A History of Sculpture

by Ernest Henry Short

CHAPTER XII

THE ART OF MONARCHICAL FRANCE

(FROM FRANCIS I., 1515 a.d., TO
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 1789)

Among the commonplaces uppermost in latter-day thought is that which usually finds expression in the phrase, “For East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” Whether this dogma be ultimately true or not it certainly enshrines a far-reaching truth. The difference between the typical Eastern and the typical Western mind goes down to the deepest philosophical beliefs of both. The circumstances under which the two types have been moulded differ so widely that they hardly appear to move on the same mental plane.

But the Eastern and the Western are not the only types which offer the strongest contrast the one to the other. Between the North and the South, too, there is a great gulf fixed—a vital historical fact which Heine has expressed with unforgettable vividness in two short stanzas. In the first, he pictures the black fir-tree on the bald hill-brow of the North. He speaks of its icy garb, and shows it sleeping and dreaming amid the eternal snows:

“It sleeps and dreams of a palm-tree, Far off in the morning land, Lonely and silent, pining On a cliff o’er the shimmering sand.”

For thousands of years the great mountain chains of mid-Europe cut off the man in the North from the man in the South, as completely as the barren steppes of Eastern Europe and Western Asia divided East from West. To this very day the long winters and cool summers, the sombre skies and deep forests, have operated to produce a body of thought and emotion in the North of Europe that differs entirely from that nourished under the clear skies and in the warm winds of Italy and Greece. The mysticism of the Northman, his yearning to be at one with the Ultimate Reality, is foreign to the typical Southern intellect—as foreign as the dim forests, in which the mystical gloom of the Northern imagination arose, are to the fruitful plains in which the sunnier creed of the Southerner had its birth.

These general considerations prepare the way naturally enough for a review of the history of sculpture in Northern Europe. Hitherto we have considered the progress of the art in Italy and Greece. The sunny human creed of the Southern temperament, at any rate, was able to find full expression in marble and bronze. Can we say as much for the mystical philosophy of such countries as Germany, France, Holland and England?

The influence of the prevailing trend of thought can be clearly traced in several northern arts—in architecture and music, for instance—or, again, in a Rembrandt portrait. Surely this is as typical a product of the northern imagination, with its mysticism and gloom, as a picture by Botticelli or Correggio, with its wealth of fancy and its delight in light and space, is of the southern temperament.

But, turning to the work of the northern sculptors, we cannot say this. The deepest emotions of the northern artist have found more natural expression in the drama, in poetry, music and painting. The reason is not far to seek. All these arts are far more universal in their range. Sculpture depends entirely upon so human a thing as the body of a man or a woman. It is naturally more fitted for the exposition of a creed in which mankind occupies the chief place. Equally naturally, the other arts serve better for the unfolding of a belief which bases everything upon the will of an extra-mundane God, manifesting Himself not in man alone but in the whole of the natural world.

Be that as it may, it is certain that when we turn to the sculpture of the North, we find few traces of the mystical outlook upon life which is implicit in other northern art. By the time the sculptors of the North had acquired the technical skill to express their thought and emotion they apparently found themselves unable to embody their deepest belief in their works. This, no doubt, explains why sculpture has never been a popular art in any Northern country, why it has never occupied the place there which it did in Greece or Rome; why it has always been a stranger art, making its appeal to the few and not to the many.

It must not be imagined that the failure of sculpture to take a strong hold upon the popular imagination of the North has been due to the absence of craftsmen of the first order. Directly the Renaissance in Italy made itself felt in the countries beyond the Alps, a vigorous school of sculpture arose. Nothing could exceed the technical skill and the sincerity of purpose displayed in Peter Vischer’s “[King Arthur],” one of the twenty-eight colossal figures surrounding the tomb of Maximilian at Innsbruck. But seeing that the sculptor died in 1529, and that the best years of his working life practically correspond with the age of Luther’s Reformation, surely something more than earnestness of purpose and profound technical skill might have been shown. The Maximilian memorial certainly proves that the leading German sculptors of the Reformation era had progressed beyond the Gothic decorators whom they succeeded. But why has not the “[King Arthur]” the vital interest of a Durer engraving? Why does it lack the inspiration of a really fine Holbein portrait? Surely it is because the sculptor had never realized the true meaning of the word “humanity.” He lacked that passionate delight in the beauty of the human body which lay at the root of the Hellenic sculptor’s success. The vital element of a vigorous school of sculpture was wanting. Under these circumstances it is not wonderful that even the standard of craftsmanship attained by Peter Vischer was not maintained by the German sculptors who followed him. The conversion of Germany to Protestantism entailed a general discouragement of all art effort. As had been the case in the early history of the Christian Church, the leaders of the religious movement sternly opposed anything that satisfied the æsthetic cravings of mankind.

