51. Dubois. "Young Clovis found Dead."
56. Henry, Chevalier. "The Ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew."
75. Guerin, Chevalier. "Cain, after the Death of Abel."
83. Jacquand. "Death of Adelaide de Comminges."
88. "The Death of Eudamidas."
93. "The Death of Hymetto."
103. "The Death of Philip of Austria."--And so on.
You see what woful subjects they take, and how profusely they are decorated with knighthood. They are like the Black Brunswickers, these painters, and ought to be called Chevaliers de la Mort. I don"t know why the merriest people in the world should please themselves with such grim representations and varieties of murder, or why murder itself should be considered so eminently sublime and poetical. It is good at the end of a tragedy; but, then, it is good because it is the end, and because, by the events foregone, the mind is prepared for it. But these men will have nothing but fifth acts; and seem to skip, as unworthy, all the circ.u.mstances leading to them. This, however, is part of the scheme--the bloated, unnatural, stilted, spouting, sham sublime, that our teachers have believed and tried to pa.s.s off as real, and which your humble servant and other antihumbuggists should heartily, according to the strength that is in them, endeavor to pull down. What, for instance, could Monsieur Lafond care about the death of Eudamidas? What was Hecuba to Chevalier Drolling, or Chevalier Drolling to Hecuba? I would lay a wager that neither of them ever conjugated [Greek text omitted], and that their school learning carried them not as far as the letter, but only to the game of taw. How were they to be inspired by such subjects?
From having seen Talma and Mademoiselle Georges flaunting in sham Greek costumes, and having read up the articles Eudamidas, Hecuba, in the "Mythological Dictionary." What a cla.s.sicism, inspired by rouge, gas-lamps, and a few lines in Lempriere, and copied, half from ancient statues, and half from a naked guardsman at one shilling and sixpence the hour!
Delacroix is a man of a very different genius, and his "Medea" is a genuine creation of a n.o.ble fancy. For most of the others, Mrs.
Brownrigg, and her two female "prentices, would have done as well as the desperate Colchian with her [Greek text omitted]. M. Delacroix has produced a number of rude, barbarous pictures; but there is the stamp of genius on all of them,--the great poetical INTENTION, which is worth all your execution. Delaroche is another man of high merit; with not such a great HEART, perhaps, as the other, but a fine and careful draughtsman, and an excellent arranger of his subject. "The Death of Elizabeth" is a raw young performance seemingly--not, at least, to my taste. The "Enfans d"Edouard" is renowned over Europe, and has appeared in a hundred different ways in print. It is properly pathetic and gloomy, and merits fully its high reputation. This painter rejoices in such subjects--in what Lord Portsmouth used to call "black jobs." He has killed Charles I. and Lady Jane Grey, and the Dukes of Guise, and I don"t know whom besides. He is, at present, occupied with a vast work at the Beaux Arts, where the writer of this had the honor of seeing him,--a little, keen-looking man, some five feet in height. He wore, on this important occasion, a bandanna round his head, and was in the act of smoking a cigar.
Horace Vernet, whose beautiful daughter Delaroche married, is the king of French battle-painters--an amazingly rapid and dexterous draughtsman, who has Napoleon and all the campaigns by heart, and has painted the Grenadier Francais under all sorts of att.i.tudes. His pictures on such subjects are spirited, natural, and excellent; and he is so clever a man, that all he does is good to a certain degree. His "Judith" is somewhat violent, perhaps. His "Rebecca" most pleasing; and not the less so for a little pretty affectation of att.i.tude and needless singularity of costume. "Raphael and Michael Angelo" is as clever a picture as can be--clever is just the word--the groups and drawing excellent, the coloring pleasantly bright and gaudy; and the French students study it incessantly; there are a dozen who copy it for one who copies Delacroix.
His little sc.r.a.ps of wood-cuts, in the now publishing "Life of Napoleon," are perfect gems in their way, and the n.o.ble price paid for them not a penny more than he merits.
The picture, by Court, of "The Death of Caesar," is remarkable for effect and excellent workmanship: and the head of Brutus (who looks like Armand Carrel) is full of energy. There are some beautiful heads of women, and some very good color in the picture. Jacquand"s "Death of Adelaide de Comminges" is neither more nor less than beautiful. Adelaide had, it appears, a lover, who betook himself to a convent of Trappists.
