SORBONNE SERIES, No. 2
criterion of public taste in Art was at this time, certain pictures in the Luxembourg and the Louvre attest! The jurors and the judges are forgotten. Puvis de Chavannes, however, is remembered, with the distinguished company of the Refused—Courbet, Dupré, Baryé, Troyon, Rousseau, Diaz, Millet, Corot. It was not until he had produced a great number of his masterpieces that his success was determined—his genius recognised. He then ceased to be the individual, the sport of vulgar pen and brush, and became the symbol of his work as the flag is of patriotism. He became a gift, a force, a glory, which France before his death revered, and which she justly honours. He was made President of the Academy of Fine Arts at the new Salon, Champs de Mars, and wore the cross of the Legion of Honour.
It would take volumes to speak in detail of the works of Puvis de Chavannes. A list of them is as follows. Thus far I think it can be said that there are no volumes that deal with him or his works technically. The technique of painting can only be interesting to painters when discussed by the profession; and such books are almost unknown.
“The Pietà” (1850); “La Paix et la Guerre” (1861); “Travail et Repos” (1865), in the Musée of Amiens; “Ave Picardia Nutrix” (1865); “Ludus,” “Pro Patria,” “Doux Pays,” all in the gallery of Picardie (1879); “Marseille, Porte d’Orient,” and “Marseille, Colonie Grecque”—Marseilles Museum (1867); “St. Radegonde and Charles Martel”—Hôtel de Ville at Poitiers (1872); “Ste. Geneviève of the Panthéon, Paris” (1877); “Bois Sacré,” “La Rhône et La Saône,” “L’Inspiration Chrétienne,”—Musée at Lyons (1883); “L’Art Céramique,” “Inter Artes et Naturam,” and “Groupe”—Musée at Rouen (1890-92); “L’Hiver,” “L’Eté,” “Victor Hugo offrant son Lyre à la Ville de Paris”—Hôtel de Ville, Paris (1893); “Lettres, Arts et Muses”—Sorbonne Paris (1894). Lastly, another continent called his genius to create something for its generations to hand down to fame, and for the Boston Library Puvis de Chavannes painted “Le Génie Messager de Lumière.”
“The Childhood of Ste. Geneviève,” four panels to the glory of the patron saint of Paris, covers a portion of the right wall of the Panthéon. This was the first decoration given at the close of the war of the Commune. The subjects are the pious Childhood, the