PETER VISCHER

KING ARTHUR

The Maximilian Tomb, Innsbruck

THE AGE OF FRANCIS I.

Fortunately this sternly anti-humanistic creed was not adopted throughout Northern Europe. In particular, it failed to find acceptance among the Frenchmen who made their country the first power in Western Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As in Germany, the growth of an independent school of sculpture in France dated from the early years of the sixteenth century when the influence of the Italian Renaissance began to spread beyond the peninsula. The French equivalent of Peter Vischer was Michel Colombe. Colombe was the tailleur d’images to three kings of France, Louis XI., Charles VIII., and Louis XII. His best known work is the tomb of Francis II., Duke of Brittany, at Nantes. But it is rather as the founder of the school of sculpture at Tours that Colombe claims our attention.

Early in the sixteenth century Tours was the foremost art centre in France. Fouquet, the miniaturist, who died about 1480 a.d., was a native of the town. Jean Clouet (Janet), the portrait painter, also lived at Tours for some time. About 1520 there was an official studio in the town, presided over by Babou de la Bourdaisière with a full complement of sculptors, jewellers, engravers, and painters. The chief product of the school of sculpture at Tours was the long series of Royal Tombs at St. Denis, set up by the French kings of the sixteenth century. It is here that we can best estimate the capacity of the earliest native French sculptors.

The similarity in the general design of the royal tombs at St. Denis is so marked that almost any example would be equally illustrative. In many respects the most representative is that of Henri II., upon which Germain Pilon worked for sixteen years. It is remarkable for the magnificent kneeling figures of the French King and Catherine of Medici. But, perhaps, from the historical standpoint, a more instructive example is the tomb of Louis XII., by Jean Juste. This was removed from Tours to St. Denis in 1531. It therefore represents the sculpture of a period midway between Michel Colombe and Germain Pilon.

Jean Juste’s design is of a highly conventional character. As in the tomb of Germain Pilon, the central figures are the nude corpses of the King and Queen, rendered with a realistic fidelity which, at any rate, commands respect. Above the tomb Louis and Anne of Brittany figure again. This time they are pictured as in life and fully dressed. The keynote of Jean Juste’s work—its vigorous truth—is the same as that pervading Peter Vischer’s “[King Arthur].” Like the work of the Nuremburg sculptor, it is devoid of real charm. It entirely lacks the emotional quality which attracts us in Quercia’s “[Tomb of Ilaria del Caretto],” though five hundred years have passed since it was set up in the Cathedral at Lucca. Unlike the Italian sculptor, the French artist has failed to realize the peculiar power of marble and bronze as a medium of artistic expression.

Even in the days of Jean Juste (about 1530), however, a change was beginning. It became an accomplished fact a few years later, when the French sculptors finally abandoned the effort to express the thoughts and emotions of the masses and accepted the lesser responsibility of catering for the needs of the few. The importance of French sculpture during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries arises entirely from its association with the dominating factor in the history of the time. The age in which France was the first power in Europe was an age of the few, not of the many. This fact entailed the loss of much that might have been stimulating. But, at any rate, it enabled the sculptor to appeal to those who were shaping the history of their time.

Roughly, the political situation was as follows:

As the sixteenth century advanced it became evident that France could only preserve its place in the councils of Europe through an all-powerful monarchy. The earliest French king to realize this was Francis I., who succeeded to the throne in 1515 a.d. He was then twenty-one years of age. He proved to be the first Renaissance king of France, as Louis XII., his predecessor, had been the last mediæval monarch. Francis’ experience during the early years of his reign showed the absolute necessity of concentrating the resources of France into the hands of the king. His first step was naturally to deprive the French nobility of the power it had exercised in the past.

