I trust I have shown you that David, whatever we may think of his pictures, was at any rate a successful schoolmaster, or what the French call a chef d’école, and his influence continued to be felt very perceptibly in the second generation.
Abel de Pujol, Leon Coignet, Delaroche, Couture, Flandrin, Alaux, etc., were all pupils either of Guérin, Ingres, or Gros, and they all preserved the David traditions of sound and careful drawing. Indeed, Flandrin carried the noble draughtsmanship of his master Ingres to such perfection that it seems to me impossible to advance any farther in this direction.
The two great pictorial heretics of this period were Delacroix and Decamps. The former learned his art under Guérin, and the latter under A. de Pujol, but in their case the maxim about “training up a child in the way he should go” certainly did not hold good, for both these great artists threw the time-honored atelier traditions overboard, and proceeded on diametrically opposed principles. Being both great colorists, and both unusually gifted with true artistic feeling, they succeeded at last in rivalling, if not eclipsing, the fame of their more orthodox contemporaries. With Delacroix, especially, the battle was a long one, and I well remember his “Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople” (perhaps the finest picture he ever painted) being rejected at the Salon, and in the following year being hung at the top of the gallery. Decamps was much more careful about his drawing than Delacroix, and his pictures being always small, he did not give so much offence to “Ces Messieurs de l’Institût.”
If I were addressing a French audience I should certainly not think of mentioning Ary Schäffer; but as in England he enjoys a kind of reputation, a few words about him may not be out of place. In the early part of his career he followed in the track of Delacroix, and the pictures he painted at this time show a great feeling for color.
All at once (after achieving considerable success in this style) he went about on the other tack, gave up color, and took to imitating Ingres. He was always a poor draughtsman. His “Paolo and Francesco,” and many of his best-known religious pictures, are wretchedly drawn, but there is a pretension to purity of style about them which takes people in. It is not many years ago since Schäffer, on the strength of these sentimental works of art, was considered in England to be the first of French painters.
If we proceed to my own time, which I may call the third generation from David, we find decidedly less of that precision of drawing for which the French school was famous. There are, of course, exceptions, and one or two very notable ones, but the number of weak draughtsmen amongst painters of mature years has certainly increased. It is, however, when we come to consider the pictures of the younger generation that we find how very much the impulse given by David to correctness and refinement of drawing has exhausted itself. French literature (speaking of course generally) is either mawkishly sentimental or brutally realistic, and these unpleasant characteristics seem to be reflected in the painting of many of their popular artists.
Eccentricity appears now to be the surest road to fame. Formerly it required a great deal of talent to leave successfully the beaten track, but now the eccentric painter finds himself famous, not in spite of his grotesque peculiarities, but on account of them. I consider the modern French school to be in a very critical state. They have acquired color, but at too great a sacrifice. Beauty and dignity of form, noble composition, and all the higher qualities of art, become rarer every year, and will, if the present downward tendency continue, soon be extinct. Of course I am speaking of historical painting, either sacred or profane; of the art, in short, of Girodet, Géricault, Gros, Ingres, and Flandrin; and I think it will be generally allowed that no school can hold its place in the art-world which allows the noblest branch of the profession to wither and decay.
I will now proceed to consider the influence of David on other European schools. This influence was very marked in Italy, where an uneasy feeling that their once famous school had sunk very low had prevailed for some time. Raphael Mengs was too feeble, and Pompeo Battoni too meretricious, a painter to regenerate Italian art, but when David appeared, an effort was made. The antique was again studied, the pernicious practice of imitating the old masters was abandoned, and Nature, the fountainhead of all art, was more conscientiously imitated.
David’s example thus produced, amongst others, Benvenuto and Camuccini, both of whom were infinitely greater painters than had appeared in Italy for a century. Unfortunately, the revival so successfully begun was suffered to die out. The race of copyists became again in the ascendant, and no doubt reaped a rich harvest when, after the great Napoleonic wars, the Continent was overrun by wealthy dilettanti anxious to obtain (if not a genuine Caracci or Guido) at least a good imitation of one. The mania for collecting grimy old masters at last died out, and considering the shameless way in which the purchasers were imposed upon, it is a wonder that it lasted so long. When, however, this happy event took place, and a healthier taste became fashionable, Italian artists could not supply the demand. Small landscapes and pretty little costume pictures were painted in abundance, but for Biblical or historical art the public had to turn to the foreigner, to Overbeck or Cornelius.
Things are not quite so bad in Italy at the present day, but the school is very insignificant as compared with those of France, Belgium, England, and Germany.