LE BRUN’S FOLLOWERS
It would be giving undue importance to these painters of the Louis xiv. period if we were to go beyond a mere enumeration of their leaders and their chief works at the Louvre. None of them possessed any marked individuality; and most of them were linked together, not only by similar aims and ambitions, but also by family ties. Four members of the Coypel family rose to great eminence among their fellow-artists, and to important official positions. Noël Coypel (1628–1707), the painter of the four historical compositions, Solon defending his Laws before the Athenians (No. 157), Ptolomy Philadelphus giving the Jews their Freedom (No. 158), Trajan giving a Public Audience (No. 159), and the Foresight of Septimus Severus (No. 160), all of which were originally executed for the Council Chamber at Versailles; his sons Antoine Coypel (1661–1722), whose best known pictures at the Louvre are the Susannah and the Elders (No. 169) and the Democritos (No. 174), which recalls Jordaens in its exuberant life, and Noël Nicolas Coypel (1692–1734), whose goddesses and nymphs already reflect the taste which dominated the eighteenth century; as well as Antoine’s son, Charles Antoine Coypel (1694–1752), whose uninspired art may best be studied in the Perseus delivering Andromeda (No. 180).
The Triumph of Bacchus (No. 447) and The Annunciation (No. 445), by Charles de La Fosse (1636–1716); Hercules fighting the Centaurs (No. 53), by Bon Boulogne (1649–1717); and The Marriage of St. Catherine (No. 55), by his brother Louis Boulogne (1654–1733), only serve to illustrate the mediocrity of their respective authors. The impersonality of Bon Boulogne’s art had at least the advantage that his teaching left free scope for personal expression to his many pupils.
Even the still-life painting of the “grand siècle,” which found its chief exponent in Jean Baptiste Monnoyer (1634–1699), partakes of the love of pomp and display that characterises this period. Gold and silver vases, precious stuffs and furniture generally accompany his flowers, which are painted without real appreciation of their natural beauty, and in purely local tints without a hint of the effect of each colour upon its surroundings. The Flowers (No. 648), in the La Caze Gallery, may be mentioned as a typical example.
BATTLE PAINTERS
The battle painter, Jacques Courtois (1621–1676), called Borgognone and Le Bourguignon, though born in France, was so completely under the spell of the art of Italy, the country where he spent almost his entire life, that he can scarcely be reckoned as belonging to the French school. His furious cavalry mêlées, though entirely imaginative (as such confused encounters of horsemen piercing each other’s ranks have never taken place in actual warfare), are painted, like the Cavalry Fight (No. 151), with a touch as swift as it is sure and expressive, and full of exuberant vitality.
Joseph Parrocel (1678–1704), who, during a prolonged visit to Rome had benefited by Borgognone’s teaching, could not, after his return to France in 1675, escape the current of thought which dominated his time, and introduced the stage-heroic note into his master’s sham realism. The glorification of his king is the purpose of such pictures as The Passage of the Rhine by Louis XIV. (No. 678). The chief interest is centred in the richly apparelled group on their prancing steeds in the foreground.
JEAN JOUVENET
The Descent from the Cross (No. 437), by Jean Jouvenet (1644–1717), which has been honoured by a position among the masterpieces in the Salon Carré, is certainly one of the most estimable compositions produced in France during this active but uninspired century. Not only in the general disposition of the design, but also in the use of colour as a constructive element, Jouvenet here acknowledges his indebtedness to Rubens, although he could never rival the luminous glow of the great Fleming’s palette. Most of his other pictures suffer from dull heavy shadows and exaggerated expression. His strong and honest painting of the kneeling group in The Abbé Delaporte officiating at the High altar of Nôtre-Dame (No. 440), makes us regret that he did not devote himself more to subjects taken from the life of his time.
An artist who was less tied to the tyranny of the official school, and imbued with a really profound sense of the beautiful, was Jean Baptiste Santerre (1658–1717). The delicate perfection of form of the nude in Susannah and the Elders (No. 835) approaches him to David and Ingres at their best. But this very perfection carries the germ of decay, because it is incapable of progress, and stagnation in art signifies death. As regards his technique, Santerre was extremely careful and conscientious. He reduced his palette to but five colours, and waited ten years after the completion of a picture before putting on the final coat of varnish.