MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR
EDITED BY
M. HENRY ROUJON

BASTIEN-LEPAGE

(1848-1884)

IN THE SAME SERIES

PLATE I.—THE SONG OF SPRINGTIME

(Museum at Verdun)

This is one of the artist’s earliest works. A certain embarrassment
may be noted in the manner in which the Cupids are treated; even
at this period, it is easy to see that allegory is not suited to the precise
and realistic talent of this painter; yet the young girl is
designed with a vigour which already foreshadows the masterly art
of Hay-making.

Bastien Lepage

BY FR. CRASTRE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
BY FREDERIC TABER COOPER

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
NEW YORK—PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

March, 1914

THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A[Pg vii]

There are certain beings who bear the stamp
of the divine seal and are preordained to
receive the highest favours within the gift of glory;
they are fated to pass through life like those brilliant
meteors which are seen to flash across the
heavens and disappear in the same instant. Bastien-Lepage
was one of these meteors. But while the
others leave behind them only a luminous trail[Pg 12]
that swiftly vanishes, this rare artist, snatched so
prematurely from the field of art, traced his
passage in a furrow of dazzling splendour, the
radiance of which has not even yet begun to fade.

Bastien-Lepage was a painter in the noblest
acceptation of the term; it may even be asserted
that he would have exercised considerable influence
upon the art of his epoch if Destiny had not
stupidly mown down the sturdy flower of his
genius in the very hour of its brightest blossoming.
Born into this world with a solid tenacity
of purpose which seems to be a special gift of
the soil of Lorraine to her sons and daughters,
he had a clear-cut and unalterable conception of
what painting should be. His mind was receptive
only of simple ideas, his eye perceived only
visions that were tangible, such as were unobscured
by any shadow or any artifice. He was
the apostle of clearness, both in conception and
in execution. Every time that he tried experimentally
to turn aside from his chosen path, he[Pg 15]
ceased to be himself, he fell below his own standards.
What interested him most of all, in the life
of this world which he observed so eagerly, as
though he had a presentiment of his early end, was
nature’s most precise and most uncompromising
manifestation, both in line and in relief; namely, the
peasant and the environment which frames him.
Having deliberately chosen such models, Bastien-Lepage
could not pretend to be the painter of
the Beautiful, nor did he ever become so. He
did not even adorn his subjects with that special
sort of idealism with which Millet embellished
even his most uncouth rustic types, a slightly
melancholy idealism obtained by a sombre toning
down of colour, which Bastien-Lepage held in horror.
His peasants stand out boldly, in the crude glare
of flamboyant noontide, under a summer sun that
refuses to leave hidden any part of their ugliness
or their defects. He painted them as he saw
them, with the searching rays striking them full
in the face; and his brush was a stranger to any
compromise, intolerant of even the slightest betterment,
in the course of the literal transference of
his model to his canvas. It made no difference
how handsome or how homely a given subject
might be, Bastien-Lepage would always render
him precisely as nature, in a grudging or indulgent
mood, had made him,—that is to say, truly
and sincerely, with a precision that would be
almost photographic, if the minuteness of his
technique were not ennobled by the high quality
of his art. With such gifts, Bastien-Lepage was
foreordained to be a marvellous interpreter of
rural life, and such he was in the highest degree; in
like manner, he could not fail to become a portrait
painter of the first order, and it was in this
capacity also that he enrolled himself among the
most interesting and vigorous artists of our epoch.

PLATE II.—PORTRAIT OF M. WALLON

(Museum at Verdun)

Few artists have been able to endow their models with such
an animated expression of life. All the keenness, intelligence and
austerity of this prominent personage, known by the name of
Father of the Constitution, are eloquently transferred to this page,
with a sobriety of means that still further emphasizes its vigour.

[Pg 16]

HIS YOUTH

Jules Bastien-Lepage was born at Damvillers,
in the department of the Meuse, on the first of[Pg 17]
November, 1848. His parents were of the well-to-do
farming class, occupied from one year’s end
to the other with the work of the fields. Consequently,
all the early boyhood of the artist was
passed in daily contact with the soil of Lorraine
and with the sons of that soil. He knew them,
one and all, in his native village; he grew up among
them; he went to school side by side with the
other little rustics of his own age: he understood
the peasant class, with all their faults, their virtues,
their habits of life; he learned to read in
their faces, which were a sealed book to the outsider,
the opinions and emotions which they had
in common with him.

These childhood impressions were destined to
abide with him throughout his life; he cherished
to the end a fervent love for his native land,
and he felt that he had an infinitely noble task in
painting that life of the fields which the Second
Empire affected to despise.[Pg 18]

But though he came of peasant stock, it was
Bastien-Lepage’s good fortune that these same
peasants were in prosperous circumstances and
could afford to give him an education. They were
ambitious for him; and it hurt them to see their
little Jules, who was so wide-awake, so intelligent,
and at the same time so frail, leading the hard
and monotonous life of the fields, following the
plough, tilling the soil. It needed only a few
household economies to enable him to continue his
studies; so, when the time came, young Bastien-Lepage
wended his way towards Verdun, where he
entered upon his college course.

There is nothing that marks in any particular
way these years of study, nothing to indicate that
the boy was a youthful prodigy, nor that he showed
any special aptitude for drawing. But he was
studious, diligent, and anxious to avoid repremands
and to fulfil the expectations of his parents.
In due time he obtained his bachelor’s degree,
which at that period was highly prized. His father,[Pg 19]
filled with pride, already began to form brilliant
projects for his future, already foresaw him a
distinguished official, supervising some great branch
of the public service. As a matter of fact, a
position was found for the young baccalaureate
in a government department which was neither
the most desirable nor the one of least importance;
namely, the Post Office Department. Bastien-Lepage
was not vastly delighted with the
choice, but, dutiful son that he was, he accepted the
modest clerkship offered him. One circumstance
contributed, in a large degree, towards overcoming
his reluctance: the post assigned to him from
the start was in Paris, of which he had often heard
marvellous things, and in which he hoped that he
would be able to follow his secret inclination. For,
in the interval his vocation had revealed itself; he
had conceived a passion for drawing, for colouring,
for painting; and, like Correggio, he was
eager to say in his turn, “I too am a painter!”

