CHAPTER XIV.
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
Close of the golden Age of Art in France.—Corruption of Manners.—Influence of female Genius.—Reign of Louis XVI.—Female Energy in the Revolution.—Charlotte Corday.—Greater Number of female Artists in Germany.—Reasons why.—French Women devoted to Engraving.—Stamp-cutters.—A Sculptress enamored.—A few Paintresses.—The Number increasing.—Influence of the great French Masters.—Sèvres-painting.—Genre-painting.—Disciples of Greuze.—Portrait-painting in vogue.—Caroline Sattler.—Flower-painters, etc.—Engravers.—Two eminent Paintresses.—Adelaide Vincent.—Marriage.—Portraits and other Works.—The Revolution.—Elizabeth Le Brun.—Talent for Painting.—Her Father’s Delight.—Instruction.—Friendship with Vernet.—Poverty and Labor.—Avaricious Step-father.—Her Earnings squandered.—Success and Temptation.—Acquaintance with Le Brun.—Maternal Counsels to Marriage.—Secret Marriage.—Warnings too late.—The Mask falls.—Luxury for the Husband, Labor and Privation for the Wife.—Success and Scandal.—French Society.—Friendship with Marie Antoinette.—La Harpe’s Poem.—Evening Receptions.—Splendid Entertainments.—Scarcity of Seats.—Petits Soupers.—The Grecian Banquet.—Reports concerning it.—Departure from France.—Triumphal Progress.—Reception in Bologna.—In Rome.—In Naples.—In Florence.—Madame Le Brun’s Portrait.—Goethe’s Remarks.—New Honors.—Reception at Vienna.—An old Friend in Berlin.—Residence in Russia.—Return to France.—Loyalty.—Her Pictures.—Death of her Husband and Daughter.—Advanced Age.—Autobiography.—An emblematic Life.
The golden age of French literature and art came to a close with the life of Louis XIV. A shadow only of that fortunate epoch lingered during the years succeeding, and the general corruption of manners soon obliterated even that. But in the reign of Louis XV. were glimpses of a better state of things, and the influence of female genius and merit was apparent, as a long list of names in literature can testify. Vice held sway, however, in the latter years of this monarch, and hypocrisy became the only homage paid by the court to virtue.
The sceptre passed into the hands of Louis XVI., a feeble prince, whose virtues were those of the man, not the sovereign. When the throne was shattered, and revolution broke out, the women of France regained their energy. They were heroines under the sway of the Decemvirs. What self-sacrifice, for example, can outshine that of Charlotte Corday—the greater than Brutus? And what was begun by a woman, a woman completed: Madame Cabarrus shared in the glory of those great events! Those days had writers, too, whom posterity has crowned with the garland woven by their contemporaries.
In comparing woman’s progress and her cultivation of art in France with those of other nations, and especially the German, we may notice important differences. The number of female artists was far greater in Germany, perhaps because many cities in that land were central points, affording employment to labor, and appreciation to those who devoted themselves to the profession; whereas in France Paris alone was the great rendezvous. There were, also, several branches of art cultivated in Germany which in France were little practiced by women, such as landscape-painting, for instance. The French women devoted themselves much more to engraving than in Germany; in fact, engravers formed the majority of female artists in France, where, moreover, female effort was more in a strictly business line than in any other country. With this professional devotion among the women engravers in France, it follows that there were few amateurs; while, on the other hand, those in Germany and England who handled the implements of art as dilettanti were very numerous.
Glancing over the prominent Frenchwomen who enjoyed a reputation among their contemporaries during the eighteenth century, we may notice the stamp-cutters Marie Anne de St. Urbin and Elise Lesueur, with the sculptress Mademoiselle Collot, who afterward married Falconnet, and assisted him in the completion of the statue of Peter the Great. She was said to be enamored of the czar, and to have executed the finest bust of him extant. The female painters of this period are but little known. In the early part of the century, Lucrece Catherine de la Ronde and Elizabeth Gauthier engraved after Edelinck and Langlais. Marie Catherine Herault accompanied her husband, the painter Silvestre, to Dresden; and Geneviéve Blanchot, and the Dames Godefroy and Davin, among others less noted, complete the list during the first half of the century.
The number of devotees to art, however, was rapidly increasing, as the ateliers of Regnault, David, and Redouté could bear witness, when they became central points of reunion for female enterprise and study.
The influence of those celebrated men, whose fair scholars have exercised their talents in the nineteenth century, brought more into vogue the tender and emotional kind of genre-painting, shown by Greuze and Fragonard to be so well adapted to the taste and the feeling of woman. Marguerite Gérard, the sister-in-law and pupil of Fragonard, in this manner painted scenes of domestic life and family groups with much grace and repose. A Madame Gérard has been mentioned as a dilettante, who possessed a large fortune, and had a hotel furnished with facilities for painting Sèvres. Her splendid cupboards of polished mahogany were gilded and bronzed, and their contents looked like a rich collection for the gratification of taste rather than for sale. She purchased some pieces for sixty and eighty louis-d’ors. A pair of vases, not very large, painted with sacred subjects, sold for twenty-six thousand livres.
The genre style was practiced by Mademoiselle Duquesnoy and Madame Gois. Greuze’s manner was also imitated by his wife, Anna Gabrielle, with Marie Geneviéve Brossard de Beaulieu, who had the honor of membership in the Academies of Paris and Rome.
Other disciples of this school entered into their profession after the commencement of the nineteenth century; and they, with the pupils of Regnault, Redouté, and David, belong to a later period than that under discussion.