Bastien Lepage Part 1

Bastien Lepage.

by Fr. Crastre.

There are certain beings who bear the stamp of the divine seal and are preordained to receive the highest favours within the gift of glory; they are fated to pa.s.s through life like those brilliant meteors which are seen to flash across the heavens and disappear in the same instant.

Bastien-Lepage was one of these meteors. But while the others leave behind them only a luminous trail that swiftly vanishes, this rare artist, s.n.a.t.c.hed so prematurely from the field of art, traced his pa.s.sage in a furrow of dazzling splendour, the radiance of which has not even yet begun to fade.

Bastien-Lepage was a painter in the n.o.blest acceptation of the term; it may even be a.s.serted that he would have exercised considerable influence upon the art of his epoch if Destiny had not stupidly mown down the st.u.r.dy flower of his genius in the very hour of its brightest blossoming. Born into this world with a solid tenacity of purpose which seems to be a special gift of the soil of Lorraine to her sons and daughters, he had a clear-cut and unalterable conception of what painting should be. His mind was receptive only of simple ideas, his eye perceived only visions that were tangible, such as were un.o.bscured by any shadow or any artifice. He was the apostle of clearness, both in conception and in execution. Every time that he tried experimentally to turn aside from his chosen path, he ceased to be himself, he fell below his own standards. What interested him most of all, in the life of this world which he observed so eagerly, as though he had a presentiment of his early end, was nature's most precise and most uncompromising manifestation, both in line and in relief; namely, the peasant and the environment which frames him. Having deliberately chosen such models, Bastien-Lepage could not pretend to be the painter of the Beautiful, nor did he ever become so. He did not even adorn his subjects with that special sort of idealism with which Millet embellished even his most uncouth rustic types, a slightly melancholy idealism obtained by a sombre toning down of colour, which Bastien-Lepage held in horror. His peasants stand out boldly, in the crude glare of flamboyant noontide, under a summer sun that refuses to leave hidden any part of their ugliness or their defects. He painted them as he saw them, with the searching rays striking them full in the face; and his brush was a stranger to any compromise, intolerant of even the slightest betterment, in the course of the literal transference of his model to his canvas. It made no difference how handsome or how homely a given subject might be, Bastien-Lepage would always render him precisely as nature, in a grudging or indulgent mood, had made him,--that is to say, truly and sincerely, with a precision that would be almost photographic, if the minuteness of his technique were not enn.o.bled by the high quality of his art. With such gifts, Bastien-Lepage was foreordained to be a marvellous interpreter of rural life, and such he was in the highest degree; in like manner, he could not fail to become a portrait painter of the first order, and it was in this capacity also that he enrolled himself among the most interesting and vigorous artists of our epoch.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

PLATE II.--PORTRAIT OF M. WALLON

(Museum of the Louvre)

Few artists have been able to endow their models with such an animated expression of life. All the keenness, intelligence and austerity of this prominent personage, known by the name of Father of the Const.i.tution, are eloquently transferred to this page, with a sobriety of means that still further emphasizes its vigour.]

HIS YOUTH

Jules Bastien-Lepage was born at Damvillers, in the department of the Meuse, on the first of November, 1848. His parents were of the well-to-do farming cla.s.s, occupied from one year's end to the other with the work of the fields. Consequently, all the early boyhood of the artist was pa.s.sed in daily contact with the soil of Lorraine and with the sons of that soil. He knew them, one and all, in his native village; he grew up among them; he went to school side by side with the other little rustics of his own age: he understood the peasant cla.s.s, with all their faults, their virtues, their habits of life; he learned to read in their faces, which were a sealed book to the outsider, the opinions and emotions which they had in common with him.

These childhood impressions were destined to abide with him throughout his life; he cherished to the end a fervent love for his native land, and he felt that he had an infinitely n.o.ble task in painting that life of the fields which the Second Empire affected to despise.

But though he came of peasant stock, it was Bastien-Lepage's good fortune that these same peasants were in prosperous circ.u.mstances and could afford to give him an education. They were ambitious for him; and it hurt them to see their little Jules, who was so wide-awake, so intelligent, and at the same time so frail, leading the hard and monotonous life of the fields, following the plough, tilling the soil.

It needed only a few household economies to enable him to continue his studies; so, when the time came, young Bastien-Lepage wended his way towards Verdun, where he entered upon his college course.

