THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH SCHOOL

THE revolutionary movement of the Romanticists, which was to find a strong leader in Eugène Delacroix, may be said to have been initiated by Géricault’s epoch-making pictureThe Raft of the Medusa(No. 338,Plate XLVI.). Théodore Géricault (1791–1824), a pupil of Carle Vernet and Guérin, was an unusually gifted draughtsman, who from the outset strove to go beyondthe dead perfection of the David school, and to infuse into his work the spark of life. TheRaft of the Medusa, which caused an enormous stir at the Salon of 1819, was inspired by a tragic incident from actual life; and Géricault was the first who dared to represent in all its horrible reality this scene of human suffering—the survivors of a shipwreck driven by hunger to madness and mutual destruction. He set aside all arbitrarily ignored canons of formal beauty and the “grand style,” and applied himself to depicting fierce passions and emotions.

Géricault was a passionate lover of horses; but his knowledge of equine anatomy did not prevent him, in his portrait of anOfficer of the Guard(No. 339), from exaggerating the action of the charging horse to a point dangerously near the border-line between the sublime and the ridiculous. Most of his other pictures at the Louvre are studies of soldiers, and horses on the race-course or in the stable. He died in 1824 from the effects of a fall from a horse.

The topical interest of theRaft of the Medusahad caused the public to receive this picture with favour, in spite of its daring departure from the generally accepted canons of the “grand style.” The case was different when Delacroix showed at the Salon of 1822 theDante and Virgil(No. 207,Plate XLVII.), which was inspired by Géricault’s great picture, but applied that artist’s principles to a subject taken from literature,—from Dante’s “Inferno,”—and was therefore considered as a direct challenge to the academic host. To-day it is difficult to understand the indignation aroused by the young artist, who became forthwith the acknowledged head of the so-called Romanticist school, although he refrained from taking part in any propaganda. In this, his first important exhibited picture, he proved himselfa true painter in the sense in which Rubens was a painter—that is to say, he no longer gave primary importance to drawing, with colour added afterwards in the manner of a tinted cartoon. In theDante and Virgilcolour and the actual sweep of the brush assumed at once a vital and constructive function, no longer separable from drawing and design.

PLATE XLVI.—JEAN LOUIS ANDRÉ THÉODORE GÉRICAULT(1791–1824)No. 338.—THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA(Le Radeau de la Méduse)

The raft of the wrecked Medusa, with the survivors of the crew, is floating on the stormy sea. In the foreground on the left, surrounded by dead sailors, a father is holding with his left hand the nude body of his dying son. On the right, a corpse is partly resting on the raft, partly floating on the water. Farther back the officer, Corréard, is seen pointing out to the surgeon, Savigny, the brigArgus, which appears on the far horizon under the clouded sky. At the far end of the raft a mulatto and a sailor have hoisted themselves on to some barrels to wave some rags, so as to attract the attention of the distant ship.Painted in oil on canvas.16 ft. 1½ in × 23 ft. 6 in. (4·91 × 7·16.)

Painted in oil on canvas.

16 ft. 1½ in × 23 ft. 6 in. (4·91 × 7·16.)

Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863), who belonged to a family that had given to France many distinguished statesmen and soldiers, was a pupil of Guérin, whose conventional teaching, however, was little to the taste of a young man whose passionate nature had been fired by his extensive reading of romantic literature, and who preferred to form his style on the works of Rubens and other old masters at the Louvre, and to benefit from his intercourse with Géricault and Bonington. TheDante and Virgil, which is now in a deplorable state of neglect, was bought by the State at the not very generous price of £50. Delacroix’s next Salon picture,The Massacre of Scio(No. 208), caused an even greater storm of abuse of the young artist who had dared to depict the horrors of this scene from the Greek War of Independence, as it was thought, in all their crudeness, without the heroical and theatrical poses that were deemed necessary for pictorial “histories.” The magnificent atmospheric background owes its origin to Delacroix’s first acquaintance with theHay Wainand two other pictures sent by Constable to the Salon of 1824, which caused the impetuous young artist to repaint in a few days the sky and landscape. The picture was again bought by the State, the price this time being raised to £240. A superb study for the dead mother and child in the right-hand corner has been bequeathed by M. Cheramy, the present owner, to the National Gallery, where it is to be hung next to “the best Constable.”

