Puvis de Chavannes Part 1

Puvis de Chavannes.

by Francois Crastre.

INTRODUCTION

Glory does not dispense her favours to the deserving with an equal bounty. Painters as well as authors often suffer from the caprices of the inconstant G.o.ddess. While there are some who, guided by her benevolent hand, attain the pinnacle of fortune at the first attempt and almost without effort, other artists with a genius akin to that of Millet live in a state bordering upon penury and die in dest.i.tution.

Renown seeks them out later, much too late, and tardy laurels flower only upon their tomb.

Puvis de Chavannes for a long time fared scarcely better than these ill.u.s.trious mendicants of art. He experienced the bitter pangs of injustice, the hostility of ignorance, the discouragement of finding himself misunderstood. If he was spared the extreme distress of Millet, it was solely because he was the more fortunate of the two in possessing a small private income. But nothing can crush the spirit of the born artist; neither contempt nor ridicule can hold him back. Puvis de Chavannes was endowed with a valiant and a tenacious spirit. Entrenched within the loftiness of his artistic ideal, as within a tower of bronze, he was steadfastly scornful of critics, affecting not to hear them; and never would he consent to disarm them by concessions that in his eyes would have seemed dishonourable. Yet this rare probity brought its own reward. The great painter attained the joy of seeing himself at last understood, and not only understood but admired during his life-time. He must even have derived an ironic satisfaction from counting among his warmest adherents certain ones who had formerly been conspicuous as his most violent detractors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE II.--THE PIETY OF SAINT GENEVIEVE

(In the Pantheon, Paris)

In this composition, exceptionally fine in feeling, Puvis de Chavannes shows how much importance he attached to landscape, which was the natural setting of his paintings, and which he treated with as much care as his personages themselves.]

Today the glory of Puvis de Chavannes shines forth in uncontested splendour. No one dreams of comparing him with any of his contemporaries, because his art reveals no kinship with that of any one of them. He is recognized as the successor and the equal of the great fresco painters of the Italian Renaissance. Even to these he owes nothing, having borrowed nothing from them. But he shares with them his pa.s.sionate love of truth, his n.o.bility of inspiration and sincerity of execution. There are no longer insinuating and derisory shakings of the head in the presence of his works. One must be devoid of soul in order not to sense their beauty. Even the ignorant, in the presence of this form of art which they do not understand, gaze upon it with respectful wonder, as upon something very great, the content of which they fail to make out, although they realize its power from the inner emotion they experience.

"My dear boy," wrote Puvis de Chavannes to one of his pupils, "direct your soul compa.s.s-like, towards some work of beauty; that is the way to achieve it in its entirety."

It is because he directed his own soul, compa.s.s-like, only towards works of a n.o.ble and pure beauty, surrendering himself with all the ardour of his impetuous and vibrant nature, that Puvis de Chavannes has taken his place as one of the n.o.blest figures, not only in contemporary painting, but also in the painting of all times.

THE FIRST YEARS

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was born at Lyons, December 14, 1824. His parents were in affluent circ.u.mstances and were connected with one of the old Burgundian families. His father pursued the vocation of chief engineer of mines, at Lyons. In the registry of births, in which the new-born child was entered, the father is designated simply by the name of Marie-Julien-Cesar Puvis. The honourable t.i.tle of "de Chavannes,"

claimed later and with good right by the family, was confirmed to him by a decree of the Court of Lyons, bearing date of May 20, 1859.

Young Puvis de Chavannes was sent, first to the Lycee at Lyons, later to the Lycee Henri IV, at Paris. But nothing either in the boy's tastes or in his apt.i.tudes gave any hint of his future vocation; he showed no special inclination for drawing, nor even for art in general. Son of a mining engineer, he applied himself naturally to the exact sciences; and he would probably have donned the uniform of a polytechnic student, had it not been for an illness which the family looked upon as most unfortunate, but which posterity regards as providential. The young man was forced to interrupt his studies and bid good-bye to mathematics. Two years later he took a trip to Italy, in the company of a young married couple. In true tourist fashion he made the rounds of museums and churches; he conscientiously inspected the great masterpieces in which the peninsula abounds; but, by his own admission, he brought back no real profit from his travels. They were not, however, entirely futile, since they awakened in him the desire to become a painter. Upon returning to France he announced his determination to his family, and having won their consent, entered the studio of Henri Scheffer, brother of Ary Scheffer.

Italy, seen too hastily, had taught Puvis de Chavannes nothing: the studio hardly served him to better purpose. But, through contact with Henri Scheffer, he acquired a respect not only for art but for the conception which each one must form of it for himself. The young neophyte, who was destined in later years to be himself a living example of fidelity to an ideal, remained forever thankful to the author of _Charlotte Corday_ for having imbued him with this n.o.ble sentiment. He always retained of him, throughout life, an affectionate and grateful memory.

