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Figaro Exposition  Year 1899    Page: 77
 
 The Fine Arts Exhibition By Philippe Gille
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J. BRETON — L’Appel Du Soir

V.-H. LESUR — Saint Louis distributing alms
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THE FINE ARTS EXHIBITION
 
Availing myself of the right I have reserved of observing no particular order in our walk through the Fine Art Galleries, I shall pause before the smallest canvases and statuettes as well as before “The Coronation of Napoleon I” David’s masterpiece; “The Battle of Poitiers” by Delacroix; “Saint-Symphorien” by Ingres; “Cromwell” by Paul Delaroehe; or “The Taking of Constantine” by Horace Vernet. Poor Horace Vernet! How many bad jokes have been perpetrated at bis expense! But go to the grand domed ball in the Fine Art Exhibition, and see the effect of his troops of little soldiers — all living, French, and plucky, as they scramble up a wall! Criticise the painter as a painter; demolish him with Delacroix, Paul Veronese, Rembrandt; nothing can be easier, comparison in a matter of art is fatal to the artist. What I ask, in the name of Horace Vernet, is that he shall escape comparison with other painters, for the simple reason that he is unlike every other painter.

His passion was for movement, and, in “The Taking of the Smala”, for instance, he has with amazing boldness sent a troop of horse galloping down on the spectator; foreshortened with unparalleled vigour, his horses, which are not in the least like the conventional horses of eighteenth-century art, but, on the contrary, just like those we see every day of our life, ridden by our own soldiers, at first
Figaro Exposition  Year 1899    Page: 78
 
 The Fine Arts Exhibition By Philippe Gille
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Figaro Exposition  Year 1899    Page: 79
 
 The Fine Arts Exhibition By Philippe Gille
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Figaro Exposition  Year 1899    Page: 80
 
 The Fine Arts Exhibition By Philippe Gille
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A. VOLLON — A Woman of Le Pollet
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startled the public; his accuracy of detail, to this day a storehouse of information, won the admiration of the crowd, for, in point of fact, every wheel, gun-carriage, and horseshoe, the uniform, shoes, and gaiters of every soldier, were represented with scrupulous and unfailing fidelity. This, in itself, was enough to set against him all whose creed it was that high art can have but one meaning. Vernet was scouted as a panorama- painter, because his canvases were of such large size; he was packed off to Versailles, and there was no more to be said concerning an artist who, during his life, had been successful as a matter of fashion. But now the exhibition of one of his works at the Champ de Mars has sufficed to show that Ingres, Delacroix, and Corot or Millet do not wholly constitute the French school. In the second rank to our writers and artists of genius we have painters, sculptors, and writers of talent, who have contributed, and not the smallest share, to the glory of the nation.

Are not certain living painters again, painters of talent — I take them in all countries — as, for example M. Lesur with his picture of “Saint Louis distributing alms”, sitting on his high chair, supporting himself with his hands as he bends forward to listen to the complaints of the poor creatures who kneel before him? May we not say as much for M. Leibl, who has just taken a silver medal for his “Old peasant”, here reproduced for our readers? M. Leibl is a German, and above all an artist. Art is not more a respecter of persons than the artist; this M. Leibl has understood, and France owed him her thanks. I return to his picture, which is well drawn and well painted, and I rank it among the best, without troubling my bead about the low water mark at which it maybe placed by experts. So also with M. Bischop's picture, “The Dressmaker”, or the “Dutch woman cutting cloth”, as the catalogue has it; in this single figure the Dutch painter has shown us a home, a life. A few leading details have sufficed, as may lie seen in our reproduction.

Talent reveals itself in a thousand different ways; it is of all nationalities and submits to no formula, by which indeed it is known. It creates and invents, it resuscitates and restores, and that simply by its inherent grace, without rhetoric or pedantry. Observe, for instance, among the Spanish
Figaro Exposition  Year 1899    Page: 81
 
 The Fine Arts Exhibition By Philippe Gille
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Miss E. GARDNER — The Farmer ’s Daughter.
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pictures, the curious “Naumacbia in the time of Augustus” signed with a name which must lie remembered, Ricardo de Villodas.

I go on a little further, and, happily for my theories, I come upon a picture by a real master, Jules Breton, who has taken a place in French art which does honour alike to his talent and to his good sense. Before explaining my meaning I would ask the reader to recall the series of fine works he has exhibited in the Galleries of Fine Art: “Morning”; “Young girls going to join a Procession; The Shepherd’s Star”; “Evening, Finistère”; “A Peasant flying from a storm”; “The Miner’s daughter”; “A Woman of Douarnenez”; “Peasants hastening to a fire”, and “L'Appel du soir”. M. Jules Breton’s best enemies have always been ready to compare him with Millet, and regard him to some extent as Millet’s pupil, merely because M. Jules Breton loves fields, peasants, and the soil; as though everything were not of the soil, as though each one did not see nature with his own eyes, coloured by his own sentiment. The truth is that no comparison of these two painters is possible, and that Millet’s poetry is a thing apart from Jules Breton’s, which is fine too. What is precisely the stamp of this artist’s great power is the fact that Millet’s success as the painter of the “Angelus” never led him astray from his own path, and that his individuality was strong enough to keep him from being drawn into the groove traced by another. In “L’Appel du soir”, for instance, look at the clear atmosphere, at the two beautiful girls calling and beckoning to their comrades; at the hay-makers carrying their load of freshly - mown hay; is it in the least like the work of any painter but Jules Breton? And is not this fine picture, with its charm, its conscientious workmanship, its lofty poetry, worth any number of those would-be masterpieces, sometimes too loudly bailed only to suffer from this puffing in the future, in proportion as they have benefited by it in the present?