It is impossible here to give a full account of the twenty-one paintings by Delacroix at the Louvre, to which should be added his decorative masterpiece, the centre of the ceiling in the Galerie d’Apollon. We must content ourselves with a brief reference to his more important canvases, first of which in order of date isThe 28th of July 1830: Liberty leading the People(No. 209), better known asThe Barricade. The introduction of a bourgeois with a top-hat in this stirring scene of contemporary heroism was another act of defiance. But the dramatic power of the conception, which suffers but is by no means destroyed by the wretched allegorical figure of Liberty, and the artist’s appeal to political passion, caused the picture to be an enormous success.

Delacroix’s journey to Morocco, with Count Morney’s mission in 1832, was of the greatest benefit to the artist’s progress as a colourist. although he had no time during his travels to paint any pictures, he brought back with him a wealth of rapid sketches which, with his vivid recollections of Eastern life and colour, led to the production of such masterpieces as theAlgerian Women in their Apartment(No. 210), theJewish Wedding in Morocco(No. 211), andThe Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople(No. 213). In the sumptuous scheme ofCrusadersthe last traces of the influence of Gros’s colourless palette have vanished. The picture was commissioned by Louis Philippe for the Château at Versailles, the remuneration being fixed at £400. A copy of the picture is in one of the Salles des Croisades at Versailles, and a small sketch is at Chantilly. TheAlgerian Womenis particularly remarkable for the luminous sparkle of rich pigment through the ambient of silvery atmosphere.

Among Delacroix’s masterpieces must be counted thePortrait of the Artist(No. 214), which he left on his death to his servant,Jenny le Guillon, stipulating that she should give it to the Louvre on the day of the restoration of the Orléans family—an event which never happened, though the picture reached its destination in 1872 through the generosity of Mme. Durien.The Shipwreck of Don Juan(No. 212), painted in 1840, is based on Lord Byron’s epic poem, of which it is, however, by no means a literal illustration. It is one of the most stirring renderings of human passion and despair in the whole history of art, the livid light and general sombre scheme of colour contributing towards the tragic effect, as though Nature herself were entering into the mood of the horrible scene.

Although, on the whole, an unsatisfactory picture, Delacroix’sRoger delivering Angelica(No. 2845) may serve to illustrate the true significance of his art in its relation to the official school, as there is in the same collection another rendering of the identical subject (No. 419) by his great antagonist Ingres, the greatest draughtsman of his century, and the acknowledged leader of the Classicist school. Comparison between the two works will show that Delacroix’s version, with all its obvious imperfections, far surpasses Ingres’s in emotional intensity and fierce vitality. The academic perfection and exquisite finish of Ingres’s picture only accentuate the dulness and lifelessness of his conception.

PLATE XLVII.—FERDINAND VICTOR EUGÈNE DELACROIX(1798–1863)No. 207.—DANTE AND VIRGIL(Dante et Virgile aux Enfers)

In a boat, steered by Charon across the river Styx, Virgil, laurel-crowned and dressed in a red cloak, holds with his right hand the left hand of Dante, who, in a blue cloak with a red hood, raises his right arm in a gesture of horror at the sight of the Damned, who, half-buried in the turbulent waters, cling despairingly to the sides of the boat. In the background are seen the towers of the burning city of Dite.Signed:—“eugène delacroix.”Painted in oil on canvas.5 ft. 11 in. × 7 ft. 10½ in. (1·80 × 2·40.)

Signed:—“eugène delacroix.”

Painted in oil on canvas.

5 ft. 11 in. × 7 ft. 10½ in. (1·80 × 2·40.)

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) was a pupil of David. Having gained the Prix de Rome in 1801, he did not leave for Italy until 1806, but spent the next eighteen years in Rome and Florence, returning to Paris in 1824. Although Ingres was brought up in the cold tradition of the David school, he had a much clearer perception of the true spirit of Greek art than his master. When he became acquainted with thework of Raphael in Rome, he found it the very acme of perfection, and henceforth frankly strove to emulate that master, seeking to arrive at an eclectic ideal of the human form which in its dogmatic rule of the proportions that constitute absolute beauty, allowed none of the accents and variations which make for life and character. Himself greater than his theories, Ingres achieved that perfection of grace and beauty in his deservedly famousThe Spring(No. 422,Plate XLVIII.), one of the few “gems” in the Salle Duchâtel, and in the very RaphaelesqueOdalisque(No. 422b), which was purchased in 1899 from the Princesse de Sagan for £2400. On the other hand, the imposition of an inflexible, rigid ideal of form did incalculable harm to his numerous and less gifted followers, in whom every spark of individuality was extinguished by the tyranny of the dogma.

