Studio: international art (5.1895)

The Salon of the Champs-Ely sees

portrait of M. Felix Faure. M. Bonnat is
beyond question complete master of his art, but
why will he persist in painting all his portraits in
the same style, and in the same hard, dry atmo-
sphere ? The character, the personality of the
subject should show itself plainly in the features,
in the expression, and in the attitude. His very
thoughts should be suggested : and that is the
secret, the all-powerful charm, of the great portrait-
painters, such as Gainsborough, or Holbein, or
Franz Hals, or Clouet—to select examples from
the most widely varying schools. None of these
things appear to have ever troubled M. Bonnat,
official portrait-painter of the Third Republic.
But why ?

The anecdote—whether historical, or legendary,
or simply imaginary—flourishes notably in the
pictures of M. Paul Gervais {Maria de Padilla), M.
Makowslcy {FEpreuve), and M, Jean Paul Laurens
{La Muraille). Allowing for the differences of
period, it is always the same story of an exaggerated
desire to interest the spectator in the mere subject,
to create a melodramatic impression on him, and
that, of course, at the expense of art. M. Mun-
kacksy treats with the same degree of laboured
audacity both Le Christ en Croix and La Greve ;
but there is in his pictures an entire lack of con-
viction, both in his manner of grasping a religious
subject and in his method of presenting a spectacle
of popular suffering. As for M. Hector de Roux,
who for years past has devoted himself to Roman
antiquity, he remains faithful to his Vestals, than
which one can conceive nothing more cold and
antipathetic. In the same order of ideas come
Napoleon en Lithuaine, by M. Roger, Le Sermeni
des Gaules, by M. Henri Motte, Le Jugement
de Paris, by M. Borges, and M. Alphonse
Monchablon's Henri LV. et Gabrielle dFstrees.
And this is what it is the fashion to call "great
painting " !

We may pause and rest our eyes before this
Frieze (a fragment of the decoration intended for
the Hotel de Ville) by M. Henri Martin, and admire,
as they pass under the trees, this procession of
slender-formed women, modern Muses, as it were,
whose long robes catch the glint of the rosy tints
of twilight. This is a work of very delicate con-
ception, beautiful in its harmony of line, its graceful
suppleness of attitude, and its genuine decorative
feeling. The work of M. Fantin-Latour forms
another oasis, where, under the cool and mystic
shade of the trees, removed from the burden and
heat of the day, there is healing for eyes dazzled
and hurt by the polychromatic atrocities hard by,

and peace for ears deafened by their discordant
janglings. M. Fantin-Latour, who is besides a
portraitist of the first rank, with a particular gift for
extracting the moral essence of humanity, has
created a special form of art in symbolising by
means of his drawings the very spirit of the heroes
created by the great masters of lyric drama—Berlioz
and Wagner. In his admirable lithographs, full
of sentiment and poetry, and a joy to the eye and
to the mind, he shows us those divine and beauti-
ful figures, Parsifal and Lohengrin. And equally
delightful are his pastel, La Nuit, his Faigneuses,
and his Vision. There is deep thought in all his
work, with no striving after coarse effects, no care
for the praise of the mob. He speaks to thoughtful
minds, to the fit and few, who have within them the
capacity to taste and enjoy the Beautiful.

M. Bouguereau's Psyche et 1'Amoi/r cries out
for notice as we pass; arrayed as it is in a super-
annuated mythological symbolism, with the blues
and whites and pinks of a wall-paper sky. The
astonishing impassibility of M. Bouguereau is really
quite disconcerting, To think that for nearly half
a century this artist has continued to paint both
portraits and scenes in just the same hard, fiat, cold
style ; to think that the desire to do better has never
moved his brush or his brain, and that he is content
with his absurdly academic view of things ! It is
really dreadful. This calm imperturbability dis-
arms one ; this evident sincerity almost calls for
respect at least, if not for admiration. What can one
say of this flesh-like inflated gold-beater's skin
carefully tinted with pink; of this hair laboriously
frizzed like a theatrical wig ; what of these gestures,
inanimate, congealed and frozen; of these ex-
pressionless faces ? Nothing; the only thing, it
seems, is to be silent, and stifle the disgust and
contempt one must feel for this confectioner's art,
generally known as "le grand style ! " More's the
pity !

By way of consolation let us take refuge for a
moment in M. Demont's delightful landscape, Les
Feux du Soir, in the genuine bits of nature by the
venerable painter, Francais, or in the harmonious
scenes of MM. Sain, Ravanne, and Madeline, not
forgetting the two canvases by Mr. Brangwyn, an
artist of real worth, whose manner of handling light
is almost masterly, and who displays an amount
of character in all he does which must soon receive
general recognition.

I would like to linger before the picture by M.
Jean Veber, brother of the delicate humourist, M.
Pierre Veber, but, unfortunately, there is no time.
It only remains to note M. Lomont's Le Lied, and