Part 19

There are such things as the floating silk of the thistle’s parachute; such things as the feathery dust on the wings of “painted butterflies”; such things as the velvet pile on the petals of flowers; such things as the purple bloom on the plum and the grape; such things as the down on the breast of the cygnet; such things as the roseate gleam of the Oriental pearl; such things as the prismatic twinkle of the morning dew; and such things as the liquid silver of the moon’s bright ray.

All these most precious and evanescent beauties Watteau, Lancret, Pater, Fragonard, Drouais, Chardin, and other painters of the Eighteenth Century caught upon their palettes.

It was the genius Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) who opened the magic casements into this new world of fairy-like color and fairy-like lightness.

In the reaction from the heavy solemnity and gloom of the last years of Louis XIV, when the Sun-King was setting under the dark clouds of the bigoted and severe Madame de Maintenon’s influence, French taste swung to the other extreme of gaiety, fancy, gallantry, and caprice. Law’s Mississippi Bubble, while it lasted, enabled a great many persons to become suddenly rich; and, as is always the case with a new state of society, new styles of fashion came to meet its requirements. Moreover, the tastes of the Regent--the Duc d’Orléans--and the young King Louis XV were gay and playful; and, consequently, they were both glad to see all the traditions of Louis XIV swept away. The _Art nouveau_ of the period was most graceful and charming in its early expression. The playful curves and fantastic motifs from the Far East--pagodas, mandarins, umbrellas, monkeys, little bells, dripping water, and strange, wreathing vines, were all transmuted by the great decorative artists and designers into that delicious and delightful French _mélange_ known as _Chinoiserie_, which is, perhaps, more _French_ than Chinese. The riotous curves, most of which were derived from the volutes of the shell, the shell itself, and the dripping water (or hanging icicles), were used so prolifically and so universally that their name _rocaille_ (rock and shell) or _rococo_, is almost synonymous with that of the “_style Louis Quinze_,” although it does not include all the motifs nor all the spirit of the age.

Watteau was followed in his fascinating portrayal of _pastorales galantes_, _fêtes champêtres_, and all the light pleasures of society and its beautifully dressed men and women, by Nicolas Lancret (1690–1743) and Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater (1695–1736); and to this group belongs Jean Baptiste Huet (1745–1811), who in his first years followed Watteau closely; and as a decorative designer, he also expressed the taste of the Directoire and Empire period through which he lived.

Of the portrait painters, Jean Marc Nattier (1685–1766) stands first as Court-Painter and portrayer of lovely ladies in flowing draperies, rose-colored or blue scarfs, and wreaths and garlands of flowers, appearing as Hebe, Diana, Flora and other goddesses of Grecian mythology. Close to him comes Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1704–1788), who early abandoned oil-painting for pastels (his masterpiece, the portrait of Madame de Pompadour is now in the Louvre), was called a magician by Diderot and his work is described by de Goncourt as “a magic mirror, in which is seen all the talent, all the glory, all the wit, and all the grace of the reign of Louis XV.”

Carle Van Loo (1705–1765) is another portrait-painter of delicate and distinguished taste and performance. François Hubert Drouais (1727–1775) also expresses all the beauty, charm, and grace of the day in his presentations of the fashionable world.

François Boucher (1703–1770), the friend and successor of Carle Van Loo as first painter to the King, is so idyllic and fanciful that he has been characterized as the “Anacreon of Painting.”

Alexandre François Desportes (1661–1743), painter of hunting-scenes and animals, and Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686–1755), painter of hunting-scenes, animals, flowers, fruit, and still-life, blazed the trail for Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699–1779), one of the greatest colorists in the entire history of painting. Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), full of grace, charm, and freshness, painter _par excellence_ of pretty girls, and Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), pupil of Chardin and Boucher, famous for his delicate color and lightness of touch, lived into the new _régime_ and their work became unappreciated. Hubert Robert (1733–1808), painter of delicate and highly decorative garden-scenes and classical ruins, and Madame Labille-Guiard (1749–1803) also lived into the Directoire and Napoleonic period when they were forced to leave their quarters in the Louvre formerly accorded to them by Royal permission. Madame Labille-Guiard was in her day ranked with Madame Vigée LeBrun (1755–1842), wife of the grand-nephew of the great painter, Charles LeBrun, who won distinction for her portraits, her brilliant _salon_, and her charming personality.

