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MASTERPIECES
IN COLOUR
EDITED BY – –
M. HENRY ROUJON

PUVIS DE CHAVANNES
(1824–1898)

IN THE SAME SERIES
 
REYNOLDSRUBENS
VELASQUEZHOLBEIN
GREUZEBURNE-JONES
TURNERLE BRUN
BOTTICELLICHARDIN
ROMNEYMILLET
REMBRANDTRAEBURN
BELLINISARGENT
FRA ANGELICOCONSTABLE
ROSSETTIMEMLING
RAPHAELFRAGONARD
LEIGHTONDÜRER
HOLMAN HUNTLAWRENCE
TITIANHOGARTH
MILLAISWATTEAU
LUINIMURILLO
FRANZ HALSWATTS
CARLO DOLCIINGRES
GAINSBOROUGHCOROT
TINTORETTODELACROIX
VAN DYCKFRA LIPPO LIPPI
DA VINCIPUVIS DE CHAVANNES
WHISTLERMEISSONIER
MONTAGNA
 
IN PREPARATION
 
GEROMEBOUCHER
VERONESEPERUGINO
VAN EYCK

PLATE I.—SAINT GENEVIEVE KEEPING WATCH
OVER SLEEPING PARIS. Frontispiece

(In the Panthéon, Paris)

This composition, so great in its simplicity and so beautiful in
execution, is the last work of the great artist. The model who
posed for the saint watching over the city was Puvis de Chavannes’
own wife. Both he and she died very shortly after its completion.



Puvis
de Chavannes

ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR
NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
publisher's logo April 1912
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
[W·D·O]
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A

[vii]

CONTENTS

 Page
Introduction11
 
The First Years16
 
The Glorious Years31
 
The Last Years53
 
The Landscape Painter66

[ix]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Plate
I.Saint Genevieve keeping Watch over sleeping ParisFrontispiece
 In the Panthéon, Paris
  Page
 
II.The Piety of Saint Genevieve14
 In the Panthéon, Paris
 
III.The Poor Fisherman24
 In the Musée de Luxembourg, Paris
 
IV.Ludus pro Patria34
 In the Museum, Amiens
 
V.Repose40
 In the Museum, Amiens
 
VI.The Sacred Wood dear to the Arts and the Muses50
 In the Museum, Amiens
 
VII.Letters, Sciences, and Arts60
 In the Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne
 
VIII.War70
 In the Museum, Amiens

[11]

INTRODUCTION

GLORY does not dispense her favours to the
deserving with an equal bounty. Painters
as well as authors often suffer from the caprices
of the inconstant goddess. While there are some
who, guided by her benevolent hand, attain the[12]
pinnacle of fortune at the first attempt and almost
without effort, other artists with a genius akin to
that of Millet live in a state bordering upon penury
and die in destitution. Renown seeks them out
later, much too late, and tardy laurels flower only
upon their tomb.

Puvis de Chavannes for a long time fared
scarcely better than these illustrious mendicants
of art. He experienced the bitter pangs of injustice,
the hostility of ignorance, the discouragement
of finding himself misunderstood. If
he was spared the extreme distress of Millet,
it was solely because he was the more fortunate
of the two in possessing a small private income.
But nothing can crush the spirit of the born
artist; neither contempt nor ridicule can hold
him back. Puvis de Chavannes was endowed
with a valiant and a tenacious spirit. Entrenched
within the loftiness of his artistic ideal,
as within a tower of bronze, he was steadfastly
scornful of critics, affecting not to hear them; and
never would he consent to disarm them by concessions
that in his eyes would have seemed dishonourable.
Yet this rare probity brought its own[14]
reward. The great painter attained the joy of seeing
himself at last understood, and not only understood
but admired during his life-time. He must
even have derived an ironic satisfaction from
counting among his warmest adherents certain
ones who had formerly been conspicuous as his
most violent detractors.

PLATE II.—THE PIETY OF SAINT GENEVIEVE

(In the Panthéon, Paris)

In this composition, exceptionally fine in feeling, Puvis de Chavannes
shows how much importance he attached to landscape,
which was the natural setting of his paintings, and which he treated
with as much care as his personages themselves.


Today the glory of Puvis de Chavannes shines
forth in uncontested splendour. No one dreams
of comparing him with any of his contemporaries,
because his art reveals no kinship with that of any
one of them. He is recognized as the successor
and the equal of the great fresco painters of the
Italian Renaissance. Even to these he owes nothing,
having borrowed nothing from them. But he
shares with them his passionate love of truth, his
nobility of inspiration and sincerity of execution.
There are no longer insinuating and derisory shakings
of the head in the presence of his works. One
must be devoid of soul in order not to sense their
beauty. Even the ignorant, in the presence of this
form of art which they do not understand, gaze
upon it with respectful wonder, as upon something
very great, the content of which they fail to make[16]
out, although they realize its power from the inner
emotion they experience.

“My dear boy,” wrote Puvis de Chavannes to
one of his pupils, “direct your soul compass-like,
towards some work of beauty; that is the way to
achieve it in its entirety.”

