As he adores the highest, Death becomes
Less terrible!’
It appears to me that sculpture, though not proper to express health or life or motion, accords admirably with the repose of the tomb; and that it cannot be better employed than in arresting the fleeting dust in imperishable forms, and in embodying a lifeless shadow. Painting, on the contrary, from what I have seen of it in Catholic countries, seems to be out of its place on the walls of churches; it has a flat and flimsy effect contrasted with the solidity of the building, and its rich flaunting colours harmonize but ill with the solemnity and gloom of the surrounding scene.
I would go a pilgrimage to see the St. Peter Martyr, or the Jacob’s Dream by Rembrandt, or Raphael’s Cartoons, or some of Claude’s landscapes;—but I would not go far out of my way to see the Apollo, or the Venus, or the Laocoon. I never cared for them much; nor, till I saw the Elgin Marbles, could I tell why, except for the reason just given, which does not apply to these particular statues, but to statuary in general. These are still to be found in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, with appropriate descriptive stanzas appended to them;[[32]] but they are no longer to be found in the Louvre, nor do the French seem to know they ever were there. Out of sight, out of mind, is a happy motto. What is not French, either as done by themselves, or as belonging to them, is of course not worth thinking about. Be this as it may, the place is fairly emptied out. Hardly a trace remains of the old Collection to remind you of what is gone. A short list includes all of distinguished excellence—the admirable bust of Vitellius, the fine fragment of Inopus, a clothed statue of Augustus, the full-zoned Venus, and the Diana and Fawn, whose light, airy grace seems to have mocked removal. A few more are ‘thinly scattered to make up a shew,’ but the bulk, the main body of the Grecian mythology, with the flower of their warriors and heroes, were carried off by the Chevalier Canova on his shoulders, a load for Hercules! The French sculptors have nothing of their own to shew for it to fill up the gap. Like their painters, their style is either literal and rigid, or affected and burlesque. Their merit is chiefly confined to the academic figure and anatomical skill; if they go beyond this, and wander into the regions of expression, beauty, or grace, they are apt to lose themselves. The real genius of French sculpture is to be seen in the curled wigs and swelling folds of the draperies in the statues of the age of Louis XIV. There they shone unrivalled and alone. They are the best man-milliners and friseurs in ancient or modern Europe. That praise cannot be denied them; but it should alarm them for their other pretensions. I recollect an essay in the Moniteur some years ago (very playful and very well written) to prove that a great hair-dresser was a greater character than Michael Angelo or Phidias; that his art was more an invention, more a creation out of nothing, and less a servile copy of any thing in nature. There was a great deal of ingenuity in the reasoning, and I suspect more sincerity than the writer was aware of. It expresses, I verily believe, the firm conviction of every true Frenchman. In whatever relates to the flutter and caprice of fashion, where there is no impulse but vanity, no limit but extravagance, no rule but want of meaning, they are in their element, and quite at home. Beyond that, they have no style of their own, and are a nation of second-hand artists, poets, and philosophers. Nevertheless, they have Voltaire, La Fontaine, Le Sage, Molière, Rabelais, and Montaigne—good men and true, under whatever class they come. They have also Very and Vestris. This is granted. Is it not enough? I should like to know the thing on the face of God’s earth in which they allow other nations to excel them. Nor need their sculptors be afraid of turning their talents to account, while they can execute pieces of devotion for the shrines of Saints, and classical equivoques for the saloons of the old or new Noblesse.