She followed him thither, disguised as a man, took the vows, and was not discovered by him till on her death-bed. The painter has told this story in a most pleasing and affecting manner: the picture is full of onction and melancholy grace. The objects, too, are capitally represented; and the tone and color very good. Decaisne"s "Guardian Angel" is not so good in color, but is equally beautiful in expression and grace. A little child and a nurse are asleep: an angel watches the infant. You see women look very wistfully at this sweet picture; and what triumph would a painter have more?
We must not quit the Luxembourg without noticing the dashing sea-pieces of Gudin, and one or two landscapes by Giroux (the plain of Grasivaudan), and "The Prometheus" of Aligny. This is an imitation, perhaps; as is a n.o.ble picture of "Jesus Christ and the Children," by Flandrin: but the artists are imitating better models, at any rate; and one begins to perceive that the odious cla.s.sical dynasty is no more.
Poussin"s magnificent "Polyphemus" (I only know a print of that marvellous composition) has, perhaps, suggested the first-named picture; and the latter has been inspired by a good enthusiastic study of the Roman schools.
Of this revolution, Monsieur Ingres has been one of the chief instruments. He was, before Horace Vernet, president of the French Academy at Rome, and is famous as a chief of a school. When he broke up his atelier here, to set out for his presidency, many of his pupils attended him faithfully some way on his journey; and some, with scarcely a penny in their pouches, walked through France and across the Alps, in a pious pilgrimage to Rome, being determined not to forsake their old master. Such an action was worthy of them, and of the high rank which their profession holds in France, where the honors to be acquired by art are only inferior to those which are gained in war. One reads of such peregrinations in old days, when the scholars of some great Italian painter followed him from Venice to Rome, or from Florence to Ferrara.
In regard of Ingres"s individual merit as a painter, the writer of this is not a fair judge, having seen but three pictures by him; one being a plafond in the Louvre, which his disciples much admire.
Ingres stands between the Imperio-Davido-cla.s.sical school of French art, and the namby-pamby mystical German school, which is for carrying us back to Cranach and Durer, and which is making progress here.
For everything here finds imitation: the French have the genius of imitation and caricature. This absurd humbug, called the Christian or Catholic art, is sure to tickle our neighbors, and will be a favorite with them, when better known. My dear MacGilp, I do believe this to be a greater humbug than the humbug of David and Girodet, inasmuch as the latter was founded on Nature at least; whereas the former is made up of silly affectations, and improvements upon Nature. Here, for instance, is Chevalier Ziegler"s picture of "St. Luke painting the Virgin." St. Luke has a monk"s dress on, embroidered, however, smartly round the sleeves.
The Virgin sits in an immense yellow-ochre halo, with her son in her arms. She looks preternaturally solemn; as does St. Luke, who is eying his paint-brush with an intense ominous mystical look. They call this Catholic art. There is nothing, my dear friend, more easy in life.
First take your colors, and rub them down clean,--bright carmine, bright yellow, bright sienna, bright ultramarine, bright green. Make the costumes of your figures as much as possible like the costumes of the early part of the fifteenth century. Paint them in with the above colors; and if on a gold ground, the more "Catholic" your art is. Dress your apostles like priests before the altar; and remember to have a good commodity of crosiers, censers, and other such gimcracks, as you may see in the Catholic chapels, in Sutton Street and elsewhere. Deal in Virgins, and dress them like a burgomaster"s wife by Cranach or Van Eyck. Give them all long twisted tails to their gowns, and proper angular draperies. Place all their heads on one side, with the eyes shut, and the proper solemn simper. At the back of the head, draw, and gild with gold-leaf, a halo or glory, of the exact shape of a cart-wheel: and you have the thing done. It is Catholic art tout crache, as Louis Philippe says. We have it still in England, handed down to us for four centuries, in the pictures on the cards, as the redoubtable king and queen of clubs. Look at them: you will see that the costumes and att.i.tudes are precisely similar to those which figure in the catholicities of the school of Overbeck and Cornelius.
Before you take your cane at the door, look for one instant at the statue-room. Yonder is Jouffley"s "Jeune Fille confiant son premier secret a Venus." Charming, charming! It is from the exhibition of this year only; and I think the best sculpture in the gallery--pretty, fanciful, nave; admirable in workmanship and imitation of Nature. I have seldom seen flesh better represented in marble. Examine, also, Jaley"s "Pudeur," Jacquot"s "Nymph," and Rude"s "Boy with the Tortoise."
