dignified. As regards execution, he painted with a bold and free touch, but he fails somewhat in the proper diffusion of his light. His son, Jean FRANgois Millet (1666 — 1723), painted in a style similar, but far inferior, to that of his father. The incidents of war have seldom wanted delineators among French artists. Monotonous as such subjects must necessarily be, they are chiefly interesting in proportion to their historic truth, and in this respect the military scenes of PAINTING IN FRANCB. 145 Antoine FRANgois van der Mbulen (1634 — 1690) are not without value. A Fleming by birth, he did not disdain to follow the French king in his campaigns, including that against Flanders ; and his pictures, painted on the spot, are remarkable for fidelity, both as regards the localities, the costumes, and the varying aspects of camp life. They present us, as it were, with a picturesque narrative of war as it was carried on in all its pomp and circumstance by Louis XIV., from the Siege of Qambrai, or the Passage of the Rhine, to such lesser incidents as a halt, or a convoy. Nor is artistic charm wanting to his scenes. The colouring has Flemish brilliance, and the landscape in its breadth and grandeur recalls that of Gasper Dughet. Der Meulen also bestowed much study on his horses, and sometimes painted them in the pictures of Lebrun. He was succeeded, as painter of battles, by his pupil, Jean Baptiste Martin (1659 — 1735), who imitated his master closely but feebly. Jacques Courtois, better known as Lb Bourgignon, was horn in rranche-Coiut(5, in 1621, but belongs by his style to Italy, where most of his life was spent, and where, after becom ing a Jesuit, he died in 1676. His first attempts were in history and landscape, but a study of the Battle of Constantine, in the Vatican, is said to have turned his attention to military subjects, and it is on these only that his fame rests. In strong contrast to Van der Meulen, Courtois was careless about details, besides being inaccurate in drawing ; but these defects were atoned for by his force of imagination, his bold execution, and his great skOl in composition. These qualities enabled him to succeed best in those spirited episodes of which the Louvre possesses several examples. Joseph Parrocbl (1648 — 1704) was a native of Provence, but passed many years in Italy, where the counsels of Bour gignon, and the study of Salvator Rosa's works, contributed to form his style. A picture of the Siege of Maestricht opened the Academy to him, in 1676, and he was afterwards employed Roses, Poppies, Jasmine, and Larkspur. By Monnoybr. painting in FRANCE. 147 by Louvois to paint many battles for Versailles. Unlike Van der Meulen and Bourgignon, Parrocel was never present in a campaign. While, however, he falls below the former in charm and elegance, and the latter in general effect, he surpasses them both in vigour and impetuosity. There are certain subjects which, by their very nature, seem excluded from the general tendencies of art ; yet, if we descend from history or battles to genre painting, we shall find the latter losing much of its interest, if wholly dissociated from the time in which it was produced. The gorgeous flower-pieces of Jean Baptiste Monnoybr (1634 — 1699) have thus something of the pomp and struggle for effect which distinguish the compo sitions of Lebrun. Any feeling for nature is completely absent from his pictures, in which golden vases and rich drapery, apes and parroquets, play as large a part as the flowers themselves, whUe, as if to prove that his sole aim is decoration, the artist often combines spring flowers with autumn fruits. It is this boldness of colour and composition which distinguishes Monnoyer from his cotemporary. Van Huysum, to whom, in softness and finish, he was inferior. Almost without a rival in his special branch, Monnoyer, after a long career in Paris, spent his last years in England, where he often worked in conjunction with Kneller. Many of his works are at Hampton Court. His style was followed by his son-in-law and'pupil, Blaise db Fontenay (1654 — 1715). The first painters in France who turned their attention to the study of animals, were Francois Desportes (1661 — 1743), and Jean Baptiste Oudry (1C86 — 1755). The pictures of the former often carry us back to the woods of Fontainebleau, and the hunting parties of Louis XIV., and have thus, perhaps, a more special character of their own than those of Oudry, who was patronized by Louis XV. In other respects the life and work of the two artists present much similarity. They both attained much success in painting flowers and still-life pieces as well as animals, and were alike in having abandoned portrait to PAINTING IN FRANCE. 1-19 devote themselves to genre subjects. Both had also been imbuel with some of the principles of Flemish art; Desportes through the teaching of Micasius, Oudry through that of Largilliere. A r-loser examination, however, reveals differences between them. The colouring of Desportes was richer and more transparent, ami his style was marked by more spontaneity and careless grace. Oudry depended rather on skill and reflection; and while sombre and monotonous in colour, excelled in the composition, the chiaroscuro, and the aerial perspective of his pictures. Stud3dng always closely from nature, he carefully sought to express the peculiar physiognomy of each animal, and thus preferred to represent them in repose rather than under the excitement of the chase or the combat. The age of Louis XIV. glided, by a gradual transition, into that of the Regency and Louis XV. Painting, as though weary of the stately manner she had worn .so long, assumed a style more independent, graceful, and elegant, at the same time that it was less noble and serious. Watteau, the painter of love and gaiety, was about to replace Lebrun as the representative of the true art of the day. It is requisite to keep in mind these general characteristics of the coming period, in consideiing the painters who serve as the links between it and the time that was passing away. So far as historical painting is concerned, the break was very gradual. Between the artists of Louis XIV., on the one hand, and the mannerists who brought painting to the lowest point of abasement, previous to the reform of Daviil, on the other, such difference as exists is one of degree, not of kind. Standing midway between the two extremes, were two artists, who seemed to claim kindred with the older line of artists, while thi'y also developed some of the qualities which distinguished their successors. These were La Fosse, and Joan Jouvenet. Charles de la Fosst?, born at Paris in 1636, was a pupil of Lebrun, whose style he at first imitated, but from whom he gradually diverged, to develope distinct tendencies of his own. 150 PAINTING IN FRANCE. Sent to Rome by Colbert, as pensioner of the king. La Fosse studied Raphael and the antique, but was more influenced by a stay of three years at Venice, where he endeavoured to master the principles of the great colourists. His style did not at once assert itself on his return to France. The Proserpine, now in the Louvre, painted in 1673 for his reception at the Academy, was Greyhound protecting Game. By Desportes. In the Louvre. still marked by the influence of Lebrun, and full of reminiscences of the other masters he had studied. Nor was much improve ment visible in an As.'^uniption of the Virgin, painted about the same time for the nuns of the Assumption in the Rue St. Honor6. It is confused in conipositio i, and heavy in colouring. The artist put forth his full powers in painting the dome and cupoia of the Invalides, an immense composition, forming three PAINTING IN FRANCE. 15] groups, of which the principal one represents St. Louis laying his crown and sword in the hands of Christ, who appears in his glory. In this work all the merits and defects of the artist may be seen. The brUliant colouring, the incorrect drawing, the hold but heavy composition, the absence of real grandeur in the general effect. A Nativity, and an Adoration of the Kings, still in Notre Dame, are also good examples of the artist's matured style. Another work of the artist which deserves mention is the decoration of Montague House, in London. The principal subject, the Birth of Minerva, covered one of the ceilings. La Fosse, while strictly to be classed with Lebrun, as a painter purely decorative, yet differs from him, and heralds the new style of the eighteenth century in the greater freedom of his manner, and the superiority of his colouring. The latter quality, in fact, is his distinguishing merit; but even here he fell far short of being the Rubens or Titian that his cotemporaries thought him. La Fosse died in 1716. JE.A.N Jouvenet (1644 — 1717) was bom at Rouen: sent to Paris at the age of seventeen, he studied for some time with Lebrun, under whose auspices he was, in 1675, received at the Academy. His Esther before Ahasuerus, painted for the occa^ sion, was in the style of Poussin, whom he. had deeply studied ; but neither the influence of that master or Lebrun permanently affected the originality of his style — an originality which is ren dered more interesting from the fact that the artist never visited Italy. In the later years of his life, being deprived by paralysis of the use of his right hand, he succeeded in painting w'th his left; and his last work. The Visitation of the Virgin, commonly called the Magnificat, still in Notre Dame, is an example of a picture executed under these conditions. The merits of Jouvenet, perhaps over-praised by his country men, must not be overlooked. Endowed with great fertility of invention, and an energy which he sometimes pushed to exagger ation, he is less theatrical than such artists as Lebrun, Mignard, 152 PAINTING IN FRANCE. or Antoine Coypel, and more original in the movement and attitude of his figures, and the dramatic effect of his composition. In execution he displayed a firm drawing, a peculiarly broad and free touch, and a colouring warm and harmonious, although generally too brown and dull. These qualities are apparent in his works in the Louvre, and notably in his masterpiece, the Descent from the Cross. In the Raising of Lazarus, the compo sition is remarkable, while the Miraculous Draught of Fishes is somewhat theatrical. The Extreme Unction combines, with a masterly execution, more life and expression in the heads than is usual with the artist. This points to the vital defect which prevents Jouvenet from taking rank among the foremost painters. With all their force and dramatic effect, his pictures are wanting in true dignity, simplicity, au'i refinement. They seek, in short, to give by material means, wdiat can only be effected by studious thought and elevated sentiment on the part of the artist. And this only anticipates what will have to be said again and again of the eighteenth century painters. Predominant in art after Lebrun's death, Jouvenet gave the tone to many imitators. But he must not be held responsible for the faults of those who followed him. As they turned more and more to the mere materialism of painting, they abused the free and massive touch which he had been the first to introduce, in imitation of the Lombard School, until " execution " became their sole end and aim ; while the}' utterly lost sight of the higher qualities which had redeemed his work. While La Fosse and Jouvenet represent a phase of transition in subjects of a more ambitious scope, there were some artists whose works preluded the slighter but more important school of painting to which Watteau was to give his name. These we shall find among some painters of portrait who have yet to he added to those already named. A pupil of the grave Leffevre, FRANgois DE Trot (1645 — 1730) presents a great contrast to his master. His long life reached well into the eighteenth 1? 154 PAINTING IN FRANCB. century; but he belongs rather to Louis XIV. than Louis XV., and his name naturally associates itself with Madame de Main- tenon and the ladies of the Court, whom he often painted as pagan goddesses. Hii portraits were excellent for attitude, expression, and mellowness of colour, the flesh tints being especially admirable. He also showed great skill in making his sitters beautiful, without sacrifice of truth. Another portrait painter, who was high in favour at Louis XIV.'s Court, was Jean Baptists Santebre (1650 — 1717), whose qualities are all shown in the well-known picture of Susannah, in the Louvre. Naturally without invention, he followed the advice of his master, Bon Boulogne, to keep to nature, and seldom attempted more than single figures. On these, however, he bestowed the most laborious care, studying much from the undraped model, and by these means attained to a style distinguished by its correct drawing, its sweet and supple colouring, and a gracefulness bordering on affectation. Disgusted by some iU-founded complaints respecting a want of resemblance in his portraits, the whimsical artist would at length only consent to paint his sitters as mythological or allegorical per sonages, and with as much or as Uttle truth to the original as his fancy dictated. ' Jean Eaoux (1677 — 1734) was a fellow pupil with Santerre in the school of Bon Boulogne, whose mediocre and agreeable manner he at first imitated as a painter of historical subjects. After, however, returning to Paris from a visit to Eome and Venice, he wisely confined himself to genre pictures and portraits, the latter remarkable for their striking fidelity. His easy and trivial genius found congenial scope in such themes as the Seasons, or The Hours of the Day, or in those representations of actresses and Court ladies in mythological guise, which Santerre had brought into vogue. His masterpiece in this manner was a likeness of Marie Franjoise Perdrigeon, dressed as a Vestal. When the follies of the Eegency set in, he followed PAINTING IN FRANCE. l.