"THE MAN WITH THE LEATHERN BELT." PORTRAIT OF GUSTAVE COURBET AS A YOUNG MAN, BY HIMSELF.
From the original, in the Louvre.
Narcisco Virgilio Diaz de la Peña was the noble name of him who, born at Bordeaux in 1807, the son of a Spanish refugee, died at Mentone, November 18, 1876. Left an orphan when very young, he drifted to Paris, and found work, painting on china, in the manufactory at Sèvres. Here he met Dupré, employed like himself; and in their work in other fields it is not fanciful to feel the influence of the delight in rich translucent color, of the tones employed with over-emphasis on the surface of faïence. After a bitter acquaintance with poverty, Diaz produced work which brought him great popularity. The earlier pictures were studies in the forest of Fontainebleau, whose venerable tree-trunks, moss-grown; whose lichen-covered rocks, and gleaming pools reflecting the sky, he rendered with force of color and strength of effect. Gradually he began to attempt the figure, which in his hands never attained a higher plane than an assemblage of charming though artificial color; and these little bouquets, which superficially imitated Correggio, Da Vinci, or Prud'hon, as the fancy seized the painter, bathed in a color that is undeniably agreeable, were and are to this day loved by the collector. Of a whimsical temperament, Diaz was the life of artist gatherings; and his facility in work, and its popularity, gave him the means of doing many generous acts, the memory of which lives. But of the group of men of his time, he has exercised, perhaps, the least influence.
THE STONE-BREAKERS. FROM A PAINTING BY GUSTAVE COURBET.
One of Courbet's early pictures, which, when exhibited at the Salon, excited considerable discussion, certain adverse critics finding in it an appeal to the socialistic elements. It represents a scene common in France, where stones are piled by the roadsides, to be broken up for repairing the route.
Jules Dupré rises to a higher plane. But his work, freed from the colder academical bondage, is pitched in a key of color which takes us to a world where the sun shines through smoke; where the clouds float heavily, filled with inky vapors; and the light shoots from behind the trees explosively. It is a grave, rhythmic world, however; and if it lacks the dewy atmosphere of Corot, it has an intensity which the more sanely balanced painter seldom reached. Dupré, born at Nantes in 1812, and dying near Paris, at the village of L'Isle-Adam, in 1889, made his first important exhibit at the Salon in 1835, after a visit to England, where he met Constable. This picture, "Environs of Southampton," was typical of the work he was to do. A long waste of land near the sea, the middle distance in deepest shadow, and richly colored storm-clouds racing overhead; the foreground in sunlight, enhanced by the artificial contrast of the rest of the picture; a wooden dyke on which, together with two white horses near by, the gleam of sunlight falls almost with a sound, so intensified is all the effect, make up the picture. Dupré's work is generally keyed up to the highest possible pitch, and it is no little merit that, with the constant insistence on this note, it is seldom or never theatrical.
Constant Troyon, from sympathy of aim, is commonly included in this group, although it was gradually, and after success achieved in landscape, that his more powerful cattle pictures were produced, which alone entitle him to the place. Born at Sèvres in 1810, where his father was employed at the manufactory of porcelain, he was thrown in contact with Dupré and Diaz. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1832, and for nearly twenty years was known as a landscape painter. His work at that time was eclectic, sufficiently in touch with Rousseau, whose acquaintance he had made, to be of interest, but never revolutionary enough to alarm the academical juries of the Salon. In 1849, after a visit to Holland, he turned his attention to animal painting, and became in that field the first of his time. In common with his quondam comrades in the porcelain manufactory, Troyon delighted in warmth and richness of tone and color; but in the rendering of the texture and color of cattle the quality availed him greatly, and as objects in his foreground the landscape environment gained in depth by its judicious use. Troyon will be chiefly remembered by the pictures painted from 1846 to 1858. The later years of his life, until his death in 1865, were passed with a clouded intellect.