JUPITER AND CALISTO.

_Nicolas Poussin_ (_1594–1665_).

_Collection of Mr. Carroll Tyson._

This famous picture was first owned by the great painter Charles LeBrun. It subsequently belonged to the Collections of Baron Holback, 1789; Baron Clary, 1868; and Baron de Tournelle in Paris. Painted about 1635, this large canvas (53½ × 70½ inches), is in a fine state of preservation, the colors, in consequence, appearing richer than is usual in Poussin’s works. The greens, browns, and pinks are warm; the flesh tints are glowing; and the draperies and the sky are a deep _lapis-lazuli_ blue.

The puzzle is to find Jupiter! In Smith’s _Catalogue raisonné_ we read:

“The god under the form of Diana is represented sitting on a shady bank embracing the beautiful nymph, who sits by his side with a spear in her hand; seven Cupids are sporting around them, one of which, while flying, is discharging an arrow from his bow; a second is playing with the hounds of the supposed huntress; a third holds up the blazing torch of love; and two others, buoyant among the trees, are casting flowers on the heads of the lovers.

“In his very beautiful pictures illustrative of ancient mythology Poussin has treated the various subjects in a style that proves he perfectly understood the mystery of the allegories therein contained and employed with the happiest effect the numerous symbolical figures to denote qualities, places, and things. His style, although unquestionably of French origin, owes all its beauty to his subsequent study of a few of the great Italian Masters, and of ancient sculpture. To such an extent was he carried in his enthusiastic admiration of the latter, that most of the celebrated statues and monuments, both of Greek and Roman origin, may be recognized in his pictures. This fondness for the chaste beauty of the antique may have led him in some instances so far as to give to his figures a rigidity which ill accords with the elasticity of nature. This defect (if it be one), is amply compensated by the grace and dignity of attitude and the chaste correctness of drawing which pervades his works. Execution, that medium by which the conceptions of a painter are embodied, and by which the connoisseur is frequently enabled to judge of the originality of a picture, is distinguished in the Artist (in his best period) by breadth and precision of hand, and a firm and decided outline; every touch of the pencil appears the result of consideration and profound knowledge, and in this respect it is the very reverse of that rapidity and dexterous freedom of hand observable in the works of Rubens, Paul Veronese, and Giordano.”

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Carroll Tyson_

JUPITER AND CALISTO

--_Nicolas Poussin_]

Poussin spent almost his entire life in Rome. Born at Villiers near Les Andelys in Normandy in 1594, he went to Paris at the age of eighteen to study art, having had some training under Quentin Varin at Les Andelys. In Paris he studied under Ferdinand Elle, a Flemish portrait-painter, and L’Allemand, a native of Lorraine. In 1620 he started for Rome, but only got as far as Florence. Compelled to return to Paris he now formed a friendship with Philippe de Champaigne (also a pupil of L’Allemand) and worked with him on the decorations of the Luxembourg under Duchesne. Four years later Poussin arrived in Rome, his long desired goal, and plunged enthusiastically into the study of ancient art, also working in the studio of Domenichino. For a long time Poussin had to struggle with poverty, illness, and Italian hatred,--for the Italians and French were enemies at this time. Marriage with the daughter of a wealthy compatriot changed matters and Poussin bought with his bride’s dowry a handsome house on the Pincian Hill. Cardinal Barberini’s patronage now brought Poussin fame, for the Cardinal commissioned two paintings, _The Death of Germanicus_ and _The Capture of Jerusalem_--besides other important orders. Poussin’s reputation soared rapidly and in 1640 Louis XIII called him to Paris, appointed him first painter-in-ordinary, and gave him a residence in the garden of the Tuileries for life. For two years Poussin worked industriously, producing many paintings, cartoons for tapestries, and illustrations for books; but he longed for his beloved Rome and in 1642 returned to that city, where he spent the remainder of his life in the tranquil pursuit of his art. Poussin painted for twenty-three more years and died in Rome in 1665. His works are numerous; and, with the exception of a few portraits, are chiefly devoted to mythological, classical, historical, and Biblical subjects. Titian was his idol. However, despite his Italian inspiration and taste, Poussin is regarded as the head of the French School. His devotion to classical subjects and his deep study of the antique in all its expressions make Poussin one of the most scholarly of painters.

