The Story of Paris Part 21

It will now be opportune to make our way to the La Caze collection. We pa.s.s out from the end of this room and descend the Escalier Daru to the first landing; then ascend L. of the Victory of Samothrace to the Rotonde, pa.s.s direct through the Salle des Bijoux, and turn L. through Room II. to

ROOM I.

The La Caze collection. We note on the R. wall, an excellent Lenain, 548, A Peasant Meal, and some admirable portraits by Largilliere, 484-491, of which the last, Portrait of the Artist, his Wife and Daughter, is a masterly work. Among the fine portraits by Rigaud, 791-795, that of the Young Duke of Lesdiguieres, stands pre-eminent.

We cross to the L. wall, where the rich collection of works by Watteau and his followers is placed: 983, Gilles, a scene from a Comedy, is one of Watteau's most precious pictures. Near it are: 984, The Disdainful; 986, Gathering in a Park. 985, Sly-Puss, a charming little picture, is followed by 988, 989, 990 and 992, four other studies. 991 is a carefully finished cla.s.sical subject, Jupiter and Antiope. Near these are grouped: 470-473, four small works by Lancret, and 690-693, a like number of typical variations of the _scene galante_ by Pater. We next note 659, a fine portrait group by Nattier: Mlle. de Lambec as Minerva, arming her brother the young Count of Brienne. To the same skilful portraitist are due: 660, a Knight of Malta; and 661, A Daughter of Louis XV. as a Vestal Virgin. By Boucher are: 48, R. of entrance, The Painter in his Studio, and R. wall, 47, The Three Graces; 46 and 49, L. wall, Venus and Vulcan, and Vulcan's Forge. Fragonnard is represented by some of his characteristic works executed with wonderful sleight of hand, 292-301. The prevailing taste of his patrons may be judged by 295, L. wall, a sketch of one of his most successful and oftenest repeated subjects. On this same wall are a varied series of Chardin's studies of still life; a poor replica, 93, of his Grace before Meat; 104, The Ape as Painter, and other similar homely subjects.

Here also are two historical revolutionary portraits by Greuze: 378, The Girondin, Gensonne, and 379, the Poet-Deputy, Fabre d'Eglantine.

Among the later Venetians are some Tintorets, R. wall: 1468, Susannah; 1469, Virgin and Child, Saints and Donor; 1470, Portrait of Pietro Mocenigo. Spanish art is represented by a fine but unpleasing Ribera, 1725, Boy with a Club-foot, and to Velasquez are ascribed: 1735, The Infanta Maria Teresa, Queen of Louis XIV.; 1736, Unknown Portrait; 1733, L. of entrance, Philip IV. 1945 and 1946, R. wall, the Provost and Sheriffs, and Jean de Mesme, President of the Parlement of Paris, are excellent examples of Philippe de Champaigne's austere and honest art.

From the studios of Boucher and of Comte Joseph Marie Vien (1716-1809) there came towards the end of the eighteenth century the virile, revolutionary figure of Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), who burst like a thunderstorm on the corrupt artistic atmosphere of the age, sweetening and bracing French art for half a century. Shocked by the slovenly drawing and vulgarity of the fas.h.i.+onable masters, and nursed on Plutarch, he applied himself to the study of the antique with a determination to rejuvenate the painter's art and establish a school, drawing its inspiration from heroic Greece and Rome. The successive phases of this potent but rather theatrical genius may be well followed in the Louvre. Neglecting for the present his earlier and pre-revolutionary works, we retrace our steps through Room II. noting in pa.s.sing, 143, The Funeral at Ornans (a remarkable, realistic painting by a later revolutionary, to whom we shall return) and enter

ROOM III.