There is nothing that marks in any particular way these years of study, nothing to indicate that the boy was a youthful prodigy, nor that he showed any special apt.i.tude for drawing. But he was studious, diligent, and anxious to avoid repremands and to fulfil the expectations of his parents. In due time he obtained his bachelor's degree, which at that period was highly prized. His father, filled with pride, already began to form brilliant projects for his future, already foresaw him a distinguished official, supervising some great branch of the public service. As a matter of fact, a position was found for the young baccalaureate in a government department which was neither the most desirable nor the one of least importance; namely, the Post Office Department. Bastien-Lepage was not vastly delighted with the choice, but, dutiful son that he was, he accepted the modest clerkship offered him. One circ.u.mstance contributed, in a large degree, towards overcoming his reluctance: the post a.s.signed to him from the start was in Paris, of which he had often heard marvellous things, and in which he hoped that he would be able to follow his secret inclination. For, in the interval his vocation had revealed itself; he had conceived a pa.s.sion for drawing, for colouring, for painting; and, like Correggio, he was eager to say in his turn, "I too am a painter!"

Accordingly he set forth, leaving behind him no suspicion of his purpose. Upon arriving at the capital, he acquitted himself scrupulously of his official duties, but every leisure moment was consecrated to visiting the museums and exhibitions. He saturated himself with the wealth of beauty strewn broadcast through the Louvre, and was thrilled with admiration at contact with the masters of every school and country.

He did not care equally for them all, in spite of their genius; his intimate preferences leaned to the side of Flemish rather than Italian art; but he was not insensible to the lofty inspiration, the severe harmony, the faultless composition, which have made the great masters of the Renaissance the most astonishing prodigies in the history of painting.

But while the older schools of art delighted him, he followed with no less attention the movement of contemporary painting. At the hour when his critical spirit awoke, certain new elements and new formulas had come to light and had been put into practice by two audacious and gifted artists by the names of Courbet and Manet. Although the prolonged struggle between the cla.s.sicists and romanticists had not yet come to an end, these two rival schools were entrenched in their positions and refused to stir forth from them. Supporters of Delacroix and of Ingres confined themselves strictly to their respective hostile formulas, doing nothing either to expand or to rejuvenate them. Whoever dared to venture outside of one of these two beaten tracks was regarded as a madman, and his attempts were greeted with derisive clamours by both parties, who declared a momentary truce, for the purpose of annihilating him by a joint attack. Courbet, who was scorned by Ingres, met with equally harsh criticism from Delacroix; and as for Manet, he had managed to call down universal wrath upon his head, and at the Salon of 1863 it became necessary to place his _Olympia_ in the very topmost line upon the wall, in order to protect it from the fury of the public, hounded on by the hue and cry of the critics.

Bastien-Lepage made mental notes of all the episodes of this struggle; he listened to the criticisms and pa.s.sed them through the crucible of his unspoiled mind, in the presence of the very works under indictment.

His good sense showed him how large an element of injustice entered into these hostilities. Moreover, his peasant blood inclined him to sympathize with those artists who refused to bind themselves to seek for beauty only within the limits of academic form, and who had the ability to make it flash forth from the humblest and even the most vulgar type of subject. Furthermore, this constant study of matters pertaining to art, day by day added fuel to the hidden fire smouldering within him; he was conscious of its mounting flame. Back of the rude sketches, drawn and coloured in the tiny chamber befitting an humble postal clerk, he perceived vaguely that he also possessed the temperament of a painter, and little by little he witnessed the unfolding of his artist's soul.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE III.--THE ARTIST'S MOTHER

(Collection of e. Bastien-Lepage)

What a kindly and gentle face this is, the face of the woman to whom the artist applied the tender endearment of "Good little mother!" In this work, it is evident that the heart guided the hand of the painter. None but a son could have rendered with such emotion the humid tenderness of those eyes and the maternal caress of those lips. It is a powerful work, which enrolls Bastien-Lepage in the foremost rank of portrait painters.]

At last, unable to bear it longer, he resigned from the postal service and enrolled his name at the Beaux-Arts. At this time, when he entered the studio of Cabanel, he was but little more than nineteen years of age. Cabanel, to be sure, was not the painter of his choice, but Bastien-Lepage was not for that reason any the less appreciative of a system of instruction which was dominated by a worship of line-work. His training under Cabanel was not without value to the young artist, who throughout his life, even in his most realistic paintings, proved himself to be an impeccable master of design.

