The intervening period from the death of Francis to the commencement of the seventeenth century, torn by religious dissension, distracted by the heartless intrigue, and still more heartless massacres perpetrated by the Catholic party, threw France back in the career of improvement. The splendid reign of Henry of Navarre was favorable indeed both to the fine and useful arts; but, as in the former age, foreign, and principally Flemish artists, were employed. The imbecile Louis XIII. has the credit of having first formed a native school of painting, or rather, perhaps, in this reign, advantage was first taken of those various circumstances which had gradually been forming both skill and taste in France. This, like every other measure of the same period, is to be attributed to the prime minister, Richelieu, founder also of the Academy. This was the source whence were supplied the artists of the succeeding reign, who were principally disciples of Vouet, the first French master of eminence, born in 1582, but whose merits in the nobler walks of art would not otherwise entitle him to notice.
The glory, not only of this period, but of the history of French art, is Nicholas Poussin—the classic and the virtuous Poussin. To his contemporaries, however, or to the retainers in the halls of Louis, he did not properly belong. Born in 1594, he had formed his taste by a residence of nearly twenty years in Italy, before he was invited, in 1639, to a pension and an apartment in the Tuileries. From the cabals of a court, and the petty jealousy of the inferior Vouet, he fled beyond the Alps to his own loved Rome, never to return. There he conversed more with antiquity than with living men. Thence originated the grand defect of his style. 'We never,' says a moralist, 'live out of our age, without missing something which our successors will wish we had possessed.' This is especially true in the present instance. The characteristics of the works of Poussin are extreme correctness of form and costume, great propriety in keeping, and the most enchanting simplicity of design. These beauties he derived from constant study and deep knowledge of ancient sculpture. While he thus followed closely one of the sources of excellence, he, however, neglected the other, and, in painting, the more important—nature. Hence the frequent want of interest—the defects of expression—the cold and sombre coloring—the absence of that breathing similitude which animates even the subjects of his intense contemplation. But the ancient sculptors were not satisfied with nature at second-hand—the great cause of failure in the painter. The perfections of their statues he transferred to his canvass, forgetting that these were copied from men. In the choice of his subject, and manner of representing its incidents, Poussin has few equals; in his pictures, too, there is always a most charming harmony of thought—the scene—the figures—the handling—even the forms of inanimate objects in his landscapes, all have an antique air, transporting the imagination into an ideal world. Hence, of all those who have made the attempt, Poussin has best succeeded in classical allegory.
Louis XIV., who commenced his reign in 1643, resolved to complete the intentions of his predecessor, in giving to France a school of native artists; and, by the institution of academies, conferring rewards, and raising to honors, so far accomplished his purpose, as respected the cultivation of the art by Frenchmen, to a very considerable extent. The school, however, thus created, was composed of imitators in their profession, and flatterers of their royal patron. True, vigorous, original genius, lives not to be called forth at the smile of a monarch, nor by permission to display its powers in painted panegyrics on the walls of a palace. As well might we expect, in the artificial atmosphere of the hothouse, the strength, and beauty, and freshness, which bloom amid glades and groves, freely visited by the pure breath of heaven.
The great master of this school was Le Brun, for so the Scotch name of Brown, from a family of which name he was descended, has been translated. He was born in 1619, of a family long attached to the practice of the arts, and became the favorite pupil of Vouet, whose precepts in many respects he too faithfully retained. Yet Le Brun had good capabilities,—a lively fancy, great dexterity of hand, and not unfrequently noble conceptions. But in all things he is too artificial—a defect never redeemable by any display even of the most splendid technical qualities. In the paintings of Le Brun, the want of simplicity is conspicuous in the forced attitudes of his figures, and in their too systematic expression. Both these imperfections have resulted from the same cause—neglect of nature, neglect operating by different effects. In the former case, the artist has designed too much from memory, or—a common fault, we should be inclined to say, in French art—has taken his attitudes from the theatre. In the second, it is easy to perceive, that he aimed at reducing the infinite and minute changes, of expression to a theory of academic rules; indeed, his pictures are but commentaries, in this respect, upon his celebrated treatise on the Passions. The coloring in these performances is glaring, without firmness of shadow, and the local tones are false; hence the general effect is shallow, with a monotony of hue, arising, not so much from want of variety in the tints, as from error in keeping. The best works of Le Brun are the five grand pictures from the life of Alexander, which, notwithstanding the defects inherent in his style, are productions of dignity and grandeur, exhibiting great fertility both of composition and of resource in mechanic art; but surely Voltaire must intend his assertion to be restricted to France, when he says, that engravings of these paintings are more sought after than those of the battles of Constantine, by Raphael and Julio Romano.