Accordingly he set forth, leaving behind him[Pg 20]
no suspicion of his purpose. Upon arriving at
the capital, he acquitted himself scrupulously of
his official duties, but every leisure moment was
consecrated to visiting the museums and exhibitions.
He saturated himself with the wealth of
beauty strewn broadcast through the Louvre, and
was thrilled with admiration at contact with the
masters of every school and country. He did not
care equally for them all, in spite of their genius;
his intimate preferences leaned to the side of
Flemish rather than Italian art; but he was not
insensible to the lofty inspiration, the severe harmony,
the faultless composition, which have made
the great masters of the Renaissance the most
astonishing prodigies in the history of painting.

But while the older schools of art delighted
him, he followed with no less attention the movement
of contemporary painting. At the hour when
his critical spirit awoke, certain new elements and
new formulas had come to light and had been put
into practice by two audacious and gifted artists[Pg 21]
by the names of Courbet and Manet. Although
the prolonged struggle between the classicists and
romanticists had not yet come to an end, these
two rival schools were entrenched in their positions
and refused to stir forth from them. Supporters
of Delacroix and of Ingres confined themselves
strictly to their respective hostile formulas, doing
nothing either to expand or to rejuvenate them.
Whoever dared to venture outside of one of these
two beaten tracks was regarded as a madman, and
his attempts were greeted with derisive clamours
by both parties, who declared a momentary
truce, for the purpose of annihilating him by a
joint attack. Courbet, who was scorned by Ingres,
met with equally harsh criticism from Delacroix;
and as for Manet, he had managed to call down
universal wrath upon his head, and at the Salon
of 1863 it became necessary to place his Olympia
in the very topmost line upon the wall, in order to
protect it from the fury of the public, hounded on
by the hue and cry of the critics.

[Pg 22]
Bastien-Lepage made mental notes of all the
episodes of this struggle; he listened to the criticisms
and passed them through the crucible of his
unspoiled mind, in the presence of the very works
under indictment. His good sense showed him how
large an element of injustice entered into these
hostilities. Moreover, his peasant blood inclined
him to sympathize with those artists who refused
to bind themselves to seek for beauty only within
the limits of academic form, and who had the
ability to make it flash forth from the humblest
and even the most vulgar type of subject. Furthermore,
this constant study of matters pertaining to
art, day by day added fuel to the hidden fire
smouldering within him; he was conscious of its
mounting flame. Back of the rude sketches, drawn
and coloured in the tiny chamber befitting an
humble postal clerk, he perceived vaguely that he
also possessed the temperament of a painter, and
little by little he witnessed the unfolding of his
artist’s soul.

PLATE III.—THE ARTIST’S MOTHER

(Collection of É. Bastien-Lepage)

What a kindly and gentle face this is, the face of the woman to
whom the artist applied the tender endearment of “Good little
mother”! In this work, it is evident that the heart guided the
hand of the painter. None but a son could have rendered with
such emotion the humid tenderness of those eyes and the maternal
caress of those lips. It is a powerful work, which enrolls Bastien-Lepage
in the foremost rank of portrait painters.

[Pg 25]

At last, unable to bear it longer, he resigned
from the postal service and enrolled his name at
the Beaux-Arts. At this time, when he entered
the studio of Cabanel, he was but little more than
nineteen years of age. Cabanel, to be sure, was
not the painter of his choice, but Bastien-Lepage
was not for that reason any the less appreciative
of a system of instruction which was dominated
by a worship of line-work. His training under
Cabanel was not without value to the young artist,
who throughout his life, even in his most realistic
paintings, proved himself to be an impeccable
master of design.

At the outset, however, he was beset with
difficulties. Now that his salary as a postal clerk
had ceased and remittances from the family were
necessarily restricted, Bastien-Lepage exerted himself
to gain a living by his own efforts. He had
no lack of courage, and he had in addition that
Lorraine tenacity which enabled him to confront
all difficulties with tranquil assurance. He worked[Pg 26]
with desperate energy, and in the intervals of
respite from his labours he overran all Paris in
search of orders from business houses. It was an
inglorious task, but at least it enabled him to live;
thus it happened that about 1873 he produced a
widely circulated advertisement for a perfumery
house. Up to this time he had remained wholly
unknown; and although he had already exhibited
one painting, at the Salon of 1870, it was passed by
unheeded both by the critics and the general public.

This lack of success in no wise discouraged him,
for he had faith. It was in the year 1874 that
he exhibited The Song of Springtime. It was a
veritable revelation. There was no neglect this
time. The public gathered in throngs before his
canvas, and the critics, notwithstanding a few
objections to details, were lavish in their praise
and hailed him as having the qualities of a true
artist. Naturally, the picture was not perfect,
but it well merited the flattering reception which
it received. In a springtime landscape a young[Pg 27]
peasant girl is seated beneath a tree, looking before
her over a sunlit plain. Around her skirts a
whole bevy of Cupids are gathering blossoms and
offering them to the girl. Here, at the first stroke,
is an assertion of the young painter’s independence,
his formal determination to emancipate himself
from the accepted formulas in his treatment of
the eternal theme of a young girl’s soul, opening
to the first appeal of love. As a matter of fact,
the allegory is somewhat clumsy; you realize that
the author’s talent does not run to sentimental
compositions. Yet the young girl is brushed in
with an energetic hand, and all that rather coarse
robustness that distinguishes the women of peasant
stock is blended in a masterly manner with the
naïve innocence of simple souls. The Song of
Springtime was Bastien-Lepage’s first attempt in
that vein of realistic painting in which he was
soon destined to excel.

That same year he produced Grandfather’s
Portrait, which also attracted much attention.[Pg 28]
The artist had placed his model in the little garden
adjoining the home of his birth. This portrait,
which belongs to-day to the painter’s brother, is
remarkable for its naturalness, its touch of intimate
understanding, and its vigour of execution.

Bastien-Lepage had now acquired a name. His
Song of Springtime won him a third class medal,
and the State purchased the painting for the
museum at Verdun, where it at present hangs.

In the following year he exhibited Her First
Communion, picturing a young and pretty country
girl, stiff and self-conscious under her white
veil. This work was the product of keen observation,
and is deliberately stilted and traditional
in its style of execution, recalling in some measure
the French primitive school. Bastien-Lepage
evidently had in mind the portraits by François
Cluet: his little communicant is infinitely artificial
in her spotless finery, yet infinitely alive
under the thin surface wash of colour which
recalls the Elizabeth of Austria, wife of Charles[Pg 29]
IX, as painted by the greatest of the French
primitives.