Yet Ingres, when he applied himself to portraiture, was as uncompromising a realist as Holbein, of whose sensitive, subtle drawing and plastic modelling, without the introduction of entirely unnecessary shiny high lights, we are forcibly reminded by thePortrait of the Painter’s Friend, M. Bochet(No. 428a). Something of the same perfection of modelling, suggested rather by the sensitive contour than clearly stated by pronounced lights and shadows, is to be noticed in the nude figure ofThe Odalisque, and in the creamy white drapings of the ovalPortrait of Mme. Rivière(No. 427). Perhaps his best portrait at the Louvre is the one ofM. Bertin, Founder of the Journal des Débats(No. 428b), a masterpiece of character painting, in which the marvellously drawn fleshy hands, with their tapering fingers, are as expressive as the fine head. This portrait was acquired in 1897 for the sum of £3200.

The less admirable side of Ingres’s talent is illustrated by the circular composition of theVirgin of the Host(No. 416), acrude scheme of “Sassoferrato blue” and red, on entirely conventional lines; and by theApotheosis of Homer(No. 417), a tame Raphaelesque design in which Homer is seen enthroned in the centre, with allegorical figures of theIliadandOdysseyseated on the steps of the throne, and a winged goddess placing a laurel wreath on his head. To the left of the central group are the figures of Hesiod, Æschylus, Apelles, Raphael, Virgil, Dante, Tasso, Corneille, and Poussin; to the right, Pindar, Plato, Socrates, Alexander, Camoens, Racine, Molière, and Fénelon. There is a touch of the grotesque in the combination of rather mechanical dry portraiture with trite allegory that constitutes the design of the terribly crackedPortrait of the Composer Cherubini(No. 418). His failings as a colourist are most aggressively obvious in theChrist handing the Keys to St. Peter(No. 415). Ingres died in Paris on the 14th January 1867.

PLATE XLVIII.—JEAN AUGUSTE DOMINIQUE INGRES(1780–1867)No. 422.—THE SPRING(La Source)

A nude figure of a fair-haired young maiden stands facing the spectator, the background being formed by a perpendicular rock partly overgrown with clinging plants. She raises her right arm over her head to hold the foot of a tilted vase, the mouth of which is supported by her left hand, and from which issues a streamlet of water that falls into a pool at the base of the rock, in which are reflected the feet of the maiden.Signed on a stone on the left:—“ingres, 1856.”Painted in oil on canvas.5 ft. 5 in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1.65 × 0.80.)

Signed on a stone on the left:—“ingres, 1856.”

Painted in oil on canvas.

5 ft. 5 in. × 2 ft. 7½ in. (1.65 × 0.80.)

Among the painters who were influenced by Delacroix, and whose name was associated with the Romanticist movement, none rose to greater fame than Paul Delaroche (1797–1856), a pupil of Gros, and the Dutchman Ary Scheffer (1795–1858), who, like Delacroix, studied under Guérin. But neither of these artists managed wholly to shake off the trammels of the academic tradition, and both became popular for the very reasons for which a more critical generation has denied them the right to figure among the world’s great artists: Delaroche for the theatricality of his historical anecdotes, of whichThe Death of Queen Elizabeth(No. 216) andThe Princes in the Tower(No. 217) are typical examples; and Scheffer for the sickly sentimentality displayed in such pictures asSt. Augustine and St. Monica(No. 841).

Contemporary with the fighters in the great battle between the Romanticists and the Classicists were a group of able painters who were not connected with either of these main currents of artistic thought, but drew their inspiration from the Dutch genre painters.The Arrival of a Diligence at the Messageries(No. 28), by Louis Leopold Boilly (1761–1845), andThe Interior of a Kitchen(No. 261), by Martin Drolling (1752–1817), may be quoted as characteristic instances of these “small masters” without possessing the luminosity of their Dutch exemplars.