These are not very exalted subjects, or what are called exalted, and do not go beyond simple, smiling beauty and nature. But what then? Are we G.o.ds, Miltons, Michel Angelos, that can leave earth when we please; and soar to heights immeasurable? No, my dear MacGilp; but the fools of academicians would fain make us so. Are you not, and half the painters in London, panting for an opportunity to show your genius in a great "historical picture?" O blind race! Have you wings? Not a feather: and yet you must be ever puffing, sweating up to the tops of rugged hills; and, arrived there, clapping and shaking your ragged elbows, and making as if you would fly! Come down, silly Daedalus; come down to the lowly places in which Nature ordered you to walk. The sweet flowers are springing there; the fat muttons are waiting there; the pleasant sun shines there; be content and humble, and take your share of the good cheer.
While we have been indulging in this discussion, the omnibus has gayly conducted us across the water; and le garde qui veille a la porte du Louvre ne defend pas our entry.
What a paradise this gallery is for French students, or foreigners who sojourn in the capital! It is hardly necessary to say that the brethren of the brush are not usually supplied by Fortune with any extraordinary wealth, or means of enjoying the luxuries with which Paris, more than any other city, abounds. But here they have a luxury which surpa.s.ses all others, and spend their days in a palace which all the money of all the Rothschilds could not buy. They sleep, perhaps, in a garret, and dine in a cellar; but no grandee in Europe has such a drawing-room. Kings"
houses have, at best, but damask hangings, and gilt cornices. What are these to a wall covered with canvas by Paul Veronese, or a hundred yards of Rubens? Artists from England, who have a national gallery that resembles a moderate-sized gin-shop, who may not copy pictures, except under particular restrictions, and on rare and particular days, may revel here to their hearts" content. Here is a room half a mile long, with as many windows as Aladdin"s palace, open from sunrise till evening, and free to all manners and all varieties of study: the only puzzle to the student is to select the one he shall begin upon, and keep his eyes away from the rest.
Fontaine"s grand staircase, with its arches, and painted ceilings and shining Doric columns, leads directly to the gallery; but it is thought too fine for working days, and is only opened for the public entrance on Sabbath. A little back stair (leading from a court, in which stand numerous bas-reliefs, and a solemn sphinx, of polished granite,) is the common entry for students and others, who, during the week, enter the gallery.
Hither have lately been transported a number of the works of French artists, which formerly covered the walls of the Luxembourg (death only ent.i.tles the French painter to a place in the Louvre); and let us confine ourselves to the Frenchmen only, for the s.p.a.ce of this letter.
I have seen, in a fine private collection at St. Germain, one or two admirable single figures of David, full of life, truth, and gayety.
The color is not good, but all the rest excellent; and one of these so much-lauded pictures is the portrait of a washer-woman. "Pope Pius," at the Louvre, is as bad in color as remarkable for its vigor and look of life. The man had a genius for painting portraits and common life, but must attempt the heroic;--failed signally; and what is worse, carried a whole nation blundering after him. Had you told a Frenchman so, twenty years ago, he would have thrown the dementi in your teeth; or, at least, laughed at you in scornful incredulity. They say of us that we don"t know when we are beaten: they go a step further, and swear their defeats are victories. David was a part of the glory of the empire; and one might as well have said then that "Romulus" was a bad picture, as that Toulouse was a lost battle. Old-fashioned people, who believe in the Emperor, believe in the Theatre Francais, and believe that Ducis improved upon Shakspeare, have the above opinion. Still, it is curious to remark, in this place, how art and literature become party matters, and political sects have their favorite painters and authors.
Nevertheless, Jacques Louis David is dead, he died about a year after his bodily demise in 1825. The romanticism killed him. Walter Scott, from his Castle of Abbotsford, sent out a troop of gallant young Scotch adventurers, merry outlaws, valiant knights, and savage Highlanders, who, with trunk hosen and buff jerkins, fierce two-handed swords, and harness on their back, did challenge, combat, and overcome the heroes and demiG.o.ds of Greece and Rome. Notre Dame a la rescousse! Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert has borne Hector of Troy clear out of his saddle.
Andromache may weep: but her spouse is beyond the reach of physic. See!
Robin Hood tw.a.n.gs his bow, and the heathen G.o.ds fly, howling. Montjoie Saint Denis! down goes Ajax under the mace of Dunois; and yonder are Leonidas and Romulus begging their lives of Rob Roy Macgregor.
Cla.s.sicism is dead. Sir John Froissart has taken Dr. Lempriere by the nose, and reigns sovereign.
Of the great pictures of David the defunct, we need not, then, say much.