The effect of this general policy upon sculpture was instantaneous. If Julius Cæsar and Augustus were the fathers of Roman portraiture, Francis I. was the creator of what we term French sculpture. In the first place, Francis was forced to create an imposing Court where his turbulent nobles could be tamed into courtiers. This required the building of palaces where the reformed Court could meet. In other words, circumstances compelled Francis I. to be a great builder. The fortresses, which had been necessities during earlier centuries, were needed no longer. These were either suffered to fall into disrepair or the gloomy buildings with their turrets and moats were replaced by manorial châteaux with their lawns and their bowers. Naturally the king led the way. Equally naturally the necessity of building compelled him to become an energetic patron of the decorative arts. When Francis started to put up the Château of Chambord he employed such sculptors as Goujon, Bontemps, Cousin and Germain Pilon as a matter of course.

Francis’ greatest effort was the building of the Palace of Fontainebleau. It was begun in 1528. In a very short while he found that he could not rely upon French native talent for the extensive decorative scheme which he had planned. The discovery was not a new one. As early as 1495 Charles VIII. of France brought “makers of ceilings and turners of alabaster” from Florence and Milan. Cardinal d’Amboise, the minister of Louis XII., persuaded a number of Italian artists to try their fortune in Paris. He also installed several others at the Château de Gaillon. In those days the art instinct in France was dead. At the time when Raphael was working in the Vatican, the walls of the Cardinal d’Amboise’s castle at Gaillon were decorated with leathern hangings or simply-patterned cloths. No Frenchmen had considered the possibility of decorating his living rooms with pictures.

Under these circumstances Francis I. was compelled to turn to Italy. First Rosso and Primaticcio were summoned. A few years later, in 1537, Cellini accepted an invitation and spent some time at the French court. We can judge of the artistic enthusiasm of the kind and the marked change in the general appreciation of art owing to the growth of Court life from a spirited chapter in Cellini’s “Autobiography.”

While Cellini was in France, Primaticcio had been sent to Italy to collect art treasures on behalf of the king. The painter returned with the moulds of some of the most celebrated statues of antiquity. Bronze castings were made from these at the foundry at Fontainebleau and the statues were finally set up in the long gallery at Fontainebleau ready for the king’s inspection. They included the Vatican “Ariadne,” the “[Apollo Belvedere],” the “[Laocoon],” the “[Aphrodite of Cnidus]” and the “Hercules Commodus.” Cellini had certainly some ground for complaint when he found his silver statue of Jove placed in such a company, and it is not surprising that he attributed the chance to the envy of his rival, the painter. Readers of the “Autobiography” will remember the wealth of artistic detail intended to “add verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative” with which Cellini narrates how the malice of Francis’ mistress, Mme. d’Estampe, was used against him. The visit of Francis to the gallery was delayed until evening in the hope that Cellini’s silver statue would appear mean among the ancient masterpieces with which it was to be shown. Of course the wayward Florentine was fully equal to the emergency. He placed a great torch in the hand of Jove and ordered his assistant to avoid lighting it until the king had passed the rest of the statues and was inspecting the silver one. The flood of light produced the effect which Cellini had anticipated. It was the modern statue, not the old-time bronzes which appeared the more effective.

The experience of Cellini at the Court of Francis I. proves that sculpture in France had now a body of influential and appreciative patrons—the first essential of a strong art movement. As we have seen, these patrons had very solid reasons for the interest they extended to the artists they employed. Francis’ marked preference for painting and sculpture of the Italian manner was not, however, without drawbacks. By selecting Rosso and Primaticcio to supervise the decoration of the palace at Fontainebleau, Francis practically endowed a foreign style. No doubt his judgment was sound. The native sculptors and painters had neither the experience nor the skill to carry out a scheme so foreign to anything upon which they had worked before.

In a very short while, however, the example of the Italians and the heavy premium placed upon any artistic talent led to the rise of native sculptors of distinction. The first French sculptor of supreme ability was Jean Goujon. The name first occurs in the building accounts of St. Maclou at Rouen in 1540. By 1547 Jean Goujon had entered the service of Francis I. Two years later he was at work upon the Fountain of the Innocents of Paris. The most instructive example of Goujon’s work is, however, the famous “[Diana]” now in the Louvre. The statue originally surmounted a fountain in the courtyard of Diana of Poitiers’ Castle of Anet, built by Henry II. for his mistress. The marble rested upon a sarcophagus raised upon tier after tier of carved decorative work. It was, therefore, intended to be viewed at an elevation, as can be seen in the well-known drawing by Goujon himself at the British Museum.