At the outset, however, he was beset with difficulties. Now that his salary as a postal clerk had ceased and remittances from the family were necessarily restricted, Bastien-Lepage exerted himself to gain a living by his own efforts. He had no lack of courage, and he had in addition that Lorraine tenacity which enabled him to confront all difficulties with tranquil a.s.surance. He worked with desperate energy, and in the intervals of respite from his labours he overran all Paris in search of orders from business houses. It was an inglorious task, but at least it enabled him to live; thus it happened that about 1873 he produced a widely circulated advertis.e.m.e.nt for a perfumery house. Up to this time he had remained wholly unknown; and although he had already exhibited one painting, at the Salon of 1870, it was pa.s.sed by unheeded both by the critics and the general public.

This lack of success in no wise discouraged him, for he had faith. It was in the year 1874 that he exhibited _The Song of Springtime_. It was a veritable revelation. There was no neglect this time. The public gathered in throngs before his canvas, and the critics, notwithstanding a few objections to details, were lavish in their praise and hailed him as having the qualities of a true artist. Naturally, the picture was not perfect, but it well merited the flattering reception which it received.

In a springtime landscape a young peasant girl is seated beneath a tree, looking before her over a sunlit plain. Around her skirts a whole bevy of Cupids are gathering blossoms and offering them to the girl.

Here, at the first stroke, is an a.s.sertion of the young painter's independence, his formal determination to emanc.i.p.ate himself from the accepted formulas in his treatment of the eternal theme of a young girl's soul, opening to the first appeal of love. As a matter of fact, the allegory is somewhat clumsy; you realize that the author's talent does not run to sentimental compositions. Yet the young girl is brushed in with an energetic hand, and all that rather coa.r.s.e robustness that distinguishes the women of peasant stock is blended in a masterly manner with the nave innocence of simple souls. _The Song of Springtime_ was Bastien-Lepage's first attempt in that vein of realistic painting in which he was soon destined to excel.

That same year he produced _Grandfather's Portrait_, which also attracted much attention. The artist had placed his model in the little garden adjoining the home of his birth. This portrait, which belongs to-day to the painter's brother, is remarkable for its naturalness, its touch of intimate understanding, and its vigour of execution.

Bastien-Lepage had now acquired a name. His _Song of Springtime_ won him a third cla.s.s medal, and the State purchased the painting for the museum at Verdun, where it at present hangs.

In the following year he exhibited _Her First Communion_, picturing a young and pretty country girl, stiff and self-conscious under her white veil. This work was the product of keen observation, and is deliberately stilted and traditional in its style of execution, recalling in some measure the French primitive school. Bastien-Lepage evidently had in mind the portraits by Francois Cluet: his little communicant is infinitely artificial in her spotless finery, yet infinitely alive under the thin surface wash of colour which recalls the _Elizabeth of Austria_, wife of Charles IX, as painted by the greatest of the French primitives.

Simultaneously with this picture he exhibited the _Portrait of M.

Hayem_, in which the vigorous treatment of the face, with its clear, firm colour tones and sober workmanship, proclaimed him already a portrait painter of the first order.

His success this time was more marked: he received a medal of the second cla.s.s. A less modest artist would have allowed himself to be borne tranquilly along by the mounting tide of glory; but Bastien-Lepage did not yet feel that he was sufficiently sure of himself. He wished to continue for a while longer, working, learning, perfecting himself; he even conceived the idea, in spite of his renown, of competing for the _Prix de Rome_. Accordingly, the painter of _The Song of Springtime_ and _Her First Communion_ might shortly after have been seen entering the lists like any ordinary n.o.body. He obtained only the second prize.

He presented himself again the following year, but with no better success. The subject a.s.signed for the compet.i.tion was _Priam at the Feet of Achilles_. It is easy to understand that such a theme was little calculated to inspire an artist of Bastien-Lepage's temperament; he found it impossible to attain full development unless in the presence of nature herself. No amount of manual dexterity can take the place of inborn faith, and the young artist had no faith in antiquity; he never could muster any enthusiasm for the Greek or Roman G.o.ds, nor for historic scenes in which the very att.i.tudes are dictated by the rules and regulations of time-honoured tradition.

Nevertheless, the work is not without merit; it is forceful, its colouring is good, and it falls short of perfection only in failing to conform sufficiently with what we know of ancient life. This painting is at present to be found in the Museum at Lille.

This rebuff did not discourage Bastien-Lepage unreasonably; but he decided to confine himself in the future to painting portraits and picturing the life of the fields.

HIS BEST YEARS

The same year that he failed for the second time in the compet.i.tion for the _Prix de Rome_, Bastien-Lepage painted _The Portrait of M. Wallon_, which is one of his most important works as a portrait painter. In spite of its tendency towards naturalism, this canvas was nevertheless still conceived in accordance with the established technique, and the keen and serious visage of the Father of the Const.i.tution standing out against its sombre background is a fine study in chiaroscuro.