We find at the Centennial Exhibition that pathetic picture by M. Fernand Pelez,“A Nest of wretchedness,” which was so successful when first exhibited. The two poor creatures, asleep in each other’s arms, have forgotten their woes. They are dreaming, and they make us dream. What more can we ask of a work of art? I may add that, besides the fundamental thought without which no statue, picture, drama, or musical composition can hold together and live, M. F. Pelez has at his command all the resources of his art; he also has a fine sense of the scale appropriate to his subject, and it is this concurrence of natural gifts, supplemented by judicious study, which has earned him the rank he now holds by the consent of artists and of the public. “A victim”, “Homeless”, “At the Opera”, and “The Acrobats” are, with “A Nest of wretchedness”, all exhibited by M. F. Pelez.

I now come to a painter whose amazing fecundity and perfect execution have raised him to the position of a leader in the modern French school, M. A. Vollon. “Bless me! How be loves oils”, cried Corot enthusiastically as be looked at a picture by one of his pupils, blazing with colour and glowing with light. I have heard that it was a study by Vollon, who had just begun to paint, which drew this exclamation from the master. It is in fact a love, a passion, for colour and form, and a matchless power of handling, which characterise the painter of “A Woman of Le Pollet”, which holds its own well among the masterpieces of Millet, Corot, and Henner hanging near it. I can imagine no more curious experience than an examination of this study, which, by dint of masterly treatment, is really a picture; the carnations, the pose, the tone, all are quite captivating; the painter takes possession of the spectator at the first glance, and he cannot tear himself from this vision. The woman in rags startles him at first, and becomes irresistibly charming as he lingers to
Figaro Exposition  Year 1899    Page: 82
 
 The Fine Arts Exhibition By Philippe Gille
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Wilhelm LEIBL — Old Peasant and Young Girl of Dachau
Figaro Exposition  Year 1899    Page: 83
 
 The Fine Arts Exhibition By Philippe Gille
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A. MAIGNAN — A Waif
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look at her. The delicate profile and its beauty in the linen kerchief; the way in which the figure is thrown forward by the attitude, lie/ hand on her hip; the full bosom, heavy in the ragged shift — every detail attracts him by that powerful truthfulness which none but a great artist can command as an auxiliary. I need only give a list of M. Vollon's works and say that he has won renewed success by these fine pictures: “The Pont-Neuf”, “Chinese porcelain”, “View of Tréport”, “A Spaniard,” “A yard”, “Oiseaux du Midi, ’’ etc. Are these all? Far from it; and the works here exhibited by M. Vollon are as nothing by comparison with the marvels from his hand which abound in our museums and private collections. I know of one, among many, a hunch of geraniums and other flowers in a copper jar, with fruit lying about, which is really a masterpiece for splendour of colour and composition, and breadth of execution.

Proceeding on my way through the enormous collection of fine pictures constituting the Centennial and Decennial Exhibitions, I come to a delightful picture by M. Albert Dawant,“A choir of children”. I fully recognise the fine qualities of his picture of the “Barque of Saint Julian the Hospitaler”, and the legitimate success of the “Shipwreck” exhibited by M. Dawant in the Salon of this year; still, I cannot help being bewitched by the special charm of the “Choir of children”. I do not allude to the feat accomplished by the artist, and highly appreciated by painters, in giving variety to the little red robes of the singing boys, for, in my opinion, the great merit of the achievement is that there is no trace of effort. The spectator has no sense of difficulty conquered; he only sees each figure in its individuality with such a stamp of nature that he feels as if it could not be otherwise; this seems to me the highest praise I can pronounce on M. Dawant, for learning is of no value in a work of any art whatever unless it is concealed, and subordinate to inspiration. No one ever dreamed of going into ecstasies over the anatomical knowledge displayed in the Milo Venus, and yet I defy the most learned anatomist to fail to detect in that wonderful form any detail which the most exacting demonstrator can point out with the tip of his dissecting knife.

To return to M. Dawant, the crowning charm of this delightful picture is the ease and simplicity with which it is set before us. All these little boys with their mouths open, in various attitudes, and stirred by different feelings, the conductor who beats the time so relentlessly, all combine in a unity of effect which is extraordinarily complete; it is a real pleasure to see such conscientious work, the outcome of hard and intelligent study, crowned with the success it deserves. M. Paul Dawant is the pupil of two great masters, Cabanel and M. Jean Paul Laurens, and he does them honour.
Philippe Gille