There is a certain prettiness about his female heads, and I have seen portraits by him which were remarkably good; but his pictures, such as “The Malédiction paternelle” and the “Fils puni,” are a curious mixture of nambypambyism and melodrama.
There were two popular engravings of these pictures, which in Louis Philippe’s time were great favorites with the lower bourgeoisie; and it was curious to note how universally they were disliked by all artists, and how universally admired by all retired grocers, pork-butchers, and shopkeepers in general.
His chef-d’œuvre is supposed to be the “Cruche cassee” at the Louvre; and during the Greuze epidemic, hundreds of copies were made of this (to me) rather offensive picture.
I shall reserve David and his school for my next lecture, but before finishing what I have to say about the French artists of the eighteenth century, I wish to mention the portrait-painter Rigaud, and one or two landscape-painters. Portrait-painting in France was never debased to a trade as it was in England. Many of the historical painters I have mentioned executed portraits, and very fine ones too, but the best portraitist of the century was Hyacinthe Rigaud. His full-length of Louis XIV is really a grand work. His biographer informs us that he worked with his brush for sixty-two years, and averaged thirty portraits a year during the whole of that period. In addition to this he made a point of retouching the numerous copies and replicas which were made of his royal portraits. He painted five kings and innumerable princes and scions of royal blood. Probably no artist ever lived who painted so many great personages, or who gave such general satisfaction. No man, however, could possibly get through such a colossal amount of work without the quality suffering, and there is in Rigaud’s portraits of minor personages a monotony and mechanical sameness which is very tiresome, although I never yet saw a portrait by Rigaud which was ill drawn or badly posed.
It appears that this excellent artist distinguished himself in early life by his careful academical studies—studies which he continued long after he became well known as a portrait-painter; and the good results of this training are evident from the masterly treatment of the hands and all the accessories in his portraits. It is strange that Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was liberal enough (at any rate toward artists who were no longer living), should never have mentioned the portraits of Rigaud.
Another excellent French painter of the eighteenth century was Joseph Vernet, the father of Carle and grandfather of Horace Vernet. His views of the seaports of France are evidence of his honest style of work and indefatigable industry. An able French critic, speaking of these and other numerous sea-pieces by Vernet, remarks that although he may not have the delicacy of touch possessed by Vandevelde, nor the glowing color of Claude, yet no landscape painter ever was more thorough and uniformly good than Vernet. His figures are always admirably arranged, and painted with great skill, and his way of viewing nature was simple, unaffected, and broad. Unfortunately his pictures have become very dark and brown, and the hanging of all the seaport views together in one gallery is not a happy arrangement. One’s first impression, on entering the room, is that they are a collection of old maps, and it is only after close and patient examination that their good qualities became apparent.
Hubert Robert was another of the conscientious and indefatigable workers of the eighteenth century, whose pictures are hardly known at all in England. His forte was the delineation of old Roman buildings, and the Louvre possesses several examples of his careful, honest work. On account of his great reputation as an architect, he was much employed by Louis XV at Versailles, in designing the garden terraces and park buildings, and it was probably on this account that he was looked upon as a Royalist, and thrown into prison at the time of the great Revolution. There he remained for ten months, employing his time in sketching and painting his fellow-prisoners. Although he expected every day to be carted off to the guillotine, the pictures and portraits which he executed at this terrible time show no sign of careless haste or nervous indecision. They are extremely valuable as being true records of the scenes which took place in the prisons, but they are seldom seen in public galleries, as they were given by the painter to his companions in misfortune, and are treasured as heirlooms by their descendants.
When I mention that our painter was sixty years old at the time, I think it will be conceded that he was made of the right stuff.
Having exhausted what I can afford time to say about the French schools of the eighteenth century, I would gladly pick out a few Italian painters of merit of that period, but I find it utterly impossible to do so. They were a race of bad copyists, without a spark of originality or independence of feeling. They had traditional receipts for covering large wall-spaces with figures in the Pietro di Cortona and Carlo Maratti style; and as the century wore on, these “pasticcios” became more and more insipid and commonplace. It is better by far to have a style of one’s own, though it be frivolous like Watteau’s, or artificial like Boucher’s, than to go on manufacturing pictures by routine. The only exception I know of to the universal decrepitude of the Italian eighteenth-century painters is Canaletti. He may not have been a great genius, but, at any rate, he was not an imitator of others, and his canal views of Venice are a great deal more truthful than any I have ever seen.
I am aware that his way of painting a ripple on the water was too mechanical, but his buildings are admirable; and whenever I go to Venice I am always more reminded of Canaletti’s pictures than of Turner’s. I am not expressing the heretical opinion that Canaletti was a greater artist than Turner. I am merely stating, as a matter of fact, that Canaletti’s Venice is much more like the real place than Turner’s; and it appears to me that an architectural painter should (of all painters) adhere strictly to local truth.