Part 7

Every one who has been to Paris knows the gigantic pictures commemorative of Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, the “Pestiferés de Jaffa,” the “Battaille des Pyramides,” and last, though not least, the “Battaille d’Aboukir.” This picture may be accepted as the _chef-d’œuvre_ of that noble style of battle-painting which is intermediate between the academic manner of David and the thoroughly naturalistic style of modern battle-painters. The composition of this picture has always struck me as being most masterly, and I strongly recommend all students to study the subtle manner in which the lines of the groups and the masses of light and shade are made to express the action, quite independent of the individual attitudes. Murat, who is charging at the head of the French cavalry, looks like the forerunner of a great wave which is about to break over the unfortunate Turks, and the whole composition, viewed as a composition, is a masterpiece. The relative proportions of the figures are not properly observed, but the spirit and skill displayed are so great that this fault passes almost unnoticed. I do not wish to underrate the battle-pieces of H. Vernet, Bellanger, and Raffet, and I admire exceedingly those of De Neuville, but I must say that the art which could produce on canvas such an epic poem as this “Battaille d’Aboukir” is of a higher quality; and when we recollect that the figures are considerably larger than life, our respect and admiration for old Gros must be proportionately increased. When considerably past fifty, Gros went to Brussels to visit his old master, David, who was living there in exile, and for whom he had always entertained the greatest affection.

Unfortunately for Gros, he allowed himself to be persuaded by the old man to give up painting modern battles, and to go back to the Greeks and Romans. A few attempts in this direction, made by Gros on his return to Paris, were so severely criticised, and greeted with such roars of laughter, that poor Gros drowned himself from sheer vexation. A coroner’s jury would have justly returned a verdict of temporary insanity, for previous to his suicide Gros had shown many symptoms of mental aberration independent of his egregiously bad pictures.

His rival Ingres survived him for thirty years. This painter (also a pupil of David) departed from the master’s style, but in quite a different direction to that taken by Gros. Slow, laborious, and fastidious, he was a long time before gaining the front rank of French painters, which, however, when once gained he kept for forty years. He largely modified the David interpretation of the antique by studying the works of Raffaelle, and importing into his own much of the simplicity, dignity, and grace which characterize the best works of the great Roman painter. He deserves, however, more honor as the founder of a school than as a great painter. He may be said to have supplemented the schooling in draughtsmanship which the French artists got under David. I can name but one _very_ great artist amongst his pupils, namely, Flandrin, but there is no doubt that his severe and dignified style influenced, perhaps unconsciously, most of his younger contemporaries. My own master, P. Delaroche, was eclectic in his art; that is, he endeavored to unite the spirit and life of Gros with the severe drawing of Ingres. He was not always very successful in the attempt, but fortunately he had qualities of his own which will rescue his fame from the fate which attends that of most eclectic artists.

These qualities were great dramatic power and exquisite taste in the arrangement of his figures. I can bear witness to the care he bestowed on composition, never grudging time or labor if he could in any way improve the action of his figures or the outline of his groups. I have known him to efface no less than seventeen finished figures during the progress of his great mural painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts; thus destroying at least two months’ work, simply because he was dissatisfied with the grouping.

His atelier was about equally divided between the Ingrests and the partisans of the _école romantique_, but although a few men of extreme views would often quarrel over the respective merits of Ingres and Delacroix, the great majority were much better employed in endeavoring to draw and paint the model they had before them.

Some of Ingres’ portraits are fine works of art, but they want life. Old David’s portrait of “Pius VII” is far better than Ingres’ best. I consider the _chef-d’œvre_ of Ingres to be the painting which he executed for one of the ceilings of the Louvre, representing the “Apotheosis of Homer.” This work has been removed to where it can be seen more comfortably, but when _in situ_ it looked very noble and dignified, especially when contrasted with the trashy commonplace _plafonds_ of the neighboring rooms.

Many a young student has gazed with admiration at this work until he got a pain in his neck, and it is the powerful influence for good which the “Apotheosis of Homer” had on the then rising generation which constitutes Ingres’ best claim to the celebrity he enjoyed during a long life.

Surprise has been recently expressed at Ingres’ prejudice against anatomy. It is perfectly true that he disliked the look of a skeleton, and small blame to him, but I don’t think he was opposed to any of the students consulting the anatomical figure. He had never learned any thing about either bones or muscles himself, and therefore could not see any benefit to be derived from the study. His contempt for anatomy as an adjunct to art was shared by a good many other French masters, nor can I much wonder at it when I recollect the courses of anatomy we used to attend. A professor from the Ecole de Médecine would give a dozen dry lectures on the bones and muscles, just as if he were addressing a lot of medical students who would be called upon in after years to perform difficult surgical operations.