It is because he directed his own soul, compass-like,
only towards works of a noble and pure
beauty, surrendering himself with all the ardour of
his impetuous and vibrant nature, that Puvis de
Chavannes has taken his place as one of the noblest
figures, not only in contemporary painting, but
also in the painting of all times.


THE FIRST YEARS

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was born at Lyons,
December 14, 1824. His parents were in affluent
circumstances and were connected with one of the
old Burgundian families. His father pursued the
vocation of chief engineer of mines, at Lyons. In
the registry of births, in which the new-born child
was entered, the father is designated simply by the
name of Marie-Julien-César Puvis. The honourable
title of “de Chavannes,” claimed later and with[17]
good right by the family, was confirmed to him by
a decree of the Court of Lyons, bearing date of
May 20, 1859.

Young Puvis de Chavannes was sent, first to
the Lycée at Lyons, later to the Lycée Henri IV,
at Paris. But nothing either in the boy’s tastes or
in his aptitudes gave any hint of his future vocation;
he showed no special inclination for drawing, nor
even for art in general. Son of a mining engineer,
he applied himself naturally to the exact sciences;
and he would probably have donned the uniform
of a polytechnic student, had it not been for an illness
which the family looked upon as most unfortunate,
but which posterity regards as providential.
The young man was forced to interrupt his studies
and bid good-bye to mathematics. Two years
later he took a trip to Italy, in the company of a
young married couple. In true tourist fashion he
made the rounds of museums and churches; he
conscientiously inspected the great masterpieces
in which the peninsula abounds; but, by his own
admission, he brought back no real profit from his
travels. They were not, however, entirely futile,
since they awakened in him the desire to become[18]
a painter. Upon returning to France he announced
his determination to his family, and having
won their consent, entered the studio of Henri
Scheffer, brother of Ary Scheffer.

Italy, seen too hastily, had taught Puvis de
Chavannes nothing: the studio hardly served him
to better purpose. But, through contact with
Henri Scheffer, he acquired a respect not only for
art but for the conception which each one must
form of it for himself. The young neophyte, who
was destined in later years to be himself a living
example of fidelity to an ideal, remained forever
thankful to the author of Charlotte Corday for having
imbued him with this noble sentiment. He
always retained of him, throughout life, an affectionate
and grateful memory.

Scheffer’s paintings, however, were far from
satisfying his personal conception of art. Before
very long he left his studio and betook himself to
that of Delacroix. The latter admitted him readily;
but the new pupil was not slow in discovering that
here again he was out of his element. The great
romantic painter, although an admirable artist,
was a mediocre instructor. He alone, for that[19]
matter, could risk the violent colour schemes with
which he covered his canvases; his pupils succeeded
only in accentuating a debauch of thick-spread
pigments by coupling together tones that
cried aloud from the walls of the studio. The
instinct of harmony and of proportion which was
already awakening in Puvis de Chavannes, revolted
against these audacities: he found himself
ill at ease in the midst of this orgy of colour. It
was after no such fashion that nature appeared
to his eyes. He had about made up his mind to
leave the studio of Delacroix when the latter,
angered by criticisms and piqued at seeing the
attendance falling off, decided to close his doors.

It was at this time that young Puvis entered
the studio of Couture. There again his stay was
brief, and we find in his work few traces of the
lessons there received. Once again it was only
the conventional and artificial that were held up
as object lessons for that young soul enamoured
of the truth, for those wide-opened eyes that saw
nature precisely as she is, and not under the tinsel
glitter of fantasy under which the studio of the period
draped her. It followed that he learned nothing[20]
from that school; nevertheless, he did not disown
it. In the annual Salon Catalogue, Puvis de Chavannes
continued to proclaim himself a pupil of
Scheffer and of Couture.

Once again the young painter found himself
without a master, yet still eager to learn and as yet
equipped with only a mediocre and highly defective
rudimentary training. Convinced that he would
never obtain the right start in any of the studios
of the French capital, he determined, in company
of one of his friends, Beauderon de Vermeron, to
go in search of definite guidance, back to that same
Italy which he had visited the first time with such
small profit. This time he studied all the periods,
all the schools, all the methods of Italian painting;
he visited both Rome and Florence; and yet all
his sympathies, as he himself declared, went out
instinctively to the Venetian school which had
produced Titian, Tintoretto, and, greatest of all,
Veronese, inimitable prince of fresco and of
decoration.

Returning to Paris, Puvis de Chavannes no
longer dreamed of soliciting the guidance of any
school; henceforth he was to pursue his own path,[21]
to give heed only to his own temperament, to draw
his inspiration only from nature herself. In the
Place Pigalle he hired a studio, the same which he
was destined to occupy for forty-four years, and
which he quitted only two years before his death.
Later on he possessed another, at Neuilly, in which
to work upon his larger compositions, since there
would not have been space enough for them in
the Montmartre studio. Whatever the weather,
through cold and through heat, Puvis de Chavannes
could be seen, for more than thirty
years, making his way on foot, with long, rapid
strides, from the Place Pigalle to Neuilly or in the
reverse direction. This daily promenade grew to
be a necessity; it was the sole recreation of this
painter so enslaved by his art that in a certain
sense he might be called a Benedictine of painting.