The truth of the preceding remarks on the causes which have contributed, in France, to the mediocrity of painting, is placed in a striking view by the tyranny, the absolute despotism, in which Le Brun was enabled to lord it over his contemporaries, whether painters, sculptors, or architects. Every one was forced to become the observant servitor of him whom the court favored, or enjoyed the option of remaining unemployed. Such was the fate of Le Sueur, not merely the superior of Le Brun, but, with the exception of Poussin, to whom even in some respects he is more than equal, the best painter France has ever produced—the sole one in whose works are found natural simplicity and repose. He took Raphael for his model, whose feeling, sober grace, and internal dignity, do not contribute even now to render his imitation popular. If Le Sueur were less frequently inferior to himself, he would have stood in the first rank of his profession, though he died in 1655, at the early age of thirtyeight. Bourdon, Valentin, and Megnard, were also contemporaries, and in some respects equals, of Le Brun.
To this period, though only by chronology, and to France merely by birth, belongs Claude Gelee, better known as Claude Lorrain, from his native province, where he was born in 1600, dying in his 88th year at Rome, where he resided during the greater part of the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV., having never crossed the Alps after leaving home as the runaway apprentice of a pastry cook. To this artist, self-taught, and at first apparently more than commonly incapable, landscape painting owes its interest and its loveliness as a separate and dignified branch of art. In the sweetest, as in the most brilliant, effects of light—from the first blush of day to the fall of dewy eve, Claude is unrivalled, or even unapproached, if in one or two instances we except our own Wilson. The aerial perspective, and the liquid softness of the tones, in his pictures,—the leafing, forms, and branching of the trees, the light flickering clouds, the transparency of hue, the retiring distances, all make as near approaches to nature as it is possible for art to accomplish. Still there is one grand defect in the representations of Claude, which to a degree destroys the natural effect of their constituent features;—they are too frequently compositions, or what are termed heroic landscape. This certainly heightens the charm merely as respects the imagination, but detracts from the still deeper interests of reality. For this practice, which, indeed, is too common with landscape painters, there can be found also no plea, till it has been proved that the majesty and variety of nature are unequal to the powers of the pencil.
The French painters of the eighteenth century were numerous, and on the whole superior to those of the same era in Italy. Throughout the whole, however, we detect the principles of the school of Louis XIV., as respects the individual qualities of the art; while in the philosophy of taste, more especially as affects painting, are discoverable the effects of the mechanical and systematic criticism—the mere pedantry of learning, which, originating with the writers of that age, spread over Europe, nor, in art, is yet entirely exploded. Cases is one of the most eminent of native artists, who was overlooked during his lifetime; but what is the meaning of Voltaire's remark on this artist? 'Chaque nation cherche à se faire valoir; les Français font valoir les autres nations en tout genre.' The taste of this writer in the fine arts is not less contemptible than in the principles of nobler literature, and in religion. The tawdry nudities which we have seen still suspended in the Salle de Tableaux, at Ferney, are a practical testimony of the one fact; and, place serving, it would be no difficult matter to prove the other, or rather, we trust, it needs no exposition. Santerre studied nature, designs with correctness, and colors agreeably, but he rises not above mediocrity; nor will it be admitted, as asserted by his countrymen, that his picture of Adam and Eve is one of the best in modern art. The two Parrocels and Bourgoyn painted combats, chiefly of horsemen. Jouvenet shows talent in design, but colors too yellow; is remarkable as having painted in old age with his left hand. Rigaud is called the French Rubens. Le Moine, in the Apotheosis of Henry IV. at Versailles, has left a striking and well-colored composition, but one of those incongruous allegories, which, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, formed the besetting sin of French art. La Fosse, the two Boulognes, De Troy, Raous, Tremoilliere, and especially Vanloo, in history; Vateau, in grotesque subjects; Desportes and Audry, in animals; Vernet, the admirable marine painter, with others of less note, bring down our researches to the middle of the last century.