In estimating the genius of Goujon, the fact that he was first and foremost an architect must never be forgotten. The full beauty of his statues can only be properly appreciated when considered in connection with the sites for which they were designed. When we realize the decorative scheme of which a statue like “[Diana]” was intended to be the culminating-point, we can see that the claims of Goujon to be considered as the founder of modern French sculpture are not ill-founded. In addition to its fine decorative effect, the “[Diana]” possesses that balance which has always been a feature in the finest French art. For the rest, Goujon owes some prominent characteristics of his style to Cellini and the painters of the Fontainebleau school. Note, for instance, the elongated limbs and the over-slender proportions of his figures which Goujon has accentuated in his endeavour to endow his statues with all possible grace. The justification for the inclusion of Goujon among the great masters of sculpture depends upon the fact that he was the first French sculptor to introduce the nude figure as an object of æsthetic admiration into French decorative art. In doing so he freed French sculpture from the bonds of asceticism, and showed how its eventual greatness was to be secured.

JEAN GOUJON

DIANA (FROM THE FOUNTAIN AT ANET)

Louvre, Paris

Nor does this exhaust the interest attaching to Goujon’s “Diana.” It equally emphasizes the second great characteristic of French sculpture—its connection with the feminine element, which has always been a dominant factor alike in French art and French social life.

It is said that in the statue of “[Diana],” Goujon has portrayed the form of his patroness, Diana of Poitiers. And, indeed, the cold nude figure of the goddess of Chastity might well serve as a character-sketch of the passionless beauty who captivated the Dauphin Henry when he was half her age, ruled France for half a decade, and—a poseuse to the last—died leaving large sums to found a home for repentant Magdalens of Paris. Almost every prominent French artist during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries was closely connected with one or other of the Court favourites. In the case of Goujon it was Diana of Poitiers. His career was immensely helped by the friendly aid of the mistress of Henry II.

The part played by Diana of Poitiers in the career of Goujon can be paralleled from the history of almost every prominent French artist. Indeed, women played so great a part in French Court life that it would be strange if traces of their influence could not be readily found. French sculpture was in the first place an art of the Court. It was equally an art of the boudoir. For the market-place and the forum of the Hellene, the Frenchman substituted the bedroom. Here policies were discussed and shaped; here culture grew and the arts were moulded. A complete history of the relationship between French sculpture and French womanhood would certainly prove that the influence of the French Court beauties upon sculpture was at least as potent as that of the “blue stockings” led by Madame de Rambouillet upon literature.

One thing, however, must be remembered. This influence differed entirely from that which Phryne exercised over the art of Praxiteles, La Bella Simonetta over Botticelli, or Emma Hamilton over Romney. It was not emotional, but material. The impulse behind it was not love, but a desire for power. Indeed, the same thing may be said of the influence of the Court beauties upon French life in general. When the Marquise de Montespan set herself to attract the attention of Louis XIV., she knew that he did not love her. “He knows that he owes it to himself to possess the most beautiful woman in France.”

This holds true of most of the other women who exercised such power throughout this period of French history. Montesquieu has summed up the motives inspiring their efforts in a sentence in the “Persian Letters”:

“Do you think, Ibben, that a woman consents to be the mistress of a minister for love of him? What an idea! It is in order that she may lay before him every morning five or six petitions.”

The far-seeing Frenchman enables us to grasp what the blackguardly old father-in-law of the Marquise de Montespan meant when he heard of his daughter’s success, and cried, “Here’s fortune knocking at my door at last.”

Had the influence of the women of France been of a more emotional character, French sculpture would doubtless have approximated much more closely to that of Greece during the age of Praxiteles. As it was, it leaves us cold. It has the feminine grace but not the feminine passion. It seems to be inspired by a love which would stop at flirtation, fearing to lose itself in the depths of complete surrender.

THE AGE OF LOUIS QUATORZE

The insistence upon the social circumstances which moulded the earliest phase of French sculpture is justified when it is remembered that they were no less important during the two following epochs. Until the coming of the Revolution, France was ruled by an absolute monarch, and practically all the artistic life of the country centred around him. Throughout this time French sculpture was dominated by its connection with a great court, and by the feminine influences which were so potent in French Court life. The great revival of sculpture during the reign of Louis XIV., which now claims consideration, is at once explained when it is correlated with the fact that political considerations forced France to accept an even more absolute monarchical rule, and an even more complete centralization of French culture than had been necessary in the time of the Valois kings.