In 1852, the date when his real career began,
Puvis de Chavannes was twenty-eight years of
age. He was at this time a handsome young fellow,
tall of stature and large of frame, quick-witted,
jovial and enthusiastic, and combining the whole-souled
simplicity of the artist with the polished
manners of a man of the world, inherited from his[22]
father. Many people conceive of Puvis de Chavannes
as melancholy and sombre. Nothing could
be further from the truth. He was fond of all the
joys of living, friendly gatherings, abundant good
cheer. But what he prized above all, thanks to
the perfect balance of his physique, was the ability
to apply his robust health to incessant work, which
he pursued without intermission up to the day of
his death.

In 1850, Puvis de Chavannes made his début
by sending to the Salon a Pietà, which was
accepted. His joy was great, for it was the joy of
the first step. Later on, his satisfaction in that
picture diminished. It had certain defects, and
gave evidence of inexperience, which the young
painter was quick to perceive. That same year
he painted Jean Cavalier at the bed-side of his
Mother
, and an Ecce Homo, bold in execution and
violent in tone.

PLATE III.—THE POOR FISHERMAN

(In the Musée de Luxembourg, Paris)

No one else, excepting Millet, had the skill to render with so
much truth the physical and moral distress of the unfortunate.
This resigned fisherman, bending his back under the inclement
sky, is a veritable masterpiece, both in execution and in observation.


In 1852, the pictures which he submitted to the
Salon were rejected by the jury, and this ostracism
continued for several years. It was an epoch
when every effort towards artistic independence
was officially and systematically repressed. The[24]
young artist was not alone in disfavour; he shared
it with a number of his friends, some of whom
were already famous, or at least well known.
Equally with himself, Courbet, Dupré, Barye,
Rousseau, Millet, Troyon, Corot, Diaz and Delacroix
found themselves ejected from the doors of
the temple. In the eyes of the Academy, they
were all of them madmen or revolutionaries; for
his part, he was treated with less honour: he was
regarded as a maniac of no importance. His exclusion
lasted for nine years, during which the
critics and the public united in making him the
target for their sarcasms.

Puvis de Chavannes was always keenly sensitive
to criticism; it cut him to the quick, but he
prided himself on showing no outward sign. He
repaid it by affecting the most complete disdain.
When anyone in his presence bestowed
only a qualified praise on one of his works, his
lips would betray his scorn in a faint crease,
which Rodin, another misunderstood giant, has
admirably caught in his buste of the painter. As
it happened, however, Puvis de Chavannes was
rarely fortunate in having the encouragement and[26]
support of such an admirable companion as the
Princess Cantacuzène. That splendid woman, of
exceptional intelligence and distinction, enjoyed
art and understood it; she fell in love with Puvis
de Chavannes and became his wife. “Whatever
I am and whatever I have done,” wrote the painter,
“is all due to her.” Throughout more than forty
years, she filled the rôle of beneficent genius to
the artist, the Egeria whose voice he never failed
to heed. Puvis de Chavannes had worshipped
faithfully at her shrine; and when she died, he
felt that the term of his own life had reached its
end. He survived her scarcely more than a few
months.

Under the shelter of her far-sighted affection,
the artist closed his ears to hostile comments, and
followed his bent, without trying to modify his
manner of seeing and feeling nature. None the
less, the paintings of this period are far from perfect;
a certain constraint is apparent in them, due
to inexperience and also to some lingering influence
either of his studio training or of Italy. The
Martyrdom of St. Sebastian
, The Village Firemen,
Meditation, Herodiade, Julie,[27]
Saint Camilla at the
bedside of a dying man
, while they reveal some
very genuine personal qualities, are none the less
somewhat reminiscent of the manner of Couture,
by whom he seems to have been most directly
influenced.

His first real picture, the one which first
marked and fixed for all time the artist’s personality,
was Peace, now in the Museum at Amiens.
So much knowledge and so much harmony were
displayed in this picture that the jury simply did
not dare reject it. What is more, it won for its
author a medal of the second class. He was not
slow in giving it a companion piece, in the shape
of a painting entitled War, which is now also at
Amiens.

In the first of these pictures, the one consecrated
to the pleasures of Peace, everything seems
quite academic, the poses, the composition, the
countenances: and yet, there is no stiffness, everything
is vibrant, alive, palpitating in a serene and
luminous atmosphere. The artist has herein magnificently
demonstrated the truth of a phrase
which he wrote to Ary Renan, in the course of a
trip which the latter took to Italy: “Just as you[28]
yourself feel and have very well expressed,
no study of other artists’ work can trammel
one’s originality.” Neither the memory of
Italy nor the influence of Couture had prevented
him from asserting himself, and that, too, vigorously.

War is, if anything, superior to Peace. The
painter is here wholly himself. There is no longer
in his work any trace of outside influence. And
what vigour there is, what eloquence, in the simplicity
of the composition! Is there in existence
a more admirable argument against war and its
horrors? Beside the corpse of a young warrior,
a father and mother are prostrated, voicing aloud
their anguish; and meanwhile the conquerors,
approaching from the far horizon black with
devastation and slaughter, blow their victorious
trumpets and urge their horses forward towards
the group of mourners.