Something of the precious quality of pigment and of the luminosity of these Dutchmen is to be found in the genre pictures of Alexandre Gabriel Decamps (1803–1860), of which a large number form part of the Thomy Thiéry Bequest—notablyThe Knife-Grinder(No. 2831) andThe Gipsy Encampment(No. 2833). Decamps owes his historical importance to his position as the head of the Orientalists. Unlike his contemporary explorer of the East for pictorial purposes, Delacroix, he found the facts of Eastern life, scenery, and customs sufficiently attractive to be satisfied with the realistic statement of his visual impressions, instead of making them the basis for the invention of romantic incidents. Yet theStreet in Smyrna(No. 2827) and similar works are by no means of merely topographic interest, for Decamps was a great painter to whom pigment yielded beauty independent of the subject represented.The Rat retired from the World(No. 2834) vies in quality with the still-life pictures of Chardin. Decamps was also the greatest animal painter of his time, as may be gathered from hisChevaux de halage(No. 204),The Bull-Dog and Scotch Terrier(No. 206), and the precious little genre piece,The Kennel-Boy(No. 2838).

THE ORIENTALISTS

Brought up in the tradition of the Classicist school, Prosper Marilhat (1811–1847) only “formed himself” when the world of colour was discovered to him under the glowing sky of the Holy Land and Egypt, where he paintedThe Mosque of the Khalif Hakem, at Cairo(No. 615). Another Orientalist of great distinction, who, after being a favourite pupil of Ingres, became attracted by the fiery romanticism of Delacroix, was the Creole Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856). His works at the Louvre illustrate the earlier better than the later phase of his art. Chassériau was still entirely under the spell of Ingres when he painted, in 1844, the decoration of the Cour des Comptes, which building was destroyed under the Commune.Peace(No. 121a) is a fragment of this important decorative work, which may be said to constitute a link between Ingres and Puvis de Chavannes.The Chaste Susannah(No. 121) and thePortrait of Father Lacordaire, Dominican Preacher(No. 121b), are again clear evidence of Ingres’s influence upon Chassériau at the beginning of his brief career.

A man of profound culture and rare critical acumen, Eugène Fromentin (1820–1876) was perhaps greater as a critic than as a painter. He, too, travelled repeatedly in Algeria and Egypt, where he found abundant material both for his brush and pen. He did not look upon the East with the curiosity of the traveller, nor did he let the strange land work upon his romantic imagination. His pictures, somewhat timid in technique but marked by great refinement, reveal, on the other hand, a thorough understanding of the sad monotony of the sun-parched desert, and the chivalrous, noble bearing of its Arab inhabitants. His refined talent shows to best advantage inHawking in Algeria(No. 305).

REGNAULT

The Orient was by no means the uncontested field of the Romanticists. But the followers of the official school who devoted themselves to the depicting of Eastern life and scenery, approached these subjects in the same spirit ofparti priswhich robs all their work of real significance—unless, like Henri Regnault (1843–1871) in his famous and often reproducedMoorish Execution(No. 771), they treated them as rank melodrama. Regnault is, however, not to be judged by this overrated piece of sensationalism. Killed in the Franco-German War in 1871 at the early age of twenty-eight, this young painter gave rare promise of brilliant achievement in an altogether unacademic direction in his superb equestrian portrait ofGeneral Prim(No. 770). There is something truly heroic in the way the Spanish general sits his horse, arresting its forward movement with a sudden jerk at the reins; but the ruggedness and unkempt appearance of the rider displeased General Prim to such an extent that Regnault, who would not alter the picture, preferred to keep it on his hands.

It will suffice here merely to indicate the names and chief works at the Louvre of the principal artists who carried on, about the middle of the nineteenth century, the academic tradition,—capable painters all, but without clearly-marked individuality. Thomas Couture (1815–1879), a pupil of Gros and of Delaroche, in painting the huge composition,Romans of the Decadence(No. 156), produced a picture which may be taken as typical of the ambitions and failings of the whole school—of their literary tendencies, theatricality, and uninspired dulness. He was, however, an accomplished master of technique, which is more thancan be said of Joseph Devéria (1805–1865), the painter ofThe Birth of Henri IV.(No. 250); or of Ingres’s pupil, the dull Hippolyte Flandrin (1809–1864), who is only represented by twoPortraits(Nos. 284 and 285). Nor is it possible to-day to grow enthusiastic over the historical paintings of Joseph Nicolas Robert-Fleury (1797–1890), whoseConference at Poissy(No. 2982),Galileo before the Inquisition(No. 2983), andChristopher Columbus received by Ferdinand and Isabella on his Return from America(No. 2984), can only be regarded as unnecessarily large coloured illustrations.