^iS Lincret in painting conversations and fetes galantes. The Telemachus with Calyp.w, in the Louvre, shows the style which Raoux uniformly adopted. Though some traces of Venetian influence are visible in the colouring, it gives the general effect of sweetness, excessive finish, and even insipidity. The two most distinguished representatives of portrait painting in this period remain still to be noticed. Htacinthe Rigaud (1659—1743), the .so-caUed " Van Dyck of France," was remark able, like that master, for the emphatic air of dignity which he imparted to his sitters, and for his extraordinary power in divining and giving expression to the special character of each. In particular, the hand — almost as expressive a feature in portrait as the face — was treated by him with wonderful variety and insight. His greatest merit, however, was truth to nature. His portraits of women were more natural than those of men ; but that he absolutely disdained to flatter them is shown by his reply to a lady, who evidently felt herself aggrieved in this respect. " Where," she asked, " can you get your colours 1 " " We both buy them, madam," replied the artist, " at the same shop." Rigaud painted a few larger pictures, but, as advised by Lebrun, he soon confined himself to portraits, and on these alone his fame securely rests. Scarcely any artist had a more distinguished or varied array of sitters. Princes and prelates, artists and literary men, all posed in turn before him. His own portrait hangs in the Louvre, besides a beautiful one of his mother, and the fine picture of Bossuet, his masterpiece. There, too, may be seen that likeness of Louis XIV. which resembles a " page of history." The style of Rigaud is stamped with the character of Louis XIV.'s age ; that of his friend and cotemporary, Nicolas db Largilliere (1656 — 1746), belongs more to the succeeding one. With him dignity is exchanged for elegance, and truth is never so rigorously pursued as to exclude beauty, a point very notable in his portraits of women, with whom he succeeded best. He 156 PAINTING IN FRANCE. also showed some carelessness in his accessories, painting them always from memory, whereas Rigaud copied them from nature with the greatest care. Altogether his manner was simple and more natural. His colouring, a point in which Rigaud sometimes failed, is uniformly fresh and brilliant, and, together with a mastery of chiaroscuro and fine technical skill, points to the Flemish infiuence which was strongly marked in him, and \vhich he acquired at Antwerp from his master, Antoine Gou- beau. This aptitude for picturesque effect enabled him to produce historical and genre pictures with much facUity, but it is only in his portraits that he shows any finer artistic feeling, and on these his fame depends. Largilliere visited England, and executed some pictures for Charles II. , who would gladly have retained him in his service, and at a later date the artist painted James II. and his queen. In France, besides many royal persons, the number of his sitters was endless. Portraits of Helen Lambert, Thierry the sculptor, and Lebrun may be cited as good examples. The last, painted for his reception into the Academy, is in the Louvre. One other painter may yet be named, who represents, not merely transition, but an actual change. The brilUant but grotesque genius of the scene painter, Claude Gillot (1673 — 1722), inaugurated before its time the genre which Watteau was to bring to perfection. He is less known by his few paintings than his engraAdngs and etchings, which introduce us sometimes to the characters of Italian comedy, sometimes to scenes half-mythological, half-allegorical in character, in which fauns, satyrs, and centaurs are mingled in fantastic medley. With Gillot we have passed entirely from the era of Louis XIV. His style, which has so strange an air in that age of grave con vention, is the natural and legitimate expression of the senti ment of the eighteenth century. His whimsical caprices lead the way for the more graceful frivolity of Watteau. CHAPTER III. the painters OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE connection between Art and public life in France is at no time more apparent than in the eighteenth century. In the political world this period presented the most startling con trasts and the most momentous events. Ushered in by the gaiety and extravagance of the Regency, it ended with the Revolution, which, brought about by new ideas and aspirations working unperceived beneath the surface of a corrupt society, was suc ceeded in its turn by the military despotism of Napoleon. The deterioration of government and of society found their analogue in the steady decline of painting. It is allowed, by general consent, that at no period was French Painting more truly representative and national than immediately after the reign of Louis XIV. And it is important to notice that this verdict is based, not on the more ambitious works which continued the tradition of Lebrun or Mignard, but on those slighter productions which aimed at nothing higher than to reflect the charm, the easy grace, the frivolity of cotemporary manners. The works of Watteau and his followers — so popular in their day, so despised soon afterwards — have survived, while the far more pretentious ones of Lenioine and the Academic School are more or less forgotten. This fact seems to argue an Perfect Haemokh. By- Antoine Watteau. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 159 inability in the French mind, and consequently in the artists who so closely interpreted it, to fully appreciate the higher ideals of Painting. Whether the fault lay with the artists or with society, or was due, as some say, to the vicious patronage of the kings, may admit of doubt, but it is certain that, with few exceptions, the same factitious element pervades all the higher efforts of French artists, till the nineteenth century, when many foreign ideas were assimilated by France. In this respect there is little to choose between the artists of Louis XIV. and their successors under Louis XV. With some differences, presently to be noticed, between them, a want of truth, simplicity, and real enthusiasm is common to them all. The Regency, then, presents the anomaly of an art becoming national only to decay, and it is to such subjects as conversations 3.-0.61. fetes galantes that we must turn to find the genius of the artist, in unison with its surroundings, producing the most perfect painting of the time. The grosser side of this society found, in time, artists to portray it ; meanwhile its more amiable aspects were seized by Watteau, Lanoret and Pater, each of whom brought a special quaUfication to the task. Antoine Watteau, born at Valenciennes in 1684, began life under not very auspicious circumstances. It is strange to think of the inventor oi fetes galantes, painting under stress of poverty rude pictures of St. Nicholas for a Parisian dealer. He found, however, his true vocation on entering the congenial studio of Gillot, and although a quarrel soon parted master and pupil, the style of Watteau was already formed. He could summon the precise and mellow touch of Teniers, the rich colouring of Rubens and Veronese, to aid French imagination at its best and sprightliest. The picture which he painted for his reception into the Academy, the Embarkment for the Isle of Cythera, now in the Louvre, is happily suggestive of the scope and aim of his whole work. It is always to an enchanted laud of love and pleasure that Watteau leads us. At first sight nothing could 160 PAINTING IN FRANCE. seem more trivial and affected than these fetes galantes and amuaements champiitres, where the figures and the landscape are equaUy artificial; but the artist has shed over them the poetiy of his genius, and the trivialitj' is found to interest the aftectation Fete Champetre. By Pater. to have something of the careless grace of nature. This is what constitutes the merit of Watteau, and raises him above all his rivals in the same field. He was the only artist who so treated a conventional theme as to idealize it, aud his genius has given an enduring life and charm to subjects in their nature slight and transient. In contrast to his subjects, the life of Watteau was melancholy and darkened by iU-health. He died young in 1721. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 161 The style of Watteau was followed by his pupil Jean Baptiste Pater (1695 — 1736), but in a lower taste, and with a fancy less delicate. His figures, which he often repeated, are more vulgar in type ; his drawing is often faulty, and his composition slovenly. These defects, partly due to careless teaching, were atoned for by his rich and agreeable Flemish colouring, and his feeling for the effect of light and shade. Nicolas Lancrbt (1690 — 1743), a pupil of Gillot, has neither the poetry of Watteau nor the natural liveliness of Pater, but he represented more exactly than either the fashionable society of the time. His pictures, however, have more than a historical interest. Though somewhat cold and elegant, they show great versatility and invention, as well as a praiseworthy zeal to follow nature faithfully so far as it was understood at the time. It has been noticed that the historical painters of the seven teenth and eighteenth centuries resembled one another in their lack of truth and real simplicity ; but it must not be supposed that no difference existed between them, or that the latter were not entirely the disciples of their time. Lemoiue in his work and aims reminds us much of Lebrun, yet we are sensible of a difference between them. Nor, to speak generally, can any of the older school be said to have descended to the level of Boucher and Vanloo. The falling off implied in this transition can be traced as dependent partly on a deviation from the higher Italian models which the French artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had followed, partly on the external circumstances with which that deviation was closely connected. Poussin and Lesueur, tlie great representatives of the higher style, had indeed stood aloof from the general current of French art, but Poussin at least had had some influence in directing it. Stella had listened to his advice in Rome, Lebrun and Bourdon both owed much to him. Moreover, the names of Mignard, Dufresnoy, and Noel Coypel suffice to .show that throughout the greater part of the age of Louis XIV. French artists had not lost SP M 162 PAINTING IN PRANCE. the faculty for being attracted to great models. But with the eighteenth century the schools of Rome and Florence had lost their power even to attract. French artists, indeed, still went to Italy, but the faculty of studying and understanding the great masters was gone from them. It was not without significance that the really effective foreign influence of the day came, as we have seen in the case of Watteau, from Flanders, not Italy. Since Jouvenet had introduced the touch, in particular, of the Lombard School, execution became the rock on which French artists split. Instead of using the material means of their art in the service of true and worthy conceptions, they thought the former alone were sufficient. They worked, as it were, from the outside. A method like this employed by artists with really worthy aims, such as Lemoine, produced works bold and vast, indeed, but soulless, whUe in the hands of such men as Boucher and Carle Vanloo it dwindled into that lowest mannerism, which can execute with the same mechanical facility a face or a tree, arrange a historical scene or trace an ornamental device. In spite, then, of their freer, richer, and more varied methods of execution, the painters of the eighteenth century seem only to have disencumbered themselves of the stiffness of their pre decessors to faU into a mannerism as absurd ; in spite of their greater love for nature and reality (as they understood them), they were led astray by the false taste of their time. Lastly, with undeniable genius, they were without external incentives to use it nobly. Louis XIV., with all his vices, was not without a true feeling for greatness, which reflected itself in his sincere patronage of art. The light in which Louis XV. considered painting was as one means the more for ministering to his jaded tastes, while his care for the greatness of France was summed up in the cynical indifference of his remark on some of Joseph Vernet's pictures : "There is no longer any navy in France but that of Vernet." The painter who most fuUy represents his time is 164 PAINTING IN FRANCE. FRANgois Lemoine (1688 — 1737). His early studies were directed by Louis Galloche, who continued the school of Boulogne and Santerre, and whose academic style may be seen in his Hercules and Alcestis in the Louvre. From the trammels of the academic method Lemoine never freed himself, but his genius imparted to it the utmost seriousness and elevation it was capable of attaining. Weak or exaggerated on the side of expression, and incorrect in drawing, Lemoine's power lay in arranging vast masses so as to obtain a grand effect, which was heightened by the charm of a transparent and harmonious colouring. Beyond this he cnuld not go. His vulgar and unideal treatment of individual figures may be seen in the Hercules and Cacus in the Louvre. It was painted before he had seen Italy, but a short visit to that country in 1723 only confirmed his predilections, without teaching him the secrets of the old masters. He admired Michelangelo, but only as a wielder of mighty masses, a composer of vast schemes. Ambi tious and always meditating great projects, Lemoine, under an appearance of facility, worked with the greatest care, and essayed every kind of composition. The Apotheosis of Hercules at • Versailles, painted on a scale larger than nature, shows all the skill of the artist in subjugating the difficulties of the place to the harmony of his composition, as it also marks the utmost limits of his talent. For this, and other great works, Louis XV. bestowed a pension on the artist, but comparing the treatment of Lebrun by Louis XIV., Lemoine conceived himself neglected. This, with the arduous labours he had undergone, so obscured his reason that he put an end to his own life. The fire and energy which characterized Lemoine were trans formed into sweetness and insipidity in his pupil Charles Natoirb (1700 — 1777). Possessed of the same qualities as his master, Natoire always remains on a lower level. His lighter and more superficial style and the prevailing rose- tones of his colouring lent themselves admirably to decorative TuE FIKST Chapter of the Order of " Le S.iiNr Esprit." held by Henki IV. i.y the Cihu;ch of the Ahustins. .Tan. S. IGsto. By Jean FRANgois de Troy. In the Lomre. 