From that moment, Puvis de Chavannes began
to command attention. He was discussed more
acrimoniously, more passionately than ever; no
one could neglect him nor pretend not to have
heard of him.

[29]
The government bought Peace, but refused to
purchase War, in spite of the fact that the two
paintings were companion pieces. In order to
prevent them from being separated, the artist
generously donated the second picture.

In 1863 came a new series representing Labour
and Rest. Faithful to his principles, the author
gathers together on his canvas the entire cycle of
actions and ideas suggested by his subject.

In Labour he has placed in the foreground a
group of blacksmiths, representing, in his eyes,
the fully developed type of the worker, because of
the degree of their exertion, the vigour of their
action. While two of them stir the fire, the others,
armed with heavy sledges, strike alternate blows
upon the anvil. At no great distance, some carpenters
are squaring the trunks of trees; beyond,
on the plain, a peasant can be seen, guiding his
ploughshare through its furrow. In the foreground
there is also a woman, nursing a young child.
The entire cycle of human toil is glorified in this
single painting.

Repose shows us an old man seated, giving to
the young folk grouped around him wise counsel,[30]
drawn from his long experience. Nothing could
be more graceful than the relaxed postures of the
different figures, who, we feel, are listening with
real attention.

Since these four pictures, Peace, War, Labour,
Repose, were the interpretation of general ideas,
the artist could not give them any precise setting,
any local colour. The nude, which is employed
for all the figures, was his sole means of obtaining
absolute truth.

Already at this period one perceives in Puvis
an anxious endeavour to sacrifice all the little easy
methods of winning acclaim, in order to be free
to concern himself solely with the harmony of his
subject as a whole. Throughout his entire life,
he was destined to have no greater preoccupation
than that of effacing himself completely, and forcing
the public, when in the presence of his work,
to see nothing but the work itself and to give not
a thought to the painter.

During the year 1864, the results of Puvis de
Chavannes’ industry were fairly abundant. At
the Salon, he exhibited two very beautiful canvases,
Autumn and Sleep.

[31]
The first of these two pictures is symbolic and
represents the different ages of life in the form of
women of unequal years. One of them, her pensive
face already marked with lines, watches her
companions gathering flowers and fruit, symbols
of youth.

This work, charming in composition, is now in
the collection of the Museum at Lyons.

Sleep, a large decorative composition, after the
manner of Peace and War, is in the Museum at
Lille.


THE GLORIOUS YEARS

All these works, acrimoniously discussed and
unjustly attacked by the critics, made the name
of Puvis de Chavannes widely known without
augmenting his reputation. The general public,
habituated to the stereotyped, elaborate, ornate
school, understood nothing of such deceptive simplicity.
His canvases would not sell. Even the
government had made no more purchases since its
acquisition of Peace. It had even refused to acquire
War, when the artist offered it. As we have
already said, sooner than have the two pictures
separated, Puvis made up his mind to donate it.

[32]
Commissions failed to come in, and nothing
afforded hope that this condition of affairs was
likely to change, when chance threw in the path
of Puvis de Chavannes a man whose providential
intervention completely transformed his destiny.

At about this epoch the city of Amiens had
started to build a museum. The architect of this
enterprise, M. Diot, came to see Puvis de Chavannes
and said to him:

“I saw your paintings in the Salon of 1861, and
was greatly pleased with them. In the edifice
which I am at present constructing, there are
some vast surfaces to be covered. Are your two
pictures, Peace and War, still in your possession?
I could find immediate use for them.”

Puvis de Chavannes replied that the two paintings
in question belonged to the State. The city
of Amiens immediately solicited the concession of
them, which was courteously granted.

PLATE IV.—LUDUS PRO PATRIA

(In the Museum, Amiens)

This great composition, of which the present plate gives only a
fragment, is numbered among the most beautiful productions of
Puvis de Chavannes, because of the harmony of its parts, the
nobility of the postures and the charm of its detail.


The paintings were placed in the grand gallery
on the first floor, where they produced a most
beautiful decorative effect. Puvis de Chavannes,
delighted at this unhoped-for good fortune, offered
to complete the decoration of the gallery, by painting[34]
the panels occupying the spaces between the
windows. The illumination is exceedingly bad,
but with infinite art the painter succeeded in harmonizing
his compositions with the atmosphere
and light of the room. It should be noted further
that the subjects treated in the panels on the right
gallery relate to the picture of War, which faces
them; they are a Standard-Bearer and a Woman
weeping over the ruins of her home
. The same
holds true of the painting consecrated to Peace,
the corresponding panels being a Harvester and
a Woman spinning.

Puvis de Chavannes considered himself fortunate
in having two of his works which he so
greatly loved find a place in a museum. The
municipality of Amiens was none the less delighted
in possessing them; it gave proof of this by once
more sending its municipal architect to him on a
special embassy:

“I need two more mural paintings to decorate
the main staircase of the museum. Do you happen
to have what I need ready made, as you did
the other time?”

The architect was jesting. Puvis de Chavannes[36]
betook himself to a corner of his studio, and unrolling
two canvases, presented them to M. Diot:

“Here are what you want. These two pictures
are of the same dimensions as Peace and War;
they represent Repose and Labour and form part
of the same series. Will they serve your purpose?”