What would interest us, and be of use to us as artists, was never mentioned.

I don’t know whether a more artistic kind of anatomy is now taught in Paris; if not, I sympathize greatly with the students who attend the lectures.

Another pupil of David’s who for a few years made a great sensation was Leopold Robert, the painter of “The Pêcheurs de l’Adriatique,” “The Moissonneurs,” and similar scenes of Italian peasant life. Two of these pictures are now hung in the Louvre, and it is marvellous to me how they could ever have been much admired by artists.

I am not surprised at their popularity with the general public, for they made a very nice pair of engravings, and there is a beauty about the women which is captivating at first sight; but the figures are all posing, as if for a photographic group, and these once celebrated pictures _now_ appear to me rather contemptible. L. Robert (like Gros) committed suicide, and it was perhaps on this account that the two men used often to be compared together, sometimes (I am ashamed to say) to the disadvantage of Gros.

Granet is the last artist I shall mention who actually studied in David’s atelier. He never attempted the heroic style like Girodet, Guérin, and many others, nor did he endeavor, like Leopold Robert, to idealize Italian fishermen and peasants. He began with architectural interiors, and during a long life never changed his style. His figures, generally of medium or small size, are remarkably well drawn. Their action is perfectly natural, and they are always in their right places. Few artists ever lived whose work was more thorough and faultless than old Granet’s. An excellent colorist, a sound draughtsman, and by no means deficient in poetic feeling, he had but one blemish, and that was the habit of using bad materials.

I remember his large picture of the Mass at Assisi soon after it was painted. The dim but glowing light of the church was admirably rendered, but now, alas! the picture has become so black that it is difficult to make out the figures. I believe he was in the habit of using dark-red grounds for his pictures, and this no doubt accounts for their so rapidly losing their brilliancy.

Granet was a native of Aix, near Marseilles, and in his old age returned to his native town, but used to contribute regularly to the annual exhibition in Paris; and his pictures were always admired, not only by the public, but by all the young artists, with whom he was a great favorite.

I trust I have shown you that David, whatever we may think of his pictures, was at any rate a successful schoolmaster, or what the French call a _chef d’école_, and his influence continued to be felt very perceptibly in the second generation.

Abel de Pujol, Leon Coignet, Delaroche, Couture, Flandrin, Alaux, etc., were all pupils either of Guérin, Ingres, or Gros, and they all preserved the David traditions of sound and careful drawing. Indeed, Flandrin carried the noble draughtsmanship of his master Ingres to such perfection that it seems to me impossible to advance any farther in this direction.

The two great pictorial heretics of this period were Delacroix and Decamps. The former learned his art under Guérin, and the latter under A. de Pujol, but in their case the maxim about “training up a child in the way he should go” certainly did not hold good, for both these great artists threw the time-honored atelier traditions overboard, and proceeded on diametrically opposed principles. Being both great colorists, and both unusually gifted with true artistic feeling, they succeeded at last in rivalling, if not eclipsing, the fame of their more orthodox contemporaries. With Delacroix, especially, the battle was a long one, and I well remember his “Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople” (perhaps the finest picture he ever painted) being rejected at the Salon, and in the following year being hung at the top of the gallery. Decamps was much more careful about his drawing than Delacroix, and his pictures being always small, he did not give so much offence to “Ces Messieurs de l’Institût.”

If I were addressing a French audience I should certainly not think of mentioning Ary Schäffer; but as in England he enjoys a kind of reputation, a few words about him may not be out of place. In the early part of his career he followed in the track of Delacroix, and the pictures he painted at this time show a great feeling for color.

All at once (after achieving considerable success in this style) he went about on the other tack, gave up color, and took to imitating Ingres. He was always a poor draughtsman. His “Paolo and Francesco,” and many of his best-known religious pictures, are wretchedly drawn, but there is a pretension to purity of style about them which takes people in. It is not many years ago since Schäffer, on the strength of these sentimental works of art, was considered in England to be the first of French painters.

If we proceed to my own time, which I may call the third generation from David, we find decidedly less of that precision of drawing for which the French school was famous. There are, of course, exceptions, and one or two very notable ones, but the number of weak draughtsmen amongst painters of mature years has certainly increased. It is, however, when we come to consider the pictures of the younger generation that we find how very much the impulse given by David to correctness and refinement of drawing has exhausted itself. French literature (speaking of course generally) is either mawkishly sentimental or brutally realistic, and these unpleasant characteristics seem to be reflected in the painting of many of their popular artists.