166 PAINTING IN FRANCE. painting. The best examples of his more ambitious work were his paintings on the Life of the Saviour, for the Foundling Chapel, at Paris, of which engravings survive. Early in life, when a pensioner at Rome, Natoire gained great success at a time when the old masters had utterly lost their meaning for his cotemporaries as for himself. In 1751, being made director of the French School at Rome, he once more visited Italy, and eventually died, half-forgotten, at Castel Gandolfo. A picturesque vigour of composition and a brilliant and harmonious colouring were the characteristics of Jean FRANgois db Troy (1679 — 1752). These qualities, derived from the study of Rubens and Veronese, are most con spicuous in \m Plague of Marseilles, now in the Chateau of Borely, a picture which is interesting for the influence it exercised* on Delacroix and the whole modern school. On the other hand, the Chapter of the Order of the Holy Spirit held by Henry IV., in the Louvre, shows the pomp and dignity which gave de Troy some affinity with the painters of Louis XIV. Unfortunately the defects of the artist were such as to neutralize his great powers, and deprive him of any title to lasting fame. He abused his facility to multiply pictures of every kind, which, unequal in merit, were uniformly marred by -the want of expression and ideality common to the time. This applies, in an especial degree, to the common female types of his Biblical scenes, such as the Susannah or Bathsheba. One of his last works, Christ in the Garden of Olives, must, however, be noticed as admirable. De Troy died in Rome as director of the Academy. He was a son and pupil of Frangois de Troy. Some grace and energy distinguished the otherwise academic style of Antoine Eivalz (1667 — 1735), who on returning from Eome was made jjainter to his native town of Toulouse. His works, once much admired, are now unknown, but he deserves mention as the founder of the first provincial academy in France. It was established by him as a School for the Model, and in PAINTING IN FRANCE. . 167 1750 raised by Louis XV. to an Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Rivalz assisted in forming the powers of Pierre Subleyras, a native of Uz6s, in the south of France (1699 — -1749), an artist who in original power probably surpassed all hi^ cotemporaries. Unfortunately, endowed as he was with qualities that quickly fascinate, Subleyras rested satisfied with a fame too easily acquired. There is something in him that recalls Bourdon, but he was even more careless and facUe. His tire and invention, his supple touch, his skilful composition, and his golden colouring, were conspicuous in his earliest work, and persist, unaccompanied by any deeper qualities, in his latest. The brilliant uniformity of his style may be thoroughly studied in his eleven pictures in the Louvre. The Brazen Serpent, a work which easily won him the prize of Rome, is theatrical but full of promise. The Magdalen at the feet of Jesus and the Mass of St. Basil were painted at Rome, where the greater part of his life was spent. The latter picture was executed, by order of the Pope, to be reproduced in mosaic for St. Peter's — an honour at that time almost unexampled. But the Roman pictures show no trace of Rome. The Magdalen, his masterpiece, attracts by the same qualities as his earlier work. With all its gracious charm of execution and colouring, the composition on a closer view is seen to be mannered, the attitudes theatrical, the faces without expression. The artist in fact was without depth of sentiment or feeling for nature, and, for want of study and meditation, never penetrated below the surface of his art. The SI. Benedict raising a Child to life seems, however, to prove that he could have painted with more warmth of feeling had he chosen to cultivate his powers. Subleyras often painted small genre pictures, and here his grace and spirit were inimitable. The Falcon and the Hermit, representing scenes from Lafontaine, are excellent examples of this lighter vein. After the death of Lemoine, in 1737, an extraordinary ascend ancy in art was exercised by Carle Vanloo (1705 — 1765). The 168 , PAINTING IN FRANCE. originally fine genius of this artist, corrupted by the taste of the time, reacted disastrously on painting. Various influences con tributed to mould him. Of Dutch descent, he had early been taken to Italy by his brother, and already gained some popularity in France, before he again went to Rome in 1727 as pensioner of the Academy. The Virgin in the Louvre, painted during the latter visit, is finished with Dutch smoothness, and shows that he had not yet forgotten to work with care; but after his return to Paris in 1734, the crude Italian style of the day, modified only by French affectation, prevailed more and more in his work. His facility and industry were incredible. He attempted every kind of subject, and almost every method of painting — oU and fresco, distemper and encaustic. But the demands made on him by his popularity overtaxed his powers. His haste led him to exaggerate, and in his lavish abuse of flying draperies, theatrical attitudes, and multiplication of flamboyant lines, he seemed to have carried mannerism to its last extreme. Yet some admirable qualities must be conceded to Vanloo. His numerous pictures in the churches of Paris, though redeemed by warmth of sentiment, show that he was specially unfitted for sacred subjects, nor had he the thought and learning requisite for historical painting. His modest Halte de Chasse, in the Louvre, better characterizes him than his more pretentious works. It shows that picturesque force, naturalness, and fresh transparent colouring which in better times might have made him a charming painter of genre subjects. Jean Baptiste Vanloo (1684 — 1745) was the elder brother of Carle, but did not gain so great a reputation. He was born at Aix, where his father, Louis Vanloo, originally a native of Amsterdam, had just settled. Jean Baptiste was almost as iiro- lific an artist as his brother, but excelled in portraits, the flesh of which he rendered with great skill. The portraits of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Frederick the Great of Prussia, at Hampton Court, were by him. The rich and harmonious .^:*^ 170 PAINTING IN FRANCE. Flemish colouring, mingled with a certain French grace which characterized his talent, are apparent in his Diana and Endy- mion in the Louvre. His two sons, who were also his pupils, contributed to spread his influence in foreign countries. Louis Michel Vanloo became in 1736 painter to the King of Spain^ and Charles AMiiuiiB Vanloo held the same office under the King of Prussia. The manner of the Vanloos was transmitted in varying degrees to several pupils. Pierre Charles Tremoliierb (1703 — 1739), a pupil of Jean B. Vanloo, had naturaUy some of the grace and charm of Subleyras, but was inferior to him in power of expression. The few sacred and other pictures which he painted after studying at Rome did not rise above his early teaching or the mannerism of the day, but his genius gave promise of more than he actually performed. Gabriel FRANgois Doyen (1726 — 1806) and Jean Francois Lagrenee (1724 — 1805) were pupils of Carle Vanloo. The former painted the chapel of St. Gregory at the Invalides, the sketches for which had been prepared by Vanloo just before his death. The dominant traits of Doyen were a masculine vigour and warmth. He studied the Carracci at Rome, Solimena at Venice, and generally such masters as could teach him picturesque effect. The latter quality is very remarkable in his master- [liece, 27*6 Plague of Burning,* in the Church of St. Roch. From groups of death in the foreground, appropriately shrouded in shadow, the eye ascends to figures whose outstretched hands indicate some hope, while above all is seen St. Gen^vifeve, radiant in glory. Doyen died in Russia, where he became first painter to Catherine II. and Paul I. LagriSnisb, with whom may be placed his brother and pupil Jean Jacques Lagr^niSe (1740 — 1821), was the antithesis of * In 1129, under Louis VI., fire was said to have faUen from heaven and burnt the entrails of the people. It was stopped at the intercession of St. Genevifeve. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 171 Doyen. An entire absence of fire and imagination, or any decided individuality, characterized these brothers, who neverthe less, by industry and study, attained a style less mannered than their cotemporaries, and marked by a correct and agreeable touch, a tender and transparent colouring. The elder, while at Rome, painted Friendship consoling Old Age for the Departure of the Loves, in imitation of David, but his powers were too feeble to enable him to succeed in that manner, and his smaller pictures representing the Virgin, or allegorical figures such as Poetry or Philosophy, were better than his historical attempts. The rendering of the flesh is especiaUy good. The Rape of Deja- neira, in the Louvre, is a fair example of his weak but pleasing talents, as Melancholy, in the same gallery, shows the prettj' and delicate style of his brother. Want of individuality, combined with a certain facility and power to please, were again the characteristics of Noel Nicolas Coypel (1691 — 1734), the half-brother, and Charles Coypel (1694—1752), the son of Antoine Coypel. With the former these qualities were displayed to most advantage in mythological pictures, such as the Triumph of Gcdatea. The style of the latter was much influenced by his fondness for the stage, for which he -wrote several tragedies and comedies. His illustrations to Molifere are marked by much wit and grace, and, with his slighter genre pictures, have more interest than the ambitious works which made hini famous in his day. , The style of Jouvenet was followed by his nephew Jean Eestout (1692 — 1768), whose pictures are not without some charm, due to a rare skill in arrangement and judicious harmony of tone. In other respects they are as mannered as those of his cotemporaries. Restout never visited Rome, and his Norman birth betrays itself in the choice and treatment of his figures. His manner, wanting in elevation, but with a certain fervour, was best adapted for sacred subjects, and the profusion in which he produced these for the churches of Paris vfas no doubt 172 PAINTING IN FRANCE. injurious to his work. Two examples are preserved in the Louvre. The Ananias placing his hands on St. Paul, a smaller reproduction of a picture now in Notre Dame, is in the artist's customary manner; the Christ healing a Paralytic shows an effort to imitate Lesueur. Restout transmitted the broad, free handling of Jouvenet to his pupil Jean Baptiste Deshats (1729 — 1765), who but for his early death might have risen to eminence. As it is, his works, while marked by greater vigour and truth of sentiment than those of his cotemporaries, betray the influence of Boucher (whose daughter he married) and Vanloo, and generally the defects peculiar to the age. One of the best is his Martyrdom of St. Andrew, in the Cathedral of Rouen. The somewhat monotonous list of the mannerists is closed by Jean Baptiste Marie Pierre (1713 — 1789), who, with much natural fire, grace, and facility, followed in everything the fashion of his time. From Natoire he learnt his picturesque grouping and brilliant colouring. At Eome he studied under De Troy, and adopted the manner of the Italian decadence. Besides many pictures for the churches of Paris, he assisted Natoire in paint ing the Foundling Chapel, and in 1742 painted by himself an Assumption of the Virgin on the cupola of her chapel in the church of St. Eooh. The composition of this has a good effect. Pierre also painted some pleasing landscapes, and his etchings are admirable for their grace and spirit. His genre pictures too are natural, and some of them, such as the Savoyards, seem to announce Greuze. Of Pierre, as of so many of his fellows, it may .truly be said that in a better time he might have become a great artist. But Pierre just survived to witness the rise of the Davidian School, without being able to take part either for or against it. Jean Jacques BxVchblibr (1724 — 1806) was a pupil of Pierre, and attained some excellence as a painter of animals and flowers. His few historical pictures are now forgotten. The PAINTING IN FRANCB. 