They served the architect’s purpose to perfection.
Unfortunately the city of Amiens did not
have the money to pay for them. The difficulty
was explained to the artist who, with his customary
disinterestedness, made a present of both
the paintings. They were soon stretched in the
places for which they were intended, in a framework
of fruits and flowers, and produced an admirable
effect. The municipality of Amiens was
so well satisfied with these paintings that it
decided at the cost of great sacrifices to commission
Puvis de Chavannes to prepare a large composition
destined to occupy the entire upper panel
of the staircase on the side of the grand gallery.
This panel was intersected by two doorways.

Puvis de Chavannes set to work immediately.
In the Salon of 1865 he exhibited his Ave Picardia
Nutrix
, destined for the Museum of Amiens.

[37]
The painting produced a veritable sensation.
Even the unskilled in art experienced an instinctive
emotion in the presence of this important
canvas which they did not fully understand, but
which they felt to be sincere; as to the artists,
they were obliged to acknowledge that the painter
whom they had scoffed and derided, and who had
now produced the Picardia Nutrix, was unquestionably
a master.

The Ave Picardia Nutrix is a glorification of
the fertility and richness of the land of Picardy.
The artist has wished to represent in a succession
of episodes, harmoniously related one to another,
all the products of the soil and all the local industries
from which Picardy draws its prosperity.

To this end he has grouped his figures in the
setting of a Picardian landscape, quite faithful in
colour and in line. M. Marius Vachon analyzes
the painting as follows:

“Beneath the orchard of a vast estate some
peasants are turning a flour mill; women are
bringing apples for a keg of cider; masons are
building the walls of a house, and an old woman
is spinning on her distaff the native hemp. Along[38]
the banks of a stream, women are weaving fish
nets; carpenters are constructing a bridge; boatmen
are steering heavy-laden barges. Add to
these professional labours the incidents of work-a-day
life, which are taking place on every side,
charming incidents, picturesque and touching; a
little lad, carrying a heavy basket of fruit on
his head, eager to show his strength before his
elders; a mother, nursing her youngest born;
some women bathing under the shadow of the
willows. The composition is abundantly suggestive
of delicate impressions; and it forms a magnificent
decoration for the edifice in which it has
been placed.”

When the painting had been installed in its
position in the vestibule of honour on the main
floor, the municipality of Amiens perceived that
the fourth side of the staircase, the only one not
decorated, was precisely the one that best lent
itself to the development of a painting, because of
its considerable surface. The ceiling, it is true,
darkened this vestibule, owing to its insufficient
window space. It was, furthermore, adorned by
a painting by Barrias. Nevertheless the city[40]

determined to replace the ceiling by a skylight,
on condition that Puvis de Chavannes would
paint the vacant panel thus made available.

PLATE V.—REPOSE

(In the Museum, Amiens)

This work is one of the earliest by this great artist. It is very
interesting, because it still shows the influence of Couture’s studio,
where Puvis de Chavannes had been a pupil. It serves as a point
of comparison for determining the evolution of the artist’s talent.


However, the resources of the municipality
did not permit it to incur so great an expense. It
appealed to the State, which curtly refused its
coöperation. The city fathers of Amiens were
in despair, the painter not less so. What was to
be done? Wait until the municipality, through
slow economies, was in a position to order the
picture? Puvis de Chavannes, who had grown
enthusiastic over the task, was boiling with impatience
and listened day by day, as he expressed
it, to hear if no breeze was blowing his way from
Amiens.

But when the breeze remained persistently
unfavourable, Puvis de Chavannes, growing tired
of waiting, decided to execute the panel in any
case, come what might. And he composed the
admirable fresco which bears the name of Ludus
pro Patria
.

Everyone knows the subject of this painting,
which has passed into a legend. In a plain traversed
by a running stream, some young men[42]
are engaged in a game of rivalry with spears.
On a knoll, an old man, surrounded by women,
serves as umpire. He follows, with attentive eye,
the fluctuations of the game, while a young lad,
in a pose charming for its relaxation, rests one
arm around his neck. Behind him a young woman
holds out her baby for its father to kiss.
On the left of the picture, seated at the foot of a
tree, or grouped around a fountain, young girls
await the end of the game in which their brothers
or their betrothed take part. One of them leans
towards an aged minstrel and begs him to play
some dance music after the game is over.

All these groups are harmoniously disposed in
an open-air setting, dotted over with cottages and
stately trees, enveloped in a soft and mellow light.

This picture reveals the artist’s predilection for
children, a very curious and touching predilection
to discover in a painter whose own fireside was
never gladdened by childish laughter. Let us examine
the Ludus pro Patria; in this picture Puvis
de Chavannes has been lavish of childhood games
and pastimes. Notwithstanding that his art was
before all else synthetic, and gained its effects[43]
from harmony of attitude rather than from finish of
figures, he plainly expended loving care in modelling
those delicate and charming little bodies, which
he has endowed with infinite grace. Is there
anything more adorably exquisite than the gesture
of the infant stretching out its plump arms towards
its father? And does not the child standing before
the group by the fountain reveal the master’s
tender solicitude for these little beings whose absence
from his domestic life he probably regretted?

