The American in Paris; vol. 2 of 2

by John Sanderson

To enter the Louvre this morning, I used the stranger’s privilege; and unfolding my passport, a lady, with so much the air of a lady, as to be sure of meeting no repulse, taking my arm, said, “Sir, I will ask the favour of going in with you. I will be your wife two minutes,” and we went in together. A Frenchwoman says and does things sometimes at which our American honour grows very indignant, yet does she say and do no harm. In conversing with this woman, I did not doubt “two minutes” of her being of the best breeding and education. She had resided at Florence, and a long time at Rome, and had exactly that kind of information which the necessities of my condition required. I entreated her of course not to be divorced at the end of the “minutes.” She has wit and learning, and is eloquent to the very ends of her fingers. Her personal beauty, too, is of no common order, but just threatening to fade; the period at which woman, to my taste, is much more interesting than with the full blown charms of seventeen summers in her face. She has then the interest of a possession which soon may escape; she has maturity of intelligence, of feeling and expression, to which the brilliancy of youthful beauty is as the tinsel to the pure gold.

The Louvre has nine divisions, bounded each by an arch resting on four Corinthian columns, and pilasters of beautiful marble, having bases and capitals of bronze-gilt; and between them are mirrors, and splendid ancient and modern vases and busts. Three of these parts are assigned to the French, three to the German, Flemish, and Dutch, and as many to the Italian and Spanish masters. I walked with my amiable virtuosa up and down this enchanting gallery for an hour; gathering wisdom, not being allowed to gather any thing else, from her lips.

And we conversed, not of politics, or the town scandal, but of what it imported me more to know, of Florence, and of the treasures of that city of the arts—of Florence, the birth-place of Dante, of Galileo, of Machiavelli, of Michael Angelo; and we conversed of those two great patrons of Florentine learning, Cosmo and Lorenzo de Medici,—how the arts revived under their care, and flourished under their munificent protection, and how much more one man often does towards the glory and honour of a country, than ten thousand of his neighbours. And so we walked, and then stood still, and looked up, to the great fatigue of our legs, a contingency which the French foreseeing, had provided against by placing sofas along each side the room, and in front of the finest paintings; so down we sat opposite the “French School.”

Here I put the lady back to her rudiments, and I am going to give you a tincture of her remarks. Before coming to this country I had seen neither statues nor pictures. I had seen only Miss “Liberty,” on the bow of an East Indiaman, and a General Washington or two, hospitably inviting one to put up for the night. In a word I had studied only in that great National Gallery of ours, the sign-posts. So the less I say of my own wit upon this subject, the better.

“To improve your taste, sir, in painting, it is not the best way to dissipate your attention upon all this variety. Select a few pieces of the best and study these alone, for an hour a day, until by comparison you can distinguish their beauties, with the style and character of each master. You will then be able to read with satisfaction through the rest of the great volume; you will know what to receive, what to reject, and how to economise your time and attention. Here are the French masters. It was under Louis XIV., and with Poussin, this school began. The great number of pictures at this time brought to Paris and exhibited publicly gave a general taste for the art; and we have attained since a very eminent distinction, without, however, reaching the great masters of the Flemish and Italian schools. We have all the dry particulars of excellence, such as the labour of copying the fine classical models may produce. All schools, under the authority of a master, lead off from nature, to imitation—to a mean practice of mere copying, which fetters and debases genius.

“How much better to have open galleries, as the ancient Greeks, untrammelled; where the mind may follow its own impulses, and recommend itself at once to the great tribunal, before which all human excellence must come at last for its recompense and fame. Hogarth, Reynolds, Wilson, and West, were all eminent before the birth of the Royal Academy, and who does not know that Reynolds would have been more eminent still, if he had not been thrust into its Presidency? Raphael never read a treatise or heard a lecture on his art. All the great painters under Leo X. were of no school; they were fostered by individuals and the public, and all the efforts of the academy of St. Luke have not been able to continue the race. When painting shows her face in your country, be wise, and do not cramp her natural movements by the trammels of an academy.

“In this French school you must admire the life, the movement, the variety of Lebrun; the serene and noble expression, the correct, yet grand and heroic style of the classical Poussin; and him, whose landscapes, and tableaux contend for superiority, Claude Lorraine; especially the trees, suns, moons, and lightning of his beautiful landscapes; the fine sea pieces too, and landscapes of Vernet; and Lemoine, immortal for his Hercules. This last died of melancholy from the neglect of his patron and the envy of his rivals. The next time we meet, I shall hear you all day praise the grace and sentiment of Le Sueur, and the more animated grace of Mignard; you will have adored his cupola of Val-de-Grace, and his virgins, too, and above all his St. Cecilia, celebrated so magnificently by Molière.

“See what a different world!—The phlegmatic and laborious Hollander. This is nature, as it is in Amsterdam, fat, Dutch nature; wrought out to a neat and prudish perfection, to be accomplished only by Dutch patience, admirable in animals, fruits, flowers, insects, night-scenes, vessels, machines, and all the objects of commerce and arts; admirable, too, in perspective; its clara obscura is magic, it paints the very light of heaven; the shades in nature’s self are not better blended. Don’t you love this shop; this peasant’s kitchen; and the grotesque dresses, and comic expression of these figures? All, as you see, in this school have the same face; the artist has no idea of a connection between faces and minds. Scipio is a Dutch burgomaster.

“Here are Alexander and Diogenes; either in the tub will do for the philosopher; both are Dutchmen. But what harmony of colours; what living carnations; what relief; what truth and character!—these are Rembrandt’s, and even these want spirit and dignity. Let us sit down here and take a long look at Rubens, the Titian, the Raphael of the Low Countries—of the singular beauty of his heads, his light and easy pencil; the life, harmony and truth of all his compositions. The whole world goes to Anvers, alone, to see the works of this extraordinary genius; to see his “Crucifixion,” you would go any where; you can hear his thief scream upon the cross. And here is Jordaens, almost his equal, and the portraits, never to be surpassed, of Vandyke. Here, too, the inimitable village fêtes, and grotesque peasantry, and soldiers of Teniers; the landscapes and farms, and cattle of Potter; and Van-der-meer’s sheep, as natural as those which feed upon the down.—These last, of nearly the same character, are the Germans, Durer, Holbein, and Kneller.

“And now the divine Italy. The noble Florentines; Michael Angelo and Vinci at their head;—the fruitful, the lively, the imaginative, the graceful, the majestic, and every other excellence combined. If you love the arts you will live always in Florence. There is nothing here of Angelo, but this is the Joconde of Vinci, the most finished portrait in the world.