173 siime want of interest attaches to the larger works of Nicholas Bernard Lbpicii!: (1735 — 1784), but there is much grace and elegance in his genre pictures, which range from family scenes resembling those of Greuze to pastorals in the style of Fragonard and Loutherbourg. Jean Baptiste Leprince (1733 — 1781) adopted the style of Boucher and Fragonard, but. he is best known as the painter of numerous scenes of Eussian life, which, taken in the country itself, are striking for their fidelity and picturesque effect. Before turning to those artists who represent the lowest depth of the decadence, we may notice some genre painters who were only indirectly influenced by their age. The most prominent of these was the marine painter Joseph Vernet (1714 — 1789). His earliest desire was to paint history, but the sight of the sea at Marseilles, as he was on his way to Eome, revealed to him his true vocation, and nearly all his pictures were on this theme. After a long residence in the latter city, where he studied under Fergioni, he returned to Paris, where, besides numerous other works, he painted for Louis XV. the celebrated series of the ports of France which is now in the Louvre. The style of Vernet may be inferred from his own assertion, that " while many painters surpassed him in particular details, none equalled him in making a picture.'' Composition, in fact, was his great merit. His style was not so elevated as that of Claude, but with more natural simplicity shows also more variety and invention. His early works had something of the roughness of Salvator Eosa, but his later manner was softer, though his colouring sometimes fails in richness, finish, and transparency. The dramatic interest of his pictures is much enhanced by the introduction of figures. These are never the gods or heroes of Poussin, but ordinary men brought face to face with the powers of nature. The merits of Vernet were allowed even by the unsparing criticism of David ; he holds an honourable place apart, neither influencing nor influenced by the corrupt taste of the time. 174 painting in francb. Charles Parrocbl (1688 — 1752), a pupU of Lafosse, devoted himself to battle-painting, and foUowed Louis XV. in his Flanders campaign. His few remaining works show the influence of the Venetian and Flemish colourists ; in general style they recall sometimes his father, Joseph Parrocel, sometimes Le Bourgignon and Salvator Eosa. FRANgois Casanova, a Venetian by descent, was born in London in 1730, but came early to Paris, and passed four years at Dresden in studying the works of Wouvermans. In his battle-pieces, for which he drew on his imagination, the drawing was often faulty, and the colouring out of keeping with the subject, but they excelled in play and movement. His land scapes and familiar scenes were either cold imitations of the Dutch artist Berghem, or more spirited attempts in the manner of Salvator Eosa. He died at Brubl, in Austria, in 1805. His pupU, Jacques Philippe Lguthkrbourg, who was born at Strasburg in 1740, showed much the same qualities, but allowed his imagination still greater play in a wide variety of subjects, such as vehement battles, hunting scenes, or landscapes in which the physical features of one country blended with those of another. His animals, however, have great truth, and all his incongruities are forgotten in the charming naivete of his style, which is further distinguished by its firm touch and force of colouring. Much of his life was spent in England, where he painted scenes for the theatre and dioramas, and in 1781 became a Eoyal Academician. He died in 1814, and was buried at Chiswick. In portrait painting, the earlier half of the eighteenth century is represented by the- names of Jean Marc Nattier (1685 — 1766) and Louis TocQui (1696—1772). Grace and harmony of colour, with the skiU to confer beauty on the plainest .sitter, were the qualities of the former, and naturally made him the fashion- PAINTING IN francb. 175 able painter of the ladies of the court, who loved to pose before him in mythological or allegorical guise. Among his most suc cessful efforts were the portraits of Marie Leckzinska, queen of Louis XV., and Louise Henriette de Bourbon as Hebe. Tocque adhered more closely to nature. His portraits have no special vigour, but are marked by good sense and truth of colour and detail. He was not so successful in rendering the character istics of his royal sitters, as those~"of individuals distinguished in public life. A remarkable success in crayon-portrait was attained by Joseph Vivien (1657 — 1735), whose large picture of the Electoral Family of Bavaria has the breadth and dignity of a composition in oU. This genre was still further improved, and brought to a perfection never equalled or surpassed, by Maurice Quentin de Latour (1704 — 1788). His power of life-like expression, finish and harmony of tone, are finely shown in the portrait of Madame de Pompadour in the Louvre. Egbert Tourni^jres (1668 — 1752), a pupil of Bon Boulogne, attained success in two directions. His portraits have fidelity, and are supple in touch and agreeable in colour. Dibutades tracing the Shadow of her Lover on the Wall, in the Louvre, is a good example of his smaller pictures in the manner of Schalken and Gerard Don, which are remarkable less for force of genius than the excessive care and patience spent on their execution, and the skiU with which they reproduce effects of light and shade. Watteau had taken for his theme -the society of the eighteenth century, and beneath his touch it became poetical. To see it in its bare reality we must look to FRANgois Boucher, who was born in Paris in 1704, Baudouin, and Fragonard. The works of these artists are the Ulustration of the words of Diderot, when he talks of " the debasement of painting foUowing step by step on that of morals." Purity 176 PAINTING IN FRANCE. and decency had come to be terms void of meaning. Libertinism and debauchery alone were understood. As for nature, it was the deliberate opinion of Boucher that " it wanted harmony and seduction." This was the artist whose congenial task it was to portray the time as he found it, and who abused in this service a brilliant imagination and an almost incredible facility and industry. He painted everything, from religious and mythological pictures to scenes of fancy, from landscapes and pastorals to decorations for the opera. One theme, however, underlay all this seeming variety — Love, as it was understood in the boudoirs of Madame de Pompadour and Madame Dubarry, and represented in figures as indecent as they were affected. The style of Boucher was as vicious as his subjects. It was that of a painter who has genius but uses it unworthily. The details, drawn mostly from imagination, are executed with the loosest carelessness and in accuracy ; the figures have no expression, and, whether goddesses or shepherdesses, are all of the same seductive but ignoble type. Yet the .artist has the skill to throw a grace over his composition, and to charm by a touch as spirited as that of Watteau, and a colour as fresh and transparent as that of Rubens. His figures of chUdren must be noticed as admirable. There is also great excellence in many of the portraits of his friend and patroness Madame de Pompadour, who condescended to engrave several of his works with her own hand. He died, first painter to the king, in 1770. While Boucher painted pleasure, or rather debauchery, Pierre Antoine Baudouin (1723 — 1769), who married his daughter, was known, even in a corrupt age, as the painter of " libertinism." He sometimes, however, chose idyllic subjects which -were " almost decent.'' Painting only in water colours, and confining himself to miniature, Baudouin produced pictures which, without even the semblance of good taste, are spiriterl and delicate in execution, hap]iy in composition, and sparkling in their general effect. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 177 Boucher was only just dead when his pupil Jban Honor^ Fragonard (1732 — 1806) returned from his second visit to Italy. Fragonard had also learnt much from Chardin, while iu Italy his attention had been divided between studying nature and the masters of the seventeenth century, especially Tiepolo. Susceptible to many infiuences but faithful to none, Fragonard sums up, in the wonderful diversity of his work, the whole genius of the eighteenth century. The diversity, it is true, argued weakness, not strength. His nature inclined him to the frivolous side of things. In spite of Italy he remained true to Boucher. His larger historical or sacred works need not be taken into account. He put his real strength into pictures which sometimes rivalled Watteau for their touch and their poetry, sometimes equalled the worst delinquencies of Boucher. Now again he imitated the interiors of Chardin, or painted landscapes as luminous as those of Ruysdael. His copies of the old masters showed wonderful skill; his miniatures had a special grace. Exquisite grace and magic of chiaroscuro were in fact the dis tinctive features of his style. They may be seen in his Foun tain of Love, a picture which also shows his unequalled skill in representing allegory, not by abstract figures, but by the action of living persons. Himself contributing to the decadence, Fragonard lived long enough to see it give way before the reforms of David. Without sympathizing much with the new tenden cies, he could not help feeling influenced by them, and it was in this spirit that he produced such pictures as his Happy Mother, and a few others of similar character. The reform of painting in France would appear, at first sight, to have sprung up suddenly at the bidding of a single man ; but although deservedly associated with the name of David, it was in reality due to principles which had been slowly gather ing ground, and which he was only the first to bring to their fuU development. Before considering the circumstances which combined to give a peculiar direction to David's efforts, we must SP N i«„*T2f3 •-r. ji-i :i».^ fr PAINTING IN FRANCE. 179 notice some artists who prepared the way for him, and helped to make his success possible, by keeping to truth and nature when the rest of the world despised them. Chardin, Greuze, and Vien each in his own way protested against the affectation and baseness of cotemporary art. Nature in its simplest reality, yet touched with humour and instinctive grace, and interpreted with a rare honesty of execution, is the distinctive theme in the interiors and stUl-life pieces of Jean Baptists Chardin (1699 — 1779). While the Restouts and Bouchers were exaggerating Jouvenet's manner in their search for vulgar effect, he was remarkable for his sure and mellow touch and solid impasto, not less than for his harmonious colour and skilful chiaroscuro ; while they were endeavouring to combine confused masses of figures and draperies into an artificial whole, he was studiously simple in composition, and yet each object in his pictures seems to have its appropriate place and character. Chardin was followed, but with less force and seriousness, by Etienne Jbaurat (1699—1789). Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725 — 1805) was "the first," says Diderot, " who thought of introducing morality into art." And on the whole this is what justly entitles him to the name of reformer. As an artist he was not wholly original. His attempt to become a historical painter failed utterly, and the influence he eventually exercised was due to the sentiment and character of his work as much as to its artistic merit. The Father explaining the Bible to his Gliildren, the Village Bridegroom, the Father's Curse were all scenes of simple bourgeois life, and as such strongly contrasted with the works of the day. They were suggested to the painter by the dramas of Diderot, and their origin explains some of their faults. . They are often melodramatic though powerful in expression, as well as unequal in execution, nor does the artist ever attain to the poetic and the ideal in his treatment of them. At the same time they show his constant study of nature, and if his actors are lowly, he has N 3 180 PAINTING IN FRANCE. known how to invest them with grace and to dignify them by passion. Greuze could not escape the tendencies of his time. His morality is allied with an imagination that tends to the impure, and adapts itself too lightly to his ardent appreciation of beauty. A critic has well compared his sentiment to that of Sterne. It is most apparent in his single figures of girls, whether represented as simple studies or as weeping over a broken pitcher or a dead bird. In these it is to be noted that the figure belongs to a woman, while the head is that of a child ; and this incongruity in the form finds its analogy in the expression, in which the longing or regret of a maturer age seems to conflict with the unconscious innocence of childhood. Neither Chardin nor Greuze can be said to have risen above the level of genre painters. A higher ground was taken by Joseph Marie Vien (1716 — 1809), with whom first arose the idea of " combining the study of nature with that of the antique." His genius, indeed, was not adequate to the fulfilment of his theory, and led him into constant aberrations of style, but it is this pursuit of a higher standard in art which it was not given him to attain that makes him the link between the Decadence and the Reform. He had no imagination, and his feeling for the antique scarcely went beyond a vague aspiration. Thus his best attempts show truthfulness and intelligence rather than elevation, and his purely pagan subjects are feeble in form and without real grace. Sometimes too he showed a strange readiness to fall into the worst style of Lemoiue, or of his master Natoire. The Sleeping Hermit, in the Louvre, is perhaps an example of the work in which his powers found their truest if humble scope ; it is " nature truthfully seen and truthfully rendered." This adherence to the simple truth of nature, of which Vien so patiently set the example, was not without its effect on art, and remains his greatest merit on the side of execution; but his real fame must be sought in his influence as a teacher, and his highest praise is that he -was the master of David. 23 SooM amcS W S 182 PAINTING IN FRANCE. With the name of Vien must be associated, in this connection, that of Pierre Peyron (1744 — 1820), now undeservedly for gotten, whose pictures in the Louvre breathe the true Romanspirit, and to whom David himself acknowledged his indebtedness. In alluding to his own initiatives of reform, Vien had said, " I have only unlocked the door ; it is M. David who will throw it wide open." It is to David then we must turn to find the reform fully accomplished. DAVID AND THE REFORM OF PAINTING. At the birth of Jacques Loui8 David, in 1748, the corrupt influence of Boucher was at its height, nor did any improvement then seem probable. Yet between 1748 and 1778 there were causes at work favourable to change. The class of the bour geoisie to whom Chardin and Greuze had appealed was now beginning to attain importance ; the society which alone had made a vicious art possible was growing weary of its license, and under the influence of the ideas spread by the writings of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Diderot, men's minds were becoming dimly conscious of new hopes and aspirations. In politics, society, and art everything was ready for a strong reaction. David was not at first aware of the current of the times, or cer tain of his own aims. He began, by a strange coincidence, as the pupil of Boucher. The honourable feeling of that master, who perceived the power of his pupil, soon caused his transfer to the guidance of Vien, but David had to pass through sore hardships and discouragements before gaining the prize of Eome with Antioehus and Stratonice in 1775. Eome, whither he went in this year with Vien, first gave definite shape to his ideas. It was here that antiquity, after a long oblivion, was once more engaging the public attention. The excavation of Pompeii in 1755 had given a fresh impulse to the study of the past. Canova was meditating the reform of sculpture. Winckelman, by his ' Treatise on Art,' was awaking PAINTING IN FRANCE. 