on the L. wall of which hangs 188, David's famous canvas: The Sabine Women, over which he brooded during his imprisonment in the Luxembourg after the Thermidorian reaction. David regarded this composition as the most successful expression of his theory of art. He studied whole libraries of antiquities and vainly imagined it to be the most "Greek"

of all his works. Nothing, however, could be farther removed from the tranquil self-restraint and n.o.ble simplicity of Greek art than these self-conscious, histrionic groups of figures, without one touch of naturalness. The old preoccupation with cla.s.sic models inherited from Poussin and the Roman school, still dominates even this revolutionary artist, who best displays his great genius when he forgets his theories and paints direct from life, as in 199, Mme. Recamier; and 198 (opposite wall), Pius VII. David's fierce Jacobinism (he had been a member of the terrible Committee of Public Safety) did not prevent him from wors.h.i.+pping the rising star of the First Consul, who, on a.s.suming the Imperial crown, appointed him court painter and commissioned him to execute, 202A, Consecration of Napoleon I. at Notre Dame. In this grandiose historic scene, containing at least 150 portraits, the eye is at once drawn to the central actor who, having crowned himself, is placing a diadem on the kneeling Josephine's brow.

The story runs, that David had originally drawn Pope Pius VII. with hands on knees. Bonaparte entering the studio, at once ordered the artist to represent the pontiff in the act of blessing, exclaiming: "I didn't bring him all this way to do nothing." For this picture and for the Distribution of the Eagles 180,000 francs were paid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MADAME ReCAMIER. _David._]

Among the painters of the new school was Pierre Prud'hon (1758-1823), whose fame was made by two pictures, 747 and 756, on opposite walls, first exhibited in 1808: Justice and Divine Wrath pursuing Crime; and the graceful but somewhat invertebrate, Rape of Psyche. 746, an a.s.sumption, was executed for the Tuileries Chapel in 1819. Other works by this master, whose Correggiosity is evident, hang in the room. Two famous pupils of David were Francois Pascal Simon Gerard (1770-1837) and Antoine Jean Gros (1771-1835). By the former, known as the King of Painters and Painter of Kings, are: 328, Love and Psyche; and 332, a charming portrait of the painter Isabey and his daughter. By the latter, who owed the Imperial favour to the good graces of Josephine, are: 391, Bonaparte at Arcole; 392A, Lieut. Sarloveze, a typical Beau-Sabreur portrait; and 388, Bonaparte visiting victims of the Plague at Jaffa, a striking composition, which advanced the artist to the front rank of his profession. Gros was the parent of the grand battle-pictures of the future; the painter of the Napoleonic epos.

Young artists were wont to attach a sprig of laurel to this work in which the first signs of the coming storm of Romanticism are discerned.

The real champion of the movement was, however, Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault (1791-1824), whose epoch-making picture, 338, The Raft of the Medusa, we now observe. This daring and pa.s.sionate revolt from frigid cla.s.sicism and preoccupation with a conventional antiquity was received but coldly by the professional critics on its appearance in 1819, though with enthusiasm by the people. Failing to find a buyer at Paris, its exhibition in England by a speculator, proved a financial success. 339-343, are military subjects of lesser range by this young innovator: 348, Epsom Races, was painted in England in 1821, three years before his premature death. To follow on with the French school we retrace our steps by the Rotonde and the Escalier Daru through Room XVI. to Room XV., L. of which, is the entrance to

ROOM VIII.

We revert to David whose Oath of the Horatii, 189, exhibited in 1785; and The Lictors bearing to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons, 191, exhibited in the fateful year 1789, hang skied on the R. wall. These paintings, hailed with prodigious enthusiasm, revolutionised the fas.h.i.+ons and tastes of the day and gave artistic expression to the coming political and social changes. 200A on the same wall, The Three Ladies of Ghent, was painted during the artist's exile in Belgium, for the old Terrorist was naturally not a _persona grata_ to the restored Bourbons. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780-1857), the most famous of David's pupils, two of whose works we have seen in Room V., was the bitterest opponent of the new Romantic school and steadfast champion of his master's artistic ideal. To him more than to any other teacher is due the tradition of clean, correct and comely drawing that characterises the French school. It is somewhat difficult perhaps for a foreigner, observing the paintings by Ingres in this room, fully to comprehend[219] the reverence in which he is held by his countrymen.

More than once Professor Legros has described to the present writer the thrill of emotion that pa.s.sed through him and his fellow-students when they saw the aged master enter the ecole des Beaux Arts at Paris.