Eccentricity appears now to be the surest road to fame. Formerly it required a great deal of talent to leave successfully the beaten track, but now the eccentric painter finds himself famous, not in spite of his grotesque peculiarities, but on account of them. I consider the modern French school to be in a very critical state. They have acquired color, but at too great a sacrifice. Beauty and dignity of form, noble composition, and all the higher qualities of art, become rarer every year, and will, if the present downward tendency continue, soon be extinct. Of course I am speaking of historical painting, either sacred or profane; of the art, in short, of Girodet, Géricault, Gros, Ingres, and Flandrin; and I think it will be generally allowed that no school can hold its place in the art-world which allows the noblest branch of the profession to wither and decay.

I will now proceed to consider the influence of David on other European schools. This influence was very marked in Italy, where an uneasy feeling that their once famous school had sunk very low had prevailed for some time. Raphael Mengs was too feeble, and Pompeo Battoni too meretricious, a painter to regenerate Italian art, but when David appeared, an effort was made. The antique was again studied, the pernicious practice of imitating the old masters was abandoned, and Nature, the fountainhead of all art, was more conscientiously imitated.

David’s example thus produced, amongst others, Benvenuto and Camuccini, both of whom were infinitely greater painters than had appeared in Italy for a century. Unfortunately, the revival so successfully begun was suffered to die out. The race of copyists became again in the ascendant, and no doubt reaped a rich harvest when, after the great Napoleonic wars, the Continent was overrun by wealthy dilettanti anxious to obtain (if not a genuine Caracci or Guido) at least a good imitation of one. The mania for collecting grimy old masters at last died out, and considering the shameless way in which the purchasers were imposed upon, it is a wonder that it lasted so long. When, however, this happy event took place, and a healthier taste became fashionable, Italian artists could not supply the demand. Small landscapes and pretty little costume pictures were painted in abundance, but for Biblical or historical art the public had to turn to the foreigner, to Overbeck or Cornelius.

Things are not quite so bad in Italy at the present day, but the school is very insignificant as compared with those of France, Belgium, England, and Germany.

In Germany the great art-revival began between 1810 and 1820. Cornelius and Overbeck, the two founders of the modern German school of historical painting, can neither of them be included among the followers of David, and yet it is not improbable that had the French school remained as it was under Boucher and Vanloo, Germany would also have been content to go on in the vicious routine of the eighteenth century. David, therefore, though not the progenitor, may have been the indirect cause of the modern German school. Winkleman’s laborious researches, and the flood of light he threw on classical art and antiquities, had fully prepared the way for a revival; and in Cornelius, Germany found a man after her own heart. In 1825, when he was still young, he was made Director of the Academy at Munich, and commenced the gigantic series of mural paintings with which his name will always be associated. He had a great number of scholars, and his manner is more or less perceptible in all their works. It is a manner I never _did_ like, and probably never shall. The effort made by the artist is too evident, and all the personages seem to be acting a part. This is particularly noticeable in Kaulbach’s and Piloty’s large compositions. These works were greatly admired in Germany, and are so still, but I believe their popularity is on the wane.

As for Overbeck, he never could have become the founder of a durable school. Ascetic, exclusive, and narrow in his art views, the only charm of his pictures is indissolubly connected with the personal character of the painter. His admiration for Perugino and the Umbrian school was genuine and unbounded. He abhorred Titian and loathed Correggio. With such ideas on art he may justly be called an anachronism, and it will be easily understood that however leniently and even favorably we may judge the work of an enthusiast like Overbeck, we should not be disposed to extend the same leniency to his imitators.

We will now examine what influence the great classical revival, inaugurated by David, had on British art. I think it must be allowed that this influence (if it ever existed at all) was very slight. Our artists were content to tread in the path pointed out to them by Sir J. Reynolds, and to study with more or less intelligence the old masters. Their knowledge of the human form was very imperfect, and there were at that time no large ateliers where they could acquire such knowledge. The Continent was closed to them, and they were therefore debarred from seeing the works of David, Girodet, Guérin, and Gérard. It is probable, too, that even had they been able to visit the Paris galleries occasionally, they would have been greatly disgusted; for it must be confessed that the later works of David are singularly repellent to an eye educated on Titian and Rubens.

In England, particularly during the reign of George III, there was no demand for large figure subjects. The government did nothing for historical art.

The churches were ugly square boxes with whitewashed walls, sometimes be-plastered with black or white marble commemoration tablets, but in which paintings were tabooed. Private individuals could not, of course, find room in their houses for large pictures; so, as a natural consequence, the English school was forced into another direction, and we find accordingly the best and ablest artists of this period amongst the portrait and landscape painters.