In the much-neglected branch of landscape painting the classic tradition of Claude ruled supreme until a new conception arose with the victory of the romantics in the third decade of the nineteenth century. Two names only need be mentioned before we pass on to the new movement—the return to nature—which was inaugurated by the group of painters vaguely known as the Barbizon school. Both Georges Michel (1763–1843) and Paul Huet (1804–1868) may be regarded as forerunners of that great movement; and both have only in recent years received the recognition which is their due. Michel developed his style in copying and closely studying the Dutch landscape masters, and must in his maturity have been well acquainted with the art of Constable, who exercised, together with Bonington, a prodigious influence on the whole course of French landscape painting. If Michel’s breadth of style, which may be judged fromNear Montmartre(No. 626), had been accompanied by a greater range of subject-matter, he would probably rank more highly in the roll of French artists; but he contented himself with the endless repetition of the same motifs which he found close to Montmartre, where he spent his whole life. The care with which he studiedthe works of Jacob van Ruisdael earned for him the nickname of “the Ruisdael of Montmartre.”

Huet, again, learnt more from the old masters and from his friends, Bonington and Delacroix, than from his actual teachers. He, too, thrust aside the recipes of composing classic or “noble” landscapes, and was inspired by an altogether emotional outlook upon nature, calm and serene, as inThe Still Morning(No. 413), or threatening and tempestuous, as inThe Inundation at St. Cloud(No. 412), or in his masterpiece,The Breakers at Granville(No. 2952).

The term “Barbizon school” has been extended from its narrower meaning, in which it merely comprises Rousseau, Diaz, Millet and the disciples who joined them, to form a little artistic colony on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, to a less accurate but now generally accepted wider application, embracing “the men of 1830,” who collectively and individually set out, inspired indirectly by Constable, upon the conquest of light and atmosphere through intimate communion with nature. In a pedantic survey of this Barbizon school, Rousseau would have to take honour of place as the leader of the group, whilst Corot and Daubigny, neither of whom actually worked at Barbizon, would have to be altogether excluded. But in the more liberal interpretation of the term, which we have here adopted, Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875) must be given first place as the doyen of the whole group, since he alone was born before the eighteenth century had run its course.

Corot, the son of acoiffeurand amodistein comfortable circumstances, was destined in his youth for the drapery trade,and was only enabled to follow his bent for the artistic profession when, at the age of twenty-five, he entered into possession of a small annual allowance, sufficient to meet his modest requirements and to save him from the desperate struggle for very existence which was the fate of some of his later friends and companions. His early work from nature had already laid the foundations for his subsequent style when he entered the studio, first of the academic painter Michallon, and then of Bertin. In 1825 Corot went to Rome, where he painted, among many pictures of equally rich luscious quality, theView of the Forum Romanum(No. 139), and theView of the Coliseum(No. 140), which he himself bequeathed to the State. Although these early works have none of the elusive charm and lyrical feeling of his mature style, and are of rather topographic character, they reveal in every touch the artist enamoured of atmosphere and of the quality of pigment. The touch is precise, but not tight. The two pictures were painted in 1826, but already they hold more than a hint of that unrivalled mastery of tone-values which found supreme expression inA Street in Douai(No. 141f), painted in 1871.

From the precision of his early manner Corot gradually advanced to freedom and airy looseness of touch; from statement of fact, to the suggestion of the very spirit and essence of nature in terms of paint that, more than any other artist’s work, justify the expression “colour music.” His later canvases are filled with the soft shimmer of vibrating atmosphere and with the tender poetry of dawn and dusk. Whilst retaining a truly classic sense of style, and adapting nature to his purposes by arrangement and generalisation, he never fails to convince the beholder of the reality of the scene represented. Even if his glades are peopled with dancing nymphs and satyrs, as inA Morning(No. 138), these mythical beings no longer suggest classic statuary, but they belong as much to the landscape as do the trees and shrubsand clouds, as do the peasant woman and the cow inThe Dell(No. 2801,Plate XLIX.), or the piping shepherd in the exquisiteSouvenir d’Italie: Castel Gandolfo(No. 141b). Of the twenty-two paintings by the master at the Louvre, no fewer than twelve form part of the Thomy Thiéry Bequest to which the great French national collection owes so many of its chief treasures of nineteenth-century art.

