French Art, Classic and Contemporary, Painting and Sculpture

NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 08191162 4 Virt-*'.', FRENCH ART THE HEW YORK PDBLIC LIB4^ARY ASTOK, LENOX Tli-DEN FOUNDATIONS / / "W Y( J SCRIB] 1 90J NG THE DAWN / FRENCH ART CLASSIC AND CONTEMPORARY PAINTING AND SCULPTURE BY W. C. BROWNELL NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION WITH FORTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1901 COPYRIGHT, 1892, 1901, BY CHARLES SCRIBNEr's SONS PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1901 THE NEW r, yc>^Y "y BUG LIBRARY ' ' i "» —f A S< » , TILBSN Pi»-JNBATIO«« D. B. UPDIKE, THE MERRYMOUNT PRESS, BOSTON TO AUGUSTE RODIN Advantage has been taken of the present ilkistrated edition of this book to add a chapter on "Rodin and the Institute," in which the progress of what ten years ago was altogether a "new movement in sculpture," is further considered. Except in sculpture, and in the sculpture of Rodin and that more or less directly in- fluenced by him, thei-e has been no new phase of French art developed within the decade — at least none important enough to impose other additions to the text of a work so general in character. CONTENTS I. CLASSIC PAINTING 1 I. CHARACTER AND ORIGIN II. CLAUDE AND POUSSIN III. LEBRUN AND LESUEUR IV. LOUIS QUINZE V. GREUZE AND CHARDIN VI. DAVID, INGRES, AND PRUDHON II. ROMANTIC PAINTING 39 I. ROMANTICISM II. GERICAULT AND DELACROIX III. THE FONTAINEBLEAU GROUP IV. THE ACADEMIC PAINTERS V. COUTURE, PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, AND REGNAULT III. REALISTIC PAINTING 75 I. REALISM II. COURBET AND BASTIEN-LEPAGE III. THE LANDSCAPE PAINTERS ; FROMENTIN AND GUILLAUMET IV. HISTORICAL AND PORTRAIT PAINTERS V. BAUDRY, DELAUNAY, BONVIN, VOLLON, GERVEX, DUEz, ROLL, l'hermitte, LEROLLE, BERAUD ; THE ILLUSTRATORS VL MANET AND MONET CONTENTS VII. IMPRESSIONISM ; DEGAS VIII. THE OUTLOOK IV. CLASSIC SCULPTURE 117 I. CLAUX SLUTERS II. JEAN GOUJON III. STYLE IV. CLODION, PRADIER, AND ETEX V. HOUDON, DAVID d'aNGERS, AND RUDE VI. CARPEAUX AND BARYE V. ACADEMIC SCULPTURE 139 I. ITS ITALIANATE CHARACTER II. CHAPU III. DUBOIS IV. SAINT-MARCEAUX AND MERCIE V. TYRANNY OF STYLE VI. FALGUIERE, BARRIAS, DELAPLANCHE, AND LE FEUVRE VII. FREMIET VIII. THE INSTITUTE SCHOOL IN GENERAL VI. THE NEW MOVEMENT IN SCULPTURE 171 I. RODIN II. DALOU VII. RODIN AND THE INSTITUTE 201 I. RODIN's PRESENT POSITION CONTENTS II. HIS GOTHIC LEANINGS III. DISTINCTION FROM THE INSTITUTE SCULPTORS IV. HIS NATURE-WORSHIP V. HIS TEMPERAMENT VI. HIS SENSE OF DESIGN VII. HIS IDEALITY VIII. HIS DETAIL LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS COROT : ORPHEUS GREETING THE DAWN FRONTISPIECE CLAUDE LORRAIN: ULYSSES BRINGING BACK CHRY- SEIS TO HER FATHER FACING PAGE 4 POUSSIN: saint PAUL caught up to HEAVEN 8 watteau : the embarkation for cythera 12 boucher : vulcan showing the arms of ^neas to venus 16 chardin : the blessing 20 david: the coronation of napoleon— detail 24 ingres : family group 28 prudhon : psyche carried off by zephyrus 36 gericault: the raft of the medusa 44 delacroix : the barque of dante 48 rousseau : landscape 52 millet: THE CHURCH OF GREVILLE 56 g6r6me: COCK-FIGHT 60 BOUGUEREAU: THE MADONNA OF CONSOLATION — DETAIL 64 couture: ROMANS OF THE DECADENCE— DETAIL 66 PUVIS DE CHAVANNES: SUMMER— HOTEL DE VILLE, PARIS 68 REGNAULT : GENERAL PRIM 72 COURBET : THE WAVE 80 BASTIEN-LEPAGE : JOAN OF ARC — DETAIL 84 CAZIN : HAGAR AND ISHMAEL 88 BONNAT: THIERS 92 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS roll: milkmaid 96 l'hermitte : the vintage 100 b^raud : la salle graffard 104 manet : bar of the folies-bergere 108 degas: BALLET 112 CLAUX SLUTERS: WELL OF MOSES, DIJON 120 GOUJON: RELIEFS FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF THE INNOCENTS 122 clodion: group of satyrs 126 houdon : voltaire 128 rude: le chant du depart — arc de letoile 130 carpeaux : la danse —nouvel opera 134 barye: lion — court of the louvre 136 chapu: mercury inventing the caduceus 144 dubois: charity ^— detail from the tomb of general lamorici^re 148 saint-marceaux : genius guarding the secret of the TOMB 152 FALGUlilRE : SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL 160 barrias : the first funeral 164 fremiet : joan of arc 168 rodin : the calais bourgeois 176 aube:bailly 180 DALOU : MIRABEAU AND THE MARQUIS DE DREUX-BR:^ZE 188 DALOU : TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC 192 RODIN : THE KISS 200 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS RODIN : THE POET 208 RODIN : APOLLO 216 RODIN : SPRING 224 CLASSIC PAINTING CLASSIC PAINTING MORE than that of any other modern people French art is a national expression. It epitomizes very definitely the national aesthetic judgment and feehng, and if its manifes- tations are even more varied than are elsewhere to be met with, they share a certain character that is very salient. Of almost any French picture or statue of any modern epoch one's first thought is that it is