A little of old David’s precision of drawing would not have hurt some of them, but landscape art depends more on color and effect than on fine perceptions of form, and careful study of the antique is obviously unnecessary to a man whose mission it is to paint mountains and trees, storm and sunshine.

Of the few artists who executed large figure pictures at this time I shall say very little, for the simple reason that there is very little to say. We all know Benjamin West’s pictures, and are fully aware of their tameness and insipidity.

I think that West is a striking example of a man who succeeded in impressing his character on his work. Highly respectable, prosaic, unimaginative, and rather goody, we find all these characteristics reproduced in his pictures, and yet many of these pictures, particularly “Death on the Pale Horse,” created a perfect furore at the time, and the prices the artist got for his works would be considered high even at the present day.

Hilton was undoubtedly the best of the very few artists who endeavored to revive large historical painting in England. He was at any rate a good draughtsman and an accomplished painter, but his too palpable imitation of the old masters will always prevent his taking rank with such men as Girodet, Géricault, or Gros.

Fuseli, with all his bombast and affectation of anatomical knowledge, showed occasionally that he possessed real genius. I know nothing finer in the whole English school than his ghost scene of “Hamlet.” The ghost is not one of those artificial bogies, so common in the works of Blake and Flaxman, but a right royal ghost, who stalks with gigantic strides across the stage. Fuseli was a very uneven painter. His pictures are generally ludicrous, but sometimes show real talent. He wanted ballast, and if West could have spared him a few tons of lead, both painters would have been greatly benefited.

My present lecture is on David and his school, and therefore I might have omitted altogether the contemporary English painters. However, as I have mentioned some, I should be sorry to omit from my very short list the name of Stothard. Of all the English figure-painters of this period, Stothard had the greatest feeling for composition. With a little more power and correctness in his drawing, he would have been an English Prudhon. Even with all his feebleness of draughtsmanship he is to me always attractive. There is so much _bonhomie_ about his work, such an absence of pretence and humbug, and so evident a desire always to do his best, that although we cannot close our eyes to his shortcomings, we may well condone them for the sake of the good honest feeling which pervades almost all his compositions.

I prefer to pass unnoticed one or two aspirants to high art, who in the first half of the present century were thought a good deal of. Some people still believe in them, but as I never did, I would, rather say nothing about them, particularly as their work is foreign to the subject of my lecture.

It is pleasant to turn from a kind of art with which I have no sympathy, to more recent efforts, and to be able to speak more favorably of English historical painting before closing my lecture.

We have had in Etty a colorist both brilliant and original; a painter who proved that it was quite possible to excel in color without imitating either the Venetians or Rubens; and in Dyce a draughtsman of the most severe and refined kind, a master of composition, and a most thorough artist.

I have often heard it remarked that Dyce’s mural paintings are very Germanic in style, but to my thinking there is but the slightest likeness to any work of the Munich or Dusseldorf masters. His figures never have the labored self-conscious action which is so characteristic of the school of Cornelius. Of course, frescoes representing King Arthur and his knights must have a sort of family resemblance to illustrations of the Niebelungen legends, but the resemblance is merely superficial. A closer comparison will prove how much more true, and therefore more dramatic, is the action in Dyce’s figures.

There is an old adage which tells us that “knowledge is power,” but in art this hardly holds good. You may have plenty of knowledge and yet not have power; though, on the other hand, you can hardly have true power without knowledge.

Dyce had both in an eminent degree, whereas Schadow, Kaulbach, Piloty, and most of the great German artists, though decidedly learned painters, had not the power of turning their learning to good account.

It is obvious that I cannot continue my remarks down to the present time, but I may be allowed to express an opinion that (in this Academy at least) feeble mysticism or blatant quackery is no longer associated with high art. We have, of course, our faults, but history-painters do not, as formerly, lag hopelessly behind their colleagues in genre, portrait, and landscape art.

This happy result is entirely due to a return to old David’s system of teaching; namely, to a diligent study of the antique, supplemented by a long course of drawing from nature. Such an excellent competition as we recently had for the gold medal would have been simply impossible fifty years ago.

I don’t want to flatter the rising generation, nor to tell them that they have twice as much talent as their fathers, and ten times as much as their grandfathers; but what I wish to point out is, that by patient study and diligent work a much higher result can be obtained than by spasmodic effort or crazy enthusiasm.

LECTURE V.

ON THE MODERN SCHOOLS OF EUROPE.

My first lecture of the present course will be devoted to a kind of review of the various painting schools of modern Europe. As one of the jurors at the Paris International Exhibition, I had a rare opportunity of comparing one school with another, and I think that a lecture embracing the conclusions I came to, may be more interesting to you, and possibly more instructive, than a discourse on the works of the old masters.