The real head of the Barbizon school was Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867), who was one of the first exponents of the “romantic” as opposed to the “classic” landscape. If Corot was the lyric, Rousseau was the epic poet of Nature. In his early works he was considerably influenced by Constable, but he failed for a long time to gain the approval of the public and of the Salon juries. Fourteen times in succession his pictures were refused admission to the Salon, and success only came to him late in life. In 1851, at about the same time as Millet, he settled at Barbizon, on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where henceforth he found the subjects for his pictures. Rousseau was a most conscientious artist, who “constructed a group of trees with the care that an Academician puts into the construction of a nude figure.” His love of accurate detail did not, however, make him lose sight of the general effect. His insistence on bold silhouettes made him favour the sunset hour when, as in his masterpiece,An Opening in the Forest at Fontainebleau(No. 827), the trees would form effective dark masses against the glowing sunset sky. More characteristic of his favourite manner of composition is the imposing group of oak trees in the middle of a plain in the picture known asLes Chênes(No. 2900). In this, as inMarais dans les Landes(No. 830), which was bought in 1881 for £5160, and, indeed, in all the pictures where cattle are introduced, it will be noticedthat the animals form part and parcel of the landscape, and are no longer individual “portraits” of animals, as they were apt to be in the pictures by the earlier Dutch cattle-painters. The same unity of vision is to be noted in all his sixteen pictures at the Louvre.

PLATE XLIX.—JEAN-BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT(1796–1875)No. 2801.—THE DELL(Le Vallon, avec des paysannes et une vache)

A grass-covered hill descends from the horizon line on the left to the right-hand bottom corner of the picture. A low hedge with a clump of trees in the centre divides the grassy plot from the field rising beyond towards the horizon-line, from which projects a church in the far distance. The sun is behind the trees, which throw a deep shadow on the dale. A cow occupies the centre of the foreground. To the left a group of three peasant women and a child; to the right a farm labourer.Signed on left:—“corot.”Painted in oil on canvas.1 ft. 1¾ in. × 1 ft. 9¼ in. (0·35 × 0·54.)

Signed on left:—“corot.”

Painted in oil on canvas.

1 ft. 1¾ in. × 1 ft. 9¼ in. (0·35 × 0·54.)

This oneness of inanimate and animate nature is less completely realised in the art of Constant Troyon (1810–1865), who, having been trained as a porcelain-painter, was subsequently attracted by the romanticism of Dupré, but followed such Dutch masters as Paul Potter in subordinating the landscape to the cattle. It is for this reason that Troyon is known to the public as a “cattle-painter” rather than as a landscape painter. At the same time, he was a close observer of the effects of light on fields and meadows, which he rendered with a skill only rivalled by the solidity, the suggestion of weight and movement, the well-accentuated forms and sinuosities of his cattle. The huge canvasOxen going to Work(No. 889) is an unrivalled achievement of its kind—a piece of realism that is not without poetry and grandeur. Next to it in importance ranks theReturn to the Farm(No. 890). Among the eleven Troyons (Nos. 2906–2916) of the Thomy Thiéry Bequest, theMorning(No. 2909) strikes a more cheerful and hopeful note than is this artist’s wont.

Another artist of this group, who devoted himself almost exclusively to the painting of sheep, is Charles Jacque (1813–1894), from whose brush the Louvre owns theFlock of Sheep in a Landscape(No. 430a), a characteristic work of unusually large dimensions.

Jules Dupré (1811–1889) began, like Troyon, as a china-painter, and, like Rousseau, with whom he was for years on terms of intimatefriendship, benefited by the example of Constable, whose art he had presumably occasion to study during a visit to England. It was from him that he acquired the sense of movement in nature, which is so much more pronounced in his landscapes than in Rousseau’s, whom he exceeded in breadth of touch and in power. More particularly in his later manner he loved to apply his colours in a thick impasto laid on to every part of the canvas, including the sky. Only on rare occasions did he adopt the more fluid, suave manner shown inMorning(No. 2940) andEvening(No. 2941), the two decorative panels executed for Prince Demidoff, and acquired by the Louvre in 1880 at the San Donato sale. More typical of his virile, forceful style are the twelve signed pictures by Dupré in the Thomy Thiéry Bequest (Nos. 2864–2875), especially the fine autumn landscapeThe Pond(No. 2867,Plate L.), the intensely sad, sunlessFlock in the Landes(No. 2871),The Large Oak(No. 2873), andThe Sunset on a Marsh(No. 2874), with the golden glow of the sky reflected in the water.