At the end of the sixteenth century Henry IV. had settled the religious difficulties in France, and had proved how heartily the advent of a monarchy able and willing to vindicate its authority was welcomed. The administrative zeal of Sully, Henry’s minister, and the taxation reforms which he carried through, laid the foundations of the vast wealth which Louis XIV. controlled. Without this the great efflorescence of art, a few years later, would not have been possible.

But the complete supremacy of the French king in the seventeenth century was due rather to pressure from surrounding nations than to internal considerations. The reign of Louis XIV. was the age in which Europe reconstructed her political system upon the principle of territorialism under a system of absolute monarchy. The natural complement of Sully, with his maxim, “Plough and cow—these are the breasts of France whereat she sucks,” was Richelieu, with his vigorous foreign policy. Richelieu carried the ideals of Francis I. and Henry IV. to their furthest limit. In everything Richelieu was pro-Louis—never pro-France. He was not satisfied until the whole financial and judicial administration had been brought under royal control by means of a bureaucracy depending entirely upon royal favour.

The brilliant success of Richelieu’s policy was evident when the peace of Westphalia left France with an Eastern frontier bordering on the Rhine. The Frankish kingdom of Charles the Great, for which France had been struggling for centuries, was secured. In 1661, after the death of Mazarin, Louis found that he could carry the policy of centralization one step further. As he himself put it, “In future, gentlemen, I shall be my own Prime Minister.”

PIERRE PUGET

THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Church of St. Philip of Neri, Genoa

One of Louis’ first acts as a complete autocrat was to commence building the Palace at Versailles. The place lay ten miles out of Paris, and the king had visited it in 1651 when a lad of thirteen. The Château evidently engaged his fancy, for between 1662 and 1669 he did much to adorn the parks. At the end of this time he started to build in real earnest. The magnitude of the work can be realized from the fact that 36,000 men were still at work in the palace and park when the Court moved in on May 6, 1682. Some twenty million pounds sterling were spent in twenty years. But expense, after all, was a small consideration. The palace at Versailles was not a luxury but a necessity. It was to Louis XIV. what Fontainebleau had been to Francis I.

The first impulse of the courtly party had been to make the Louvre the headquarters of Louis. Colbert, Louis’ financial adviser at the time, was an ardent advocate of the Louvre. So much importance did he attach to the scheme that in 1665 the great Bernini was summoned from Italy to advise as to extension of the Louvre. Louis’ judgment was sounder than that of Colbert’s in this matter. He saw that a Court in the centre of Paris was out of the question. The nobles composing it would have been far too easily influenced by intrigues started amongst the restless bourgeoisie of the French capital. Moreover, apart from this political objection, there was the practical difficulty caused by the absence of sufficient space. Room for a great palace was not the only requirement. If the nobility were to be permanently settled around the king, a small township was essential. The hotels de Richelieu, de Condé, de Soissons, de Noailles, du Plessis, de Guise, and de Saint Simon, which eventually arose at Versailles, had to be provided for.

Yet Colbert, who realized the difficulty of meeting the heavy expenditure, was very insistent. In a last effort to dissuade Louis from the enterprise he wrote:

“Your Majesty knows that, apart from brilliant actions in war, nothing marks better the grandeur and genius of princes than their buildings, and that posterity measures them by the standard of the superb edifices which they erect during their lives. Oh, what a pity that the greatest King, and the most virtuous, should be measured by the standard of Versailles.”

Louis, however, had his way, and Colbert was forced to find the necessary funds.

Could the subtle relation between art and politics be more aptly illustrated? The connection between the patronage of Louis and the growth of French sculpture in the latter half of the seventeenth century is equally clear.

Perhaps the best known sculptor who depended upon the patronage of Louis XIV. was Pierre Puget, who came to the Court in 1688, late in his career.