Sir Joshua Reynolds says: “In contemplating his classical pictures the mind is thrown back into antiquity or remote ages; and it would be no difficult matter for the spectator to imagine that such pictures were coeval, or nearly so, in their production with the mythological metamorphosis and Bacchanalian festivals that are set before him. His shepherds, fauns, nymphs, satyrs, and Bacchanals appear a primitive progeny, the native inhabitants of the mountains and woodlands of the genial climate of Greece and of that Golden Age when Hellas and Asia Minor may be supposed to have been overspread with aboriginal forests and life was careless resignation to present enjoyment.”

From Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain (1600–1682), landscape-painter of idealized Classic scenes, poetic in spirit and suffused with dreamful, golden light, the Eighteenth Century French painters may be said to have found their fountain-head of inspiration.

LA DANSE.

_Antoine Watteau._ (_1684–1721_).

_Collection of Mr. Charles A. Wimpfheimer._

With the exception of the superb _Embarquement pour l’Ile de Cythère_, we do not think of individual paintings of Watteau. We consider his work as a whole and we have a composite picture in our minds of _assemblées galantes_ under the trees in beautiful parks and gardens. Although he derived his themes from his master, Gillot, who was painting all the fashionable follies and fancies of the time, Watteau surpassed him so entirely in his approach to these subjects, as well as in his technique, that we are wont to look upon Watteau as the originator of _fêtes champêtres_, _pastorales galantes_, _concerts champêtres_, monkeys in all kinds of attitudes and costumes satirizing the modes and manners of the day, ladies and gentlemen playing Blind Man’s Buff (_Colin Maillard_) under the trees, ladies swinging or flirting with their fans, love-scenes beside statues in leafy dells, members of the Italian Comedy--Pierrot, Arlequin, Scaramouche, Mezetin, Columbine, and Scalpin--and charming people making music or dancing under the trees.

This characteristic picture which came from the S. R. Bertron Collection to its present owner, is a charming illustration of Watteau’s style. Here we have dancing and music and merry conversation. The light is concentrated on the chief figure--the dancer--clad in that white satin that Watteau painted so marvellously. But why single out any special object for that facile and versatile brush? Did not an eminent critic of the Nineteenth Century proclaim that Watteau was “the most brilliant and vivid painter the world has ever seen”?

Watteau created an Arcadia of his own--a Watteau world; and it is not without reason that another critic called him “the Shakespeare and the Aristophanes of Art.”

The world has long recognized that Watteau was a poet. Élie Faure asks why it is that the _ensemble_ always produces the sensation so near to sadness, and then he gives the reason:

“The spirit of the poet is present. Watteau had brought back from his Flemish country and from a visit he had made to England the love of moist landscape, where the colors in the multiplied prism of the tiny suspended drops take on their real depth and splendor. Music and trees, the whole of Watteau is in them. The sound does not interrupt the silence, but rather increases it. Barely, if at all, a whispered echo reaches us from it. We do indeed see the fingers wandering from the strings: the laughter and the phrases exchanged are to be guessed from bodies bending forward or turning backward and from fans that tap on hands. The actors in the charming dramas are at a distance from their painter and are dispersed in the depths of the open spaces. Watteau fears to come near them, to penetrate their mystery; for to see them too close would destroy the aërial veil that trembles between them and himself. He caresses them only with his delicate tones that hover here and there as would some bee from the north flying about in the damp forests or under the lights of the _fête_, among the powdered gold of the hair, the rose of the costumes, the bluish, milky haze, the flower-sprinkled moss, the grass on which rest skirts and mantles of silk and satin, and the nocturnal phosphorescence given to jewels and velvets by the gleam of moonlight and the flare of waving torches. It is the irised air which makes the marble statues seem to quiver, which gives agitation to the sprightly and piquant faces, movement to the fingers plucking guitars, and to delicate fine legs in stockings of transparent silk. Watteau never comes near the scene: the vision is as distant as an old dream. Observe it in detail. The structure of the figures--solid, moving, and substantial--makes them appear as if on the plane of man. Watteau’s little personages are as large as his conception of them: he paints with the breadth, the fire, and the freedom of Veronese, of Rubens, of Velasquez, and of Rembrandt.”

