Part 3

For the museum at Rouen, Puvis de Chavannes painted an allegory entitled _Inter Artes et Naturam_, charming in fantasy and poetic feeling. According to his habit, he has grouped together in synthetic form the various things which constitute the wealth or serve to mark the characteristics of the province of Normandy.

Labourers heaping up architectural fragments preserved from all the various epochs proclaim the variety and antiquity of its monuments; its special art is represented by a young girl painting a tulip on a porcelain plate and by a lad carrying a tray of pottery; its principal agricultural richness is revealed by the action of a woman, bending down a branch of an apple-tree, in order that her child may reach the fruit. And at the bottom of the picture flows the Seine, rolling its flood past a long sequence of manufactories, and bearing in its course heavily laden boats.

This picture is one of Puvis de Chavannes' most ingenious conceptions; furthermore, it possesses great charm of detail.

In 1891, the trustees of the Boston Museum approached Puvis de Chavannes with a request to decorate the main staircase of that edifice.

The negotiations were troublesome. In spite of his delight at having a new work to produce, in spite of the legitimate pride he felt in this homage paid to French art, Puvis de Chavannes hesitated to accept the commission. For the first time he faced the necessity of painting a canvas without having studied beforehand the physiognomy, the environment, the illumination of the space he was to decorate, and his artist's conscience suffered. Besides, certain misunderstandings had arisen between American trustees and the painter; several times relations were on the point of being broken off; and no definite agreement was reached until after the lapse of four years.

Puvis de Chavannes began this work in 1895; he did not finish it until 1898. The surface to be covered was to be divided into nine large panels, three facing the entrance, three to the right, three to the left. The choice of subjects was left to him.

For the central panel Puvis de Chavannes chose a theme already treated twice by him: _The inspiring Muses acclaim Genius, Messenger of Light_.

Against a background of sea and of blue sky, a Genius with the radiant features of a child advances, holding a torch in each hand. At sight of the Genius the muses run forward and range themselves on each side.

The ninth muse, still floating through the air, hastens to rejoin her companions.

This whole charming group of women is deliciously painted and one is at a loss which to admire the more; the originality of the artistic conception, or the peculiarly rare delicacy of the painter's skill.

The eight subordinate panels represent _Bucolic Poetry_, _Dramatic Poetry_, _Epic Poetry_, _History_, _Astronomy_, _Physics_, _Chemistry_ and _Philosophy_. All these paintings produce a decorative effect of the highest order, and many critics consider, not without reason, that this group of frescoes in the Boston Library constitutes the masterpiece of Puvis de Chavannes.

However that may be, the authorities of the great American city are very proud of this absolutely unique decorative ensemble, and whenever any distinguished stranger passes through Boston he is conducted to admire it. Is not this a beautiful homage to French art, of which Puvis de Chavannes was one of the most glorious exponents?

THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER

There is, in the work of Puvis de Chavannes, so much harmony and balance; the place occupied by each figure is so perfectly planned to accord the unity of the whole, that one does not perceive at first, because of the wise ordering of the assembled parts, how many-sided the artist's genius was. And so it happens that the landscape painter in him does not appear excepting under analysis. Yet few artists have advanced the science of landscape so far; indeed, in all his compositions it holds a position, if not of first importance, at least one equal to that of his figures. In his eyes it was not a matter of convention, a decoration, an accessory, but an indispensable part of the picture, so indispensable indeed that, without the landscape the picture would not exist. In short, it is in his landscape that Puvis de Chavannes has always placed the local colour of his compositions, and not in his figures. The latter are generally clad in antique fashion, in order to remain representative of humanity in general, but the setting is local: his _Ave, Picardia Nutrix_, for instance, shows us the land of Picardy with its level plains and its melancholy horizons: similarly, the two frescoes in the Palace of Longchamps reproduce faithfully the sun-flooded coast of Marseilles and the animation of its quays;--and yet the hurrying crowds upon them belong to no definite race nor to any determinable epoch.

It is always so in the paintings of Puvis de Chavannes: the landscape and the living figures harmonize, fit in, complete each other, and the consummate art of the landscape painter yields in no way to that of the painter of figures.

