DOI issue:
Nr. 342 (November 1925)
DOI article:Breuning, Margaret: Chardin the unfashionable
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19986#0134
mceRnACionAL
downcast head, and an artist of
a later day who declared that
no one would find "the secret of
Chardin's whites." It remained
for Diderot, philosopher, as one
might say, by profession, to
pay the fitting tribute of his
day. And this appreciation,
however often quoted, does not
lose its savor of justness.
"He is the painter, who un-
derstands the harmony of color
and reflection," wrote the old
giant. "O, Chardin, it is not
white, red nor black that you
grind to powder on your palette;
it is the very substance of the
objects themselves. It is the air
and light that you take on the
point of your brush and fix upon
the canvas!"
Yet if Chardin attained no
popularity in his lifetime, neither
can he be said to have had a
tragic career. He achieved a
certain amount of recognition,
exhibited at the Academy, was
pensioned by the King and
'la charmeuse" by chardin spent his declining days with
his devoted wife in the Louvre,
where, even with failing eye-
pots and bottles, cabbages and dead hares—they sight, he made exquisite pastels,
would have discovered that however bourgeois He was born in 1699, just failing to be reckoned
the subject, the palette was always aristocratic, in the century to which he actually belonged. He
and however trivial the theme, there was never may be said to have been born out of his time as
any vulgarity of sentiment. well because his genius was foreign to the age in
It would have surprised them, doubtless, pos- which he worked. The prestige of the great
sibly pained them, to realize that because a man Watteau was upon the opening years of the cen-
chooses to paint a carrot he is not so much suffer- tury, Nattier's star was declining, and Fragonard
ing from lack of esthetic sensibility as from and Boucher were the contemporaries of Chardin
extreme susceptibility to all esthetic impressions, who seized favor. Powder and patches, jetes
A man of this sort docs not have to leave his champetres, convention and artifice were the order
crowded, dull little dwelling to be stirred by color of the day.
and contour, for lifting his eyes serenely to greet Chardin seems to have stemmed in artistic
the familiar objects of his everyday life he may descent from the Dutch genre painters—Terboch,
experience so poignant a sense of form and pat- Pieter de Hooch, Vermeer might well have been
tern, be so thrilled by the effects of light and color, on his geneological tree. Yet if he is akin to these
that he need fare no further on the great adven- men in his sobriety and sincerity and in his
ture of artistic creation. absorption in problems of light and form, he
But the fine lords and ladies did not look up remains essentially French in spirit. You may be
long enough from their game of playing at life to reminded of the Dutch painters by his canvases,
see this. Only a few artists discovered the magic yet you would never mistake them for anything
of this man's brush and the beauty of his pure, but French. One must paint with "sentiment,"
cool color. It was one of his popular contempo- he declared gravely, and it is the very soul of his
raries who looked long and sadly at a canvas of people that he brings to life and movement in his
Chardin's and turned away with a sigh and a work. Not the meretricious sentiment of Greuze,
one thirty-Jour
november i 9 2 5
downcast head, and an artist of
a later day who declared that
no one would find "the secret of
Chardin's whites." It remained
for Diderot, philosopher, as one
might say, by profession, to
pay the fitting tribute of his
day. And this appreciation,
however often quoted, does not
lose its savor of justness.
"He is the painter, who un-
derstands the harmony of color
and reflection," wrote the old
giant. "O, Chardin, it is not
white, red nor black that you
grind to powder on your palette;
it is the very substance of the
objects themselves. It is the air
and light that you take on the
point of your brush and fix upon
the canvas!"
Yet if Chardin attained no
popularity in his lifetime, neither
can he be said to have had a
tragic career. He achieved a
certain amount of recognition,
exhibited at the Academy, was
pensioned by the King and
'la charmeuse" by chardin spent his declining days with
his devoted wife in the Louvre,
where, even with failing eye-
pots and bottles, cabbages and dead hares—they sight, he made exquisite pastels,
would have discovered that however bourgeois He was born in 1699, just failing to be reckoned
the subject, the palette was always aristocratic, in the century to which he actually belonged. He
and however trivial the theme, there was never may be said to have been born out of his time as
any vulgarity of sentiment. well because his genius was foreign to the age in
It would have surprised them, doubtless, pos- which he worked. The prestige of the great
sibly pained them, to realize that because a man Watteau was upon the opening years of the cen-
chooses to paint a carrot he is not so much suffer- tury, Nattier's star was declining, and Fragonard
ing from lack of esthetic sensibility as from and Boucher were the contemporaries of Chardin
extreme susceptibility to all esthetic impressions, who seized favor. Powder and patches, jetes
A man of this sort docs not have to leave his champetres, convention and artifice were the order
crowded, dull little dwelling to be stirred by color of the day.
and contour, for lifting his eyes serenely to greet Chardin seems to have stemmed in artistic
the familiar objects of his everyday life he may descent from the Dutch genre painters—Terboch,
experience so poignant a sense of form and pat- Pieter de Hooch, Vermeer might well have been
tern, be so thrilled by the effects of light and color, on his geneological tree. Yet if he is akin to these
that he need fare no further on the great adven- men in his sobriety and sincerity and in his
ture of artistic creation. absorption in problems of light and form, he
But the fine lords and ladies did not look up remains essentially French in spirit. You may be
long enough from their game of playing at life to reminded of the Dutch painters by his canvases,
see this. Only a few artists discovered the magic yet you would never mistake them for anything
of this man's brush and the beauty of his pure, but French. One must paint with "sentiment,"
cool color. It was one of his popular contempo- he declared gravely, and it is the very soul of his
raries who looked long and sadly at a canvas of people that he brings to life and movement in his
Chardin's and turned away with a sigh and a work. Not the meretricious sentiment of Greuze,
one thirty-Jour
november i 9 2 5