French. The national quite overshadows the personal quahty. In the field of the fine arts, as in nearly every other in which the French genius shows itself, the results are evident of an intellectual co-operation which insures the development of a common standard and tends to subordinate idiosyncrasy. The fine arts, as well as every other department of mental activity, reveal the effect of that social instinct which is so much more powerful m France than it is anywhere else, or has ever been elsewhere, except possibly in the case of the Athenian repubhc. Add to this influence that of the inteUectual as distinguished from the sensuous instinct, and one has, I think, the key to this sahent characteristic of French art which strikes one so sharply and always as so plainly French. As one walks through the French rooms at the Louvre, through the galleries of the Luxembourg, through the unending rooms of the Salon he is unpressed by the splendid competence everywhere displayed, the high standard of culture universally attested, by the overwhelming evi- [3] FRENCH ART dence that France stands at the head of the modern world aesthetically — but not less, I think, does one feel the absence of imagination, opportunity, of spirituality, of poetry in a word. The French themselves feel something of this. At the great Exposition of 1889 no pictures were so much admired by them as the English, in which appeared, even to an excessive degree, just the qualities in which French art is lacking, and which less than those of any other school showed traces of the now all but universal influence of French art. The most distinct and durable impression left by any exhibition of French pictures is that the French aesthetic genius is at once admirably artistic and extremely little poetic. It is a corollary of the predominance of the intellectual over the sensuous instinct that the true should be preferred to the beautiful, and some French critics are so far from denying this preference of French art that they express pride in it, and, in- deed, defend it in a way that makes one feel slightly amateur- ish and fanciful in thinking of beauty apart from truth. A waUc through the Louvre, however, suffices to restore one's confi- dence in his own convictions. The French rooms, at least until modern periods are reached, are a demonstration that in the sphere of esthetics science does not produce the greatest artists — that something other than intelligent interest and technical accomplishment are requisite to that end, and that system is fatal to spontaneity. M. Eugene V^ron is the mouthpiece of his countrymen in asserting absolute beauty to be an abstrac- tion, but the practice of the mass of French painters is, by comparison with that of the great Italians and Dutchmen, elo- [4] t a HI o H Pi O w o < P3 1-1 o o «I— M EC OS >^ P THE tiEN ")RK PUBLIC i.irt-^ART AS-l-^C, -- A. TUDEN FOUNDATIONS CLASSIC PAINTING quent of the lack of poetry that results from a scepticism of ab- stractions. The French classic painters — and the classic spirit, in spite of every force that the modern world brings to its de- struction, persists wonderfully in France— show little absorp- tion, little delight in their subject. Contrasted with the great names in painting they are eclectic and traditional, too purely expert. They are too cultivated to invent. Selection has taken the place of discovery in their inspiration. They are addicted to the rational and the regulated. Their substance is never senti- mental and incommunicable. Their works have a distinctly pro- fessional air. They distrust what cannot be expressed; what can only be suggested does not seem to them worth the trouble of trying to conceive. Beside the world of mystery and the wealth of emotion forming an imaginative penumbra around such a design as Raphael's "Vision of Ezekiel," for instance, Poussin's treatment of essentially the same subject is a diagram. On the other hand, qualities intimately associated with these defects are quite as noticeable in the old French rooms of the Louvre. Clearness, compactness, measure, and balance are evident in nearly every canvas. Everywhere is the air of reserve, of intellectual good-breeding, of avoidance of extravagance. That French painting is at the head of contemporary painting, as far and away incontestably it is, is due to the fact that it alone has kept alive the traditions of art which, elsewhere than in France, have given place to other and more material ideals. From the first its practitioners have been artists rather than poets, have possessed, that is to say, the constructive rather than the creative, the organizing rather than the imaginative [5] FRENCH ART temperament, but they have rarely been perfunctory and never common. French painting in its preference of truth to beauty, of intelligence to the beatific vision, of form to color, in a word, has nevertheless, and perhaps a fortiori, always been the expression of ideas.

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