Simultaneously with this picture he exhibited
the Portrait of M. Hayem, in which the vigorous
treatment of the face, with its clear, firm colour
tones and sober workmanship, proclaimed him
already a portrait painter of the first order.

His success this time was more marked: he
received a medal of the second class. A less
modest artist would have allowed himself to be
borne tranquilly along by the mounting tide of
glory; but Bastien-Lepage did not yet feel that
he was sufficiently sure of himself. He wished
to continue for a while longer, working, learning,
perfecting himself; he even conceived the idea,
in spite of his renown, of competing for the
Prix de Rome. Accordingly, the painter of The
Song of Springtime and Her First Communion
might shortly after have been seen entering the
lists like any ordinary nobody. He obtained only
the second prize.[Pg 30]

He presented himself again the following year,
but with no better success. The subject assigned
for the competition was Priam at the Feet of
Achilles. It is easy to understand that such a
theme was little calculated to inspire an artist of
Bastien-Lepage’s temperament; he found it impossible
to attain full development unless in the
presence of nature herself. No amount of manual
dexterity can take the place of inborn faith, and
the young artist had no faith in antiquity; he
never could muster any enthusiasm for the Greek
or Roman gods, nor for historic scenes in which the
very attitudes are dictated by the rules and regulations
of time-honoured tradition.

Nevertheless, the work is not without merit;
it is forceful, its colouring is good, and it falls short
of perfection only in failing to conform sufficiently
with what we know of ancient life. This painting
is at present to be found in the Museum at Lille.

This rebuff did not discourage Bastien-Lepage
unreasonably; but he decided to confine himself
in the future to painting portraits and picturing the
life of the fields.

[Pg 31]

HIS BEST YEARS

The same year that he failed for the second
time in the competition for the Prix de Rome,
Bastien-Lepage painted The Portrait of M. Wallon,
which is one of his most important works as a
portrait painter. In spite of its tendency towards
naturalism, this canvas was nevertheless still conceived
in accordance with the established technique,
and the keen and serious visage of the Father
of the Constitution standing out against its sombre
background is a fine study in chiaroscuro.

But the following year he struck the naturalistic
note more strongly in his Portrait of Lady L.,
the only full-length, life-sized portrait that he
ever painted; and he declared himself plainly
and definitely a realist in his picture entitled My
Parents. It would be impossible to find two
figures more life-like, more literal, or painted with[Pg 32]
greater sincerity. This canvas amounted to a
declaration of principles; for an artist whom filial
piety cannot turn aside from the truth will never
make sacrifices to convention: he will never consent
to embellish or idealize his models through
tricks of his craft; he will paint them as he sees
them, without correcting any of the imperfections
and ugliness with which nature has afflicted them.
How clearly we recognize that these likenesses of
Bastien-Lepage’s parents are absolutely true to
life, and how much better we like them as they
are, in the simple intimacy of daily life, than if
they had been decked out, all spick and span, as
a less scrupulous artist would inevitably have shown
them to us!

Bastien-Lepage’s brother, himself a painter of
some talent, has preserved in his studio at Neuilly
a certain number of the artist’s works, which he
surrounds with pious care and feelingly exhibits
to occasional visitors. The family portraits are
there, pulsating with life and radiating that gener[Pg 35]ous
peasant kindliness which finds expression in
a broad and tender smile. The father, seated in a
chair in his garden, an old man with shrewd yet
friendly eyes, seems so real, so actual, that we
almost expect him to step down from his frame
to bid us welcome. And what a marvel the Portrait
of my Mother is, which forms a companion
piece on the same wall! A somewhat wistful
charm pervades this face, with its deeply graven
lines, and an infinite tenderness, a true mother’s
tenderness, hovers over the thin, pale lips.

PLATE IV—HAY-MAKING

(Museum of the Luxembourg)

A masterpiece of contemporary painting, because of the truth of
its attitudes and the vigour of its execution. It would be impossible
to render more forcibly the blissfulness of rest when the body has
been racked by the exhausting labour of the soil. In this picture,
Bastien-Lepage revealed himself as an incomparable painter of
rural life.

Perhaps this is the moment, in the presence
of these pictures, to emphasize Bastien-Lepage’s
great value as a colourist. Few contemporary
painters have used colour with so much tact,
such veritable mastery as he. Others have employed
more dazzling tonal schemes and have
achieved more gorgeous effects, but no one has
rendered with such exact truth the tints of the
flesh, the grayish folds of wrinkles, the profound
light of the eye. And his colour is always clear,[Pg 36]
always unmistakably employed to produce a sought-after
effect. There is no artifice, no trick-work,
it is all straightforward, honest, precise; the opposition
of light and shade never result in opacity,
bitumen plays no part in his canvases, the astonishing
relief of which is obtained by means of
such perfect simplicity that it recalls the inimitable
technique of Correggio.

In 1878 he exhibited Hay-making, that magisterial
page from the life of the fields which to-day
is the pride of the Luxembourg museum, and
which the art of the engraver has scattered broadcast
to the extent of millions of copies.

This picture represents a vast sun-bathed
meadow, overstrewn with new-mown hay and
punctuated, here and there, by the rounded cones
of the stacks. Against the blue background of the
sky, green hill-tops trace an undulant line. In the
foreground a robust, bony-armed country-woman
is seated on the grass, her legs stretched out before
her in an attitude expressive of the utter[Pg 37]
weariness resulting from the work performed. Her
head, solidly planted on her massive neck, is a
marvel of realism; in her vulgar peasant face
we may read health, strength, and a sort of dulled
mentality born of physical fatigue. In every fibre
of her exhausted body the woman is veritably
resting, and through her half-parted lips it seems
as though we could detect the passage of her
hurried breathing. The man beside her, no less
worn out than she, is stretched at full length on
the thick couch of grass, and with his hat over
his face, to shelter it from the sun, he is sleeping
as though dead to the world.

