THE BARYE EXHIBITION.
Entering the handsome galleries of the American Art Association, one finds the lower floor given up to the Barye bronzes, while the upper rooms are devoted to the “Angelus” and the paintings by Millet and other contemporaries of the great French sculptor. Passing on the left of the entrance the superb, large bronze of “Theseus battling with the Centaur,” one is fronted by the great cast of the “Lion and Serpent,” which from the centre of the gallery dominates the surrounding exhibits. Both of these are the property of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the cast having lately been presented to that institution by the French government. Upon the right hangs Bonnat’s vigorous portrait of Barye, on the left wall one sees the water-color of the “Tiger Hunt,” and all around are cases, groups and isolated pieces of the bronzes.
Here are over 450 works in wax, plaster and bronze, of which Mr. W. T. Walters contributes one-fourth, while the Corcoran Gallery sends its entire collection, numbering nearly a hundred, Mr. Cyrus J. Lawrence loans sixty-two pieces, Mr. James F. Sutton fifty-two and Mr. Samuel P. Avery thirty. Other contributors, who have followed their generous example, are Messrs. R. Austin Robertson, Theodore K. Gibbs, Robert and Richard M. Hoe, James S. Inglis, Richard M. Hunt and Albert Spencer. Of many of the subjects there are several copies, and amateurs can study proofs and patinas to their heart’s content. From Mr. Walters’s famed collection are the four unique groups modelled for the table of the Duke of Orleans, chief of which is the “Tiger Hunt,” where two of the huge cats attack an elephant from whose back three Indians defend themselves with courage. The giant pachyderm writhes his serpent-like trunk in air and plunges forward open-mouthed, trumpeting with pain from the keen claws of the tigers hanging on his flanks. The Hunts of the Bull, the Bear and the Elk are worthy companions of this magnificent bronze, offering wonderfully fine examples of condensed composition in the entwined bodies of men and beasts, and filling the eye with the grand sweeps of their circling forms. The same liberal patron of art also lends his unique piece of a walking lion, in silver, made in 1865 for a racing prize, and a plaster-proof of the little medallion of “Milo of Crotona attacked by a Lion,” executed by Barye in 1819 for the Prix de Rome competition at the École des Beaux-Arts. This little gem, worthy of the antique, did not secure the prize, however, which went to a now-forgotten sculptor named Vatinelle. It had often been so before, it has often been so since down to our day (Comerre was preferred to Bastien Lepage in 1875) and doubtless it will be so for who knows how many years to come.
All the phases of that terrific struggle for existence where beast hunts beast, which have been depicted by Barye’s genius, are here. Here is the “Tiger devouring a Crocodile” (with which Barye made his first appearance at the Salon, in 1831); the “Jaguar devouring a Hare”; the “Lion devouring a Doe,” the “Crocodile devouring an Antelope,” the “Python swallowing a Doe,” the “Tiger devouring a Gazelle,” the “Bear on a tree devouring an Owl” and the “Lion devouring a Boar.” What a series of banquets on blood and warm, almost living flesh is here presented! How cruel these creatures are to each other, is the thought that first comes to us, but a second, reminds that it is but their instinct and a necessity of natural law, and repulsion is lost in astonishment and delight at the marvellous fidelity with which the sculptor has rendered these links in the great chain of animal life. Their (as we call it) savage eagerness, their almost blind rage for their appointed food, the tenacity with which they clutch and the ravening anxiety (caused by the dread of losing their prey) with which they tear the flesh of their victims, is portrayed to the life. We speak of a death-grip, but here is a death and life grip—death to the victim whose palpitating body furnishes life to its destroyer. It is the hot-cold-bloodedness of nature, the disregard for suffering of the tornado, the earthquake and the avalanche shown in little in the fangs and claws of these wild creatures. Then there are the battles of the more evenly-matched animals—not always as a result of the need of sustenance—such are the tiger transfixed by the elephant; the python’s folds crushing the crocodile; and the bear dragging the bull to earth, or itself, in turn, overthrown by mastiffs. Then comes those groups into which man enters—the African horseman surprised by a great serpent whose formidable folds already enclose his struggling body; the Arabs killing a lion; and the “Theseus overcoming the Minotaur,” wherein the calmly irresistible hero is about to bury his keen, short sword in the bull-neck of the gross monster. The success with which Barye has combined the human and bestial characteristics of the minotaur is most remarkable and a similar triumph is won in the hippogriff—the winged horse, with forefeet of claws and beaked nose, which leaps so swiftly over the coiled-shape of the dolphin-serpent, which serves for his pedestal—bearing upon his back the charming, nude figure of Angelica held in the mail-clad arms of Ariosto’s hero. To this category seems to belong the “Ape riding a Gnu,” the forms, however, being true to nature though appearing fantastic when placed in juxtaposition.
