Indefatigable as a worker during her long career, she produced an immense number of portraits; and while she painted comparatively few subject pictures, she arranged her models in so picturesque a fashion that, as in the example here given, her portraits have great charm of composition. With a virile grasp of form, tempered though it be with grace, Madame Lebrun offers an interesting example of woman's work in art; and, while she has nothing to concede to the painters of her time, is no less interesting as showing that by force of native talent the woman of the early part of the century had in her power the conquest of nearly all the desired rights of the New Woman. She has left extremely interesting memoirs of her life, written in her old age, and there are many anecdotes bearing testimony to her wit. One of these goes back to the time when Louis XVIII., then a youth, enlivened the sittings for his portrait by singing, quite out of tune. "How do you think I sing?" inquired he. "Like a prince," responded the amiable artist.
With Antoine Jean Gros we come to the last and the greatest of the pupils of David. Born in Paris March 16, 1771, he competed but once, in 1792, for the Prix de Rome, was unsuccessful, but undertook the voyage thither on his own slender resources the next year. Italy was in a troubled state—he who troubled all Europe in the early years of the century being there at the head of his army; and in 1796, at Genoa, Gros attracted the attention of Madame Bonaparte. It was she who proposed that Gros should paint Napoleon; and Gros consequently went to Milan, and after the battle of Arcole painted the hero carrying the tricolor across the bridge at the head of his grenadiers. The picture pleased Bonaparte, who had it engraved, and gave Gros a commission to collect for the Louvre the chief artistic treasures of Italy. These functions occupied him until 1801, during which period, however, he executed a number of successful portraits.
Returning to Paris after nine years, he painted the Hospital at Jaffa, representing Napoleon visiting the fever-stricken soldiers. The success of this picture, exhibited in 1804, was very great; and it remains Gros's best title to remembrance. In it is something of the reality poetized and seen through the eyes of an artist which characterizes the work of Eugene Delacroix.
The force of David, however, was too great for Gros; at fifty years of age we find him demanding counsel of the master, who sternly bids him leave his "futile subjects," and devote his time to great historical epochs of the past. When David was sent into exile in 1816, it was to Gros that he confided the direction of his school; and this task, and the production of immense canvases like the Battle of the Pyramids, filled his life. The picture here reproduced, the Visit of Charles the Fifth and Francis the First to the Tombs of the Kings in the Cathedral of St. Denis, was painted in 1812.
FRANCIS I., KING OF FRANCE, AND CHARLES V., EMPEROR OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE, VISITING THE TOMBS OF THE FRENCH KINGS AT ST. DENIS. FROM A PAINTING BY BARON GROS, IN THE LOUVRE.
Between 1520 and 1545 all Europe was kept in distress and turmoil by a quarrel between Francis I. and Charles V., the chief subject of contention being the duchy of Milan, which Charles held and Francis claimed. Four separate wars were waged by Francis against Charles, all of them unsuccessful. But their majesties had intervals of outward friendship, and in one of these Francis invited Charles, then setting out from Spain for the Low Countries, to pass through France and visit him. The visit was duly paid, was one of great state and ceremony, and from it is derived the incident portrayed in the above picture. Francis is the figure in the centre; Charles, suited in black, standing at his right.
The revolt which was already making itself felt in French art was a thorn in the flesh of the sensitive Gros. In vain were all the artistic honors showered upon him. In 1824 he was made a baron; since 1816 he had been a member of the Institute; and the crosses of most of the orders of Europe, and the medals of all the exhibitions were his. Nevertheless, about him younger painters revolted. In his secret soul, doubtless, he felt sympathy with their methods. But the commands of the terrible old exile of Brussels were still in his ears.
Finally a portrait of King Charles X., the decorations in the Museum of Sovereigns, and a picture exhibited in the Salon of 1835 were in turn harshly criticized by the press, which looked with favor on the younger men; and Gros, full of years, and of honors which had brought fortune in their train, was found drowned in a little arm of the Seine near Meudon, June 26, 1835. In despair he had taken his own life. With him died David's greatest pupil and a part of David's influence. But that portion of the teachings of the master most consonant with French character is not without effect to-day. Less strong than in the generation following David, absolutely extinct if we are to believe the extremists among the men of to-day, it yet remains a leaven to the fermenting mass of modern production. Perhaps its healthy influence is the best monument to the man who "restored to France the purity of antique taste."