Every detail of this canvas is perfect, because
every detail is true, drawn straight from life, the
fruit of minute observation. In it Bastien-Lepage
once more affirms his predilection for the open
country; and nothing could be more impressive
than these two uncouth, vulgar, homely human
beings, set amid the splendour of a meadow turned
golden by the sun. It is an every-day spectacle; it[Pg 38]
would not seem at first sight to contain material
for a picture. But Bastien-Lepage has succeeded
in proving indisputably that beauty does not consist
solely in the harmony of the body, but in
the impression which emanates from scenes that
are most humble in outward appearance. In these
few square feet of canvas the artist has summed up,
perhaps without intending it, all the majesty of
nature and all the grandeur of the life of the fields.
It is scarcely necessary to add that this work is
a transcript of the soil of Lorraine, that good
natal soil which he loved so profoundly and to
which he returned eagerly, year after year.

Bastien-Lepage was exclusively the painter of
the rural aspects of Lorraine; he loved its horizons,
its fertile and undulating plains. And when,
occasionally, he ventured into allegory, the background
was still Lorraine, and the characters were
developed in the familiar setting of his native
village, Damvillers. And how he loved it! How
he enjoyed the warm atmosphere of affection
[Pg 41]
which always awaited him when his father, grandfather,
and valiant and devoted “little mother”
gathered at night around the family table! He
made his home in Paris, because residence there
was indispensable, both for business and artistic
reasons; but the moment that he could escape
from the capital and its constraints, he would go
to rest and gather new energy in the midst of
the family circle. He had a spacious studio installed
in the second story of the ancestral home;
and there he worked, absolutely happy so long
as he could see the old grandfather at his side,
pipe in mouth, examining the work with a knowing
air, and the father and mother in a sort of ecstasy,
as they watched him fill in his canvas.

PLATE V.—PORTRAIT OF M. HAYEM

(Museum of the Luxembourg)

A marvel of discernment and of rendering. The face, to be sure,
has a strong originality; but there is no slight merit in having expressed
with such striking truth the piercing intelligence of the
eyes that twinkle behind the lenses of the spectacles, and the energy,
tempered with satiric humour, of his whole odd physiognomy.

Nevertheless, Bastien-Lepage was no studio
painter; it was not from the height of a window
that he chose to contemplate nature, but in the
open fields, in the very heart of the furrows; and
it was there also, in the midst of the wheat and
the rye, that he set up his easel and painted his[Pg 42]
peasants in action, in the daily fulfilment of their
thankless task. And by picturing them thus, without
artifice, in all their simplicity of gesture and
coarseness of feature, he imbued his canvases with
a profound spirit of poetry, through which the
often brutal realism of his subjects was redeemed
and ennobled. In the presence of these peasants
he experienced a joy more genuine than he had
ever felt before the rarest canvases in any museum.
Not that he denied or disdained the genius of the
great ancestors of painting; he had too much
reverence for his art ever to dream of doing so.
But when it came to a question of training, he
could learn more from nature than from them.
Listen to his own exposition of his ideas:

“What a pity,” he wrote, “that we are initiated,
whether we will or not, into traditions and
routines, under the pretext that this is the way
to train us to be artists! It would be so simple
to teach the use of brush and palette, without
ever once mentioning the name of Michelangelo[Pg 43]
or Raphael or Murillo or Domenichino! We could
then go home, back to Brittany or Gascony,
Lorraine or Normandy, and peacefully paint the
portrait of our own province; and if some morning
the book we had chanced to read aroused the
wish to paint a Prodigal Son, or Priam at the feet
of Achilles, we could reconstruct the scene to suit
ourselves, without needing to resort to the museums,
taking the setting from our own surroundings and
making use of the models close at hand, as though
the old drama dated only from yesterday. That
is the way for an artist to succeed in breathing
the breath of life into his art and in making it
beautiful and appealing to the eyes of the whole
world. And that is the goal towards which I am
striving with all my strength.”

As painter of the open air, he became in a
certain sense the founder of a school, without
meaning to be; for his conception of the painter’s
art won over a whole group of young artists who
united in hailing him as their master. Each year[Pg 44]
his offerings to the Salon were impatiently awaited,
and his followers gathered in full force before them,
discussing, comparing, acclaiming; each Salon became
the occasion for a new success, the critics
were unanimous in praising him, the public adopted
his pictures for their own, because they could
understand his clear and rigorous manner. Whatever
hostility he met with was among his own
colleagues, at least among such of them as were discouraged
and humiliated by his vigorous originality.
Nevertheless, the Exposition of 1878, at which he
had gathered together all his works, was an especially
triumphant occasion for him; yet when the
awards were distributed, he discovered that he had
received nothing but a medal of the third class.

At the Salon of 1879, Bastien-Lepage exhibited
his Women gathering Potatoes, which formed a
companion piece to his Hay-making. Here again
we have the landscape of Lorraine and the eternal
and infinitely varied theme of rural labour. In a
sun-parched field two women are toiling to reap[Pg 45]
the harvest of potatoes. While the one in the
middle distance is stooping to turn up the ripe
bulbs from the soil, the other, placed in the foreground,
is striving to empty the contents of her
basket into a sack which she holds open by a
wonderfully natural movement of her knee. Nothing
could be simpler or more humble than this
subject, and yet one feels drawn towards it, conquered
by the truth of these two figures, both in
their attitude and their expression. Involuntarily
memory conjures up another canvas, The Gleaners,
and we realize that it is impossible to resist that
higher appeal which the great artists succeed in
giving to the most commonplace episode of farming
life. But, unlike Millet, Bastien-Lepage does
not awaken in us any compassion for these beings
who toil, stooping above the earth; no touch of
bitterness saddens his pictures, and the types
which he shows to us have the healthy vigour of
peasants who live their lives in the open air and
love the soil which nourishes them.[Pg 46]

This picture, when it appeared, produced a
sensation. Coming directly after the Hay-making,
it definitely established Bastien-Lepage’s talent and
placed him in the foremost rank of painters of
rural life. The critics hailed this powerful canvas
with enthusiasm. Théodore de Banville, writing
of the Salon of 1879, said: “M. Bastien-Lepage is
the king of this Exposition. Young as he is, he has
started in to produce masterpieces: he is very
wise! For in later years an artist continues to
copy himself, with more or less cleverness and
success; but the creative genius has taken wing,
like a bird on whose tail we have failed to drop
the indispensable grain of salt. The October
Season pictures the harvesting of potatoes. The
earth, the encompassing air as far as we can see,
the sky, the solitude laden with silence, are all
evoked for us in this picture by the sincerity of its
powerful painter; the peasant women are done
in a masterly manner, and precisely for the reason
that he has seen them apart from all convention[Pg 47]
and has not tried to idealize them by any hackneyed
device.”