The distinguished custodian of the Museum at
Amiens showed me the corner of the balustrade
on which the painter rested his elbows, in front of
the group of which that child forms part. After
some moments of contemplation, he might be
seen to mount his scaffolding, brush in hand, to
add a few strokes, some new tint to that delightfully
modelled little form.

The Ludus pro Patria is something more and
something better than a beautiful picture; it is a
symbolic work in which the noblest conceptions
of patriotism are exalted. With his incomparable
synthetic art, Puvis de Chavannes has endeavoured
to show all the diverse manners of serving usefully[44]
one’s native land. Young women, bearing
the tender burden of nursing children, are rearing
for their country a valiant generation, which before
long will be augmented through the robust
girls grouped on the left, awaiting the advent of
husbands. The children, grown to manhood, will
practise games of strength and skill which will
render them capable of defending their common
patrimony. The old man himself has his rôle
assigned in this ideal commonwealth; ripened
by experience of life, he supplements the feebleness
of his arms by the wisdom of his lessons;
he is the honoured counsellor, the arbiter of full
justice, who restrains the ardor of youth within
the path of reason.

The cartoon for this magnificent panel was
exhibited in the Salon of 1881; it achieved a unanimous
success. The State acquired it, and at the
same time commissioned Puvis to paint the picture
itself for the Museum of Picardy. The
finished work, in its proper dimensions, found a
place in the Salon the following year, and gained
its author the medal of honour from the Society of
French Artists.

[45]
We have followed Puvis de Chavannes in his
decoration of the Museum of Amiens, from the
beginning to the end of his artistic career, without
regard to chronological order, because of the
interest which he himself took in this extensive
work, which was, one might say, his constant
preoccupation. Accordingly we must go back in
point of time and follow step by step this astonishing
and genial worker whose accomplishment
is disconcerting in its power and its fecundity.

The first works executed for the Museum of
Amiens had attracted public attention to him.
The municipality of Marseilles had just crowned
the important enterprise of bringing the waters
of the Durance into the city, by erecting a sumptuous
Public Waterworks, bearing the name of
the Palace of Longchamps.

Two great mural surfaces enclose the principal
staircase. It was decided to decorate them with
paintings. And when the time came to choose
the artist, a unanimous agreement was reached
on the name of Puvis de Chavannes.

The latter, being notified, accepted joyfully, as
he accepted all occasions of converting a noble[46]
vision of art into a reality. And what finer fortune
could come to an artist that to celebrate
Marseilles, the sun-bathed city, vibrant with light,
crouching royally on the azure mantle of the
Mediterranean?

Puvis de Chavannes hastened to the ancient
Ligurian city. He calculated the difficulties of
composing a great decorative composition, free
from banality, out of the habitual elements of a
seaport,—a subject a thousand times treated and
perilous of execution. He sought, he studied, he
promenaded the quays, he strode the length and
breadth of the city. At last the enlightening flash
he awaited came in the course of a trip to the
Chateau d’If. In the presence of that noble panorama
of the city seen from the sea, he remained as
if dazed, realizing that he had found what he was
in search of. He would not paint Marseilles with
the sea as a decorative background; it was the
city herself that should form the background, and
not the sea. He had his two pictures in his grasp.

And without stirring from the spot, while his
friends took luncheon, he remained seated on the
rocks, making notes and sketches, in order to fix[47]
fully in his mind “the line and colour of that marvellous
maritime landscape.”

The first of these pictures, Marseilles the Greek
Colony
, stands for the entire history of the
Phocian city from its foundation to the present
time. But, following his essentially synthetic
method, he painted, not the successive transformations
of Marseilles, but symbolic figures of
the sources to which she owes her grandeur and
her prosperity.

In the background is the strand, which as yet
is only a natural harbour. Along the shore, vessels
are seen building; these are the symbol of
activity. Further off, horses are bringing merchandise
towards the boats about to sail, symbol
of the commercial instinct; masons, carpenters,
stonecutters, are zealously plying their craft; and
palaces, storehouses, and churches arise, symbols
of wealth and of taste in art.

Among the accessory features are a woman
vendor spreading before other women rich fabrics
and pearls, and some slaves conveying towards
the city jars of oil and skins filled with wine.

In Marseilles, Gateway of the East, a ship is[48]
seen, laden with travellers, making its way into
port. All these passengers are Orientals, recognizable
by the gaudiness of their garments: they
admire the panorama of the rich city whose fortifications,
churches, and palaces stand out in bold
relief against the ruddy light of evening.

An atmosphere of warmth and brilliance emanates
from these two paintings, of which the city
of Marseilles has shown herself justly proud.

When Puvis de Chavannes received a commission
for a mural painting he gave himself
ardently to his task, but at the same time intermittently.
Contrary to a generally accepted
belief, his genius was not the result of “long
patience,” but rather the realization of a vision.
He never applied himself to a painting if some
external cause, no matter what, had deadened in
him the essential inspiration. In such a case, he
would revert to some other work which his mind
could “see better” on that particular day. In
this way we can understand how he could carry
forward simultaneously several works of equal
importance, and at the same time paint in addition
occasional easel pictures.

