“He’s a fool!” we would exclaim, “he will never be any thing.” Laugh not, dear reader, at our blindness; even great men have been known to undervalue youthful genius.
The crisis which followed the accession of Louis Philippe, did not overthrow the establishment, but it affected the school, and Salaville was dismissed with those who were not actually needed. Once in a while he would come in to inquire after the prospect of work; and when we would ironically congratulate him on his love for study, without reply he would throw off, with two or three strokes of the crayon, ludicrous sketchy caricatures. We accused him to ourselves of idleness, and thought him good for nothing, because he did not spend his days as we did daubing crooked palms, which we modestly called compositions, simpletons that we were. Without any apparent labor, as it were from the instinct that draws the bee to the rose, or the plant to the sun, he would sketch with boyish glee bits of exquisite designs—in one place a smoky hut, over whose broken, ruined roof the ivy gracefully twined; in another a noisy mill, surrounded with the sweeping foliage of the willow’s weaving branches; here and there clusters of drooping, bell-shaped flowers and wild jonquils twining together in luxuriant confusion; then in another corner of the paper a group of laughing, half-naked children, playing with one of those huge, long-eared dogs that the amiable Winterhalter calls the “First Friend!”
To facilitate universal harmony, to inspire us with a desire to aid and love each other, the Creator divides his gifts: upon one is bestowed strength, upon another intelligence; to Salaville has been given the imagination of a poet and the susceptibility of a woman. Several years passed in an idle, wandering way, feeling acutely, and sketching instinctively the beauties of nature, would, as one can readily imagine, produce a remarkable effect on such an organization as Salaville possesses. He did not seek to acquire knowledge, as Montaigne would have said, it came and incorporated itself with his soul. He led this errant life until, when about twenty, wishing to marry, he felt the necessity of applying himself more seriously to his business, and under this influence his compositions shot out fresh and brilliant from his brain, like the drooping grass and blossoms bent with the spray of the falling cascade raise themselves under the genial beams of the warm sun.
The talents of an artist like Salaville are stifled in a town whose manufacturers are distinguished rather for the economy of their combinations than for the fineness of their webs. In 1839, Salaville came to Paris. He did not make this move for the purpose of bettering his condition, for at Nîmes he had an honorable and advantageous position. But he hoped by removing to the capital to be enabled to execute the rich compositions his imagination conceived.
Science does not make happiness, says the Opera-Comique, nor talent secure always success; to obtain the latter skill is often better than learning. Once at Paris, Salaville obtained an undisputed reputation, it is true; but he had not the requisite qualities, nor means to direct and maintain an atélier; nor did he find sufficient zeal and intelligence in his associates. Then the luxurious imagination he possessed, and which made him so remarkable, caused him to be restless and impatient under the lingering details which hang around the commencement of every undertaking. At last, in 1846, Salaville, stretched on a sick bed, tortured with pain, found himself poorer and more destitute than he was on the day of his arrival. Happily at this moment a situation was offered, which once more revived hope and trust in the breast of the almost discouraged artist.
It may be that our readers think but little of square shawls and long shawls; however, they may not be ignorant of the fact that at the time of which I speak the manufacturers coped with each other in copying the Indian Cachemires for the designs of their shawls, which made a ruinous competition, for to obtain any success required great waste. Messrs. Boas, Brothers & Co., so distinguished for their rapid success in business, saw the inutility and folly of this, which is now admitted by every one; but they had the tact to see that in order to create a new style, it was necessary above all to procure an artist of the first order; their lucky stars placed in their hands Salaville, the one most capable of carrying out their plans.
For four years these intelligent men have progressed, improving each other. The manufacturer, with tastes corrected and refined by the artist, has in turn softened the eccentricities and exaggerations of genius. That which makes the shawls of this house so remarkable now, is that their designs have an originality of conception, a freshness and gracefulness never seen before. The cause is easily explained. Salaville has abandoned the old styles, which are exhausted. He does not imitate the Arabic, nor the Indian, nor the style of the Restoration, nor the ornamental, but he throws upon paper a profusion of poetic reminiscences, fruits of his joyous wandering youth.
One could scarcely believe the beauty of outline and design at which the house of Messrs. Boas have arrived. In order to give some idea of it, we have annexed to this article a sketch of one of their shawls. We wish we could at the same time give a description of the new and ingenious process employed in this establishment, to enable the designer to use the richest tints of the palette, that he may have harmony of tone and beauty of color, as well as gracefulness of design. But we have no right to divulge the mysterious secrets of the manufactory; and, moreover, we have said enough. However, in closing, we will ask of our readers, if in these days, when Democracy counts for something, does not Louis Salaville merit a place in the Journal?