183 enthusiasm for the ideals of Greek beauty, and the criticisms of Lessing were aiding to spread his doctrines. Such were the influences already paramount when David, not yet free from his early teaching, found himself face to face with the wonders of the Vatican, and set to work to copy bas-reliefs, ancient statues, and the best Italian masters. The results of his inde cision were apparent in two pictures : a copy of the Last Supper of Valentin, whose vigorous truth appealed strongly to one side of his genius, and the Plague of St. Roch, painted in 1780, after his return to Paris, the manifesto, as it were, of his new principles. Somewhat stiff and theatrical, it im presses us not so much as the work of a painter who is swayed by an overmastering ideal, as of one who repeats a lesson he has just learnt by heart. Still, in it might be read the intention of the artist to break away from every-day life and seek for simplicity and dignity in the antique. As David's style matured, another impulse came to add weight and unity to his aims. Patriotism was the watchword of the day, and where could brighter examples be found for its illus tration than in the histories of Greece and Rome ? Henceforth it was the prevailing motive in David's work. It inspired the Horatii, which, painted in 1784, shows his style definitely formed with all its excellences and defects. The attitudes are theatrical, the faces feeble or exaggerated in expression, but the correctness of the drawing and beauty of the forms are striking, and the whole picture, especially when compared with cotem porary paintings, has an antique nobleness and simplicity. The Death of Socrates and the Brutus also belong to this time, and present on the whole the same characteristics. The execution, as too often with the artist, may be noticed as not in harmony with the severity of the subjects. It is affected and minutely elaborate. During the Revolution David became a dictator in art, in which character he instituted fetes in grotesque imitation of the antique. To this period belong the unfinished sketch of the 184 PAINTING IN FRANCE. Oath in the Tennis Court — in which the figures were first drawn as statues, and the dress painted over them — the Last Moments of Lepelletier, and the Death of Marat. The two latter are remarkable for their vigorous truth to nature. Imprisoned on the fall of Robespierre, David, after his release, devoted himself solely to painting, and produced the Sabine Women and Leonidas, which may serve to complete the idea of his style. The composition of the first is disordered, the chiar oscuro defective, and the forms, in violation of historic keeping, effeminate and affected. Romulus and Tatius raise their spears for the combat. Hersilia separates them. Other Sabine women, with children in their arms, rush in between the contending armies. The actors give no idea of movement, but stand as if to be looked at. The Leonidas is warmer in tone, and better in keeping. In both pictures the merit must be sought in the fine drawing and beauty of single figures, especially in the case of children. For Napoleon, by whom he was highly honoured, David painted the Distribution of the Eagles and the Coronation, now at Versailles. The former is monotonous, and fails in perspective. The latter, grand in composition, and faithful as regards costume, is cold in general effect, and shows how defective was the artist's feeling for colour and chiaroscuro. In 1816, after the second Eestoration, David retired to Brussels, and died there in 1825. The influence exercised by David was profound not only in France, but in Europe generally. F' t nearly fifty years it more or less dominated painting. In asking whether his reform was successful in its aims and salutary in its results, it is necessary to see clearly where his real merits and defects lay. David, then, like Poussin — with whom he claims to be compared — - turned for inspiration to pagan models, and even went beyond Poussin in altogether refusing to undertake Christian subjects. But his inferiority to his great predecessor is at once seen in his different way of approaching antiquity. Poussin might almost PAINTING IN FRANCE. 185 be called " a strayed ancient." He was drawn to the antique models because there was something in his own mind akin to the antique spirit, and his strong and varied genius, under these congenial conditions, produced works that will always remain 186 PAINTING IN FRANCE. great, always command a certain interest, in spite of aU revolu tions in taste. But it is difficult to imagine that the pictures of David — considered in themselves — wUl ever possess more than a historical interest. They are, in fact, as false and theatrical in their way as much of the painting which they supplanted, and here we begin to see David's great defect. His own motto was, "Truth first, and beauty afterwards ; " by which he meant that we must first go to nature, in order to get free from all conven tions, and in the next place study the masterpieces of the past, in order to discover the unchanging principles of beauty in virtue of which they were produced. That David had this sentiment for nature, and could, when he allowed himself to do so, follow its promptings, he has shown conclusively in certain works, such as the celebrated portrait of Pope Pius VII., the Death of Lepelletier, and Napoleon crossing the Alps. Unfor tunately, his enthusiasm seduced him in practice from his own sound principles. In his desire to escape altogether from what he deemed base or vulgar, he turned exclusively to ancient art, which, by a further error — arising from inadequate taste and culture — he identified with certain of the less perfect ancient statues. He thus missed the real spirit and beauty of his models, and passed the limits that separate painting from sculp ture. His figures have a stUted dignity in place of life and movement, conventional traits instead of individual expression. Above all — and here again he contrasts strongly with Poussin — in emulating the cold impassiveness of marble he allowed his execution to become timid and vacUlating, instead of adapting it with masterly variety "to the subject, while for the same reason he despised the harmonies of colour and the play of light and shade. The one great technical excellence of David was his severe and correct drawing. This he earnestly inculcated as well as practised ; and this, with the nobler ideal which he introduced into art, gives him his right to the title of reformer. He put to flight once for all the indecency which had disgraced painting, PAINTING IN FRANCE. 187 and by thus emancipating it, opened indirectly new paths for its activity of which he himself never dreamed. His defects, though copied by many imitators, were not permanently injuri ous to art ; his severe drawing — the thing above aU others most needed at the time — persisted, even in the works of those who differed widely from him in principle. And this leads us to notice by no means the least excellent quality of David — his care to develop the natural tendencies of his pupUs, instead of forcing them to follow his style implicitly. This teaching was attended with remarkable results, for — in contrast to his servile imitators — David's own pupils were remarkable for their bold originality. The one by whom he was most strictly followed was GUILLAUMB GUILLON LBTHlfeflB (1760 — 1832), whose works are almost forgotten. He was born at Guadeloupe, but went very early to Paris, where his natural warmth and energy were at first fostered by the teaching of Doyen. This manner, however, he lost on becoming a pupil of David, whom he out- Heroded in his rigid adherence to the antique. Devoid of any sentiment for nature, his sole aim was to " paint sculpture," and his efforts were thus necessarily confined to the representation of Greek or Eoman scenes. The Brutus and the Virginia now in the Louvre were Lethifere's chief works. The composition of the former, whUe theatrical in parts, is good on the whole, and the colour is warm. The whole picture produces a solemn and tragic effect, but the figures do not show the fine feeling for form of David. The Virginia is more confused in composition, and more theatrical. Lethifere was for ten years director of the school at Eome, and devoted aU his tact and energy, although in vain, to maintain the principles of David, in their extreme form, against the romanticism of Gros. David also communicated much of his spirit to his favourite pupil, Jean Germain Drouais (1763 — 1788), whose Christ and the Canaanitish Woman, and Marius, in the Louvre, show astonish ing force, with many defects attributable to youth. Drouais 188 PAINTING IN FRANCE. died at Eome, at the outset of his career, a victim to his zeal for work. FiU-Ngois Gerard, le baron, (1770 — 1837,) one of David's most noted pupils, diverged freely from his master, but without showing anj"- high originality. A childhood passed in Rome may have disposed him at first to David's teaching, and his touching picture of Belisarius, exhibited in 1795, -was in the classic style. It is free in execution, correct in drawing, and vigorous in colour. His next picture, the weU-known Psyche, in the Louvre, was less successful. It is inanimate, and its refinement borders on affectation. The colouring is cold, and the form without precision. This failure made the artist turn to portrait, a field in which he became the "painter of kings," and (in his friends' opinion) the "king of painters.'' His best portraits, of which that of Isabey, in the Louvre, is an admirable example, were those painted before 1800, when reputation had made him careless. They reproduce nature simply, without ostentation or vulgarity. The colouring, firm in the heads, is freer in the accessories, and the scene is so treated as to bring out the character of the sitter. Napoleon, Josephine, and Louis XVIIL, besides a host of illustrious foreigners, were among the later sitters of Gerard. For Napoleon he also painted Austerlitz, which is interesting only for its portraits, but the four allegorical figures in the Louvre, by which the picture was supported, may be cited as showing some approach to grandeur of invention. But the best qualities of the artist are shown in his last great pic ture and masterpiece, also in the Louvre — the Entry of Henry IV. into Paris. The skill shown in the various physiognomies, the picturesque accessories, and the well-arranged groups, all indi cate the cold and clear judgment which, rather than genius, characterize Gerard. If, alter David's death, he seemed supreme ih art, it was by judiciously following the public taste, not l)y leading it. David had not been entirely without rivals in the path of reform. There were others who had felt the stirring The Entey of Henri IV. into Paris, In the Lo *mh22to, 1594. By FRANgois Gerard. "¦ (No. 235.) ISee page 188. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 189 of the same ideas, but who were affected by them in a different manner. Jean Baptiste Regnault (1754 — 1829), the most important of these, was fortunate in escaping, while young, the influence of Boucher's school. Taken by his father, when only ten years old, to America, he served for four years in a merchant vessel, and made two visits to Rome — the last time as pensioner of the Academy — before finally settling at Paris in 1782. At Rome his drawing was correct, flowing, and not without charm ; but the flrst picture in which his style assumed definite char acter was the Education of Achilles, in the Louvre, which was suggested by a drawing at Herculaneum. Regnault was the forerunner of Ingres and Delacroix. His system was a protest against the sheer classicism of David. He leant to antiquity, but he aimed at keeping strictly within the limits that separate sculpture from painting, and he sought to mitigate the severity of David's forms by calling in the aid of colour and the freer grace of nature. The attempt was above his powers, but it was a step in the right direction. As it was, his qualities of clearness and simplicity produced excellent, though not the highest, results. The Descent from the Cross (Louvre), painted some years after the Achilles, is quite aca^ demic in style, and the Three Graces, which the artist exhibited with two other pictures as a protest against the Sabines of David, adheres too closely to nature, and is elegant without being noble. Regnault's historical and allegorical pictures may be briefly referred to as forming a striking commentary on the vicissitudes of the times, and the rapid changes of feeling which they induced. Under Louis XVI. he painted the Acceptation of the Constitu tion ; under the Convention, a cold allegory called Liberty or Death; while the Triumphant March of Napoleon to the Temple of Immortality — in which some imitation of Prud'hon was manifested — was re-christened by the artist, in the time of the Bourbons, France in a Trinmnhal Car advancing towards 190 painting in FRANCE. the Temple of Peace. Something of the grace and clearness of Eegnault's style reappeared in his pupU Louis Hbrsbnt (1777 — -1860), whose early attachment to the principles of David was followed by a complete revolt to the modern style. His Gustavus Wasa inaugurated the historic genre of Delaroche, and he also succeeded Gerard as a successful portrait painter. Eegnault was supported in his opposition to David by another of the great man's pupils, Pierre Narcisse Gubrin, le baron, born in Paris in 1774. But Gu&in was not one to inaugurate a new style. His talent, refined and delicate, but without spontaneity, owed such strength as it had to reading and meditation. His imagination could conceive of no other models than statues, and he studied action not in nature, but on the stage of the theatre. He is represented from first to last in his works at the Lou-vre, and in aU of them artifice is too apparent. The Marcus- Sextus, painted at Paris in 1799, before he had been to Rome, is one of the most striking, but the simple and masculine composition is spoUt by the cold and timid execution, which gives the appearance of sculpture to the chief figure. In the Phaedra and Hippolytus, and in the Andromaclie and Pyrrhus, calculation and artifice are more marked ; they look like scenic effects ; still the latter shows an effort to attain a freer style. The Dido and the Clytemnestra were his latest works. The former, in its ingenuity of execution and diaphanous effect of light, descends to prettiness. The flesh, too, has that porcelain tone peculiar to Gubrin. The Clytem nestra is perhaps his best work. It is calculated even to the effect of the purple light spread by the curtain, but the artist has for once succeeded in expressing real pathos in the face of the heroine. Gubrin died in 1833 at Rome, which he had visited several times. Like David, he stimulated the genius of several pupils most unlike himself. Antiquity — seen in yet another aspect — also furnished inspiration to a remarkable artist, "t- l-*-T» 1. _ --mfsn 'a L^^^ '' Ph^dra and Hippolytus. By Guerin. In the Louvre. 