But the following year he struck the naturalistic note more strongly in his _Portrait of Lady L._, the only full-length, life-sized portrait that he ever painted; and he declared himself plainly and definitely a realist in his picture ent.i.tled _My Parents_. It would be impossible to find two figures more life-like, more literal, or painted with greater sincerity. This canvas amounted to a declaration of principles; for an artist whom filial piety cannot turn aside from the truth will never make sacrifices to convention: he will never consent to embellish or idealize his models through tricks of his craft; he will paint them as he sees them, without correcting any of the imperfections and ugliness with which nature has afflicted them. How clearly we recognize that these likenesses of Bastien-Lepage's parents are absolutely true to life, and how much better we like them as they are, in the simple intimacy of daily life, than if they had been decked out, all spick and span, as a less scrupulous artist would inevitably have shown them to us!

Bastien-Lepage's brother, himself a painter of some talent, has preserved in his studio at Neuilly a certain number of the artist's works, which he surrounds with pious care and feelingly exhibits to occasional visitors. The family portraits are there, pulsating with life and radiating that generous peasant kindliness which finds expression in a broad and tender smile. The father, seated in a chair in his garden, an old man with shrewd yet friendly eyes, seems so real, so actual, that we almost expect him to step down from his frame to bid us welcome. And what a marvel the _Portrait of my Mother_ is, which forms a companion piece on the same wall! A somewhat wistful charm pervades this face, with its deeply graven lines, and an infinite tenderness, a true mother's tenderness, hovers over the thin, pale lips.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE IV--HAY-MAKING

(Museum of the Luxembourg)

A masterpiece of contemporary painting, because of the truth of its att.i.tudes and the vigour of its execution. It would be impossible to render more forcibly the blissfulness of rest when the body has been racked by the exhausting labour of the soil. In this picture, Bastien-Lepage revealed himself as an incomparable painter of rural life.]

Perhaps this is the moment, in the presence of these pictures, to emphasize Bastien-Lepage's great value as a colourist. Few contemporary painters have used colour with so much tact, such veritable mastery as he. Others have employed more dazzling tonal schemes and have achieved more gorgeous effects, but no one has rendered with such exact truth the tints of the flesh, the grayish folds of wrinkles, the profound light of the eye. And his colour is always clear, always unmistakably employed to produce a sought-after effect. There is no artifice, no trick-work, it is all straightforward, honest, precise; the opposition of light and shade never result in opacity, bitumen plays no part in his canvases, the astonishing relief of which is obtained by means of such perfect simplicity that it recalls the inimitable technique of Correggio.

In 1878 he exhibited _Hay-making_, that magisterial page from the life of the fields which to-day is the pride of the Luxembourg museum, and which the art of the engraver has scattered broadcast to the extent of millions of copies.

This picture represents a vast sun-bathed meadow, overstrewn with new-mown hay and punctuated, here and there, by the rounded cones of the stacks. Against the blue background of the sky, green hill-tops trace an undulant line. In the foreground a robust, bony-armed country-woman is seated on the gra.s.s, her legs stretched out before her in an att.i.tude expressive of the utter weariness resulting from the work performed.

Her head, solidly planted on her ma.s.sive neck, is a marvel of realism; in her vulgar peasant face we may read health, strength, and a sort of dulled mentality born of physical fatigue. In every fibre of her exhausted body the woman is veritably resting, and through her half-parted lips it seems as though we could detect the pa.s.sage of her hurried breathing. The man beside her, no less worn out than she, is stretched at full length on the thick couch of gra.s.s, and with his hat over his face, to shelter it from the sun, he is sleeping as though dead to the world.

Every detail of this canvas is perfect, because every detail is true, drawn straight from life, the fruit of minute observation. In it Bastien-Lepage once more affirms his predilection for the open country; and nothing could be more impressive than these two uncouth, vulgar, homely human beings, set amid the splendour of a meadow turned golden by the sun. It is an every-day spectacle; it would not seem at first sight to contain material for a picture. But Bastien-Lepage has succeeded in proving indisputably that beauty does not consist solely in the harmony of the body, but in the impression which emanates from scenes that are most humble in outward appearance. In these few square feet of canvas the artist has summed up, perhaps without intending it, all the majesty of nature and all the grandeur of the life of the fields. It is scarcely necessary to add that this work is a transcript of the soil of Lorraine, that good natal soil which he loved so profoundly and to which he returned eagerly, year after year.