Scheffer's paintings, however, were far from satisfying his personal conception of art. Before very long he left his studio and betook himself to that of Delacroix. The latter admitted him readily; but the new pupil was not slow in discovering that here again he was out of his element. The great romantic painter, although an admirable artist, was a mediocre instructor. He alone, for that matter, could risk the violent colour schemes with which he covered his canvases; his pupils succeeded only in accentuating a debauch of thick-spread pigments by coupling together tones that cried aloud from the walls of the studio. The instinct of harmony and of proportion which was already awakening in Puvis de Chavannes, revolted against these audacities: he found himself ill at ease in the midst of this orgy of colour. It was after no such fashion that nature appeared to his eyes. He had about made up his mind to leave the studio of Delacroix when the latter, angered by criticisms and piqued at seeing the attendance falling off, decided to close his doors.

It was at this time that young Puvis entered the studio of Couture.

There again his stay was brief, and we find in his work few traces of the lessons there received. Once again it was only the conventional and artificial that were held up as object lessons for that young soul enamoured of the truth, for those wide-opened eyes that saw nature precisely as she is, and not under the tinsel glitter of fantasy under which the studio of the period draped her. It followed that he learned nothing from that school; nevertheless, he did not disown it. In the annual Salon Catalogue, Puvis de Chavannes continued to proclaim himself a pupil of Scheffer and of Couture.

Once again the young painter found himself without a master, yet still eager to learn and as yet equipped with only a mediocre and highly defective rudimentary training. Convinced that he would never obtain the right start in any of the studios of the French capital, he determined, in company of one of his friends, Beauderon de Vermeron, to go in search of definite guidance, back to that same Italy which he had visited the first time with such small profit. This time he studied all the periods, all the schools, all the methods of Italian painting; he visited both Rome and Florence; and yet all his sympathies, as he himself declared, went out instinctively to the Venetian school which had produced t.i.tian, Tintoretto, and, greatest of all, Veronese, inimitable prince of fresco and of decoration.

Returning to Paris, Puvis de Chavannes no longer dreamed of soliciting the guidance of any school; henceforth he was to pursue his own path, to give heed only to his own temperament, to draw his inspiration only from nature herself. In the Place Pigalle he hired a studio, the same which he was destined to occupy for forty-four years, and which he quitted only two years before his death. Later on he possessed another, at Neuilly, in which to work upon his larger compositions, since there would not have been s.p.a.ce enough for them in the Montmartre studio.

Whatever the weather, through cold and through heat, Puvis de Chavannes could be seen, for more than thirty years, making his way on foot, with long, rapid strides, from the Place Pigalle to Neuilly or in the reverse direction. This daily promenade grew to be a necessity; it was the sole recreation of this painter so enslaved by his art that in a certain sense he might be called a Benedictine of painting.

In 1852, the date when his real career began, Puvis de Chavannes was twenty-eight years of age. He was at this time a handsome young fellow, tall of stature and large of frame, quick-witted, jovial and enthusiastic, and combining the whole-souled simplicity of the artist with the polished manners of a man of the world, inherited from his father. Many people conceive of Puvis de Chavannes as melancholy and sombre. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was fond of all the joys of living, friendly gatherings, abundant good cheer. But what he prized above all, thanks to the perfect balance of his physique, was the ability to apply his robust health to incessant work, which he pursued without intermission up to the day of his death.

In 1850, Puvis de Chavannes made his debut by sending to the Salon a _Pieta_, which was accepted. His joy was great, for it was the joy of the first step. Later on, his satisfaction in that picture diminished.

It had certain defects, and gave evidence of inexperience, which the young painter was quick to perceive. That same year he painted _Jean Cavalier at the bed-side of his Mother_, and an _Ecce h.o.m.o_, bold in execution and violent in tone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE III.--THE POOR FISHERMAN

(In the Musee de Luxembourg, Paris)

No one else, excepting Millet, had the skill to render with so much truth the physical and moral distress of the unfortunate. This resigned fisherman, bending his back under the inclement sky, is a veritable masterpiece, both in execution and in observation.]

In 1852, the pictures which he submitted to the Salon were rejected by the jury, and this ostracism continued for several years. It was an epoch when every effort towards artistic independence was officially and systematically repressed. The young artist was not alone in disfavour; he shared it with a number of his friends, some of whom were already famous, or at least well known. Equally with himself, Courbet, Dupre, Barye, Rousseau, Millet, Troyon, Corot, Diaz and Delacroix found themselves ejected from the doors of the temple. In the eyes of the Academy, they were all of them madmen or revolutionaries; for his part, he was treated with less honour: he was regarded as a maniac of no importance. His exclusion lasted for nine years, during which the critics and the public united in making him the target for their sarcasms.

Puvis de Chavannes was always keenly sensitive to criticism; it cut him to the quick, but he prided himself on showing no outward sign. He repaid it by affecting the most complete disdain. When anyone in his presence bestowed only a qualified praise on one of his works, his lips would betray his scorn in a faint crease, which Rodin, another misunderstood giant, has admirably caught in his buste of the painter.