[50]

PLATE VI.—THE SACRED WOOD, DEAR TO THE ARTS
AND THE MUSES

(In the Museum, Amiens)

This painting, admirable in execution, is quite interesting to
study, because it serves to show in what a purely personal manner,
wholly detached from mythological traditions, Puvis de Chavannes
interpreted Antiquity.


[51]
Following the example of Marseilles and
Amiens, the city of Poitiers, which in 1872 had
just completed the building of a City Hall, commissioned
Puvis de Chavannes to decorate the
main staircase.

The two subjects chosen by the artist, with
the approbation of the municipality, were as
follows:

First panel:—”Radegonde, having retired to
the Convent of the Holy Cross, offers an asylum
to the poets and protects Literature against the
barbarism of those days.”

Second panel:—”The year 732: Charles Martel
saves Christendom by his victory over the
Saracens near Poitiers.”

The legend of Radegonde is well known:
“The virtuous spouse of Clotaire, fleeing from
the brutality of that crowned free-booter and
hiding in a convent in order to escape his
pursuit.” But this convent is by no means a
cloister; the practice of arts and letters is
pursued alternately with the singing of
psalms.

The door stands open to poets. One of them,[52]
Fortunatus, passing through Poitiers, stops there
and is received with cordial hospitality, and
conceiving for the saintly queen a delicate and
chaste love, he remains for twenty years in this
abode in which he purposed to spend only a few
days.

Puvis de Chavannes has magnificently rendered
the poetic beauty of this historic episode by
representing one of the fêtes given by Radegonde
in the Convent of the Holy Cross.

In the second panel, we see Charles Martel
returning to Poitiers, victorious over the Saracens
and receiving the benediction of the
bishops. Here the artist’s brush attains a
vigour of expression such as in all his life
he found but few occasions to employ. The
countenances of the bishops, notably, stand
out with a relief and an energy that are
remarkable.

M. Marius Vachon relates that he once asked
the artist, who was a personal friend, to what
documents he had recourse in order to give
such forbidding features to the prelates in his
painting:

[53]
“I got the suggestion for them,” he replied,
laughing, “from an old set of chess men, consisting
of the coarse and grouchy faces of knights and
jesters.”


THE LAST YEARS

In the days following the Franco-Prussian
War and the Commune, the Government conceived
the project of decorating the Panthéon,
which had just been once more secularized, in
order to convert it into a temple wherein all the
shining lights of the nation could be brought
together and honoured.

M. de Chennevières, who at that time was
director of the Beaux Arts gave the first place,
in that illustrious line, to the noble and serene
Genevieve, patron saint of Paris, incarnate ideal
of patriotism.

Accordingly it was a series of religious paintings
that M. de Chennevières required of Puvis
de Chavannes, when he entrusted him with a
large share of the decoration.

This type of painting, although new to Puvis[54]
de Chavannes, failed to intimidate him. He
had too much patriotic fire, more than enough
Christian faith, and above all too thorough a
mastery of his profession not to approach this
task with full confidence. It is enough to visit
the Panthéon just once in order to be convinced
of this. A more magnificent realization
of Saint Genevieve could not be conceived of,
even in dreams. But are these paintings to
be classed with religious art? One would hesitate
to assert it, if the pictures habitually
consecrated to religious themes are to be taken
as a standard. But they are something better
than that, because the virgin protectress of
Paris is in these pictures profoundly human;
she is brought very close to us, and we see
her despoiled of the aureole that would have
removed her too far from our vision and our
hearts.

The whole world knows, at least through
reproductions, the series of paintings consecrated
to the life of this saint. First of all, we have
Saint Genevieve as a child, singled out from
a crowd by Saint Germain, because she is[55]
marked with the divine seal. “I chose the
hour,” wrote Puvis de Chavannes, “at which
history claimed possession of this heroic woman.
These two are not an old man and a child,
they are two great souls face to face. The
glance which they ardently exchange is, in its
moral significance, the culminating point of the
composition.”

Next in order comes the Piety of Saint Genevieve.
The pious child is at her prayers before a
cross formed by two interlacing branches. This
is the prologue of a life filled with miracles, divine
recompense accorded only to supernatural virtue.
The artist has admirably reproduced the mystic
fervour of that child whose future was foreordained
to be so beautiful.

Subsequently, in 1896, the Government entrusted
Puvis de Chavannes with the execution
of two new panels, likewise dedicated to the life
of Saint Genevieve. The two themes chosen
were the following:

“Ardent in her faith and in her charity,
Genevieve, whom the greatest perils could
not swerve from her duty, brings sustenance[56]
to Paris, besieged and threatened with
famine.”

“Genevieve, sustained by her pious solicitude,
keeps watch over sleeping Paris.”

These noble paintings were the last productions
of the great artist. A sort of premonition
told him that the end was near, in spite of his
robust health. “How I shall devote myself
to the Panthéon,” he wrote, “when I am finished
with the Hôtel de Ville! I intend it to be
a sort of last will and testament.”

In these last paintings, Saint Genevieve is
no longer a child. Having attained womanhood,
her saintliness is such that, from all sides,
people come to take shelter behind her veil, like
children around their mother, as soon as danger
is announced.