Before turning to Diaz, who has been aptly called “the most romantic of the Romanticists,” we must briefly mention Eugène Isabey (1804–1886), who connects the art of the First Empire with Romanticism, and who knew how to invest his historical paintings with genuinely pictorial interest at a time when that class of subject was generally treated from the literary and anecdotal point of view. His exuberant temperament led him not infrequently to exaggerated movement. The twelve pictures which bear his signature at the Louvre (Nos. 2878–2884, 2953–2956, and 2953a) are illustrative of every phase of his art. As a landscape painter he may be considered a forerunner of Rousseau.

Narcisse Diaz de la Peña (1809–1876) was born at Bordeaux, the son of political fugitives from Spain, and, like so many artistsof this group, started his artistic career as a china-painter. He afterwards gained considerable success with his romantic figure pictures of mythological and Oriental subjects, like theNymphs in a Wood(No. 2854),Venus and Adonis(No. 2858),Venus disarming Cupid(No. 2859), and above all theFée aux Perles(No. 256). As a landscape painter he delighted in rendering the sparkle of sunlight penetrating through the dense foliage of forest and brushwood. Diaz must be placed between Isabey and Millet, who followed his example in his early figure pieces; but he was also influenced by Rousseau and by Delacroix. Among his eighteen pictures at the Louvre are several landscapes of superb quality, notably theStudy of a Birch Tree(No. 252),Sous Bois(No. 253), andDogs in the Forest(No. 257a).

PLATE L.—JULES DUPRÉ(1811–1889)No. 2867.—THE POND(La Mare)

Autumnal landscape with a pond in the middle distance on the left, bordered on the right, in the centre of the composition, by a group of oak trees. In the foreground some cattle and a cowherd. Cloudy sky.Signed on left:—“jules dupré.”Painted in oil on canvas.1 ft. 1 in. × 1 ft. 6½ in. (0·32 × 0·46.)

Signed on left:—“jules dupré.”

Painted in oil on canvas.

1 ft. 1 in. × 1 ft. 6½ in. (0·32 × 0·46.)

Of all the Barbizon painters and their artistic kinship, Charles François Daubigny (1817–1878) is the one who approached nature with the most reverent spirit. He is in a way the least subjective of them all, because his love of nature even in her simplest aspects prevented him from imposing his own personality upon her; and for this very reason he is more varied in his range of landscape subjects than any of the other masters of this important group. The most fugitive effects of light and atmosphere were seized by him with a masterly sureness which found expression in every touch of his summary brush. Every hour of the day, every season of the year, every mood of nature appealed to him with equal intensity, although the choice of his subjects is most frequently inspired by serene optimism.

Daubigny belonged to a family of artists. He received his first instruction from his father, and afterwards studied under Delaroche. Before he began to paint landscapes in the neighbourhood of Paris, he gained his livelihood by painting sweet-boxes! He found his best subjects on the banks of the Oise, but worked also in other districts of France, in Italy, and in England. Of his sojourn in England we are reminded byThe Thames at Erith(No. 2821), one of the thirteen Daubignys bequeathed to the Louvre by Thomy Thiéry, which also include the sun-floodedWeir Gate at Optevoz(No. 2818,Plate LI.),The Pond with Storks(No. 2815),Les Péniches(No. 2820),Morning on the River(No. 2824), andThe Banks of the Oise(No. 2823).The Vintage in Burgundy(No. 184), which was bought by the State at the ridiculously low price of £400, is a picture of unusually large dimensions for an artist who generally needed but a small surface to express his ardent worship of nature. The deliciousSpring(No. 185), with its blossoming apple trees and young grass, must be counted among his finest achievements. It is a picture that fills the heart of the beholder with the joy and contentment engendered by the blithe atmosphere of a bright spring day in the country.

The Louvre is fortunate in possessing no fewer than a dozen pictures by Jean François Millet (1814–1875), the great painter of the peasant’s unceasing struggle with the forces of nature to gain his livelihood from the soil. Millet himself was the son of a peasant, and was kept busy with farm work until he had attained the age of twenty, when he began to study art at Cherbourg. His studies were repeatedly interrupted before he definitely took up art as his profession. Before he went to Barbizon, in 1849, to devote himself exclusively to the genre in which he was to achieve immortal fame, he gained popular favour and admission to the Salon by following the eighteenth-century tradition of mythological art, and painted a number of nude studiesof nymphs, goddesses, and cupids, not unlike in style to those of Diaz, but already marked by that firmness of design and by the monumental character that are so remarkable in his later work. The study ofBathing Women(No. 642) belongs to that period.