Albert Wolff was no less enthusiastic: “The
colouring in Women harvesting Potatoes is ingratiating
and discreet; not a discordant touch
disturbs the beautiful harmony of this canvas,
over which the silence of the open country has
descended, enveloping the obscure toil. It is only
artists of superior powers who can embody so much
charm in a single conception.”

Another feature of the same Salon was his
magnificent portrait of Madame Sarah Bernhardt,
a marvel of expression and of delicate art, embodied
in a pale symphony of tenderest whites,
blending harmoniously with the warmest tones of
gold. The great tragic actress is portrayed draped,
almost swathed, in a gown of white china silk,
verging on the faintest yellowish caste; she is
posed in profile, that cameo-like profile that has
so often been portrayed. She is seated, with a sort
of intentional rigidity, on a white fur robe, and is[Pg 48]
examining a statuette of Orpheus, in old ivory,
which she holds in her hands. Her expressive and
intellectual features are treated with a vigour
which does full justice to the classic beauty and
virile energy of the sitter.

“The work as a whole,” wrote the critic of
the Revue des Beaux-Arts, “possesses supreme
distinction and an admirable delicacy of colouring.
The silvery tones of the whites, the warm grays
of the draped gown lead up to the freshness of the
delicate, rose-like flesh tints, beneath the crown of
close curled locks that seem at once massive and
weightless. The artist’s hand was sure of itself;
it neither groped nor hesitated. The execution is
such that the drawing of the gown and the lines
of the face seem to have been traced by an engraver’s
tool. In this case, however, definiteness
has not resulted in stiffness. The sharp design has
not imprisoned unwilling forms; it leaves them
free to move as they please within the limits of
their contours which are its domain. It is worth[Pg 51]
while to examine with a lens the marvellous process
which, by the aid of imperceptible half-tones, has
softened the modelling of the face and hands.”

PLATE VI.—PORTRAIT OF M. X——

(Museum at Verdun)

Bastien-Lepage possessed the rare quality of being able to
bestow the same superior skill upon every part of a portrait. Being
sincere before all else, he never tried to shirk any difficulty; this is
seen in the care he took in painting the hands of all his various
sitters, showing something akin to vanity in the marvellous talent
he displayed in rendering them. In this portrait—just as in all
the others—the hands are quite as truly a miracle of execution
as the face itself.

These two pictures earned Bastien-Lepage the
Cross of the Legion of Honour and a definite
recognition of his talent. The artist could not
keep his delight to himself and, good son that he
was, wished to share it with his beloved family;
so he sent for them, to pay him a visit in Paris.
The grandfather and the “good little mother”
arrived, full of pride in this famous son, of whom
the whole world was talking. He showed them
the sights of the city and was only too happy to
have a chance to introduce them to his friends;
he took his mother to the big shops and insisted
on choosing silk cloaks and silk dresses for her.
The poor woman protested, saying that they were
far too fine, that she would never dare to wear
anything like that. “Show us some more,” ordered
the devoted artist, “I want mamma to have her
choice of the best there is!”[Pg 52]

After the old people had returned home to
Lorraine, Bastien-Lepage set out for England,
where he was to paint the portrait of the Prince
of Wales, who afterwards became King Edward VII.

In this portrait of tiny dimensions the Prince
is represented in fancy costume, after the manner
of Holbein. His garments recall in a measure those
worn by King Henry VIII, in the celebrated portrait
done by the great painter from Basle. The
Collar of the Golden Fleece is displayed upon his
breast. In the background of the picture may be
seen dimly, through a veil of mist, the panorama
of London and the gray ribbon of the Thames.
The portrait is a little gem, which Bastien-Lepage
wrought with the minuteness and affectedly hieratic
mannerism of Holbein and the French primitive
school. Although at present in possession of M.
Émile Bastien-Lepage, it will eventually find its
place, together with a goodly number of other canvases,
in the museum of the Louvre, to which the
brother of the great artist intends to bequeath them.[Pg 53]

It should be mentioned here, in connection
with this work, that Bastien-Lepage continued to
make more and more of a specialty of portraits
of reduced dimensions, and that he acquired in
this respect a reputation of the first order. He
loved these little canvases, scarcely larger than
miniatures, and he expended on their scanty surfaces
an inimitable skill; he embellished them with
a wealth of accessory detail which brings to mind,
as we look at them to-day, the formidable labours
of the illuminators of the middle ages. But this
goldsmith’s work, far from impairing the effect of
the whole, adds a certain fascination to it. And
he expended upon the study of the face the same
degree of devotion that he gave to the rendering
of a garment. His models relive with an intensity
of life such as could be expressed only by an artist
who has made a life-long study of nature in her
minutest manifestations.

To name over his portraits would be to mention
an equal number of masterpieces. The catalogue[Pg 54]
would be too long, for Bastien-Lepage was an
indefatigable workman. We may content ourselves
with citing those that are most widely known:
that of M. Andrieux, one-time Prefect of Police,
whose refined features are rendered with striking
truth; that of J. Bastien-Lepage, the artist’s
uncle, which is here reproduced and which shows
him violin in hand, a clear and vigorous piece of
brush-work, transcribing life in telling strokes,
with an astonishing simplicity of means. This fine
example is to be seen to-day in the museum at
Verdun. And in the same museum there is still
another that deserves mention; namely, the excellent
Portrait of M. X. And we must not forget
the Portrait of André Theuriet, born, like Bastien-Lepage,
on the banks of the Meuse and attached
to the painter by ties of almost fraternal affection.
One feels that, in this picture, the heart must
have guided the hand, for it would be difficult to
find another work more magisterial in execution
and more delicate in finish. And lastly, there is[Pg 55]
Mme. Bastien-Lepage, the “good little mother,”
as the great artist and loving son used to call her.
He posed her in the garden of the home at Damvillers.
She is seated on a stone bench; on her
knees rests a large garden hat; her two hands are
crossed, one over the other, and in the left she
holds a little bunch of field flowers. She is clad
in a loose dress of sombre colour, cut with a pelerine;
and nothing but the one bright spot formed
by the white collar reveals the severity of the
costume. The whole attitude of the body in repose
is perfect in its truth and naturalness; but our
admiration changes and quickens to emotion when
we raise our eyes to the level of the face of this
“good little mother,” a bony, irregular face, almost
ugly, but so gentle, so kind, so touchingly illumined
by the tender caress in the eyes as they rest upon
the adored son in the course of painting her.
Those emaciated features, which not even the
crown of blonde hair is able to rejuvenate, are
unmistakably those of a mother; if we had not[Pg 56]
known, we should inevitably have divined it; no
one but a son, and a great artist as well, could
have crowned the brow of a woman with such an
aureole of gentleness and love.

