One may even go a step further and assert that they have the dimensions that they ought to have, the dimensions that are best calculated to enhance the artist’s magnificent gifts, and to make one forget the qualities in which, perhaps, he was lacking. The scenes which he kindles into life, to say nothing of single characters that he portrays, are like stories told in an intimate sort of way; they force one to draw closer.
They have not sufficient harmony and amplitude to attract attention from a distance; but, seen from near by, they give their message with exquisite precision. They offer a hundred subtle details for us to seek out and approve; a painstaking grouping for us to admire; and, best of all, expressive physiognomies for us to read. It seems as though the dimensions had been calculated on exactly the right scale to awaken all these impressions at once and blend them as completely as possible. And all this would have been too scattered in an ampler setting. It is because of this perfect proportion that it has been so justly said that “Meissonier’s pictures never look small excepting before you have really looked at them.”
But let us make no mistake in this regard. Painting on a small scale would not of itself suffice to attain this maximum of intensity. It needed, on the contrary, an enormous amount of talent to avoid an effect of fussiness and preciosity.
Still other reasons have been given for the great value of this artist’s works in spite of their smallness, or rather because of their smallness. M. Gustave Larroumet has written on this very point a brilliant and ingenious special plea, of which the following is the principal passage:
“There is a certain class of subjects in which amplitude is an error of judgment. If you wish to paint the coronation of Napoleon, the bridge of Tailebourg, or the battle of the Cimbri, you have the right to measure your canvas in proportion to the space which such scenes occupy in reality; on the other hand you might conceive of your subject in such fashion that it could be contained completely within a square metre. But why give to an artistic reproduction more relative importance than the originals have in reality? Supposing you wish to show me a passer-by, on foot or on horseback. How do they interest me in real life? Simply by the rapid impression that they leave upon my eye and mind. I have seen them at a distance, reduced to a few centimetres by perspective. I am satisfied if you show them to me in the same proportion.”
The argument is specious. Perhaps it is more ingenious than it is well founded, and lays itself open to discussion. But it will not do to linger too long over abstract polemics, when we are in the presence of a reality, a type of work, every least portion of which makes its appeal and, by the very fact that it is so full of interest and of life, practically answers the subtle problem that it has raised.
In 1840 more pictures were sent to the Salon: a Reader, a Saint Paul, an Isaiah.
Was the painter beginning to change his manner? Those last two pictures might give reason to fear so. They were life size, yet that did not prevent them from being dull and commonplace in execution. Doubtless, irritated by his critics, Meissonier had wished to prove that he also, if he wanted to, could paint according to the schools. Even the artists who are surest of themselves sometimes come to these hasty and impatient determinations.
Fortunately for him, he made a bad showing, and a painter who had great influence over him, Jules Chenavard, succeeded in recalling him from the false path into which he was trying to force his talent.
On the other hand, the praises bestowed upon his genre painting, The Reader, which was “genuine Meissonier,” could not fail to encourage him to remain true to himself. The Revue des Deux Mondes, in its critical review of the Salon, bestowed upon this picture an enthusiastic tribute, couched in a style that may seem to us today somewhat old-fashioned: