DOI Heft:
No. 123 (June, 1903)
DOI Artikel:Bénédite, Léonce: Alphonse Legros, painter and sculptor
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19879#0037
The Paintings and Sculpture of AIphonse Legros
New Gallery at the same time as that masterpiece, outset people misunderstood his real character,
the Femmes en priere, belonging to the Tate Some, like Champfleury, regarded him as a
Gallery. With English readers I have no need to " realist," at the very time when Baudelaire was
insist with regard to this painting, which is already enrolling him among the " religious painters."
classic. One cannot conceive anything more gently The actual truth, here as always and everywhere,
touching than this grand and. pensive scene, where lies in the juste milieu—midway between the two
all is on the same lofty level—;isentiment^: form opinions. To be exact, Legros belonged to the
and execution. It is one of the most important movement started in France at the beginning of
productions of modern art. the century, with Gericault at its head, and
It will be noticed that subjects of a religious definitely revived with Millet from 1847 in a more
nature abound in Legros' work : sometimes as highly significant sense, tending to give an expres-
general, historical, biblical, or evangelical concep- sion of modern life at once formal and internal,
tions, such as the Amende Honorable, the Scene The Revolution of 1848, St. Simonism and other
de rInquisition, the Enfant Prodigue, or the " isms," the writings of Proudhon, and even the
Songe de Jacob, Lapidation de St. Etienne, St. doctrines of Auguste Comte had a very marked
Jerome, or the Dead Christ; elsewhere in the effect on the artistic conscience. The "realism"
guise of popular compositions based on con- of Champfleury, the " modernism" of Baudelaire,
temporary life: for example, the Angelus, the and the " positivism" of Courbet, if so I may
Ex voto, Femmes en priere, the. Benediction de la express it, furnish evidence of the fact. While
Mer, the Bapteme, &c, &q. Moreover, at the Millet was drawing the whole mystical soul from
' out the life of the fields,
" •* ' :. others sought to represent
* • . • / not only the exterior but
the interior meaning of
W0^kbi, the life of the humble
classes in the large and
small towns. Frangois
Bonvin, Adolphe Leleu,
Armand Gautier, and
Alphonse Legros are the
best-known representatives
of this popular and
democratic form, which
is associated with the
common Calvinistic—one
would like to say Re-
publican—tradition of the
Dutch school, and in
France with the grand
solitary figures of Chardin
and the brothers Lenain.
The religious motif, with
Legros as with Bonvin,
is but a pretext for
associating with scenes
of real life something of
imagination and idealism.
For while he occasionally
went astray in his " his-
torical " subjects, to use
the adjective in its old
general sense, as a rule
he was attracted simply
STUDY FOR A FOUNTAIN FROM THE SEPIA DRAWING BY ALPHONSE LEGROS by Spectacles based On
20
New Gallery at the same time as that masterpiece, outset people misunderstood his real character,
the Femmes en priere, belonging to the Tate Some, like Champfleury, regarded him as a
Gallery. With English readers I have no need to " realist," at the very time when Baudelaire was
insist with regard to this painting, which is already enrolling him among the " religious painters."
classic. One cannot conceive anything more gently The actual truth, here as always and everywhere,
touching than this grand and. pensive scene, where lies in the juste milieu—midway between the two
all is on the same lofty level—;isentiment^: form opinions. To be exact, Legros belonged to the
and execution. It is one of the most important movement started in France at the beginning of
productions of modern art. the century, with Gericault at its head, and
It will be noticed that subjects of a religious definitely revived with Millet from 1847 in a more
nature abound in Legros' work : sometimes as highly significant sense, tending to give an expres-
general, historical, biblical, or evangelical concep- sion of modern life at once formal and internal,
tions, such as the Amende Honorable, the Scene The Revolution of 1848, St. Simonism and other
de rInquisition, the Enfant Prodigue, or the " isms," the writings of Proudhon, and even the
Songe de Jacob, Lapidation de St. Etienne, St. doctrines of Auguste Comte had a very marked
Jerome, or the Dead Christ; elsewhere in the effect on the artistic conscience. The "realism"
guise of popular compositions based on con- of Champfleury, the " modernism" of Baudelaire,
temporary life: for example, the Angelus, the and the " positivism" of Courbet, if so I may
Ex voto, Femmes en priere, the. Benediction de la express it, furnish evidence of the fact. While
Mer, the Bapteme, &c, &q. Moreover, at the Millet was drawing the whole mystical soul from
' out the life of the fields,
" •* ' :. others sought to represent
* • . • / not only the exterior but
the interior meaning of
W0^kbi, the life of the humble
classes in the large and
small towns. Frangois
Bonvin, Adolphe Leleu,
Armand Gautier, and
Alphonse Legros are the
best-known representatives
of this popular and
democratic form, which
is associated with the
common Calvinistic—one
would like to say Re-
publican—tradition of the
Dutch school, and in
France with the grand
solitary figures of Chardin
and the brothers Lenain.
The religious motif, with
Legros as with Bonvin,
is but a pretext for
associating with scenes
of real life something of
imagination and idealism.
For while he occasionally
went astray in his " his-
torical " subjects, to use
the adjective in its old
general sense, as a rule
he was attracted simply
STUDY FOR A FOUNTAIN FROM THE SEPIA DRAWING BY ALPHONSE LEGROS by Spectacles based On
20