Bastien-Lepage, whom those who envied him
affected to regard as dedicated wholly to the
reproduction of rustic uncouthness, had no equal
in catching the radiance of feminine charms, even
in their subtlest manifestations. No one was more
skilled than he in seizing and recording the one
particular trait, often elusive and intangible, which
characterizes a woman and makes her beautiful.
What delicious portraits of women we owe to
him! Where could we meet with a more smiling
image than that of Mme. Godillot, radiant and
seductive, a rosy vision in the black velvet of her
gown, relieved by the brilliant sheen of her white
satin corsage! And what studied and elaborate
art was expended on the Portrait of Mme. Klotz,
whose magnificent brunette beauty emerges like
a gorgeous lily from the surrounding whiteness of[Pg 57]
her scarf, that is all the more dazzlingly white by
contrast with her sombre robe! And still again,
there is the Portrait of Mme. Juliette Drouet,
another beautiful and noble specimen of portraiture.
And how marvellously Bastien-Lepage could detect
the hidden soul lurking in the inmost recesses of
his models and reveal it behind the transparent
screen of their eyes! If Bastien-Lepage had not
achieved eternal glory as an interpreter of rural
life, he would still have remained celebrated as a
portrait painter.

But to Bastien-Lepage portrait painting was
only a side issue, a form of relaxation between
two landscapes; his predilection, his one object in
life, so to speak, was to return constantly to his
peasants, his scenes of toil, his fields of Lorraine.

After his return from England he passed some
months at Damvillers, when an impulse seized
him to visit Italy, to which the verdict of a prejudiced
committee had once upon a time barred
his way. He proceeded straight to Venice, and it[Pg 58]
may as well be acknowledged at once, Venetian
art left him cold, if not indifferent. He had never
in the least understood any of the big “set pieces,”
and in spite of all the art of Veronese and Titian,
in spite of their dazzling flare of colour, he never
succeeded in understanding their sumptuous allegories
or in accepting the fantastic interpretation
of nature which the Venetians allowed themselves.
He returned to Damvillers, profoundly disillusioned
and more than ever convinced that nature alone,
such as he saw it, was deserving of the attention
of the true artist. There would be no object in
discussing here how rightly or how ill founded
such an opinion was; we note it only to indicate
once more the absolute independence of the painter,
his fixed determination never to imitate anyone.

And, beyond question, there is no resemblance
to any other painter in that curious and remarkable
picture known as Jeanne d’Arc listening to the
Voices. Lorraine in heart and soul, Bastien-Lepage
desired to pay his tribute, as so many had done
[Pg 61]
before him, to the glorious heroine who, like him,
had come from the banks of the Meuse. And he
wished also to restore her to her natural setting,
with the greatest degree of historic accuracy.
Consequently it is in a Lorraine garden surrounding
a Lorraine cottage that he shows us Jeanne,
the shepherdess; around her are the familiar garden
utensils such as peasants use to-day just as they
did in the fifteenth century. She is standing in
an inspired and attentive attitude, which gives to
her whole countenance that forceful character which
Bastien-Lepage imprints upon all his compatriots.
For he wished to make her, in a certain sense, a
composite type of the women of the Lorraine
race, such as Theuriet has described: “The forehead
low but intelligent, the eyes with drooping
lids that half conceal the somewhat sullen glance;
the bones prominent in cheek and jaw, the chin
square, indicative of an opinionated race; the
mouth large, with half parted lips, through which
one perceives the passage of the deep-drawn[Pg 62]
breath.” This head is always the same; under
all the variations in physiognomy we always
meet with the same local type: it is the head of
the woman in Hay-making and of the Women
gathering Potatoes, and it is also that of the
“good little mother,” so fundamentally and emphatically
representative of Lorraine.

PLATE VII.—THE LITTLE CHIMNEY-SWEEP

(Collection of É. Bastien-Lepage)

This attractive picture, full of charm and vigour, belongs to the
closing years of the artist’s life, at the time when he was enjoying
the flood tide of his talent. How much force and truth there is in
this picture of the little chimney-sweep, and what graceful nimbleness
in the movements of the cats that he is watching at play.

Nevertheless Jeanne d’Arc listening to the
Voices was rather badly received by the critics.
Without disputing the originality and vigour of
the inspired shepherdess, they reproached the artist
for the presence of the traditional saints. Bastien-Lepage
had indicated these under the form of
luminous vapour, radiating through the branches
overhanging the garden: St. Michael in the golden
armour of a knight of the fifteenth century, St.
Margaret and St. Catherine as phantoms so diaphanous
as to be hardly perceptible. The idealists
complained that the picture was lacking in idealism;
the realists were somewhat disconcerted to
find the apparitions there at all. It must be[Pg 63]
acknowledged that Bastien-Lepage ceases to be
himself the moment that he ventures to attempt
the supernatural or even allegory pure and simple.
He feels that he is no longer on familiar ground,
he hesitates, he fumbles, and the harmony of the
work suffers in consequence. Nevertheless, in spite
of this undeniable defect, the face of Jeanne d’Arc
will be remembered as a piece of powerful painting
and genuine inspiration.

At all events, Bastien-Lepage was keenly aware
of the half-way nature of his success, and from
that day renounced forever the element of the
marvellous and confined himself to that concrete
and tangible poetry which emanates from the earth.

Some little time after his Jeanne d’Arc, he
produced The Mendicant, veteran knight of the
road, whose lazy life is passed in going from door
to door, asking charity and compelling it if need
be; suspicious looking old tramp, perhaps a thief
as well, who inspires fear and whose sack is often
filled through unwillingness to provoke him. The[Pg 64]
artist has pictured him with a stout stick in his
hand, stowing away the slice of bread which a
pretty slip of a girl in a blue apron has just
given him. This fine and vigorous canvas scored
almost as much of a success, at the Salon of 1881,
as the admirable Portrait of Albert Wolff, a critic
on the Figaro and close personal friend of the
artist.