If, however, the visitor will inspect the marvellous Ingres drawings in the Salle des Desseins (p. 394), he will appreciate his genius more adequately. The master's chief work in the present room is 417, R.

wall, Apotheosis of Homer, a ceiling composition in which the arch-poet, laurel-crowned, has at his footstool seated figures symbolising the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, while the most famous poets and philosophers of the ages are grouped below him. The Odalisque, 422B, L. wall, is a characteristic nude, and a few other subject pictures will be noted. Among his portraits, 418, Cherubini; 428B, Bertier de Vaux, are generally regarded as masterpieces. Ingres despised colour, he never appealed to the emotions; his type of beauty is external and soulless, and he leaves the spectator cold.

[Footnote 219: Whistler, while disliking his art, was wont to wish he had been his pupil.]

Meanwhile the new Romantic school of brilliant colourists grew and flourished. Ary Scheffer, Delaroche, Delacroix, cradled in the storms of the revolutionary period, are all represented around us. The sentimental Ary Scheffer (1795-1858) is seen, L. wall, in 841, St.

Augustine and St. Monica, an immensely popular but affected and feeble composition. Some portraits by this artist may be also found on the walls. Greater than he in breadth of composition, opulence of colour and artistic virtuosity, was Paul Delaroche, whose Death of Queen Elizabeth, 216, end wall, now a.s.serts itself. His greatest work, however, and one which won him much fame, is his well-known Hemicycle in the Beaux Arts (p. 319). A twin spirit with Gericault was the impetuous Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), who is more fully hung in this collection. Of the brilliant compositions which with indefatigable industry he poured forth in the heyday of the movement, we may note some excellent examples: 212, L. wall, The Wreck of Don Juan; 211, L. wall, Jewish Wedding at Morocco; and, 213, Capture of Constantinople by the Venetians and Franks. Earlier works are, 207, R. of entrance, Virgil and Dante nearing the City of Dis, executed with feverish energy in a few weeks for the Salon of 1822; and 208, L. of entrance, The Ma.s.sacre of Scio, a glowing canvas painted in 1834. Jean Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864), the Lesueur of the century, and like him uniting artistic genius and wide erudition with profound religious faith and true modesty, is represented most poorly of all; 284, Portrait of a Young Girl being the only example of this master's work here. Flandrin can only be truly appreciated in the church of St. Germain des Pres (p. 320). Before we turn to the Barbizon painters, we note Gros' fine composition, 389, L. wall, Napoleon at Eylau; and 390, R. wall, Francis I. and Charles V.

visiting the Tombs at St. Denis.

With Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), the all-father of the modern French landscape school, and chief of the little band of enthusiasts who grouped themselves about him at Barbizon, we touch the greatest artistic movement of the age. Jean Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875), the ever-young and gentle spirit, the tenderest emanation of the century; Jean Francois Millet (1814-1875), the inspired and cultured peasant, mightiest of them all, grand and solemn interpreter of the fundamental and tragic pathos of human toil, ever discerning G.o.d's image in the most bent and ill-shapen of his creatures; Constant Troyon (1810-1865), the grandest animal painter of his day; Narcisse Diaz de la Pena (1809-1876), once a poor errand lad with a maimed leg, painter of forest depths and of the rich hues of summer foliage; Charles Francois Daubigny (1817-1878), latest of the little band, faithful and tender student of nature, painter of the countryside, of the murmuring waters of the Seine and the Oise--these once despised and rejected of men have long won fame and appreciation. No princely patronage shone on them in their early struggles nor smoothed their path; they wrought out the beauty of their souls under the hard discipline of poverty in loving and awful communion with Nature. They have revealed to us new tones of colour in the air, in the forest and the plain, and a new sense of the pathos and beauty in simple lives and common things.