192 painting in fhancr. Pierre Paul Prud'hon (born in 1758, died in 1823). The son of a poor mason, Prud'hon gained his first impressions of painting from some pictures in the Abbey of Cluny, where he was brought up, and after some years in Dijon apd Paris, succeeded in 1782 in visiting Rome. Here Raphael and Coreggio were among the masters he deeply studied, and he owed much to the friendship of Canova. Compelled by poverty, after his return to Paris, to produce illustrations, miniatures, and small chalk drawings, Prud'hon showed even in these his powerful manner, and in 1799 a design of Truth descending from Heaven and led by Wisdom, for a ceiling at St. Cloud, at length brought him into notice. Both in subject and character it was typical of the artist's best work. Mythology and alle gory were the fields in which his genius found freest play. He viewed the antique through a dreamy melancholy which invested it with an exquisite grace, tenderness, and poetry. The Justice and Divine Vengeance pursuing Crime, in the Louvre, is a good example of this allegorical style, which is poetical, never frigid. The Abduction of Psyche, painted about the same time, is remarkable for pure, unstudied beauty of form and winning grace. The_ latter quality is also remarkably shown in his Zephyr swinging, and Cupid caressing his Victim. Towards the close of his life Prud'hon painted the Distressed Family, which had been sketched by his favourite pupil. Mademoiselle Meyer — in which he showed that he could represent a pathetic scene taken from actual life — and also some sacred pictures, of which the Assumption, in the Louvre, is an instance. But in these, as in strictly historical subjects, his success was but partial. They did not allow scope enough for that dreamy and poetic fancy which seems to be connected so closely with the unsurpassed grace of his style. His contours have a distinctive vagueness, as if to harmonize them with his thought ; and the same principle may be traced in the haziness of his landscape backgrounds, which lend themselves admirably to the effect Clpid caressing his Victim. By Prud'hon. 194 painting in prance. intended to be produced by the figures. Thus, if he is to be held inferior to David in drawing, he rises far above him in sentiment, while he also excels him in the firmness and con sistence of his touch. A new note was struck by Xavibr Sigalon (1788 — 1837), who after painting at Ninies came to Paris, and studied for a time with Gubrin. Sigalon's robust originality broke lightly through conventional rules. In the Courtesan, a work of Venetian breadth and richness of colouring, the artist's power though marked is subdued ; but his Locusta trying on a Slave the Poison destined for Br itannicus, painted shortly after, was as bold a protest against the principles of David as Delacroix's Massacre of Scio. The reptUsive form of the poisoner and the slave writhing in agony are drawn with an almost brutal force, in which no effort is apparent to elevate or tone down the bare horror of nature. The St. Jerome, which with the Couriesan is now in the Louvre, is conceived in the spirit of Ribera. For boldness of touch and masculine vigour of form it is perhaps the artist's masterpiece. Sigalon's last work was a copy of Michelangelo's Last Judgment. It is now in the chapel of the School of Fine Arts, and is as strong a testimony to the powers of the artist as his original paintings. In Anne Louis Girodet de Rouct Trioson (1767 — 1824) a desire to be original leads to eccentricity. His works show laborious care and a feeling for antique form, but are often conceived in a spirit bordering on the fanciful or grotesque. Of the former kind is the Sleeping Endymion, in the Louvre, the figure of which is taken from a bas-relief. Here there is a touch of poetry in the beams which, faUing on the sleeper, typify the wooing of the moon. The fancy becomes more dreamlike in Ossian and his Warriors receiving the Shades of French Warriors, a picture which provoked the cold criticism of David that he was " no judge of such painting." But for exaggerated horror, carried almost to the verge of the ludicrous. painting in francb. 195 there is nothing to equal the Deluge, in the Louvre. The figures are drawn with force and truth of anatomy, but this does not redeem the error in composition, which gives the effect of a detached group instead of a complete picture. A whole family are represented hanging one from the other, and only saved from destruction by the topmost of the chain, who just grasps a breaking tree. Girodet attained to a truer style in the Burial of Atala, which is simple and touching, and in the Revolt of Cairo he has caught some of the animation which gave their force and freshness to the battles of Gros. Neither Eegnault nor any of the painters just mentioned, though they asserted their independence with success, had sup planted David or formed schools which could rival his. His reform had bad astonishing success, but its work was done, and now it required itself to be reformed. People began to grow tired of the " race of Agamemnon," so stiff and antiquated in form and feature, and to look for painting which should be more directly inspired by life and nature, more in consonance with the spirit of the time. Out of this reaction gradually arose Eomanticism, a move ment justly associated with the name of Delacroix. It had, however, been inaugurated before him by an artist who was unconscious of his own mission. It was in the representations of the Napoleonic victories, with their mingled splendour and horror, that the Eomantic School really took its rise, and this was the path entered on by Antoine Jean Gros, le baron, (born in 1771, died in 1835). He was entirely a pupil of David. He drew the antique forms, but he covered them with modern uniforms. Enabled by the help of David to visit Italy in 1793, Gros studied chiefly the works of Eubens and Vandyck, and at Milan was presented to Bonaparte, who gave him an honorary post on his staff. To this, period belong those small portraits in O 2 196 PAINTING IN FRANCE. oil of which Massena and Bonaparte at the Bridge of Areola are striking examples, as well as a few subjects from the antique, such as Sappho at Leucate. But it was in the years after 1801, when he had returned to Paris, that Baron Gros produced those " Epic War Scenes " of which Napoleon was the hero. The Louvre has two of the most notable in Napoleon visiting the Plague-stricken Soldiers at Jaffa, and Napoleon at Eylau. The former is astonishing for the vigorous accent of life which pervades the scene of death and despair, and for the wonderful contrasts of colour afforded by the Uvid faces of the dying and the briUiant uniforms of Napoleon and his staff. In the latter picture, by a stroke of genius, the artist has concentrated all the horror of the scene in the face of Napoleon. Here too the qualities of the artist as a colourist are apparent, the tones being gloomy to suit the subject, yet harmonious. In these grand pictures Gros had shown all the force of his ardent but unimaginative genius ; there is another picture in the Louvre which shows his grace and elegance — Francis I. and Charles V. visiting the Church of St. Denis. The two kings are well contracted ; the composition is good, and the beauty of the forms is combined with a colouring as rich as that of Eubens. Virile grace and brilliant colouring also characterize Gros' vast oil-painting on the cupola of St. Genevifeve, representing the four chief dynasties of France offering the homage of their works to that saint. His last great work was the Embarkation of the Duchess of Angouleme. In following the impulse of his genius Gros had strayed far from David, yet when the latter retired in 1815 to Brussels, Gros willingly accepted the direction of his school, and recoiling from the new movement he had himself set in motion, returned to the style of his master. Hercules and Diomede, the last picture painted by him under the influence of this reaction, appeared in 1835, when the Romantic School had won the day, and the K^ V3^- .%''-'¦ ^^ ^ _. ^, \ . f 9.9 a^ -^^'^'f? Francis I. and Charles V. visiting the Tombs in St. Denis. By Antoine Jean Gros. In the Louvre. (No. 276). [See page W6 PAINTING IN FRANCE. 197 criticism on his picture was so severe that the artist committed suicide. The revolution which Gros had rmwUlingly effected was deliberately carried out by Theodore G:6ricault (born in 1791, died in 1824), who, it is interesting to note, was a pupil of the cold Guerin. G^ricault was the first to break boldly -with the classic traditions of David, and to return to reality. Yet this change must not be taken as implying a violent reaction. G^ricault did not renounce the ideal of David, but he sought to realize it in ordinary instead of antique forms, and to find poetry in the passions of common humanity. This is the idea which takes shape in his celebrated picture of the Raft of the Medusa, in the Lou-vre, which will always be looked on as marking a new departure in painting. The force with which various phases of hope and despair are depicted here replaces and equals the stiff nobility of the classic school. The execution is worthy of the conception, the touch being broad, sure, and firm, whUe the tragic effect is enhanced by the skilful grouping of the figures and the sombre but harmonious colouring. Had G^ricault lived he would doubtless have been one of the most prominent leaders of the Romantic School. But there were not wanting others to take his place. Delacroix and Ingres had singly great defects ; together they supplied just those qualities which were needed to "reform the reform" of David. Delacroix, weak in drawing, but a splendid thinker and colourist, rescued painting from the domain of sculpture, and made it thoughtful, varied, and passionate to reflect the spirit of the time. Ingres too much despised colour, but he combined a taste for the antique far purer than that of David, with a passion equally strong for the reality of nature. EuG&NB Delacroix (1798 — 1863), a pupil of Guerin, may be called the first Romanticist. He reflected the new aspirations of a time with which, moreover, his own genius was in perfect unison. His pictures are not so much the embodiment of 198 PAINTING IN FRANCE. principles as the expression of overmastering ideas. He essen tially represents the modern spirit, as yet strange to the Frencli School. Politics only once attracted his pencil; his attempts in the classic style, such as the Medea, fail in beauty of form. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 199 and succeed only so far as they express human emotion. Nor was he happier in his purely religious subjects, which, as for instance the Christ in the Sepulchre, seem conceived in a fierce indignant spirit. But as a representative of that poetry which depends for its interest on Christian as opposed to pagan sentiment, he was thoroughly at home, whether he went back to Dante, or turned now to Goethe, now to Byron. From his mode of thought and temperament sprang his defects, which were also those of the Eomantic School generally. In seeking to imbue his figures with character and individuality, he not only neglected beauty of form, but allowed it often to degenerate into actual ugliness, a fault hardly redeemed by any briUiancy of colouring. Delacroix's . genius appears fully developed in his earliest pictures, the Barque of Dante and the Massacre of Scio. The former especially is characteristic. It is notable first as being inspired by imagination rather than nature, secondly for its contrasted harmony of colour, which affects the mind not less than the eye. The fact that Delacroix was never in Italj"- renders his mastery over colour the more remarkable. He studied it in the works of Eubens and Veronese, but while using it with more poetical effect, he was inferior to them in uniting it with perfection of form. His tones are often strongly contrasted, — he made great use of black and white, — yet they form a perfect harm'ony, and no tone could be displaced in his pictures without injuring the effect. The Algerian Women, painted on a visit to Morocco, is a perfect specimen of his skill in blending colours. In Hamlet colour is so used as to produce an effect of melancholy ; in Marino Faliero it gives a splendid and tragic effect, and even redeems the ugliness of the faces. The weakness of the artist when deprived of the use of colour is seen in his drawings and lithographs for Faust, and for the same reason his pictures when engraved lose nearly all their beauty. It is a strange contrast to pass from Delacroix to Ingres ; 200 PAINTING IN FRANCE. from a genius eager and varied to one more limited, yet stronger and as passionate in its way. Jean Auguste Domenique Ingres (born in 1780, died in 1867) was in aim and achievement one of the most original painters of the French School. A pupil and cotemporary of David, and living far on into the nineteenth century, he unflinchingly carried out his principles through neglect and misunderstanding. His life, after some early years of struggle in Paris, was passed till 1824 in perhaps fortunate obscurity at EoTiie and Florence. At Eome he gained much from the study of Eaphael, who had long been neglected. He was nearly fifty when he returned to France, to find fame and honours awaiting him. Between 1834-41 he was enabled to extend his influence as Director of the School of Eome, and during the latter part of his life he was recognized as the chief of the French School. Two apparently opposite tendencies struggled for the mastery in Ingres, a passion for antique beauty and a passion for nature. But for the influence of David, the latter might have prevailed ; as it is, in no painter have the two ever been blended with such happy results; Ingres was in fact a "romantic Greek"; with all his love for the antique he remained essentially modern. Without falling into the error of painting sculpture, he yet seized the beauty of the ancient statues, and imbued them with life and character. The one reproach that could justly be made against his style was that it renounced colour for drawing, and was wanting in the feeling for chiaroscuro, and generaUy for picturesque effect. The perfect colouring of his Sis-tine Chapel and of some of his portraits proves that the neglect was partly deliberate, but it was undoubtedly connected with some limitations of his genius. Ingres had little fertility or invention. His best works occupied years; they were often laid aside long and finished late. His slow and hesitating imagination was concentrated almost exclusively on the beauty of the undrapi^d PAINTING IN FRANCE. 