In 1882 he won a further success with his
superb Father Jacques, a masterly study of the
Lorraine peasant, and with his charming Portrait
of Mme. W.

In 1883 came Love in a Village, one of his
most popular canvases, in which he depicted with
charming naturalness the uncomplicated and naïve
courtship of rustic lovers. Here are a pair who
are untroubled by curious glances; the nearer
houses of the village are quite close by. Bending
slightly towards his sweetheart, the man is murmuring
his avowals in her ear, in a voice that, we
suspect, is by no means steady. Strapping fellow
that he is, he evidently lacks the habit of
making pretty speeches; we can see that from
the embarrassed air with which he twists his
fingers. His words, however, are plainly not lacking
in eloquence, for the girl, type of buxom
young womanhood that we have already learned
to know, has bent her head and, although her
back is turned, we are sure that she is blushing
as she listens to his declaration. A special atmosphere
emanates from this picture, as well as that
profound spirit of poetry which is inseparable
from the eternal song of love.

[Pg 65]

HIS PREMATURE END

At this period Bastien-Lepage had already
begun to incur the first attacks of the disease
which was destined so soon to end his days. He
suffered violent pains in the kidneys. He became
melancholy, nervous, irritable; he shut himself up
in his studio in the Rue Legendre, and even his
best friends could not gain admittance. The doc[Pg 66]tors
who were called in recognized the gravity of
his illness and ordered energetic treatment and
a change of air. The poor artist reconciled himself
to go for a time to Brittany, and his choice
fell on Concarneau. The keen sea air produced
a temporary betterment, and he took advantage
of it to work, for he could not resign himself to
lay aside his palette and brushes. He spent entire
days in a boat and, in spite of his sufferings,
executed several landscapes of rare beauty. But
his condition, instead of improving, took a turn
for the worse. “The digestive tube,” he wrote
to Theuriet, “is always kicking up a row!” The
pain in the kidneys and bowels became at this
time so violent that he was forced to decide to
return to Paris, in order to consult the men of
science once again.

This time, when Dr. Potain examined him, he
could no longer deceive himself as to the artist’s
fate; he saw that his patient was irremediably
condemned. However, a sojourn in a milder[Pg 67]
climate might prolong his life for a few months;
so he advised Algeria. The prospect of the journey,
the desire to make the acquaintance of this land
of sunshine which Delacroix, Decamps, and Fromentin
had taught him to love, for a few days
gave a false strength to the poor sufferer, which
produced a deceptive appearance of renewed health
and even deceived the artist himself. Besides, Mme.
Bastien-Lepage, the “good little mother,” was to
accompany him, and this unselfish and tender devotion
warmed his heart. The poor woman forced
back her tears in order to smile upon the unfortunate
son whom she knew to be doomed. And so
the pitiful pair set forth for the land of sunshine,
she consumed with grief, and he almost joyous in
the hope of a speedy cure.

His first letters to his friends bore the imprint
of good spirits; Algeria aroused his enthusiasm
by its clear and vibrant colours; his disease declared
a brief truce and he began to form projects.
The thought of dying had not yet even[Pg 68]
vaguely occurred to him, though, for that matter,
he had no fear of death. The previous year he
had painted Gambetta on his Death-bed; and
his frequent visits to Ville-d’Avray led him to
discuss the inevitable end of life. “I am not
afraid of death,” he said, “dying is nothing,—the
important thing is to survive oneself,
and who can be sure of establishing a claim
upon posterity? But there! I am talking nonsense!
So long as our work is true, nothing else
matters.”

But before long the ravages of the disease began
to make headway; the kidneys no longer
performed their function, and he suffered atrocious
agonies which stretched him for days at a time
on his back. Even the burning heat of the African
sun no longer had strength enough to animate his
shattered physique; the brush, which the artist
from time to time still attempted to take up,
fell from between his fingers. He, Bastien-Lepage,
painter of the soil, found himself unable to transfer[Pg 71]
to canvas the enchantment of that land of fairy
tale! And he poured forth his distress in long
and poignant letters, in which could be read in
every line the loss of hope and the sure prevision
of the now inevitable end.

PLATE VIII.—THE ARTIST’S UNCLE

(Museum at Verdun)

Here is still another kindly and vigorous face from Lorraine,
forcefully modelled, with salient jaw bones, betraying the obstinacy
of the race. An air of good nature softens the energy of this face,
and the eyes sparkle with intelligence. This portrait is treated in a
free-handed manner, with unfaltering strokes, and its colouring is
especially excellent.

As no amelioration took place, Bastien-Lepage
made the return journey to Paris towards the end
of May, 1884. He went back to his studio in
the Rue Legendre, where he had formerly passed
such happy hours in the full enjoyment of a
talent at its zenith and a constitution apparently
able to defy all tests. Now, however, he dragged
around a dying body, with disease gnawing at his
vitals. He could no longer sleep without the aid
of powerful doses of morphine. The winter-time
increased his suffering; his strength rapidly failed
him; and, on the tenth of December, at six o’clock
in the evening, he drew his last breath, at the
age of thirty-six years.

As long as he could hold a brush, Bastien-Lepage
continued to work, in spite of the sufferings[Pg 72]
which racked him. During the year preceding his
death, while he was already experiencing frightful
tortures, he painted The Woman making Lye
and The Little Chimney-sweep, the latter of
which is here reproduced. This admirable canvas
is to be seen now at the studio of the painter’s
brother at Neuilly, and forms part of the legacy
which M. Émile Bastien-Lepage intends to bequeath
to the Louvre. It has never been shown at
any Salon, and for that matter there are a good
many other paintings and portraits which have
never been exhibited in public and which are not
for that reason any the less remarkable. We may
cite at random: The Portrait of M. É. Bastien-Lepage,
The Prince of Wales, Mme. Juliette
Drouet, A Little Girl going to School, The Little
Pedler asleep, The Vintage, No Help! The Thames
at London, etc.

The very year of his death, shortly before his
departure for Algeria, Bastien-Lepage executed a
delicious little canvas entitled The Forge, in which[Pg 73]
the artist expended a surprising amount of talent
and skill, and which enables us to realize what
extraordinary heights his ever progressive genius
might have attained, but for the blind and brutal
cruelty of Destiny.

His death was a time of mourning for the
arts; the regrets which he left behind him were
unanimous. Even those who had been opposed
to his aesthetic creed paid homage to his great
conscientiousness as an artist and his noble character
as a man.