For the purpose of portraying this hieratic and
inspired figure, Puvis de Chavannes found the
ideal model close at hand, in the noble woman
who had associated her entire life with his. Genevieve
bringing sustenance to Paris
is the artist’s
wife who, already mortally ill, inflicted upon
herself the most cruel suffering, in order to[57]
pose in her husband’s studio. The disease which
was killing her was known only to herself, and
she had the heroism to conceal it up to the
supreme hour when, conquered at last, she was
stricken down. In painting the pensive and
dolorous attitude of Genevieve watching over
sleeping Paris
, the poor artist never once suspected
that he was tracing for the last time the
portrait of her who had been the consolation
and the joy of his whole existence.

The unfortunate woman lacked the strength to
play her rôle to the end; she was forced to take to
her bed. The artist, no less heroic than she, feeling
that his own life was slipping away with
hers, yet wishing to complete this last work,—his
testament—transported his easel beside the dying
woman’s bed, and there finished the sketches for
his picture.

In the intervals of time between the paintings
executed for the Panthéon, Puvis de Chavannes
produced certain other large compositions in no
wise inferior either in importance or in merit,
notably, in 1883, a large painting for the Palace of
Arts, at Lyons.

[58]
The municipal government of that city,
wishing to have the main staircase of the
palace decorated, entrusted the execution to the
great artist who was at the same time a compatriot.
He felt a very special joy in accepting
this commission, for he had always retained
a vivid memory of the city of his
birth.

He endowed it with three pictures of a very
high order, one of which, The Sacred Wood, dear
to the Arts and the Muses
, is considered by many
to be the artist’s masterpiece.

Puvis de Chavannes breaks away from the
mythological theme so often treated that it has
become hackneyed. It is not on Helicon that
he groups his Muses, but on the shore of a
lake, in a setting of verdure softly illuminated
by the rays of the moon. At the foot of a
portico, Calliope is seen declaiming verses before
her sisters. Some of the Muses appear
attentive; others converse together; one of them
is reclining lazily upon the grass. Euterpe and
Thalia, heralded from the sky by song and the
accompanying lyre, approach to join the group.

[60]

PLATE VII.—LETTERS, SCIENCES AND ARTS (detail)

(In the Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne)

In this immense composition, in which the groups are balanced
with admirable harmony, there is an exalted and pervading beauty.
It makes itself felt in the prevailing mood of the subject as a whole,
in the expressions of the several characters, in the naturalness of
their attitudes and in the luminous clarity of the landscape.


[61]
Antiquity, as treated by Puvis de Chavannes,
loses nothing of its nobility, but quite the contrary.
It even gains in real beauty, because his Muses
profit by being despoiled of those conventional
attitudes, in which an immutable tradition has
trammelled them. The artist has retained only
such of their attitudes as cannot detract in any way
from the naturalness of their movements or their
lines.

In the same Palace of Arts, Puvis de Chavannes
painted two additional allegorical panels
representing The Rhone and The Saône, both of
which are admirably effective.

To about the same period belongs his well
known painting, The Poor Fisherman, at present
in the Musée du Luxembourg.

In this work, which he painted as a relaxation
from his more extensive efforts, Puvis de Chavannes
has tried to portray, as Millet so often did, all
the sordid and lamentable misery of the slaves of
toil, who bend their poor aching backs beneath the
burden of physical distress and mental degradation.
This work is a fine and eloquent lesson in
humanity.

[62]
In 1889, the Hôtel de Ville, in Paris, proceeding
with the still unfinished decoration of its
numerous halls and chambers, entrusted Puvis
de Chavannes with the task of decorating the
main staircase and the first salon in the suite of
reception rooms.

On one wall of this salon, he painted Winter,
on the other Summer. These two compositions
are of imposing dimensions and admirable in
execution.

Winter shows us a snow-clad stretch of
forest landscape. Woodsmen are hauling the
trunks of trees which others of their number
have just felled. Nothing could be more impressive
than his rendering of the desolation
of winter; and the truth, the exactitude of the
physical effort these men are putting forth,
with every muscle straining tensely on the
rope.

Summer shows us a delightful and smiling
landscape flooded with light; bathing women
plunge their nude forms beneath the water, while
a mother, seated on the grass, nurses her new born
child. In this picture Puvis de Chavannes, who[63]
was a landscape painter of the first order, has
surpassed himself; the work is a miracle of open
air and grateful shade.

Unfortunately, the room in which these
two magnificent pictures are placed suffers
from a deplorable want of light, and its scanty
dimensions make it impossible to stand back
at a sufficient distance to see them to advantage.
The Hôtel de Ville should for its
own credit assign them a place more in keeping
with their worth.

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[64]
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[65]
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[66]
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[67]
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[68]
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.

[70]

PLATE VIII.—WAR

(In the Museum, Amiens)

This work dates from the same period as Repose and Peace. It marks
the début of Puvis de Chavannes in his career as an artist. In
spite of some reminiscences of his training, his individuality
already asserts itself, and the originality of composition is unmistakable.


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[71]
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[72]
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[73]
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.


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.

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