The foregoing remarks are general. I shall proceed to mention a few exceptions to, or confirmations of them in their Exposé[[33]] of the present year. The Othryadas wounded (No. 1870), by Legendre Heral, is, I think, the least mannered, and most natural. It is a huge figure, powerful and somewhat clumsy (with the calves of the legs as if they had gaiters on), but it has great power and repose in it. It seems as if, without any effort, a blow from it would crush any antagonist, and reminds one of Virgil’s combat of Dares and Entellus. The form of the head is characteristic, and there is a fine mixture of sternness and languor in the expression of the features. The sculptor appears to have had an eye to the countenance of the Dying Gladiator; and the figure, from its ease and massiness, has some resemblance to the Elgin Marbles. It is a work of great merit. The statue of Othryadas erecting the Trophy to his Companions (No. 1774) is less impressive, and aims at being more so. It comes under the head of theatrical art, that is of French art proper. They cannot long keep out of this. They cannot resist an attitude, a significant effect. They do not consider that the definition of Sculpture is, or ought to be, nearly like their own celebrated one of Death—an eternal repose! This fault may in some measure be found with the Hercules recovering the body of Icarus from the Sea (No. 1903), by Razzi. The body of Icarus can hardly be said to have found a resting-place. Otherwise, the figure is finely designed, and the face is one of considerable beauty and expression. The Hercules is a man-mountain. From the size and arrangement of this group, it seems more like a precipice falling on one’s head, than a piece of sculpture. The effect is not so far pleasant. If a complaint lies against this statue on the score of unwieldy and enormous size, it is relieved by No. 1775, A Zephyr thwarting the loves of a Butterfly and a Rose, Boyer. Here French art is on its legs again, and in the true vignette style. A Zephyr, a Butterfly, and a Rose, all in one group—Charming! In such cases the lightness, the prettiness, the flutter, and the affectation are extreme, and such as no one but themselves will think of rivalling. One of their greatest and most successful attempts is the Grâce aux Prisonniers. No. 1802, by David. Is it not the Knife-grinder of the ancients, thrown into a more heroic attitude, and with an impassioned expression? However this may be, there is real boldness in the design, and animation in the countenance, a feeling of disinterested generosity contending with the agonies of death. I cannot give much praise to their religious subjects in general. The French of the present day are not bigots, but sceptics in such matters; and the cold, formal indifference of their artists appears in their works. The Christ confounding the incredulity of St. Thomas (by Jacquot) is not calculated to produce this effect on anybody else. They treat classical subjects much more con amore; but the mixture of the Christian Faith and of Pagan superstitions is at least as reprehensible in the present Collection as in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Among pieces of devotion, The Virgin and Child, and the St. Catherine of Cortot (Nos. 1791–22) struck me as the best. There is a certain delicacy of finishing and graceful womanhood about both, which must make them very acceptable accompaniments to Catholic zeal. The French excel generally in emblematic subjects, or in whatever depends on accuracy and invention in costume, of which there are several examples here. What I liked best, however, were some of their studies of the naked figure, which have great simplicity and ease, such as a Nymph making a Garland of Flowers, No. 1888 (Parmentier), and a Youth going to bathe, No. 1831 (Espercieux). This last figure, in particular, appears to be really sliding down into the bath. Cupid tormenting the Soul (after Chaudet) is a very clever and spirited design, in bronze. Their busts, in general, are not excellent. There are, however, a few exceptions, one especially of a Mademoiselle Hersilie de F——, by Gayrard, which is a perfect representation of nature. It is an unaffected, admirable portrait, with good humour and good sense playing over every feature of the face.
In fine, I suspect there is nothing in the French Saloon of Sculpture greatly to stagger or entirely to overset the opinion of those who have a prejudice against the higher pretensions of French art. They have no masterpieces equal to Chantry’s busts, nor to Flaxman’s learned outlines, nor to the polished elegance of Canova; to say nothing of the exquisite beauty and symmetry of the antique, nor of the Elgin Marbles, among which the Theseus sits in form like a demi-god, basking on a golden cloud. If ever there were models of the Fine Arts fitted to give an impulse to living genius, these are they.[[34]] With enough to teach the truest, highest style in art, they are not in sufficient numbers or preservation to distract or discourage emulation. With these and Nature for our guides, we might do something in sculpture, if we were not indolent and unapt. The French, whatever may be their defects, cannot be charged with want of labour and study. The only charge against them (a heavy one, if true) is want of taste and genius.