Puvis de Chavannes has been criticized on the ground that in such of his pictures as evoke antiquity, he sacrificed accepted tradition and acquired knowledge. From this to a direct charge of ignorance was an easy step; and it was quickly taken. That the artist attached a mediocre importance to accuracy in decoration or antique costume, there can be no question. Truth, in his eyes, consisted less in the detailed reconstruction of garments than in the faithful representation of that eternally living model, the human soul, over which whole centuries have passed, without availing to modify it. All else is merely accessory and secondary, if not actually negligible. At the same time, no one was ever more truly impregnated with the spirit of antiquity, as he had imbibed it from his readings, from his travels and from his own meditations. Contrary to what has been thought, he was not proud; nor held himself aloof from all other schools of painting except his own. Nothing could be further from the truth. Puvis was acquainted with all the schools; and no one admired more sincerely than he the great masters of each and every country. He had traversed Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, examining, studying, admiring. And here is precisely wherein his great glory consists; that having studied all methods, analyzed all processes, he still remained true to himself,--in other words, that he was a painter of inimitable originality.

Puvis de Chavannes kept abreast of all the ideas that stand for personality and progress. Far from being a recluse, solely concerned with his own painting, he followed the contemporary literary movement, and none of the happenings that took place around him escaped his knowledge.

Nevertheless, his chief preoccupation was his art and his desire to express, with his brush, the greatest possible degree of human nature. This he achieved in his magnificent series of immortal works; but it was only at the cost of a vast amount of conscientious labour. Few masters have had so keen an intuition of beauty, or a higher and more spontaneous inspiration; and no one, perhaps, has been so distrustful of himself, of his inspiration, of his intuition. He did not surrender himself to them until he had submitted them to the test of searching argument and uncompromising common sense. It is due to this careful weighing in the balance, to this wise mingling of youthful enthusiasm and mature severity that the work of Puvis de Chavannes owes that harmonious beauty that insures it an eternal glory.

And so, when in 1898 he passed away, not a dissenting voice was raised amid the concert of eulogies and of regrets which marked his end. For a long time previous, Puvis de Chavannes had ceased to have detractors; admiration had stifled envy. And, from the moment that he crossed beyond the threshold of life, Puvis de Chavannes entered fully into immortality.

CATALOGUE OF THE WORKS OF PUVIS DE CHAVANNES

Musée du Luxembourg; _The Poor Fisherman_.

Panthéon; _Saint Genevieve marked with the divine seal_.--_The Piety of Saint Genevieve._--_Saint Genevieve providing for besieged Paris._--_Saint Genevieve watching over sleeping Paris._--Two decorative Friezes, including _Faith, Hope, and Charity_, and a series of _Saints_.

Hôtel de Ville; _Summer, Winter_.--_Victor Hugo offering his lyre to the city of Paris._

Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne; _Letters, Sciences and Arts_.

Museum at Amiens; _Peace_.--_War._--_Labour._--_Repose._--_A Standard-Bearer._--_A Harvester._--_A Woman weeping over the ruins of her house._--_A Woman Spinning._--_Ave, Picardia Nutrix._--_Ludus pro Patria._

Church at Campagnat; _Ecce Homo_.

Palace of Longchamps (Marseilles): _Marseilles, a Greek Colony_.--_Marseilles, Gateway of the Orient._

Museum at Marseilles: _The Return from the Hunt_.

Hôtel de Ville, Poitiers: _Saint Radegonde gives asylum to the Poets_.--_Charles Martel re-enters Poitiers after his conquest of the Saracens._

Palace of Fine Arts, Lyons: _The Sacred Wood dear to the Arts and the Muses_.

Museum at Rouen: _Inter Artes et Naturam_.

Public Library, Boston: _The inspiring Muses acclaim Genius, Messenger of Light_.

Museum at Chartres: _Summer_.

Private Collections: _Herodiade_.--_Autumn._--_Sleep._

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Transcriber's Notes:

Simple typographical errors were corrected.

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.