201 form, and it was only by a " passionate patience" that he wrough out this one idea in compositions cold in colouring, yet model I- of style and instinct with life and nature. A few examples, taken from his earliest and latest works. 202 PAINTING IN FRANCE. must serve to illustrate the qualities of Ingres, which from first to last underwent no marked modification. CEdipus explaining the Enigma, painted at Rome in 1808, already shows his charac teristic blending of the real and the ideal, the figure of CEdipus being of statue-like beauty, yet thoroughly human and natural in its unconstrained grace. The Apotheosis of Homer, designed for a ceiling in the Louvre, was painted when he was beginning to emerge from obscurity. It is a noble composition, bearing no trace of the hesitating conception with which it was wrought out piece by piece. Here once more the figures of the Iliad and the Odyssey may be particularly noticed as being at once ideal and, natural. Perhaps the most striking instance of the com bination of these two qualities occurs in his portrait of Clierubini, whom he has represented without any jarring effect, as touched by the descending Muse. The Stratonice is beautiful in com position, and shows the grace and tenderness which were blended with the artist's strength. That the true religious sentiment was wanting in him is evidenced in the severe grace of his Virgins, or by such a picture as his haughty St. Symphorien, just as Moliere and Louis XIV. is an instance of his failure to bend his massive genius to familiar subjects. But there is one picture by which alone Ingres might be completely estimated. This is the single figure named La Source, which, after remaining a sketch for forty years, was completed near the close of his life. It has been called "the finest figure in the French School," and in the union of antique loveliness of form with the perfection of natural grace could hardly be surpassed. As the Romantic School reached the height of its success it began to decline, as the school of David had done. Like all movements of reform, it gave rise to fresh ideas, which reacted against itself. Thus while Ingres stood in clear opposition to it, ¦ Scheffer and Delaroche began by being its disciples. Art Scheffer (1795 — 1858) bears much resemblance to 204 PAINTING IN FRANCE. Delacroix, his fellow-pupil under Guerin. A thinker and dreamer, he reflected the public taste only as it was in accord ance with his own feelings, which lay in the direction of mysticism and poetry. But he parted from Delacroix and the Romantic School in the point of execution. Their principles had insensibly led them to give exaggerated importance to the materialistic side of art — to regard only painting, colour, effect. These were precisely the quaUties which with Scheffer were subsidiary to sentiment. He was truly the painter of the soul. His career, which falls easUy into three periods, was marked by a steady but singular progress ; his power of expression was continually developing, as his execution became more weak and hesitating. The Citizens of Calais, painted in 1819, and still more the Death of Gaston De Foix (1824), show a leaning to Romantic colour and effect. The Suliote Women (1827) is truer in colour and execution, while its profound and touching pathos reveals the growth of the artist's peculiar powers. His middle period is marked by such works as Faust and Margaret and Francesca di Rimini, in which the style seems to waver, as though subordinated to the tenderness and melancholy of the sentiment. The Giaour, again, is firm in execution, whUe the King of Thule and the Weeper are richer in colour. The latter, representing a knight grieving over his dead son, is a powerful representation of mute despair, and the heads are of remarkable beauty. But it is in the religious pictures, which employed the latter years of his life, that the artist appears most himself. In these we wholly forget the means in the effect produced. Of these St. Monica and St. Augustine is a typical example. The same power of expressing the soul is to be seen in his best portraits, of which Madame Guizot is one of the finest. Paul* Delaroche (1797 — 1856) was one of the most repre sentative painters of his time, but he owed his position not to any bold originality, but the zeal and intelligence with which he * He was christened Hippolyte. PAINTING IN FRANCB. 205 cultivated qualities not of the highest order. His earlier works, such as Joan of Arc and the Death of Queen Elizabeth, showed a desire to follow the general manner of the Romantic School, while avoiding its excesses, but he soon divined where his strength lay, and the way in which it might best be employed to command success. His genius was not of the high, imaginative order, and owing to his early training for landscape only, he always laboured under an inability to draw the undraped figure. A clear perception of his own limitations and of the tendencies of the day led to his adoption of historical subjects, and to his peculiar method of treating them. He aimed not so much at producing grand or pathetic effects, as at telling a story dramatically by means of the historical truth and accuracy of the details and the choice of the fittest moment. In this he showed remarkable intuition, and often achieved merited success, espe cially when the execution equalled the idea, as, for instance, in the Death of the Duke de Guise, and Cromwell opening the Coffin of Charles I. In Cinq Mars led to Execution and the Death of Mazarin much is lost by the indecision of the style, while Strafford and Marie Antoinette are not only unequal in execution, but melodramatic in effect. They show calculation rather than thought, arrangement rather than composition. But Delaroche persisted in the path he had marked out for himself, and never allowed even his studies in Italy to tempt him to efforts beyond his powers. Ingres may be said to bring down the ideal to earth, and make us comprehend it; Delaroche, on the contrary, clings to the real and the familiar, and by lavish use of the resources of detail and arrangement seeks to beguile our attention in order that he may seem to fill our imagination. This is the utmost that can be said of his most ambitious achievement, the Hemicycle of Painters, in the Palace of the Fine Arts, a work which will probably always command admiration, -while it fails to satisfy the highest criticism. From this general judgment on Delaroche must be exempted -»t ¦«ii .ji*.* o> .n > "^jL^^ ^ Jf" ,^l^ 'J* ' "V M '- --t«i: r.'-?¥^ '"" ^••^:>.. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 207 his portraits, which are always full of character, and above all his latest works. The death of his wife in 1845 seemed to touch a new spring in his genius, and it was under the influence of this loss that he painted his widely-known Christian Martyr, and such sacred pictures as the Crown of Thorns and the Return frorri Golgotha. In these there is nothing theatrical or calculated. They are full of a grief, tenderness, and pathos which seem to come straight from the arti-t's souL The influence of the four painters last mentioned is apparent in several of their pupils or successors. Jules Zi^gler (1810 — 1856) and Theodore Chassbriau (1819 — 1856) were both pupils of Ingres. The works of the former show something of the skilful drawing of his master, with a richer colour and a more robust touch. He painted the cupola of the Madelaine in place of Delaroche. Chasseriau endeavoured to combine the style of Ingres with the picturesque effect of Delacroix. His Tepidarium at Pompeii shows his bold drawing and the rich colouring of his later style. But the influence of Ingres was most notable in Jean Hyppo- LiTB Flandrin (1809 — 1864), with whom there seemed to revive the religious spirit of Lesueur. He borrowed from Ingres his beauty of form and severity of drawing, but he used them to embody Christian in lieu of pagan sentiment. Among his best works are a series of twenty subjects in the church of St. Germain des Pr^s, at Paris, from the Old and New Testaments, comprising the Entry into Jerusalem and the March to Calvary. Flandrin was often assisted by Victor Orsbl (1795 — 1850). Leon Benouvillb (1821 — 1859) was also a religious painter. His works are weak in execution, but in the expression of Christian sentiment they almost equal those of Flandrin. His masterpiece was the Death of St. Francis of Assisi, now in the Luxembourg. Delaroche had been preceded in the genre of historical painting by Francois Andre Vincent (1746 — 1816); he was imitated in the same genre by the brothers Alfred Johannot (1800 — Eventide (Les Illusions By Gleyre. [Seepage 209. PAINTING IN FRANCE, 209 1837) and Tony Johannot (1803 — 1852), who, besides drawing numerous illustrations for books, painted a few excellent historical pictures in what may be called the anecdotal sty^e. Abel db Pujol (1785 — 1861) may be noted as maintaining to a recent date the manner of David. Many of his works are in the churches of Paris. Octave Tassaert (1800 — 1874) painted somewhat in the style of Prud'hon and of Greuze. His subjects were generally of a mournful character, but he sometimes reverted to classic themes, which were marked almost by a character of indecency. Thomas Coutore (1815 — 1879), who studied under Gros and Delaroche, chose the historical style. His Romans in the decadence of the Empire is in the Luxembourg. Modern Italy, at a time when it was less generally known than now, furnished subjects full of interest to several artists. Louis Leopold Robert (1794 — 1835); a Swiss by birth, went early to Paris, entered the studio of David, and afterwards spent much time at Eome. He began by painting interiors, or groups of pilgrims and monks, with no particular aim beyond reproducing what was striking or pictiiresque. Having obtained permission to copy some brigands who had lately been captured, he was enabled to strike out a line hitherto novel to artists, and being further much struck by the picturesque costumes of Naples, he conceived the idea of executing works which should be wider in their scope and more representative in their aim. A Hcdt of Harvestmen in the Pontine Marshes, now in the Louvre, is one of four pictures of this kind, in which it was his intention to typify the four chief peoples of Italy by four pictures of the seasons. It represents Rome and Summer, and was exhibited at the Salon of 1831 with another, Return from a jnlgrimage to the Madonna dell'Arco, representing Naples and Spring. Another masterpiece was the Death of the Eldest Son, which, like so many of his pictures, reflects the melancholy that characterized him. This melancholy, the causes of which are obscure, so grew upon SP P A Halt of Harvestmen in the Pontine Marshes. By Leopold Robert. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 211 him that he died by his own hand. The pictures of Eobert show rather high inteUigence than creative genius. In their firm drawing they show traces of the teaching of David, while by their adherence to nature they belong to the Eomantic School. They are somewhat sculptural in effect, but the artist has suc ceeded in lending dignity and character to homely peasants. Franqois Marius Granet (1775 — 1849), an artist widely known in Europe, was another pupil of David, and lived mostly at Eome. He excelled in so distributing the light as to enhance both the dramatic and pictorial effect of his pictures, in which, however, the figures are generally subordinated to the external scene. His celebrated Choir of the Capuchins had to be repeated by the artist no less than sixteen times, and ob tained for him the Cross of the Legion of Honour from Louis XVIIL A painter of very high originality, who took Ingres for his model, and worked much in seclusion, in the independent spirit of his master, was Marc Charles Gabriel Glbyre (1806 — 1874). His progress was at first slow ; his genius was deficient in originality, and, like that of Ingres, came only gradually to maturity. After four- years' study in Eome, he travelled for six years in Sicily, Greece, and Egypt, taking many sketches, among others one which he afterwards worked up as the picture called Eventide* "his first great work, although not in his matur- est style. The origin of this work is interesting, as showing Gleyre's poetic temperament. The subject was suggested to him by a twilight evening on the Nile, and in the sketch, as first executed, the figures in the boat were drawn as angels, and the musing figure on the bank omitted. ' His Eastern pictures, how ever, as a rule, are wanting in imagination, and a visit which he made to Venice, introduced a simpler and noble element into his style. His later pictures show a continual advance towards the * In aU engravings and reproductions this picture is named Les Illusions Perdues. See Frontispiece. 