FRANCIS GIRARDON

APOLLO AND THE NYMPHS

The Gardens, Versailles

The “Milo of Crotona,” in the Louvre, is often cited as Puget’s most typical work. An equally good illustration is the colossal group “Perseus and Andromeda.” Both were commissioned by Louis XIV., and the anecdotes relating to the statues prove the close interest the king took in their execution. The story runs that after seeing the “Milo,” Louis proposed that the sculptor should start upon another work, “if he is not too old to undertake it,” he added. The remark was repeated to Puget, who replied characteristically: “I am in my sixtieth year, but I still have ample force and vigour, for great works sustain me.” The “Perseus and Andromeda” took two years. Finally Puget sent his son to present it to Louis. “Your father is great and illustrious; there is no man in Europe to equal him” was Louis’ verdict. Even more attractive is Puget’s “[Immaculate Conception],” which dates from about 1665, and was designed for the Oratory of Saint Philip of Neri at Genoa, where it still remains. At fourteen years of age Puget had started by carving the ornamental decorations of the galleys at Marseilles. A few years later, however, he visited Italy, where he fell under the spell of the Italian artists of the Catholic Reaction and, particularly, of Bernini. “[The Immaculate Conception]” represents Puget in his Bernini mood. The French sculptor never altogether escaped from Bernini’s tendency towards theatrical restlessness, but when his statues are compared with the passionless and artificial productions of most of the French sculptors of his day, it is clear that the Marseilles artist represents a real advance. For the rest, Puget introduced into sculpture the sensuous representation of flesh—the suggestion of the living texture—which the Italians term morbidezza. In this respect, he has fathered a long progeny of sculptors, ending with such ultra-modern artists as Jules Dalou and the Belgian, Jef Lambeaux.

If Pierre Puget was closely connected with Louis XIV., Francis Girardon (1628-1715), the second great sculptor of the seventeenth century, was equally identified with Versailles. The decoration of the palace proceeded under the general direction of Charles Lebrun, the painter. Girardon acted as chief inspector of sculpture under Lebrun. The post was no sinecure. In all, ninety-five sculptors were employed, and about half a million sterling was spent upon sculptural decorations. The greater part of this was expended upon the fountains in the gardens.

The elaborate nature of these garden decorations can be realized from Girardon’s great group “[Apollo and the Nymphs].” This is still at Versailles, but it has been moved to the grotto in which it is now to be seen—the so-called Temple of Thetis.

But the greatness of the seventeenth-century sculptors of France cannot be properly appreciated from any single work. The keynote of the Louis Quatorze style is the fact that the work was intended to enhance the effect of the room or garden in which it was placed. Alone it is as meaningless as a Greek pedimental group away from the temple it was designed to decorate. A just judgment of the genius displayed in Girardon’s “[Apollo and the Nymphs]” presupposes a mental picture of the Gardens at Versailles.

They were designed by André le Notre. When Louis commenced to rebuild the old château the gardens consisted of two groves. The rest was practically an uncultivated wood. It is told that after André le Notre had satisfied himself as to the general scheme to be followed he laid it before Louis. The king wandered with the great garden-architect through the grounds talking the matter over. As le Notre explained his ideas Louis became more and more enthusiastic. “I give you 20,000 francs,” he cried. André le Notre moved on to another point and developed a new aspect of his scheme. “I give you another 20,000 francs,” exclaimed the delighted Louis. After the third or fourth repetition André began to feel hurt. “Your Majesty,” he said, “if I tell you more you will be a ruined man. You must leave the rest to me.”

PIGALLE

MERCURY PUTTING ON HIS SANDAL

Louvre, Paris

FALCONET

L’AMOUR MENAÇANT

Louvre, Paris

The results must have more than reached the king’s anticipations. In those days, the gardens were studded with statuary. There was, for instance, the early Fountain of the Dragon. Water spouted from the beast’s mouth to a height of twenty-eight metres. Around sported four dolphins, while the design was completed by the cupids seated on swans, which darted their arrows at the dragon in the centre. Similar groups arose from every basin. Two of these were set up on the terrace. A double flight of stairs, richly ornamented with statuary, led thence to the grounds. Here the wanderer came upon such a beauty spot as the Allée d’Eau, with its border of pines and its hundred and four copper vases set with yew-trees. Throughout the Walk were groups of statues. Or, maybe, he visited Girardon’s “Pyramid.” This consisted of four superimposed basins. The highest was supported on four cray fish, the second on four dolphins and the others on tritons, the lowest tier rising from the four larger tritons who swam in the great basin. The lavish expenditure upon the sculpture at Versailles may be judged from the payment of 1400 livres in 1671 to the painter-gilder Bailly “on account of the gilding and bronzing applied to the fontaine en pyramide.”

