Studio: international art (65.1915)

The Paris Salon of Fifty Years Ago

like a breeze, and a strong one, from the south-
east ; and never, I am sure, were strength of wind
and movement of water more vividly made visible
in a pen-and-ink drawing.

In 1865, when the picture was exhibited at the
Salon, Claude Monet scarcely was heard of, al-
though already he had
some ardent admirers.

None was more so than
M. Rene Valadon, of the
House of Goupil, and I
recollect arranging a superb
show of Monets at the old
Goupil Gallery in New
Bond Street about the year
1886. By that time Monet
had made his mark in
Paris, and M. Valadon and
I thought he ought to be
better known in London.

But in a three weeks’ exhi-
bition not one of the public
came to see the pictures,
and only one artist was a
visitor, Mr. John R. Reid,
for to no one else in
England at that time had
Monet anything to say. A
similar group in London
now, if it could be brought
together, would rouse the
whole artistic community
both lay and professional.

Ferdinand Chaigneau,
who was born at Bordeaux
in 1830, has been exhibit-
ing in the Salon until recent
years, and he has made his
name in painting animals
like his master, Brascassat.

Also, although the drawing
we now present (p. 91) is
from another locality, yet

many of Chaigneau’s finest pictures were taken round
about Barbizon. He is not a master painter in
the sense of being a leader, for those who follow
have necessarily some one in front of them, and
Chaigneau is a reflection of Millet but without the
masterly grasp of the great French peasant painter.
It was in i860 that Chaigneau came under the
spell of the Barbizon masters, and Charles Jacque
especially exercised a powerful influence over his
work. He frequently exhibited in London, and
there are several of his pictures at South Kensington.

It is odd to find our Landseer (1802-1873)
amongst the exhibitors at the Salon fifty years ago,
but our celebrated animal painter was already well
known on the Continent through the engravings
made of his works. Exactly why this drawing of
The Death of the Stag (p. 93) should have appeared
in “ L’Autographe au
Salon” for the year 1865
I do not know, for Sir
Edwin sent no pictures to
the Salon either in that
year or in 1864. There
is a little note to the
1865 reproduction which
points out, and that quite
truly, that Landseer was
not a great draughtsman,
nor a colourist, nor a de-
signer of the force of
Troyon, the equally cele-
brated animal painter of
France; but he sought
something different — the
expression, the sentiment,
or if you will, the soul of
the animal. These quali-
ties he preserved in a high
degree, and they gave his
pictures a great value even
though the colour of his
paintings resembled water-
colour rather than oil. This
judgment is quite accurate,
for generally speaking
Landseer’s works are better
appreciated through their
black-and-white reproduc-
tions than in the originals.
The engravings still retain
a good proportion of their
original value, but the pic-
tures themselves have be-
come less and less to the
liking of collectors, and the poverty of the colour is
the main reason for this decline of favour.

Our sketch is very similar in design to the
picture of The Death of the Stag in the English
National Gallery, and it is almost certainly a study
for it. The agony of the dying stag carried down
a torrent and worried by stag-hounds is vividly
shown. The painting, however, was exhibited in
the Royal Academy in 1833 and formed part of
the Vernon Bequest in 1847, and therefore many
years before the sketch was reproduced.

l’imitateur ” (jour de fian^ailles)

BY JEAN LOUIS HAMON

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