827, L. wall, is Rousseau's Forest at Fontainebleau, a fine effect of setting sun and loving representation of his favourite tree, the oak; 829 and 830, R. wall, are also by this master. On the same wall 643, Millet's Spring, whose coloration at first sight may seem forced and strange, is absolutely faithful to Nature, as the writer who once observed similar colour effects in the forest can testify. 644, The Gleaners, "the three fates of poverty," is, next to the Angelus, the most popular of Millet's works. Corot, the Theocritus of modern painting, is represented by 138, the lovely and poetical Morning, 141, Souvenir de Mortefontaine and 141 _bis_, Castelgandolfo. R. and L.

are, 889 and 890, two grand and ma.s.sive compositions by Troyon: Oxen going to the Plough; and, The Return to the Farm: landscapes that smell of the very earth, and rendered with a marvellous breadth of style and penetrating sympathy; 184, end wall, and 185, R. of entrance, Grape Harvest in Burgundy, and Spring, are by Daubigny.

One of the most aggressive, ebullient and individual of painters was Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), whose harshly realistic Funeral at Ornans we have seen in Room II. In 1855 Courbet, finding his works badly hung in the International Exhibition at Paris, erected a wooden shed near the entrance, where he exhibited thirty-eight of his large pictures, and defiantly painted outside in big letters--REALISM: G. COURBET.

Strong of body and coa.r.s.e in habit, this _peintre-animal_, as he was called, delighted to _epater le bourgeois_, and painted his studies of the nude with a brutal reality that stripped the female form of all the beauty and grace with which the superior ideality of man has invested it. This swashbuckler of realism, who despised the old masters, denounced imagination as humbug, and would have great men, railway stations, factories and mines painted as the _verites vraies_, the saints and miracles of the age, was, however, often better than his artistic creed, and is here represented by some pleasing Fontainebleau pictures: L. wall, 147, Deer in Covert; R. wall, 66, Source of the Puits Noir, and L., 147 _bis_, The Waves, a most powerful and original interpretation of the sombre majesty of the sea.

For in truth the creed of Realism, whether in literature or in art, involves a fallacy, and the creations of the imaginative and idealistic faculty in man are as real as those which result from the faculty of seeing mean things meanly and coa.r.s.e things coa.r.s.ely.

Courbet's violent revolutionary nature nearly cost him his life in 1848 and involved him in the Commune in 1871, during which he presided over the destruction of the Vendome Column (though he saved the Luxembourg and the Thiers' collection from the violence of the people). Poor Courbet, mulcted in enormous damages for his share in the overthrow of the Column, was ruined and died in exile. A more potent revolutionist, the arch-Impressionist Manet and founder of the school, has at length forced the portals of the Louvre and is represented by the celebrated Olympia, 204, around which so many fierce battles were waged in 1865.

We proceed to supplement this small collection of Barbizon pictures by a visit to the recently acquired (1903) Thomy-Thiery and Chauchard collections. Returning to the Salle La Caze by Room XVI., and the Escalier Daru, we issue from it, pa.s.s direct before us and continue through the rooms devoted to exhibits of furniture (in Hall II. is a superb specimen of cabinet-work--Louis XV.'s writing-table). Turning R., we then enter a series of Cabinets, containing an admirable and most important collection of drawings, beginning with the early Italian masters and following on chronologically to the later Italians and to the German, Netherland and French masters. If the visitor have leisure he will be repaid by returning at some convenient time to study these carefully. But even the most hurried traveller should not omit to glance through them, and more especially at the lovely Da Vincis in the second cabinet and the Ingres drawings further along.

Arrived at the end, we shall find on our L. a wooden staircase, which we mount and reach

ROOM x.x.xVII.

the Salle Francaise de 1830. Here are exhibited Delaroche's Princes in the Tower; Flandrin's Portrait of Mme. Vinet and some early works of the Barbizon school; Corot, 139, the Forum at Rome; 140, the Colosseum; 141F, The Belfry at Douai and others. Millet's sketch of the Church at Greville, 641, was found in his studio after his death; another study is 642, The Bathers; 644A, The Seamstress, 642A is a portrait of the artist's sister-in-law. By Rousseau are two small landscapes, 831 and 832; and The Landes, 830, a masterpiece. Diaz and Dupre are seen in a number of studies and paintings.