212 PAINTING IN FRANCE. realization of an exacting ideal. They comprise historical, sacred, and mythological subjects, in which severity of treatment is combined with a poetic grace peculiarly the painter's own. Henri Lehmann (1814 — 1882) was also a pupil of Ingres. The most important of his works were mural paintings, among the most remarkable of which were those in the Galerie des F^tes at the Hotel de Ville, and the ceUing of the SaUe des Assises at the Palais de Justice, both since destroyed at the troubles of the Commune. Lehmann was also known as one of the foremost portrait painters of the day. His style, although founded on that of Ingres, and combining adherence to form with truth to nature, inclines more to the graceful and the ele vated than to the severe and the lofty, and pleases more than it impresses. With Ingres and Delacroix, Scheffer and Delaroche, began an imptUse which has lasted to the present day. Their methods may now be partially discredited, but to their efforts — ranging in such varied directions, and all having for their object generaUy to bring back painting from convention to nature — may be traced the independence and variety which now characterize the French School. Romanticism is seen not to be directly sup planted by any rival sect, but to expand gradually into a free development of all branches of painting, in which each artist follows the bent of his own genius. Owing, however, chiefly to external circumstances, we flnd the tendency of this new develop ment to be distinctly in the direction of Realism. At the same time that the technical side of Art reached in this latter period an extraordinary degree of perfection, a wide field is thro-wn open for its exercise in the rich variety of modern life, with its quickly changing incidents and the multiplicity of its impressions. Travel itself largely increases the sum of these external im pressions at the disposal of the artist, and introduces a new and vivid element into French painting. As if Italy were not 214 PAINTING IN FRANCB. enough, the East suffers an artistic invasion, and its landscapes and cities are keenly studied in the search for more brilliant play of colour or novelty of picturesque effect. Finally, during this period we perceive a yet more legitimate field of artistic expansion opened up to French painting, in the rise of a modern school of landscape, which, in contradistinction to the classic school of Poussin, seeks its inspiration direct from nature. Turning back now to notice in their chronological order those painters who were occupied chiefly with genre subjects, we flnd Gerard and Hersent succeeded, in the genre of portrait, by Jban Baptiste Isabey (1767 — 1855). Like Gerard, Isabey owes his fame to the eminence of his sitters. Such names as Marie Antoinette, Mirabeau, Napoleon — the last of whom he was particularly happy in representing— mark some of the stages of his long career ; but he was most in vogue under the Directory, when he was unrivalled as a miniaturist. His portraits were especially distinguished by their flne drawing, a merit for which he was indebted to the help of David. Another skilful minia turist was Madame db Mirbel (1796 — 1849), who was very fashionable in the reign of Louis Philippe. MAD.A.MB Elizabeth Louise ViQi)E lb Brun (1755 — 1842) achieved early success with her portrait of Marie Antoinette and her Cldldren. Sh-t was very popular, and her Salon was one of the most celebrated in Paris. After the Eevolution she visited Italy and nearly all the other countries of Europe, and was everywhere received with the greatest honour. In style she belongs entirely to the eighteenth century, and often imitated Nattier in representing real persons in mythological dress. The Portrait of herself and Child, in the Louvre, is in this manner. Gdstav Eicard (1823 — 1873) conflncd himself chiefly to por traits, which he painted with picturesqueness and technical skill. Carle Vernet (1758 — 1835), the son of Joseph Ver et, after renouncing the classic style, painted a few battle-pieces, of Madame le Brvn. By Herself. 216 painting in France. which the best were Marengo and Austerlitz. But he had not the qualities of a great artist, and his reputation rests on his paintings of animals — especially the horse — and his caricatures, in which he availed himself largely of lithography. In his Incroyables and Marveilleuses of the Directory, or his English in Paris, was revived the spirit of Callot ; but Vernet, with equal wit, displays a yet more grotesque fancy and truth to nature. In Carle's son, Horace Vernet (1789 — 1863), we find one of the most characteristic of French painters. In the witty, incisive, and superficial character of his genius he resembled his father. He had the quickness of conception and dexterity of execution which are described by the term improvisation. What he had once seen he could paint from memory; and his com positions, while full of inaccuracies in detaU, have that approxi mative resemblance to nature which is sufficient to please without satisfying criticism. His first attempts were not favour ably received, but discouragement had little effect on his restless and versatile temperament, and success came to him so rapidly that in 1828 he was made Director of the Academy of Eome. Here, all that was superficially striking and picturesque served as themes for his facile pencil. It was, however, a passing visit which he made to Algeria in 1833, that gave the decisive direc tion to his talent. The scenes of military life which he there met with, set off as they were by the most picturesque surround ings, were just what was required to call forth his peculiar powers ; and henceforth, along with vivid transcriptions of picturesque incident, of which the Post through the Desert may be taken as a good example, he devoted himself mainly to depict ing the French soldier, in every aspect, and under all conditions. He is quick to seize and pourtray all the dramatic incidents of the camp and the garrison, and in representing actual episodes of war, the spirit and vivacity -with which he renders the general impression of the scene, atone for much carelessness and in accuracy. His masterpiece in this style is the series representing The Post through the Desert. By Horace Vernet. 218 painting in France. the Taking of Constantine,* at Versailles. The Crimean War also supplied him with an inexhaustible field for kindred themes. Wholly different in kind were those biblical scenes which in all probability were suggested to the artist by a visit which he made to Egypt and Palestine. Vernet's sacred pictures have all the conspicuous qualities of his genius, but for this very reason fall wholly short of their aim. In fact, where real nobility of style is essential he always fails entirely. In proof of this it is suffi cient to point to his Judith and Holofernes, or the Meeting of Raphael and Michelangelo. Two pictures in other genres also fully illustrate his merits and defects — the Studio of Hw'ace, and the portrait of Frere Philippe, which was shown at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. As a painter of horses Carle Vernet was succeeded by Swebach Desfontaines (1768 — 1824); in caricature, besides his o-wn son Horace, there were several artists who claim .mention as in some sort the successors of Callot, although the medium they chiefly used was lithography. Grandville (1803 — 1847) was skilful in depicting the follies of men through the physiognomies of animals. Nicolas Toussaint Charlbt (1792 — 1845) found a fertile subject in the French soldier of the Empire, whom he treated with a mingled humour and pathos which recall Beranger. In a similar spirit Denis Auguste Marie Eaffet (1804^ 1860) depicts the characteristic traits of the French soldier of a later time. Gavarni (1801 — 1866), whose real name was SuLPiCE GuiLLAUMB Chbvalibr, was a satirist of severer type. In his delineations of certain aspects of society he ranges from irony to bitterness, and shows no trace of tenderness or pity. Some of his most forcible sketches represent the vice and misery of London about 1849-50. Two artists may be more particularly noticed here as being the last representatives of that older manner of battle-painting which is now superseded by the so-called anecdotal style. These * A stronghold in Algeria, where Abd-el-Kader was captured. PAINTING IN FRANCE. 219 were Joseph Louis Hippolyte Bbllang^ (1800 — 1865), many of whose works are at Versailles, and Isidore Alexandre Auguste Pils (1815 — 1875), who found his most important subjects in the scenes of the Crimean War. On turning to landscape we find little attention bestowed upon it during the eighteenth century. The traditions of Claude and Poussin were obsolete, while the absence of a genuine love of nature made the rise of a new school as yet impossible. The Italian scenes and sketches of Hubert Egbert (1733 — 1808) showed some fire and imagination, but were interesting chiefly for their subjects. Th« only representatives of pure landscape were Simon Mathurin Lantara (1729 — 1778), and Lazarb Bruandet (1755 — 1803). The former, an obscure artist of Bohemian life, loved to wander in the woods of Fontainebleau, painting scenes which, in their effects of sun and air, resembled those of Claude. Bruandet also frequented the environs of Paris, and adopted a similar style. Jean Victor Bertin (1775 — 1842), an historical landscape painter, is best known as the master of Michallon, Corot, Coignet, and other celebrated men. During the ascendancy of David landscape was equally neg lected, but for a different reason. It was looked down upon as wanting in importance and grandeur. In order to succeed it had to ape the artificial dignity of the "classic'' style. This factitious element is particularly observable in the later works of three artists who otherwise showed a strong inclination to study directly from nature. Jban Baptiste Huet (1745 — 1811) and Jean Louis Dbmarnb (1744 — 1829) seem never to have owed to stray far from the environs of cities. They are fond of en livening their scenes with episodes of every-day life, and in their figures may be traced the .successive influences of Boucher and David. Huet excelled in painting animals of all kinds, render ing the texture of the skin with especial skill. Demarne was born at Brussels, and his imitation of many Flemish masters 220 painting in prance. adds to the inequaUty of his style. Fairs, country roads, mUi- tary bivouacs, were the favourite subjects of his pencil. Nicolas Antoine Taunay (1755 — 1830) has been called " the David of smaU pictures." The en-virons of Eome furnished hini with scenes and incidents simUar to those of Demarne, but dis figured by a ridiculous affectation of the antique style. A pedantic attempt to revive the " historic landscape " of Poussin was made by Valenciennes (1750 — 1819), and with more abUity by Achillb Etna Michallon (1796 — 1822). His studies at Eome were divided between simple nature and the works of Poussin, but the rising influence of Eomanticism in duced him to seek his heroes not in mythology, but the chivalric legends of the middle ages. His Death of Roland was considered a masterpiece. Though timid in execution, it is good in com position and spirited in sentiment ; but the time for the historic genre was past, and no genius cotUd have given it permanent vitality. The Eomantic influence led to better results in Camille EoQUBPLAN (1803 — 1855), whose landscapes and sea-pieces, fuU of light, colour, and effect, led the way to a better style. StiU, in spite of all modifications in taste, nature — dissevered from human interest^remained a subject little understood or appreciated in France, and the impulse which led to its being studied in a new spirit came eventually from England. The works of the English artists Bonington and Constable, exhibited in France in 1824, first opened the eyes of French landscape painters to the charm which nature possesses in itself. Boning ton spent nearly all his life in France, and to the. admiration excited by his skill in colour and chiaroscuro, may be traced the movement which has resulted in the present high position held by French landscape. The first artist of note in whom this new spirit appears was Alexandre Gabriel Decamps (1803 — 1860), whose vigorous truth to nature first astonished and then delighted his countrymen. A boyhood spent in the rustic solitudes of Picardy, cannot but have had a decisive influence upon his 222 painting in francb. artistic ideas, and probably accounts for the bold originality of conception and the rugged vigour of style which characterize his painting. Arriving in Paris, he studied at first under Abel de Pujol, but the Davidian tradition of this master hardly affected for a moment the masterful originality of his pupil. The land scapes ¦ of Decamps are not mere backgrounds for historic or idyllic action, but derive their sentiment and interest from a sympathetic study of nature alone in her different moods and aspects. If he introduces figures, it is because they really form part of the scene, as in the Herdsman. The truth and fidelity with which Decamps studied simple nature were also applied by him in other directions. His Eastern scenes are not conceived in any romantic or poetic spirit, but are striking for their local truth, natural force, picturesque variety, and delightful humour. These qualities are apparent in a Turkish - School. His humour also appears, sometimes with richest satirical effect, in his studies of animals, of which he was very fon