“It is impossible to exercise two professions at once. All the activity that is expended in acquiring useful relations and in playing a rôle is lost to art. Intriguers are not fools; when an artist wishes to compete with them he must expend as much effort as they do, and he will have hardly any time left for work.
“Who knows? If Dalou had always stayed in his atelier peacefully pursuing his calling, he would have without doubt brought forth marvels whose beauty would have astonished all eyes, and common consent would have perhaps awarded him that artistic sovereignty to whose conquest he unsuccessfully used all his skill.
“His ambition, however, was not entirely vain for his influence at the Hôtel de Ville gave us one of the great masterpieces of our time. It was he who, in spite of the undisguised hostility of the administrative committee, gave the order to Puvis de Chavannes for the decoration of the stairway at the Hôtel de Ville. And you know with what heavenly poetry the great painter illuminated the walls of the municipal building.”
These words called attention to the bust of Puvis de Chavannes.
“He carried his head high,” Rodin said. “His skull, solid and round, seemed made to wear a helmet. His arched chest seemed accustomed to carry the breastplate. It was easy to imagine him at Pavia fighting for his honor by the side of Francis I.”
In the bust you recognize the aristocracy of an old race. The high forehead and eyebrows reveal the philosopher, and the calm glance, embracing a wide outlook, betrays the great decorator, the sublime landscapist. There is no modern artist for whom Rodin professes more admiration, more profound respect, than for the painter of Sainte-Geneviève.
Puvis de Chavannes
By Rodin
“To think that he has lived among us,” he cries; “to think that this genius, worthy of the most radiant epochs of art, has spoken to us! That I have seen him, have pressed his hand! It seems as if I had pressed the hand of Nicolas Poussin!”
What a charming remark! To put the figure of a contemporary back into the past, in order to range it there by one of those who shine brightest, and then to be so moved at the very thought of physical contact with this demi-god—could any homage be more touching?