ROOM x.x.xVIII.

contains the Thomy-Thiery pictures, excellently hung and forming one of the most rich and precious collections in the Louvre. On the R.

wall as we enter are a numerous series of _genre_ paintings, happily conceived and wrought by Alexandre Gabriel Decamps (1803-1860). This room holds many excellent Rousseaus, among which are: 2896, Banks of the Loire; 2900, an excellent study of his favourite Oak Trees; 2901, The Pyrenees; 2903, Springtide. Millet is well represented by a priceless little collection: 2892, The Binders; 2890, The Rubbish-burners; 2893, The Winnower; 2894, A Motherly Precaution; 2895, The Wood Chopper. By Corot are shown no less than twelve examples: 2801-2812. All are most exquisitely poetical and delicate, but we may specially note: 2804, Shepherds' Dance at Sorrento; 2805, The Pollard Willows; 2806, Souvenir of Italy; 2807, The Pond; 2808, Entrance to a Village; 2810, View of Sin-le-n.o.ble; 2811, Evening. A magnificent set of Troyons next claims our admiration, eleven in all, 2906-2916, of which: 2913, Girl with Turkeys; 2909, Morning; 2914, The Barrier; 2916, The Heights of Suresnes, are superlative. The ten Diaz pictures, 2854-2863, are of perhaps lesser interest, although they will all repay careful attention. Of Daubigny's intimate landscapes thirteen are offered to our appreciation, 2813-2825, among which: 2821, The Thames at Erith; 2822, The Mill at Gyliers; and 2824, Morning, are notable. By the melancholy and poetical Jules Dupre (1812-1889), whose landscapes oft breathe the tragic pathos of storm and desolation, and who is said to have broken into a pa.s.sionate outburst of tears and sobs as he watched the magnificent spectacle of a nocturnal tempest, are twelve compositions, 2864-2875; and let us not omit some half-score Delacroix, 2843-2853, among which is a rare religious subject, 2849, Christ on the Cross. The gla.s.s cases in the centre of the room exhibit a numerous collection of bronzes by Barye, whom we have seen among the modern sculptors in Room VI.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BINDERS.

_Millet._]

[Ill.u.s.tration: LANDSCAPE.

_Corot._]

ROOM x.x.xIX.

is the Salle Francaise du Second Empire and contains Horace Vernet's well known, The Barriere de Clichy, Defence of Paris in 1814; and Ary Scheffer's, Death of Gericault. 2938 is the great caricaturist Daumier's portrait of Theodore Rousseau. Numerous examples of the myopic art of Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891) will attract attention in this Room. To reach the Chauchard collection, provisionally exhibited in the old Colonial office, we descend to the first floor, traverse the Grande Galerie and the new Rubens Room.

This, _prodigieux accroiss.e.m.e.nt de richesses_, as it is termed by the official catalogue, contains a large number of masterpieces by the Barbizon painters and raises the Louvre collections of that school to supreme importance. No less than eight Millet's are included, the most famous of which, if not the greatest, The Angelus, 102, is much faded, but always attracts a crowd of admirers. 103, Woman at the Well, is a scene at the artist's birthplace; 104, is one of the most inspired of the master's creations, The Shepherdess watching her Flock. 99, The Winnower; 105, Girl with a Distaff, and 106, The Sheep Fold--a lovely pastoral scene by night. Among the twenty-six Corots are many of his finest works; 6, Goatherd playing the Flute; 8, The Dance of the Nymphs; 15, Rest beneath the Willows; 16, The Ford; 20, Forest Glade: Souvenir of Ville Avray; 24, Dance of Shepherdesses; 27, The Mill of St. Nicholas-les-Arras. Some n.o.ble Rousseaus are included: 107, Avenue in the Forest of d'Isle-Adam; 108, Pond by the Wayside; 112, Road in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Troyon's score of canvases make a brave show: 127, The White Cow, painted in 1856, was a favourite of the artist who kept it by him until his death and bequeathed it to his mother. By Charles Jacque, the painter of sheep, three works are shown including 72, The Great Sheepfold. Daubigny, Descamps, Diaz and others of the school are well represented in the collection. Admirers of "the little master of little pictures" will find among the twenty-six Meissonier's, which the Chauchard bequest brings to the Louvre, two of the most famous of his works: 87, The Napoleonic picture, Campaign of France, 1814; and 80, Amateurs of Painting. All these examples of the most successful but least inspired of modern artists exemplify his patient, concentrated, meticulous style. By an ingenious fiction that the installation is only provisional, six characteristic Venetian pictures by the veteran, Ziem, have been retained in the collection.[220] 136, is, however, wrongly named, and should read Scene from the Giudecca.