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Charles A. Wimpfheimer_

LA DANSE

--_Antoine Watteau_]

Antoine Watteau, born at Valenciennes, Oct. 10, 1684, was turned adrift by his father, a tile-maker, and he went to Paris, where he gradually became a fine draughtsman. He entered the studio of Claude Gillot (1673–1722), well known for his mythological pictures, his _Chinoiserie_, his _fêtes galantes_, his _singerie_, and his buffoonery of the Italian Comedy. Watteau soon surpassed his teacher and left him to study for a short time with Claude Audran (1658–1734). In 1717 Watteau became a member of the Academy; in 1719 he visited England; and in 1721 he died at Nogent, near Paris.

The de Goncourts have summed up his qualities so well that no excuse is needed for placing their analysis here:

“It is doubtless owing to the early decorative work executed by Watteau that he acquired a taste for the theatre of which in after days his cunning brush drew so many pleasing representations, so many curious pictures and that he so often depicted the Italian and French Comedians, those friends and intimates of his brush, whose motley family he painted in that beautiful and striking picture which is a companion to _Comédiens Français_. He painted their companion picture when Madame de Maintenon drove them out of France in 1697; he painted their amusements, their nocturnal amours and serenades, their holidays, their open-air sports. Mezetin and Columbine appear on a hundred panels. But there would be little reason to thank the chance that led Watteau at the outset of his career to work under an obscure decorator if he had only copied the silken folds of their costumes and had not conceived the idea of using these Trans-alpine types as the poetic habitants of his _scènes galantes_ and _scènes champêtres_. In fact, by the introduction of these Merry Andrews, these gracious mummers, these elegant incarnations of dainty laughter and fine comedy, these men and women whose materiality is so vague and their reality so veiled beneath symbol and myth, the compositions of the painter no longer seem like pictures of a real world. The greensward of his _scènes galantes_ seems peopled with mythical beings to whom Watteau’s imagination and lightness of touch have left nothing of the actors who served as his models; and we have the illusion of looking into a verdant country inhabited by creations of whim and fancy.”

MADAME BONIER DE LA MOSSON.

_Jean Marc Nattier_ (_1685–1766_).

_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind._

Nolhac calls the portrait of Madame Bonier de la Mosson “_une des plus belles de ses Dianes ou de ses Nymphes chasseresses_.” The picture (51 × 38 inches) was exhibited in the Salon of 1742. From the Collections of Debatz, Reims, and Tamvaco, Cairo, it passed into that of Mr. Berwind. This handsome lady, radiant in her leopard skin and flowers, was the wife of M. Bonier de la Mosson, who was also painted by Nattier four years later (1746), in his “cabinet of curiosities,” for M. Bonier de la Mosson was one of those amateur scientists of the age. In his rich _hôtel_ in the rue Saint Dominique in Paris, he had a laboratory and an “_apothicairerie_,”--his pots, bottles, mortars and pestles and crucibles surrounded by furniture of the most superb description. The portrait of M. Bonier de la Mosson was in great contrast to that of his beautiful wife. The portrait of the gentleman is a fine work, but the portrait of the lady shows Nattier in his most characteristic aspect. Here is the _real_ Nattier, for Nattier specialized in what was called in his day the “historic portrait,”--that is to say the sitter was represented as a mythological, or historical, personage with all the attractive symbolical and picturesque accessories. Nattier’s vogue during his lifetime was very great and all the aristocratic and fashionable ladies wanted, above all things, to have themselves perpetuated as Dianas, Floras, Hebes, and Auroras. Consequently, many old families in France cherish a fine allegorical portrait of a handsome ancestress caught as it were on Mount Olympus with the gods and goddesses.

“_Nattier l’élève des Graces, Et le peintre de la beauté_”

is a tribute in some verses in 1727.

“It may seem fantastic,” Sir Walter Armstrong writes, “to bracket Van Eyck with a painter like Nattier, but a little consideration will show that in a sense they belonged to the same faction, that is to say that if Van Eyck had lived in Paris in 1760, he would have conceived a portrait much in the same way as Nattier, and so _mutatis mutandis_ with the Frenchman. The conscious desire of both was to _reproduce_ their sitter, choosing a moment when he or she was thinking of nothing in particular, and surrounding him with his familiar properties carefully marshalled into a design.”

