DOI issue:
The International Studio (June, 1908)
DOI article:Cary, Elisabeth Luther: The Barbizon painters
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28254#0512
The Scrip
left no doubt of the joy he found in nature. Cer-
tainly, his pictures reveal clearly enough his joy in
their creation. None of the 1830 group has more
power over his material. His execution reminds
one of the voice of a trained orator delivering the
finest poetry with a slightly elocutionary emphasis.
But how beautiful a voice it is, what rich depths,
what clear tones, what liquid cadences we have in it!
Millet said to him in his kind desire to comfort
him in the last desperate straits of his life, “You
were from the first the little plant which was des-
tined to become the great oak.” With his native
tact in truth-telling, he had found precisely the right
symbol. Rousseau stands like an oak among his
companions, with obvious strength of will and pur-
pose, with lucidity of style, with a restraint in com-
position, and a great sense of measure and balance.
His early taste for mathematics persists in the
orderly construction of his design, the passion of his
emotional nature that finally broke down his brain
is seen in his powerful color harmonies. He had,
too, the patience that often accompanies such pas-
sion and worked over his pictures, painting and re-
painting them with assiduous care for the final
effect, which invariably was noble. Neglected by
the academies for fourteen years after his first
triumph in 1833, ^ie gained the name of le grand
refuse, and even after the Revolution of 1848, with
its free exhibition at the Louvre, under the guidance
of Rousseau and Dupre, who were both on the
hanging committee, Rousseau’s green pictures were
hailed as “spinach” among the irreverent. He had
in truth a liking for Veronese green that gave a
ringing quality to his foliage and emphasized the
part played by green in his color composition. The
Metropolitan contains many of his pictures, the
finest of them belonging, however, to the Vander-
bilt Loan Collection. Here one may see the Gorges
d’Apremont, the masterpiece that was exhibited in
the Salon of 1859, in which a solemn gloom mingles
with the cool loveliness of early evening.
Dupre, Daubigny and Troyon are the other
names, that are most closely associated with those of
Millet and Corot. Dupre has a power that none of
his companions show of evoking a dramatic mood
of nature and keeping its appearance of realism
without in the slightest degree following literal fact.
His landscapes are as decorative as stained glass
windows and hardly nearer to the texture and light
of nature, yet they stir the imagination to a remem-
brance of nature that justifies them. Looking at
them we paint our own recollected scenes with the
romantic fervor required, and see them true.
Daubigny was a painter of the Normandy land-
scape, but he saw it with the same deep respect for
its secrets and character as the Barbizon men dis-
closed in their very different works. He paints with
a calm vision and a large method and one cannot
look to him for any
quality to support
the title of “roman-
ticist” bestowed in-
discriminately upon
the 1830 School.
Still less does
Troyon support it.
A painter of gentle
pastorals, and after
his visit to Holland
in 1847 an unrivaled
painter of cattle—
the mildest animals
in the world—it is
little wonder that he
promptly became
illustrious and has
never lost a popular-
ity deserved both on
the ground of his
admirable tech-
nique and on that of
his sympathy with
the life of the farms.
Property oj the Metropolitan Museum oj Art By Permission
STUDY OF WHITE COW BY TROYON
CXLVIII
left no doubt of the joy he found in nature. Cer-
tainly, his pictures reveal clearly enough his joy in
their creation. None of the 1830 group has more
power over his material. His execution reminds
one of the voice of a trained orator delivering the
finest poetry with a slightly elocutionary emphasis.
But how beautiful a voice it is, what rich depths,
what clear tones, what liquid cadences we have in it!
Millet said to him in his kind desire to comfort
him in the last desperate straits of his life, “You
were from the first the little plant which was des-
tined to become the great oak.” With his native
tact in truth-telling, he had found precisely the right
symbol. Rousseau stands like an oak among his
companions, with obvious strength of will and pur-
pose, with lucidity of style, with a restraint in com-
position, and a great sense of measure and balance.
His early taste for mathematics persists in the
orderly construction of his design, the passion of his
emotional nature that finally broke down his brain
is seen in his powerful color harmonies. He had,
too, the patience that often accompanies such pas-
sion and worked over his pictures, painting and re-
painting them with assiduous care for the final
effect, which invariably was noble. Neglected by
the academies for fourteen years after his first
triumph in 1833, ^ie gained the name of le grand
refuse, and even after the Revolution of 1848, with
its free exhibition at the Louvre, under the guidance
of Rousseau and Dupre, who were both on the
hanging committee, Rousseau’s green pictures were
hailed as “spinach” among the irreverent. He had
in truth a liking for Veronese green that gave a
ringing quality to his foliage and emphasized the
part played by green in his color composition. The
Metropolitan contains many of his pictures, the
finest of them belonging, however, to the Vander-
bilt Loan Collection. Here one may see the Gorges
d’Apremont, the masterpiece that was exhibited in
the Salon of 1859, in which a solemn gloom mingles
with the cool loveliness of early evening.
Dupre, Daubigny and Troyon are the other
names, that are most closely associated with those of
Millet and Corot. Dupre has a power that none of
his companions show of evoking a dramatic mood
of nature and keeping its appearance of realism
without in the slightest degree following literal fact.
His landscapes are as decorative as stained glass
windows and hardly nearer to the texture and light
of nature, yet they stir the imagination to a remem-
brance of nature that justifies them. Looking at
them we paint our own recollected scenes with the
romantic fervor required, and see them true.
Daubigny was a painter of the Normandy land-
scape, but he saw it with the same deep respect for
its secrets and character as the Barbizon men dis-
closed in their very different works. He paints with
a calm vision and a large method and one cannot
look to him for any
quality to support
the title of “roman-
ticist” bestowed in-
discriminately upon
the 1830 School.
Still less does
Troyon support it.
A painter of gentle
pastorals, and after
his visit to Holland
in 1847 an unrivaled
painter of cattle—
the mildest animals
in the world—it is
little wonder that he
promptly became
illustrious and has
never lost a popular-
ity deserved both on
the ground of his
admirable tech-
nique and on that of
his sympathy with
the life of the farms.
Property oj the Metropolitan Museum oj Art By Permission
STUDY OF WHITE COW BY TROYON
CXLVIII