As it happened, however, Puvis de Chavannes was rarely fortunate in having the encouragement and support of such an admirable companion as the Princess Cantacuzene. That splendid woman, of exceptional intelligence and distinction, enjoyed art and understood it; she fell in love with Puvis de Chavannes and became his wife. "Whatever I am and whatever I have done," wrote the painter, "is all due to her."

Throughout more than forty years, she filled the role of beneficent genius to the artist, the Egeria whose voice he never failed to heed.

Puvis de Chavannes had worshipped faithfully at her shrine; and when she died, he felt that the term of his own life had reached its end. He survived her scarcely more than a few months.

Under the shelter of her far-sighted affection, the artist closed his ears to hostile comments, and followed his bent, without trying to modify his manner of seeing and feeling nature. None the less, the paintings of this period are far from perfect; a certain constraint is apparent in them, due to inexperience and also to some lingering influence either of his studio training or of Italy. _The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian_, _The Village Firemen_, _Meditation_, _Herodiade_, _Julie_, _Saint Camilla at the_ _bedside of a dying man_, while they reveal some very genuine personal qualities, are none the less somewhat reminiscent of the manner of Couture, by whom he seems to have been most directly influenced.

His first real picture, the one which first marked and fixed for all time the artist's personality, was _Peace_, now in the Museum at Amiens.

So much knowledge and so much harmony were displayed in this picture that the jury simply did not dare reject it. What is more, it won for its author a medal of the second cla.s.s. He was not slow in giving it a companion piece, in the shape of a painting ent.i.tled _War_, which is now also at Amiens.

In the first of these pictures, the one consecrated to the pleasures of _Peace_, everything seems quite academic, the poses, the composition, the countenances: and yet, there is no stiffness, everything is vibrant, alive, palpitating in a serene and luminous atmosphere. The artist has herein magnificently demonstrated the truth of a phrase which he wrote to Ary Renan, in the course of a trip which the latter took to Italy: "Just as you yourself feel and have very well expressed, no study of other artists' work can trammel one's originality." Neither the memory of Italy nor the influence of Couture had prevented him from a.s.serting himself, and that, too, vigorously.

_War_ is, if anything, superior to _Peace_. The painter is here wholly himself. There is no longer in his work any trace of outside influence.

And what vigour there is, what eloquence, in the simplicity of the composition! Is there in existence a more admirable argument against war and its horrors? Beside the corpse of a young warrior, a father and mother are prostrated, voicing aloud their anguish; and meanwhile the conquerors, approaching from the far horizon black with devastation and slaughter, blow their victorious trumpets and urge their horses forward towards the group of mourners.

From that moment, Puvis de Chavannes began to command attention. He was discussed more acrimoniously, more pa.s.sionately than ever; no one could neglect him nor pretend not to have heard of him.

The government bought _Peace_, but refused to purchase _War_, in spite of the fact that the two paintings were companion pieces. In order to prevent them from being separated, the artist generously donated the second picture.

In 1863 came a new series representing _Labour_ and _Rest_. Faithful to his principles, the author gathers together on his canvas the entire cycle of actions and ideas suggested by his subject.

In _Labour_ he has placed in the foreground a group of blacksmiths, representing, in his eyes, the fully developed type of the worker, because of the degree of their exertion, the vigour of their action.

While two of them stir the fire, the others, armed with heavy sledges, strike alternate blows upon the anvil. At no great distance, some carpenters are squaring the trunks of trees; beyond, on the plain, a peasant can be seen, guiding his ploughshare through its furrow. In the foreground there is also a woman, nursing a young child. The entire cycle of human toil is glorified in this single painting.

_Repose_ shows us an old man seated, giving to the young folk grouped around him wise counsel, drawn from his long experience. Nothing could be more graceful than the relaxed postures of the different figures, who, we feel, are listening with real attention.

Since these four pictures, _Peace_, _War_, _Labour_, _Repose_, were the interpretation of general ideas, the artist could not give them any precise setting, any local colour. The nude, which is employed for all the figures, was his sole means of obtaining absolute truth.

Already at this period one perceives in Puvis an anxious endeavour to sacrifice all the little easy methods of winning acclaim, in order to be free to concern himself solely with the harmony of his subject as a whole. Throughout his entire life, he was destined to have no greater preoccupation than that of effacing himself completely, and forcing the public, when in the presence of his work, to see nothing but the work itself and to give not a thought to the painter.

During the year 1864, the results of Puvis de Chavannes' industry were fairly abundant. At the Salon, he exhibited two very beautiful canvases, _Autumn_ and _Sleep_.

The first of these two pictures is symbolic and represents the different ages of life in the form of women of unequal years. One of them, her pensive face already marked with lines, watches her companions gathering flowers and fruit, symbols of youth.

This work, charming in composition, is now in the collection of the Museum at Lyons.

_Sleep_, a large decorative composition, after the manner of _Peace_ and _War_, is in the Museum at Lille.