The founder and the representative of the modern French school is David. Born in 1750, he early saw and forsook the conventional feebleness, and, to a great degree, the false glare, of contemporaries, and thus merits the appellation of restorer of art. Unfortunately, however, he engaged in other revolutions than those of taste, and participated too largely in the atrocities which desecrated the close of last century. As one of the regicides, he was, at the restoration, driven into exile—a useless severity, which might have been spared in favor of one who has contributed largely to the solid glory of his country. He died at Brussels in 1825. The leading defect of preceding art in France, is a want of dignified and correct form; next, of simple and natural expression. The former the genius of David detected, and sought to apply the remedy in the careful study of antique sculpture. In this he has been far from unsuccessful; his drawing is most correct, his style of design noble, but both are cold and without feeling. The second defect David either did not discover, or has failed in rectifying. The system which he pursued was in part excellent, but he followed it too exclusively. Statuary can give little to painting beyond form and proportion—the essentials, indeed—but expression, action, not less true and dignified, but more varied, and composition, not to mention coloring, must be added from nature. Here David has failed. He either conceived that the artists who preceded him wanted only form to render French art perfect, or that, by grouping the statuary of ancient Greece in more violent and complicated action, and with more vehemence of expression, pictures would be produced, such, to use his own words, 'that if an Athenian were to return to this world, they might appear to him the works of a Greek painter.' Like Poussin, then, he lived too much for antiquity, and too little with the present; but if Poussin has often given to representations of the most perfect art, instead of delineations of nature, he has at least depicted antiquity as it is, in all its simplicity and perfect repose. David has not done this; he has completely changed, nay, inverted, the character of ancient art, by adding exaggerated expression and forced attitude. The coloring is also very indifferent; for though highly finished, the effect is hard and dry, without sweetness or depth; and while the general tone inclines to the bronze or metallic, the local tints are feeble or untrue. Here, likewise, we discover an endeavor at improvement failing through neglect of the proper object of study. Wishing to avoid the glaring hues of his predecessors, David has fallen into the opposite extreme from overlooking the living subject. The grouping, too, participates in the meagreness inseparable from the system, the arrangement of the figures often approaching to the basso-relievo, where they necessarily stand in lines, while, to relieve the sameness thus produced, the forms are violently and ungracefully contrasted in themselves. Of this a striking instance occurs in the famous picture of the Horatii, who are ranged rank and file, receding from the spectator, so that only one is completely seen, the heads of the others being in profile, each with an arm and foot extended, one, by way of variety, reaching forth his left hand to take the oath dictated by the father, who stands on the opposite side! Without doubt, however, David was a man of great genius, and when he errs, it is more through defect of system than of talent; but the former being his own creation, he stands responsible for its faults. Besides that just quoted, his best performances are Leonidas with the Spartans at Thermopylæ, one of the best colored of his pictures, but the figure of the chief wants majesty; the Death of Socrates is destitute of that solemnity of repose, yet activity of feeling, which we have been accustomed to associate with the scene; the Funeral of Patroclus—a fine antique composition, but French in feeling; the Coronation of Napoleon—a splendid failure; the Rape of the Sabines—much fine drawing, and the usual share of bustle—expression extravagant, yet cold. In portrait, as might have been anticipated from the range of his studies, David was unequal to himself. His best performances in this walk are the numerous likenesses of his imperial patron. We have seen the original sketch for one of these, which indeed was never afterwards touched, taken during the last few hours of undiminished power possessed by Napoleon in Paris. The greater part of the preceding day and night had been spent in arranging the final operations of the campaign which terminated in the battle of Waterloo. When now past midnight, instead of retiring to repose, the emperor sent for David, to whom he had promised to sit, and who was in waiting in an apartment of the Tuileries. 'My friend,' said Napoleon to the artist, on entering, 'there are yet some hours till four, when we are finally to review the defences of the capital; in the meantime, faites votre possible—(do your utmost), while I read these despatches.' But exhausted nature could hold out no longer; the paper dropt from the nerveless hand, and Napoleon sunk to sleep. In this attitude the painter has represented him. The pale and lofty forehead, the careworn features, the relaxed expression, the very accompaniments, wear an impress inexpressibly tender and melancholy. With the dawn Napoleon awoke, and springing to his feet, was about to address David, when a taper just expiring in the socket arrested his eye. Folding his arms on his breast, a usual posture of thought, he contemplated in silence its dying struggles. When with the last gleam the rays of the morning sun penetrated through the half closed window-curtains, 'Were I superstitious,' said Napoleon, a faint smile playing about his beautiful mouth, 'the first object on which my sight has rested this day might be deemed ominous; but,' pointing to the rising sun, 'the augury is doubtful—at least, the prayer of the Grecian hero will be accorded,—we shall perish in light!'