2295. PORTRAIT OF A MILITARY COMMANDER.
Frans Pourbus, the younger (Flemish: 1569-1622).
Pourbus, son of Frans Pourbus the elder, was born at Antwerp, and by 1591 was a master in the Guild of St. Luke. He was employed by the Archduke Albert at Antwerp, at whose court he attracted the notice of the Duke of Mantua. The Duke took him into his service (1600-1609), and he shared with Rubens the title of Painter to the Ducal Court. At Mantua he worked at "a collection of the most beautiful women in the world, whether princesses or private ladies." Like Rubens, Pourbus was occasionally employed as Ambassador, and a mission to Paris caused him to forsake Italy for France. Eleanor of Mantua was a sister of Marie de' Medici, and Pourbus finally settled in Paris as Painter to the Queen. There is a portrait of the queen by him at Hampton Court.
2423. LITHOGRAPHS OF HORSES.
J. L. A. T. Géricault (French: 1791-1824).
Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault, animal and historical painter, was a precursor of the revolt of the Romanticists against the Classicists, which was carried further by Delacroix (see 2289). His most famous picture, "The Raft of the Medusa" (Louvre), was exhibited at the Salon in 1819 and excited much controversy. He was the son of a prosperous advocate; and as a young man became a member of the Jockey Club, and lived the life of the jeunesse dorée. He had some instruction in art from Charles Vernet and Guérin, but his real master was Rubens in the Louvre. In 1816 he went to Italy. After 1819 he visited England, where he practised the then new art of lithography. His picture of "The Derby at Epsom" (1821) is in the Louvre.
2439. A RIVER SCENE.
P. E. Théodore Rousseau (French: 1812-1867).
Rousseau, one of the founders of the modern school of landscape in France, had to fight his way to fame through many difficulties and much neglect. The toast of Diaz, "à notre maître oublié," has been already recorded (p. 691). For thirteen years (1835-1848) his pictures were rejected from the Salon; and official honours came to him tardily. He had his revenge in the Exhibition of 1855, when his rejected pictures "came back as victorious exiles," and again in that of 1867, when he was chosen president of the jury. But he was of a sensitive and jealous disposition; he was estranged from his best friend, Dupré, and chagrin at being passed over for promotion in the Legion of Honour in 1867 is said to have hastened his death. A pleasanter episode in his life is his generous and timely help to Millet. The heads of the two artists are carved together on his tombstone in the cemetery of Chailly, near Barbizon. He was born in Paris, the son of a merchant-tailor. He studied painting under Rémond and Guillon Lethière, and first exhibited at the Salon in 1831. His pictures in successive years were loudly trumpeted by Thoré as those of an innovator, and for that reason perhaps excited the more hostility among the old school. His favourite ground was the forest of Fontainebleau, and he made his home at Barbizon, studying every aspect of nature with intense application. "It is a good composition," he wrote, "when the objects represented are not there solely as they are, but when they contain under a natural appearance the sentiments which they have stirred in our souls. If we contest that the trees have power of thought, at any rate we may allow that they can make us think; and in return for all the modesty of which they make use to elevate our thoughts, we owe them, as recompense, not arrogant freedom or pedantic and classic style, but the sincerity of a grateful attention in the reproduction of their being." There is a good example of his forest-pictures in the Wallace Collection.
Rousseau was the most various of the landscape painters of his time. In the present picture we see him in a peaceful mood; another picture (2635) is of a stormy sky.