Romulus is a mighty fine young fellow, no doubt; and if he has come out to battle stark naked (except a very handsome helmet), it is because the costume became him, and shows off his figure to advantage. But was there ever anything so absurd as this pa.s.sion for the nude, which was followed by all the painters of the Davidian epoch? And how are we to suppose yonder straddle to be the true characteristic of the heroic and the sublime? Romulus stretches his legs as far as ever nature will allow; the Horatii, in receiving their swords, think proper to stretch their legs too, and to thrust forward their arms, thus,--
[Drawing omitted]
Romulus"s is in the exact action of a telegraph; and the Horatii are all in the position of the lunge. Is this the sublime? Mr. Angelo, of Bond Street, might admire the att.i.tude; his namesake, Michel, I don"t think would.
The little picture of "Paris and Helen," one of the master"s earliest, I believe, is likewise one of his best: the details are exquisitely painted. Helen looks needlessly sheepish, and Paris has a most odious ogle; but the limbs of the male figure are beautifully designed, and have not the green tone which you see in the later pictures of the master. What is the meaning of this green? Was it the fashion, or the varnish? Girodet"s pictures are green; Gros"s emperors and grenadiers have universally the jaundice. Gerard"s "Psyche" has a most decided green-sickness; and I am at a loss, I confess, to account for the enthusiasm which this performance inspired on its first appearance before the public.
In the same room with it is Girodet"s ghastly "Deluge," and Gericault"s dismal "Medusa." Gericault died, they say, for want of fame. He was a man who possessed a considerable fortune of his own; but pined because no one in his day would purchase his pictures, and so acknowledge his talent. At present, a scrawl from his pencil brings an enormous price.
All his works have a grand cachet: he never did anything mean. When he painted the "Raft of the Medusa," it is said he lived for a long time among the corpses which he painted, and that his studio was a second Morgue. If you have not seen the picture, you are familiar probably, with Reynolds"s admirable engraving of it. A huge black sea; a raft beating upon it; a horrid company of men dead, half dead, writhing and frantic with hideous hunger or hideous hope; and, far away, black, against a stormy sunset, a sail. The story is powerfully told, and has a legitimate tragic interest, so to speak,--deeper, because more natural, than Girodet"s green "Deluge," for instance: or his livid "Orestes," or red-hot "Clytemnestra."
Seen from a distance the latter"s "Deluge" has a certain awe-inspiring air with it. A slimy green man stands on a green rock, and clutches hold of a tree. On the green man"s shoulders is his old father, in a green old age; to him hangs his wife, with a babe on her breast, and dangling at her hair, another child. In the water floats a corpse (a beautiful head) and a green sea and atmosphere envelops all this dismal group. The old father is represented with a bag of money in his hand; and the tree, which the man catches, is cracking, and just on the point of giving way.
These two points were considered very fine by the critics: they are two such ghastly epigrams as continually disfigure French Tragedy. For this reason I have never been able to read Racine with pleasure,--the dialogue is so crammed with these lugubrious good things--melancholy ant.i.theses--sparkling undertakers" wit; but this is heresy, and had better be spoken discreetly.
The gallery contains a vast number of Poussin"s pictures; they put me in mind of the color of objects in dreams,--a strange, hazy, lurid hue. How n.o.ble are some of his landscapes! What a depth of solemn shadow is in yonder wood, near which, by the side of a black water, halts Diogenes.
The air is thunder-laden, and breathes heavily. You hear ominous whispers in the vast forest gloom.
Near it is a landscape, by Carel Dujardin, I believe, conceived in quite a different mood, but exquisitely poetical too. A horseman is riding up a hill, and giving money to a blowsy beggar-wench. O matutini rores auraeque salubres! in what a wonderful way has the artist managed to create you out of a few bladders of paint and pots of varnish. You can see the matutinal dews twinkling in the gra.s.s, and feel the fresh, salubrious airs ("the breath of Nature blowing free," as the corn-law man sings) blowing free over the heath; silvery vapors are rising up from the blue lowlands. You can tell the hour of the morning and the time of the year: you can do anything but describe it in words. As with regard to the Poussin above mentioned, one can never pa.s.s it without bearing away a certain pleasing, dreamy feeling of awe and musing; the other landscape inspires the spectator infallibly with the most delightful briskness and cheerfulness of spirit. Herein lies the vast privilege of the landscape-painter: he does not address you with one fixed particular subject or expression, but with a thousand never contemplated by himself, and which only arise out of occasion. You may always be looking at a natural landscape as at a fine pictorial imitation of one; it seems eternally producing new thoughts in your bosom, as it does fresh beauties from its own. I cannot fancy more delightful, cheerful, silent companions for a man than half a dozen landscapes hung round his study. Portraits, on the contrary, and large pieces of figures, have a painful, fixed, staring look, which must jar upon the mind in many of its moods. Fancy living in a room with David"s sans-culotte Leonidas staring perpetually in your face!
