Studio: international art (46.1909)

Portraits in Enamel

HEAD OF CHRIST (PROBABLY PAINTED FROM A MODEL)
IN LIMOGES ENAMEL BY JEAN PENICAUD

artist. Therefore to make that record in a material
which is almost imperishable must appeal to all.

To enclose the jewel of the life of his subject in
the casket of his art is the ambition of the
painter of portrait enamels. Yet were it not
for the collector how few of these works would
have been retained. For the imperishability
of materials, that is such an important quality
under the agencies of natural disintegrating
forces, is not of any account during wars and
revolutions. Thus the collector, as M. Lucien
Falize says, “ n’est pas un maniaque. C’est lui
qui ramasse les morceaux, quand les peuples
en demence brisent leur idoles et leur jouets,

—il les raccommode ensuite, et les leur prete
quand la crise est passee.” The Great Revo-
lution must have been in the author’s mind
then, for there were many thousand works in
enamel destroyed during that period. It is
mainly due to the collector that we have some
of the portraits of Leonard Limousin and of
Petitot, whose works have retained all the pris-
tine beauty they possessed when they emerged
glowing from the furnace born of crystal and
fire centuries ago.

For while the royal personages which they
depicted and all their glories have long since
passed away and the very dynasties to which

they belonged have become but pages of history,
these enamels remain just the same as on the
day the artist showed them finished to the eyes
of his Imperial Master. Pallida mors aequo
pulsat pede pauperum tabernas regumque turres.

The impermanence of things is an ever-recurr-
ing thought with Horace :

Eheu ! fugaces, postume, postume,
labuntur anni, nec pietas moram
rugis et instanti senectae
afferet indomitaeque morti.

To arrest the transient, or to at least portray
some fleeting action or emotional expression,
and thus employ this characteristic of existence,
has ever been the desire of the painter who
wished to make his portrait the nearest possible
realisation of his subject. To such an artist the
illusion is all important. To carry it to its
utmost limit is his constant aim. Thus an
unconscious movement of the sitter, whereby
the true character of the personality is revealed,
is one of the means he selects. For it is in
such a moment that the shade of self-conscious-
ness which separates his subject from his vision
is removed. Such an unconscious momentary
movement, however, must be rendered in such
a way as not to disturb the sense of repose, or it
will result in producing the idea that the action
is not transient. That is to say, it should be given

PORTRAIT IN ENAMEL OF JACQUES GALIOT DE
GENOUILLAC BY LEONARD LIMOUSIN

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