The horse as we know him, and carrying more familiar burdens, is shown in numerous equestrian statuettes, the best of which is the slender, nervous figure of Bonaparte as First Consul, mounted on a proudly-stepping Arab. There is another one of Napoleon, showing him at a later period of his life, and the other equestrian portraits include one of the Duke of Orleans, who looks every inch a gentleman; one of Gaston de Foix, the hero of Ravenna; and one of Charles VII. Then there is a spirited statuette of a Tartar warrior in chain armor sharply pulling back his steed, and a graceful figure of a lady wearing the riding-dress of 1830. A painful contrast is presented by the doomed horse unwillingly carrying a lion whose dreadful grip his frantic rearing cannot loosen. In addition there are many studies of horses, various in breed and attitude, and the small wax model of a young man mastering a horse which though but a rough “first sketch” has all the “go and fire” possible. It would have been of interest if some illustration of Barye’s equestrian monument of Napoleon at Ajaccio could have been shown, and this reminds me that except a photograph of the Château d’Eau at Marseilles, showing the four groups of animals designed by him (which Mr. Cyrus J. Lawrence was thoughtful enough to send), and the two reclining river-gods from the Louvre (sent by Mr. Walters), there is nothing which gives any idea of Barye’s public work. Not even photographs of the War, Order, Glory and Peace groups of the Louvre, which could have easily been taken from the copies given by Mr. Walters to Baltimore, now on Mount Vernon Place, are present. But, in face of the admirable collection here gathered together, this may savor of ingratitude, and I will return to the consideration of the remaining sculptures.
Among them are some masterly pieces of decoration, the most important being the superb candelabra made for the Duc de Montpensier. These have seated at their base nude figures of the three chief goddesses of classic mythology, whose noble proportions and purity of outline prove the versatility and completeness of the sculptor’s art. Juno is accompanied by her peacock and bears the rod of power; Minerva lifts a sword, and Venus holds the golden apple. The candelabra are further enriched with masks and chimeras, and bear at their top a charming circular group of the three graces, small undraped figures, with arms entwined and faces turned toward each other. The general design and exquisite detail of this work is worthy of the Renaissance. There are some more candlesticks and other works of decorative art, all of which bear the marks of a master-hand.
The humorous side of things is presented by some of the groups: in the ungainly figure of the elephant of Senegal running; in the bear lying on his back in a trough and eating with great gusto some sweet morsel which he holds between his paws; and in the meditative stork standing on the back of a turtle. Some of the animals are shown as sleeping or reclining, and there is a cat sitting, a goat feeding, a deer scratching its side and a pheasant walking, among others, but the tragic note is struck in most of them. Probably the best works are to be found among those pieces representing members of the feline race, which were always the subject of Barye’s most thorough study. The sculptures of horses are also very numerous, and it strikes one at first as curious that, after all the rebuffs he received from the academic faction, who recognized no animals but the horse and lion as worthy of representation in sculpture, he should have modelled so many of these very creatures. But, after all, Barye’s lions and horses belong to an entirely different race from those which the tradition-bound old fogies were pleased with. The collection embraces many admirable bronzes of birds: an eagle holding a dead heron; an owl with a rat; a paroquet on a tree, and a strikingly fine composition of a hawk killing a heron; and there are some beautiful studies of dogs, especially a large seated greyhound, belonging to Mr. Walters. There are rabbits, badgers, wolves and camels, but I remember no cows or pigs, and only one group of sheep. Wild life, much more than domestic, touched the sympathies of Barye.