During March and April, 1885, only a few
months after his death, all literary and artistic
Paris flocked to the Hotel de Chimay, an adjunct
to the École des Beaux-Arts, where a posthumous
exhibition of his works had been organized.

At this exhibition the entire body of his works
had been brought together. The museums had
loaned the canvases which they possessed and
the private collectors had done their share towards
the glorification of the artist by entrusting to the[Pg 74]
organizers a goodly number of paintings and portraits
which had never figured in any of the
Salons.

Thus it was made possible to comprehend at
a single glance the life-work of this remarkable
artist and to appreciate the distance he had traversed,
the progress he had made during his brief
existence, and the brilliant prospects that were
destroyed by his untimely death.

From all these numerous works, exhibited side
by side, what stood out most clearly was the unity
of thought which had conceived them and the
dogged fidelity to principles which had controlled
their execution. At the same time they revealed
the amazing adaptability of his talent, which
essayed the most diverse and conflicting subjects
with the same realistic vigour, bestowing even
upon his vaporous and delicate portraits of women
a touch which, while light, is unmistakably his
own, and in which we recognize that noble, conscientious
workmanship, free from all artifice, which[Pg 75]
was the distinctive hall-mark both of his painting
and of his character.

But the quality which dominates all the rest
in the work of Bastien-Lepage, and which emanates
from it like the fragrance which is exhaled by
certain precious essences, is his ardent and deep-rooted
love for his native soil. This form of local
patriotism, determined by the boundaries of Lorraine,
underwent a noble expansion to the point
of encircling the entire earth; for while the painter
chose his models out of the familiar landscape of
his childhood’s home, his observation and his art
broke out of the bounds of this special setting
and embraced rustic humanity throughout France
and even beyond. His peasants are unmistakably
from the banks of the Meuse in type and in customs,
but they are from the world at large in
gesture and in philosophy of life. Whether he
comes from the North or from the South, the
tiller of the soil wages the same conflict with
ungrateful furrows, the spade and the plough[Pg 76]
imprint the same calluses on his bony hands,
the sun browns his energetic and stubborn features
to the same deep tan. It is in this respect that
the art of Bastien-Lepage assumes a higher significance;
like Millet, it is not a peasant whom he
paints, but the peasant, forever unchanging in
spite of latitude. But if his work has attained
this higher eminence of generalization, it is precisely
for the reason that the artist’s watchful
eye has succeeded in discovering, in the life of
the peasantry, that state of mind which is common
to them all, that immutable gesture which
they have always made and always will make.
He has understood and translated with inspired
eloquence their rugged strength, their naïve awkwardness,
their simple intelligence.

Another glorious distinction of Bastien-Lepage
was that he loved the fields as well as he loved the
peasants. Not fields drowned beneath melancholy
shadow and pallid shifting light, but fields bathed
in sunshine, until the golden tassels of the grain[Pg 77]
crackle like sparks under the fire of the midday
sun. Always and everywhere he sought for light,
and in the midst of it his modest protagonists of
rustic life stand out in all their vigour.

It would be easy to cite, among our best contemporary
painters, a considerable number of artists
who are brilliantly continuing the tradition left
by Bastien-Lepage and emulating his predilection
for the luminous brilliance of the open air. How
often, in the presence of a canvas by Lhermitte,
our thoughts go back to the painter of Lorraine,
whose vigorous execution and joyous colouring
seem to have been reincarnated! Art is indebted
to Bastien-Lepage for having reinstated nature
in all her literal truth by proving that, in order
to be beautiful, she has no need of artificial and
superfluous adornment.

Lorraine, out of gratitude, wished to perpetuate
the memory of this glorious son of the Meuse,
who had so eloquently celebrated the vitality and
poetry of his natal earth. It was at Damvillers[Pg 78]
itself that it was decided to raise a monument to
the great painter; and around its pedestal there
were gathered the “good little mother,” all in
tears, the assembled population of the village
and the whole region round about, and even the
Government took part in the pious ceremony
by sending as its representative M. Gustave
Larroumet, director of the Beaux-Arts. This
eloquent art critic brought as a tribute to the
departed painter the official seal of immortality,
and he pronounced it in terms vibrant with
emotion.

“At the moment,” he said, “when ordinarily
the best of artists have done no more than to
give indications of their originality and when
ripening years alone begin to keep the promises
of youth, Jules Bastien-Lepage died, leaving masterpieces
behind him, besides having liberated an
artistic formula from the tendencies and exaggerations
which hampered it, and indicated to the art
of painting a new pathway along which his young[Pg 79]
heirs are advancing with an assured step. He
loved nature and truth; he loved his own people,
and no one ever lived who was surrounded with
a greater degree of affection; he inspired faithful
friendships which he himself enjoyed to the full;
and those whom he left behind soothe their heart-ache
with the balm of tender memories; he practised
his art without ever making sacrifice to
passing fashion or sordid profit; there was no
place in his mind or in his heart for any other
than noble and generous thoughts. Let us comfort
ourselves, therefore, for what his death has
taken from us by the thought of what his life has
left to us, and let us assign him his place in the
ranks of the younger master painters who have
been mown down in full flower, close beside that
of Géricault and of Henri Regnault.”

In his admirable biographic and critical study
of Bastien-Lepage, whose personal friend he had
been, M. L. de Fourcaud, by way of conclusion,
bids him this touching farewell:[Pg 80]

“Poor Bastien-Lepage, snatched away one winter’s
night, at thirty-six years of age, in the fairest
flowering of his bright promise, in the richest
expansion of his personality; may each returning
month of May bring at least an abundance of
blossoms to the apple tree beside his grave! For
the blossoms of the apple were always, in his eyes,
so fair a sight!”

To-day he sleeps forever in a corner of that
Lorraine land which he loved so dearly, and perhaps
in the cemetery of his native village his
shade can still hear the familiar accents of his
native dialect. The great painter of Lorraine
could never have slept his eternal sleep in any
other soil than that.

Painter of flowers, painter of nature, painter
of the earth which is forever deathless and forever
renewed, Bastien-Lepage has chosen that better part;
his work will live as long as these, his models, and
will go down through the centuries in all the
splendour of increasing beauty and eternal youth.

Transcriber’s Note:

Typographical errors have been corrected as
follows:

Page 22: “Bastine” replaced with “Bastien”