Jean Marc Nattier came of a family of artists. His father, Marc Nattier, was an Academician, his mother, Marie Courtois, was a miniature-painter of reputation, and his brother, J. B. Nattier, was also a painter. Jean Marc Nattier was born in Paris, March 17, 1685, and was trained at a very early age by his father. Admitted to the classes at the Académie, he won a prize in drawing and at the age of fifteen was given a stipend. In 1715 Nattier went to Holland, where Peter the Great was staying, and painted the Czar, the Empress Catherine II, and several members of the Russian Court; but he declined all inducements to follow the Czar to Russia and returned to Paris.

In 1718 Nattier was received at the Académie and, thenceforth, devoted himself to portraiture. In 1724 he married Mademoiselle de la Roche, daughter of an old _mousquetaire_ of the King; and it was not long before he became official painter of the court and, in consequence, the most fashionable portrait-painter in France.

Nattier was made assistant professor of the Académie in 1745 and full professor in 1752. Every year brought him more fame and more honors until his death in Paris in 1766.

Nattier depicts the delicate, charming, and aristocratic beauty of the early Louis XV period and has the gift of expressing also grace and alluring qualities. Louis XV had Nattier make replicas of many of the court portraits most pleasing to him, which he sent to European Courts; and this explains how it is that so many splendid Nattiers are hanging to-day in European galleries.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind_

MADAME BONIER DE LA MOSSON

--_Jean Marc Nattier_]

Nattier has a unique place as the painter of beautiful women, yet, although he painted individuals, his work, taken as a whole, presents the French Society woman of the Eighteenth Century with her peculiar charm, elegance, and _finesse_, appearing in his portraits as she really was,--experienced, flexible, high-bred, gay, witty, and accomplished, graceful in manner and in speech, perfect in the arts of the toilet and in dress, conscious of her charm, and tactful, polished, and fascinating in society.

LA MARQUISE DE BAGLION AS FLORA.

_Jean Marc Nattier_ (_1685–1766_).

_Collection of Mr. A. W. Erickson._

This masterpiece is also known as the “Chaponay Nattier,” from having been long in the Collection of the Marquis de Chaponay in Paris. Previously the picture graced the Collection of la Comtesse Armand née Gontoud-Biron and subsequently that of M. Nicolas Ambatielos in London. Many critics regard _La Marquise de Baglion_ as the finest French portrait of the Eighteenth Century. Its first appearance in public was at the Salon of 1746 and it was shown in the Paris Exhibition of the One Hundred Masterpieces in 1892 (No. 28) and in the Paris Exhibition of the One Hundred Portraits of Women of the French and English Schools in 1909 (No. 85).

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. A. W. Erickson_

LA MARQUISE DE BAGLION

--_Jean Marc Nattier_]

The picture (53⅛ × 41¼ inches) is signed and dated 1746, hence it was shown as soon as it was finished. The subject of the picture, Angélique Louise Sophie d’Allouville de Louville was born Feb. 10, 1710, daughter of Charles Augustin d’Allouville, Marquis de Louville, Gentleman-in-waiting to the King of Spain, Lieutenant-General of his armies and Governor-General of Courtray. Her mother was Hyacinthe Sophie de Bechameil de Nointel. On June 10, 1733, Angélique Louise Sophie was married to Pierre François Marie de Baglion, Comte de la Salle. After twenty-three years of marriage the Marquise de Baglion died in 1756. Her only daughter, Françoise Sophie Scholastique de Baglion (who was married to Denis Auguste Grimoard de Beauvoir, Marquis du Roure, Colonel of the Grenadiers of France of Saintonge, of Dauphine, and later brigadier), was lady-in-waiting to the Dauphine (Marie Antoinette), and was a great friend of Madame de Pompadour, whom she usually accompanied on her visits to Choisy.

In this exquisite picture, La Marquise de Baglion, an unusually beautiful woman, who has great intelligence in her face, as well as beauty, appears in a very _décolleté_ dress, which shows her dazzling neck and shoulders. Her aristocratic hand, long and beautifully shaped, lightly holds a blue scarf--“Nattier blue”--filled with lovely flowers. Flowers are as nearly important as the Goddess of Flowers herself; and, consequently, Nattier has shown himself here the equal of any painter who specialized in flowers.