Mr. Walters loans twenty-three of Barye’s powerful water-colors of animals and a fine oil, of unusual size for this artist, of a tiger. One of the most striking of the water-colors shows a great snake swallowing an antelope, whose head is partly engulfed, and it is almost exactly the same as one of the bronzes from the Walters collection. Other gentlemen have contributed water-colors and oil-paintings by Barye, among them being several landscapes at Fontainebleau, and there are various etchings and prints after his works and some of his lithographs, pencil-sketches and autographs, with a copy of the only etching—a stag fighting a cougar—which, according to so good an authority as Mr. Avery, he ever made. These remarkable water-colors alone would suffice to show the genius of Barye, for they are full of the same qualities of truth and originality of expression which we see in his bronzes. Their color is exceedingly fine, and their topics are generally tigers, lions, elephants and serpents. It is a source of wonder how Barye, who never visited the East, could have so well depicted the tropical landscapes in which he has placed these tawny tigers and majestic lions. The drawings, like the sculptures, impress us with their air of absolute veracity, and, even in their most dramatic moments, suggest a reticence behind. Barye does not exhaust himself or his subject, yet he seems to have said the last word in this direction of art, and I cannot imagine that his profound and searching genius will ever be surpassed.
The managers of the galleries announce the exhibition of a hundred “masterpieces” by the contemporaries and friends of Barye, but I do not think that the visitor will find so large a number which can rightly be thus classed. To me it appears that something less than one-half are works of the first order, but among the remainder are many good things worthy of attention. Here again the treasures of Mr. Walters’s collection are drawn upon and he sends some twenty-five pictures, prominent among which is the great “Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,” by Corot; the “Evening Star,” by the same master; Troyon’s “Cattle Drinking”; Diaz’s “Storm” and “Autumn Scene in the Forest of Fontainebleau”; Rousseau’s “Le Givre”; Decamps’s “Suicide”; Daubigny’s large “Sunset on the Coast of France”; Delacroix’s “Christ on the Cross”; and Millet’s “Breaking Flax.” One of the finest Millets I have ever seen is here, lent by Mr. Walters. This is the “Sheepfold at Night,” which with several others of Mr. Walters’s paintings here shown, was in the exhibition of “One Hundred Masterpieces” held at Paris in 1883. In its foreground a line of sheep pass by toward the gate of the fold through which some have already entered under the guidance of the shepherd and his dog, who stand near. The horizon is low, and just above it swings a swollen moon, shaped like a cup, from which floods of pale light fill the scene with color. If this were Mr. Walters’s only contribution it would be sufficient to place us under a heavy obligation to him. The “St. Sebastian” is a large canvas, measuring four feet wide by eight feet high, which was first shown at the Salon of 1853, and afterwards twice received important changes at the artist’s hands. It shows an opening in a great wood, with the saint reclining on the ground tended by two holy women, while above appear some angels who bear the martyr’s palm and crown. Rousseau’s “Le Givre” is well described by Sensier, who says in his “Souvenirs sur Th. Rousseau,” it represents “the hills of Valmondois as seen a mile away across the Oise, along the des Forgets road. The composition could not be more simple. Little hillocks heaped in the foreground are covered with half-melted snow, and the sun, red in the midst of a leaden sky, is seen dying and threatening through the clouds.” The “Suicide,” of Decamps, shows the body of a young artist stretched lifeless on his pallet in a gloomy room, and is painted with extraordinary force. The “Sunset,” by Daubigny, describes a scene on the French coast with some cows near a pool separated from the sea only by a few yards. The foreground is rich in sombre greens and browns, the ocean a glorious blue and the sky tinged with the roses of sunset.