PLATE LI.—CHARLES FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY(1817–1878)No. 2818.—THE WEIR GATE AT OPTEVOZ(La Vanne d’Optevoz)

In the limpid clear water of the river, in the foreground, are reflected the blue sky and the opposite river bank, which, from a grassy slope on the left changes abruptly, near the weir gate, into a steep, low, sandstone cliff, on the crest of which some trees and bushes are silhouetted against the sky. On the left some ducks are swimming on the mirror-like water.Signed on left:—“daubigny, 1859.”Painted in oil on canvas.1 ft. 7¾ in. × 2 ft. 4¾ in. (0·49 × 0·73.)

Signed on left:—“daubigny, 1859.”

Painted in oil on canvas.

1 ft. 7¾ in. × 2 ft. 4¾ in. (0·49 × 0·73.)

After he had settled at Barbizon, Millet, whose peasant origin was probably the cause of his intense sympathy with the struggles and hardships of the field labourers’ fatiguing work, devoted his brush to creating that profoundly moving record of labour and toil which constitutes his claim to be considered one of the world’s great masters. He knew how to invest scenes of humble life with truly monumental grandeur, and brought out the hopeless monotony and cruel hardships of the life led by the tillers of the soil with such incisive strength, that he was accused of propagandist tendencies. Nothing, however, was further from his aim. He was an artist pure and simple, who, in following his own unpopular ideal, preferred to suffer neglect and extreme poverty to a compromise with the taste of the vulgar.

TheWomen Gleaning(No. 644,Plate LII.) may be considered his supreme achievement, and an epitome of his whole art. Millet alone could have invested so bald and unpromising a subject with so much epic grandeur. There is in the rhythmic repetition of the action of the two women in the centre of the composition a sense of the inevitable hopeless monotony of labour in the fields, even if the picture is not “a plea against the misery of the people.” The same struggle for existence and the resulting physical fatigue are admirably expressed in the statuesquely silhouetted figure ofThe Weed-burner(No. 2890).The Woodcutter(No. 2895),The Strawbinders(No. 2892), andThe Winnower(No. 2893) all exemplify this phase of Millet’s art. The domestic life of the peasantry is treated with equally profound sympathy inMaternal Precaution(No. 2894),La Couseuse(No. 644a), andLa Lessiveuse(No. 2891). Among his comparatively rare pure landscape subjectsThe Church of Gréville(No. 641), which was found in an unfinished state in the artist’s studio after his death, takes very high rank. It is as remarkable for the simple telling truth with which the normal aspect of the landscape is rendered, as theSpring(No. 643) is for the realisation of a more uncommon effect—a rainbow and the shrill accent of sunlight in the orchard under the leaden grey of the departing thunder clouds.

What Millet did for the life of the country, Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) did for the life of the town, of which he was a shrewd and critical observer. But his long practice as a caricaturist made him look upon the types that engaged his brush with a certain cruel bitterness which is far removed from Millet’s human sympathy. With a palette restricted almost to black and grey, Daumier yet proved himself a great colourist through the infallible accuracy of his tone-values and the suggestion of rich colour in his almost monochrome schemes. His design is as massive and monumental as Millet’s. The touch of themacabre, which is so characteristic of Daumier’s art, is very evident inThe Thieves and the Donkey(No. 2937). ThePortrait of the Painter Théodore Rousseau(No. 2938) holds a hint of the caricaturist’s vision.

Equally far removed from, and hostile to, Classicism and Romanticism was Gustave Courbet (1819–1877), who as head and founder of the Realistic school exercised a prodigious influence upon nineteenth-century art. He was essentially a fighting spirit, determined to overcome official hostility to his revolutionary principles. Excluded from public exhibitions, he held a private show of his own works, and defended his theories by spoken andwritten arguments. His just claim was that it did not matterwhatyou paint, buthowyou paint what you actually see; and in conformity with his loudly proclaimed principles he often chose subjects that were offensive to the taste of his day. At the same time we can see now that he was endowed with a keen instinctive feeling for pictorial fitness, and that most of his pictures are far from being haphazard snapshots of actuality. In his student years he had copied many masterpieces by Rembrandt, Velazquez, Hals, and Van Dyck. How much he benefited from the example of the old masters is to be judged from his portrait of himself, known asThe Man with the Leather-belt(No. 147).

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