1786. THE LAKE OF THUN.
Alexandre Calame (Swiss: 1810-1864).
This painter is of some interest in the history of painting as one of the pioneers who discovered for artistic purposes the picturesqueness of Switzerland. He was born at Vevay, and was the son—not (as sometimes stated) of a simple mason, but—of a clever stone-cutter. He was very delicate as a child, and an accident at school deprived him of the sight of his right eye. As a youth, Calame obtained employment in a bank at Geneva. He further aided the narrow resources of his home by making little Swiss views in colour, which the shopkeepers took up. Foreigners were glad to bring them away as travelling memorials, in place of photographs, which did not then exist. His employer, M. Diodati, noticing young Calame's talent for art, generously enabled him to obtain instruction. He made rapid progress, and became headmaster of a drawing-school in Geneva. In 1837 he began contributing to foreign exhibitions views of Switzerland, and these won for him a considerable reputation. He visited England in 1850, and here, as in other countries, his works found many purchasers. In the South Kensington Museum there is a large collection of his Swiss views in water-colour. He was a lithographer and engraver, as well as a painter, and his plates of Swiss landscapes were at one time well known. He received commissions from many European sovereigns, and was visited by all the great personages who passed through Geneva.
In France, indeed, art-circles were cool towards him. "Un Calame, deux Calames, trois Calames—que de calamités" ran the phrase every year in the Paris Salon. But in Germany he found warm admirers and formed several imitators. His lithographed studies of trees, and his landscapes for copying remained in use for some decades as a medium of instruction in drawing. He was a conscientious workman, who finished the whole of his canvas or paper with equal industry, and his drawing was correct. But his colouring is insipid, and his atmosphere somewhat heavy. "By painting he understood the illumination of drawings, and his drawing was that of an engraver. Sentiment is replaced by correct manipulation, and in the deep blue mirror of his Alpine lakes, as in the luminous red of his Alpine summits, there is always to be seen the illuminator who has first drawn the contours with a neat pencil and pedantic correctness" (Muther's History of Modern Painting, ii. 322). Calame's fertility was very great. His note-books contain the record of 450 finished pictures in oil, 500 studies, and 1200 water-colours (E. Rambert: Alexandre Calame. Sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1884).
The mountain in our picture is the Blumlis Alp: an afternoon effect.