[Footnote 220: Pictures by living artists are excluded from the Louvre.]

We have completed our rapid survey of the chief paintings in the Louvre, for the more recent developments of French art must be sought in the Luxembourg, where they are all too inadequately represented.

The self-imposed limitations of this work will not carry us thither, but the most cursory visit to the Louvre would be incomplete without some notice of the collections of Persian and Egyptian art which we may conveniently glance at on our way as we leave. Descending to the first floor by the staircase up which we mounted, we turn obliquely to the R. and enter the E. gallery containing the Persian terra-cotta reliefs and other objects from the royal palace of Darius, and Artaxerxes,[221] his son, at Susa, including the marvellous coloured Frieze of the Archers; one of the colossal capitals (restored), that supported the roof of the Throne Room; a model of the same; and some fine terra-cotta reliefs of Lions and of winged Bulls.

[Footnote 221: The student of history will not need to be reminded that the famous retreat of the Ten Thousand, so dramatically described by Xenophon, was occasioned by the death in battle of their ally Cyrus, in his ill-omened attempt to dispossess his brother, Artaxerxes, of the crown of Persia.]

We pa.s.s on through the Mediaeval and Renaissance collections, turn an angle R., and enter the South Gallery, where some remarkable specimens of ancient art will be found among the Egyptian Antiquities. The painted statue (Hall III.) of the Seated Scribe is one of the most precious examples the world possesses of an art admirable in its naturalism and power of vivid portraiture, and the charming figure of a priestess, known as _Dame Toui_, exquisitely wrought in wood, is equally noteworthy. A superb example of a royal papyrus of the Book of the Dead will also invite attention. We pa.s.s on through a suite of beautifully decorated rooms filled with a choice collection of Etruscan and Greek Ceramic art, each of which offers a rich feast of beauty and historic interest.

At length we reach again the collection of paintings, Room III., whence we may pa.s.s through the Salle des Bijoux with a small exhibit of ancient jewellery, to the Rotonde, and turning L., enter the magnificent Galerie d'Apollon (the old Pet.i.te Galerie of Henry IV.), and examine the wealth of enamels; the exquisite productions of the goldsmith's art as applied to the sacred vessels of the church; precious stones; cameos; and such as remain of the old crown jewels.

We may leave the palace by returning to the Rotonde; pa.s.s through the Salle La Caze and descend the Escalier Henry II. to the L., noting the caissons of its ceiling, decorated by Jean Goujon, and reach the Quadrangle under the Pavilion de l'Horloge, where we began our visit; or we pa.s.s from the Rotonde down the Escalier Daru to the exit in the Pavilion Denon, which gives on the Squares du Louvre. In the latter case it will be of some interest before leaving to pa.s.s for a moment by the exit and along the Galerie Mollien, where on the R. among the models of Roman masterpieces executed for Francis I., under Primaticcio's supervision, will be found one of the Laoc.o.o.n, which shows its condition before Bernini's bungling restoration had deformed the group. To the unsated sightseer there yet remain the rich and comprehensive collections of Egyptian and Asiatic antiquities on the ground floor of the E. wing entered on either side of the E. portal.

SECTION VI

_The Ville (S. of the Rue St. Antoine)--The Hotel de Ville[222]--St.

Gervais--Hotel Beauvais--Hotel of the Provost of Paris--SS. Paul and Louis--Hotel de Mayenne--Site of the Bastille--Bibliotheque de l'a.r.s.enal[223]--Hotel Fieubert--Hotel de Sens--Isle St. Louis._

[Footnote 222: Open, 2-4, by ticket obtained at the Secretary's office.]

[Footnote 223: Open, 10-4, daily, except Chief Festivals.]

We take the _Metropolitain_ to the Hotel de Ville station and make our way to the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, formerly Place de Greve, a little W. of the station.