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

If a clear realization of the gardens at Versailles is necessary for the true appreciation of such a work as Girardon’s “[Apollo and the Nymphs],” the interior of a French palace must be pictured if the smaller sculptures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are to be understood. The sculptors worked with the knowledge that their works were eventually to be placed in such rooms as the Salon of Venus at Versailles with its marble walls, its green velvet hangings and silver chandeliers, or the Throne Room, with its decorations of crimson and gold, its ceiling by Delafosse and pictures by Titian, Guido Reni, Rubens and Van Dyck, or even the great Galérie des Glaces, 240 feet in length, with its seventeen great windows framed by Corinthian pilasters, and faced by the seventeen mirrored arches running along the opposite side. Many sculptures of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which we rightly consider insipid and unsatisfying, may well have served their purpose at the time. They cannot, however, be properly judged apart from the richly decorated salons which they were designed to complete.

This is true of a portion of the sculpture of Louis Quatorze. It is even more true of practically all the sculpture of Louis Quinze and Louis Seize. If the seventeenth century was the period of the great decorative sculptors, the characteristic of the eighteenth century was its demand for smaller works. The reign of Louis Quatorze had been a building age. In the main, it called for architectural sculpture. Eighteenth-century taste, however, ran in the direction of the single-figured statue and the statuette. The tendency was exactly that which, in the art of painting, produced a Watteau and a Fragonard in place of a Nicholas Poussin and a Charles Lebrun. The growing popularity of smaller statues was the equivalent of the increased demand for easel pictures.

Under the circumstances it is not to be wondered that the eighteenth-century French sculptors lost the fine sense of decorative effectiveness with which the school of Louis XIV. had been endowed. As a consequence they were far less successful in carrying out the larger public works which every nation demands from time to time. On the contrary, the smaller works produced in the eighteenth century were often instinct with vivacity and charm. It was only when they essayed the greater tasks that the sculptors failed to throw off completely what may be termed the boudoir manner.

CLODION

SATYR WITH FLUTE

Musée Cluny, Paris

Our meaning may be illustrated from the history of the tomb of the Marshal de Saxe in the church of St. Thomas, at Strasbourg. It was designed in 1756, by Jean Baptiste Pigalle—then the foremost sculptor in France.

Marshal de Saxe was, of course, the victor at Fontenoy, and Pigalle depicts Death welcoming the hero while France vainly attempts to stay Death’s hand. The scattered trophies, as well as the Austrian eagle, the Belgian lion, and the English leopard, speak of the Marshal’s success as a soldier. The work is clearly a national memorial, and, had it been the work of a great national sculptor, would have suggested national feeling and pride in every line and mass. In point of fact it is evident that it does nothing of the kind. The sculptor, finding himself unable to feel the design as a whole, has been content with “building up” the memorial. Being a competent craftsman he naturally produced a satisfactory, if uninspired, work.

There is a quaint little story concerning the inception of the Saxe Memorial which happily illustrates the mood in which Pigalle designed the work. The Marshal’s reputation for gallantry was by no means confined to military affairs. He was, perhaps, the only commander who ever entered into a campaign accompanied by a first-rate opera company. Pigalle was well aware of this. That no side of the dead commander’s character might be unrepresented, he added the figure of Love with torch reversed. “The Marshal cared equally for love and war. Love must figure among the mourners,” he explained. The Marshal’s friend objected, and finally Louis XV. was asked to intervene. To satisfy all parties, the King decreed that Cupid should wear a helmet—“the insignia of the genius of war,” as he explained. But Pigalle was not to be moved, “Aujourd’hui,” he said; “je plie, mais je me redresserai bientot.”

It will be seen that Pigalle proved right. To this day Love is without his helmet. Moreover, the tiny god is perhaps the most charming figure in the great monument, a lasting reminder that the genius of the eighteenth-century sculptor dealt more naturally with the dainty and the graceful than with the great and the sublime. Pigalle’s own reputation depends much more upon his charming “[Mercury putting on his Sandal]” (The Louvre) than it does upon the far more ambitious memorial at Strasbourg. This is equivalent to saying that Pigalle was at his best when he was most interested. The same remark applies to his fellow sculptors. Seeing that men’s interests had moved in the direction of the boudoir, a boudoir art naturally followed.

