The cupola of the Petit Palais is divided into four panels, and Besnard’s intention is to represent in his paintings the city of Paris in four different conceptions—“Paris Hospitalière,” “Paris dans son Art,” “Paris dans le Commerce,” and “Paris dans les Industries.”
For the St. Louis Exposition in the United States Besnard has sent a frieze covering 760 metres, entirely surrounding the walls of the Exposition Française. In this building will also be seen by the tourists there “l’Ile heureuse.”
For the more minute consideration of Besnard’s works it is well to begin with the decorations in the Ecole de Pharmacie where the walls of the corridor entrance to this School are entirely covered with his decorations. The order was given in 1883 and fulfilled in 1888. Here Besnard has given a series of fresh and delicate plein air frescoes done upon the walls themselves. As they are without protection—regrettably—they are being marked by the vandal pencils of the sightseer and the students. To the right, the first panel represents the open fields where peasants and women gather the medical herbs. In another panel follows the sorting of the herbs in the laboratory; the third is the laboratory itself with the distillation of the medicines. Then comes a line of landscapes just above over the woodwork of the wall like a dado. The first is the serious, meditative scientist in the balcony of his house, overlooking the river and the city. Alongside this are several landscapes of a peculiarly gentle and attractive charm. At the end of the hall are again four large frescoes, the forest where the chemists and the botanists are engaged in their researches—the lecture room and the geologist amongst the rocks. On the opposite wall is the companion series of oblong panels whose subjects have become so well known to the connoisseur: Dawn on a primæval sea where up from the waves prehistoric creatures rise weird and appalling; a group of sea-horses emerging from the waters; a troop of mastodons, and lastly primitive man and woman disporting on the shores of an ancient sea whose waves to-day are confined in some strata of rock to be found by the geologist’s tool.
On the left, at the entrance door, are the most beautiful of the series of decorations. These are life size. One is “La Malade,” a sick girl in her bed, surrounded by the mother, the nurse and the physician.
A PORTRAIT IN YELLOW AND BLUE
The companion piece is “The Convalescence,” and is undoubtedly one of Besnard’s chefs d’œuvre. The invalid, after her long and weary confinement, is being supported by tender arms into the sunlight; and it would be difficult to imagine a more expressive and suggestive subject for these walls. The picture is full of sunlight and mysterious half-tones, and is expressive of tenderness and sympathy and encouragement. In fact, these frescoes possess in a large degree the essentials of good decoration—simplicity of line—bold and correct drawing—impressive human sentiment and impressive subject.
Again and notably, in the decorations of the Salle des Mariages in the Mairie du Louvre the subtlety of Besnard’s treatment of his task, the upleading and inspiring effect he has produced makes well worth a special description of these pictures. It will appear impossible to the dogmatic mind that a secular room, in a Republican Mayor’s office, can suggest an atmosphere of sacred beauty. This, however, has been rendered the case by the decorations with which Besnard has beautified this square, dark, conservative apartment. As one enters the apartment where civil marriages are performed in this particular quarter of Paris the eyes find on the wall opposite the door a graceful and agreeable picture of youthful love. The girl—an exquisite figure—is surrounded by flying birds and young doves. She is seated on a bank of flowers and above her a youth of age as tender as her own waves a branch of spring flowers. From this, one seeks the side wall and a large panel of bright and glowing colour. The subject is harvest time, and the fields are heavy with their burden of grain. On a sheaf of golden wheat is the figure of a woman, mature now although still young, and at her breast a child. Two other children play about her, and alongside the husband’s strong, vigorous figure wrestles with his refractory horse. This decoration, purely pastellic in impression, is so soft and plastic that the clear colour seems ready to come off at the touch. It is peculiarly velvet-like in quality and very high in tone. Already this square, unbeautiful room with its green-covered benches has altered in character. The greatest forces of the world, the greatest beauty of the world, have penetrated it through these interpretations of a master. But it is not to the exuberant and lovely expressions of life that the man and woman who come here to the Maire’s office