There is a little Watteau here, and a rare piece of fantastical brightness and gayety it is. What a delightful affectation about yonder ladies flirting their fans, and trailing about in their long brocades!
What splendid dandies are those, ever-smirking, turning out their toes, with broad blue ribbons to tie up their crooks and their pigtails, and wonderful gorgeous crimson satin breeches! Yonder, in the midst of a golden atmosphere, rises a bevy of little round Cupids, bubbling up in cl.u.s.ters as out of a champagne-bottle, and melting away in air. There is, to be sure, a hidden a.n.a.logy between liquors and pictures: the eye is deliciously tickled by these frisky Watteaus, and yields itself up to a light, smiling, gentlemanlike intoxication. Thus, were we inclined to pursue further this mighty subject, yonder landscape of Claude,--calm, fresh, delicate, yet full of flavor,--should be likened to a bottle of Chateau Margaux. And what is the Poussin before spoken of but Romanee Gelee?--heavy, sluggish,--the luscious odor almost sickens you; a sultry sort of drink; your limbs sink under it; you feel as if you had been drinking hot blood.
An ordinary man would be whirled away in a fever, or would hobble off this mortal stage in a premature gout-fit, if he too early or too often indulged in such tremendous drink. I think in my heart I am fonder of pretty third-rate pictures than of your great thundering first-rates.
Confess how many times you have read Beranger, and how many Milton?
If you go to the "Star and Garter," don"t you grow sick of that vast, luscious landscape, and long for the sight of a couple of cows, or a donkey, and a few yards of common? Donkeys, my dear MacGilp, since we have come to this subject, say not so; Richmond Hill for them. Milton they never grow tired of; and are as familiar with Raphael as Bottom with exquisite t.i.tania. Let us thank heaven, my dear sir, for according to us the power to taste and appreciate the pleasures of mediocrity. I have never heard that we were great geniuses. Earthy are we, and of the earth; glimpses of the sublime are but rare to us; leave we them to great geniuses, and to the donkeys; and if it nothing profit us aerias tenta.s.se domos along with them, let us thankfully remain below, being merry and humble.
I have now only to mention the charming "Cruche Ca.s.see" of Greuze, which all the young ladies delight to copy; and of which the color (a thought too blue, perhaps) is marvellously graceful and delicate. There are three more pictures by the artist, containing exquisite female heads and color; but they have charms for French critics which are difficult to be discovered by English eyes; and the pictures seem weak to me. A very fine picture by Bon Bollongue, "Saint Benedict resuscitating a Child,"
deserves particular attention, and is superb in vigor and richness of color. You must look, too, at the large, n.o.ble, melancholy landscapes of Philippe de Champagne; and the two magnificent Italian pictures of Leopold Robert: they are, perhaps, the very finest pictures that the French school has produced,--as deep as Poussin, of a better color, and of a wonderful minuteness and veracity in the representation of objects.
Every one of Lesueur"s church-pictures is worth examining and admiring; they are full of "unction" and pious mystical grace. "Saint Scholastica"
is divine; and the "Taking down from the Cross" as n.o.ble a composition as ever was seen; I care not by whom the other may be. There is more beauty, and less affectation, about this picture than you will find in the performances of many Italian masters, with high-sounding names (out with it, and say RAPHAEL at once). I hate those simpering Madonnas. I declare that the "Jardiniere" is a puking, smirking miss, with nothing heavenly about her. I vow that the "Saint Elizabeth" is a bad picture,--a bad composition, badly drawn, badly colored, in a bad imitation of t.i.tian,--a piece of vile affectation. I say, that when Raphael painted this picture two years before his death, the spirit of painting had gone from out of him; he was no longer inspired; IT WAS TIME THAT HE SHOULD DIE!!
There,--the murder is out! My paper is filled to the brim, and there is no time to speak of Lesueur"s "Crucifixion," which is odiously colored, to be sure; but earnest, tender, simple, holy. But such things are most difficult to translate into words;--one lays down the pen, and thinks and thinks. The figures appear, and take their places one by one: ranging themselves according to order, in light or in gloom, the colors are reflected duly in the little camera obscura of the brain, and the whole picture lies there complete; but can you describe it? No, not if pens were fitch-brushes, and words were bladders of paint. With which, for the present, adieu.
Your faithful
M. A. T.