The demand for smaller works increased as the eighteenth century went on. No sculptor reached the height attained by Watteau and Fragonard in the sister art of painting, but an immense amount of fine sculpture was produced.

The typical Louis Quinze and Louis Seize style is well represented by the work of the Parisian sculptor, Etienne Maurice Falconet (1716-1791), a pupil of Lemoyne. His “[L’amour Menaçant]” is a charming instance of the skill with which the eighteenth-century sculptors adapted themselves to the wider range of subjects created by the new demand.

HOUDON

DIANA (BRONZE)

Louvre, Paris

Falconet shows the god of Love, with a finger of caution at his lips. The idea of the hand slyly stealing round to the quiverful of arrows slung across his shoulder is expressed with delightful art. The dainty work is remarkable for its grace and the vivacity of expression animating it. It is significant that the work was commissioned by Madame de Pompadour in 1756.

Two more sculptors call for notice before we close this chapter—Clodion and Houdon. Both were followers of Pigalle and both lived to a good old age and worked well into the nineteenth century. But in essence their work was dominated by the factors which moulded the rest of the sculpture of Louis XV. and Louis XVI.

The lesser of the two men, Claude François Michel, called Clodion, was to sculpture what Boucher was to painting. His favourite subjects were satyrs and bacchantes, as, for instance, in the “[Satyr with Flute],” with which we illustrate his art. Some of his most delightful works are at the Musée Cluny. There is also a fine “Satyr and Nymph” in the Wallace collection at Hertford House, London. With rare exceptions, all Clodion’s works were designed for the drawing-room or the dancing-hall. He was a master of the statuette and, perhaps, without a rival in the skilful use of terra-cotta.

It is easy to cavil at the frankly sensuous style of Clodion but, after all, his justification is complete. It depends upon the success with which he carried out that at which he aimed.

On the whole, the great body of eighteenth-century French sculpture defies criticism by the same triumphant grace and vivacity and the same plea that what was aimed at has been done. There are times when

“Eternal smiles its emptiness betray As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.”

But, judging it by its own standard and looking for neither deep feeling nor high thinking, it amply justifies its place among the art movements which have given humanity a fresh thrill.

Houdon (1741-1828), the last of the eighteenth-century French sculptors, was a far greater artist than either his master Pigalle or Clodion. He lived throughout the sculptural period dominated by Canova, and might, on that account, claim consideration in our next chapter. Houdon as an artist, however, seems to have been little impressed by the events of the French Revolution, so we have chosen to represent him by two of his earlier works.

Like many other French sculptors of genius, Houdon won the Grand Prix at the outset of his career and directly after visited Italy. While there he modelled the well-known “St. Bruno,” of which Clement XIII. said “he would speak were it not that the rules of his order enjoin silence.” A little later came the celebrated “[Diana],” perhaps the most remarkable work by an eighteenth-century French sculptor in view of the originality of its design and the skill with which the technical difficulties incidental to such a pose are overcome. There are various replicas of the “Diana.” The Hermitage copy is in marble, and dates from 1780. The Louvre bronze was cast in 1790.

Houdon’s “[Voltaire]” is equally famous. This, too, exists in more than one state. There is the seated figure belonging to the Comédie Française—recently moved to the Louvre—as well as the bust which we have preferred to reproduce. The latter represents the old cynic during the last weeks of his life. It is a magnificent instance of Houdon’s unrivalled power in the expression of mental vivacity. It is said that the sculptor had complained to a friend, the Marquis de Villevieille, that the old wit’s face had lost every vestige of life. Villevieille realizing that Houdon’s sitting might well result in failure, bethought himself of the crown which Brizard, the actor, had placed on Voltaire’s head during his triumph at the Français. The next day while Houdon was working before his model, Villevieille suddenly placed the crown on the old man’s head. For a moment the ancient fire returned. It was only for a moment. Bursting into tears, Voltaire cried: “What are you doing, young man?” Then he added bitterly: “My tomb is already prepared; put it on that.”

HOUDON

VOLTAIRE

Fortunately the momentary impression was sufficient. Houdon was able to fix for all time the insight which chance had given him into the secret of the man who, perhaps, did more to prepare the way for the French Revolution than any other thinker. Houdon’s “[Voltaire]” appropriately closes the history of the sculpture of the French Court. Equally appropriately it ushers in the history of European sculpture during the Revolutionary era.

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