CHAPTER XII
The French themselves think less about their music than any other of their pretensions. It is almost a sore subject with them; for it interrupts their talking, and they had rather hear nothing about it, except as an accompaniment to a jig. Their ears are, in this respect, in their heels, and it is only the light and giddy that they at all endure. They have no idea of cadence in any of the arts—of the rise and fall of the passions—of the elevations or depressions of hope or fear in poetry—of alternate light or shade in pictures—all is reduced (as nearly as possible) in their minds to the level of petty, vapid self-satisfaction, or to dry and systematic prosing for the benefit of others. But they must be more particularly at a loss in music, which requires the deepest feeling, and admits the least of the impertinence of explanation, which mounts on its own raptures and is dissolved in its own tenderness; which has no witness or vouchers but the inward sense of delight, and rests its faith on the speechless eloquence, the rich, circling intoxication of inarticulate but heart-felt sounds. The French have therefore no national music, except a few meagre chansons, and their only idea of musical excellence is either rapidity or loudness of execution. You perceive the effect of this want of enthusiasm even in the streets,—they have neither barrel-organs nor blind fiddlers as with us, who are willing to pay for the encouragement of the arts, however indifferently we may practise them; nor does the national spirit break out from every strolling party or village group, as it is said to do in Italy. A French servant-girl, while she is cleaning out a room, lays down her brush to dance—she takes it up to finish her work, and lays it down again to dance, impelled by the lightness of her head and of her heels. But you seldom hear her sing at her work, and never, if there is any one within hearing to talk to.—The French Opera is a splendid, but a comparatively empty theatre. It is nearly as large (I should think) as the King’s Theatre in the Hay-market, and is in a semi-circular form. The pit (the evening I was there) was about half full of men, in their black, dingy sticky-looking dresses; and there were a few plainly-dressed women in the boxes. But where was that blaze of beauty and fashion, of sparkling complexions and bright eyes, that streams like a galaxy from the boxes of our Opera-house—like a Heaven of loveliness let half-way down upon the earth, and charming ‘the upturned eyes of wondering mortals,’ before which the thrilling sounds that circle through the House seem to tremble with delight and drink in new rapture from its conscious presence, and to which the mimic Loves and Graces are proud to pay their distant, smiling homage? Certainly it was not here; nor do I know where the sun of beauty hides itself in France. I have seen but three rays of it since I came, gilding a dark and pitchy cloud! It was not so in Rousseau’s time, for these very Loges were filled with the most beautiful women of the Court, who came to see his Devin du Village, and whom he heard murmuring around him in the softest accents—‘Tous ces sons là vont au cœur!’ The change is, I suppose, owing to the Revolution; but whatever it is owing to, the monks have not, by their return, banished this conventual gloom from their theatres; nor is there any of that airy, flaunting, florid, butterfly, gauzy, variegated appearance to be found in them that they have with us. These gentlemen still keep up the farce of refusing actors burial in consecrated ground; the mob pelt them, and the critics are even with them by going to see the representation of the Tartuffe!
I found but little at the Royal Academy of Music (as it is affectedly called) to carry off this general dulness of effect, either through the excellence or novelty of the performances. A Mademoiselle Noel (who seems to be a favourite) made her debut in Dido. Though there was nothing very striking, there was nothing offensive in her representation of the character. For any thing that appeared in her style of singing or acting, she might be a very pleasing, modest, unaffected English girl performing on an English stage. There was not a single trait of French bravura or grimace. Her execution, however, seldom rose higher than an agreeable mediocrity; and with considerable taste and feeling, her powers seemed to be limited. She produced her chief effect in the latter and more pathetic scenes, and ascended the funeral pile with dignity and composure. Is it not strange (if contradictions and hasty caprices taken up at random, and laid down as laws, were strange in this centre of taste and refinement) that the French should raise such an outcry against our assaults at arms and executions on the stage, and yet see a young and beautiful female prepare to give herself the fatal blow, without manifesting the smallest repugnance or dissatisfaction?—Æneas and Iarbas were represented by Messrs. Mourritt and Derivis. The first was insipid, the last a perfect Stentor. He spoke or sung all through with an unmitigated ferocity of purpose and manner, and with lungs that seemed to have been forged expressly for the occasion. Ten bulls could not bellow louder, nor a whole street-full of frozen-out gardeners at Christmas. His barbarous tunic and accoutrements put one strongly in mind of Robinson Crusoe, while the modest demeanour and painted complexion of the pious Æneas bore a considerable analogy to the submissive advance and rosy cheeks of that usual accompaniment of English travelling, who ushers himself into the room at intervals, with awkward bows, and his hat twirled round in his hands, ‘to hope you’ll remember the coachman.’ The Æneas of the poet, however, was a shabby fellow, and had but justice done him.
I had leisure during this otiose performance to look around me, and as ‘it is my vice to spy into abuses,’ the first thing that struck me was the prompter. Any Frenchman who has that sum at his disposal, should give ten thousand francs a year for this situation. It must be a source of ecstasy to him. For not an instant was he quiet—tossing his hands in the air, darting them to the other side of the score which he held before him in front of the stage, snapping his fingers, nodding his head, beating time with his feet; and this not mechanically, or as if it were a drudgery he was forced to go through, and would be glad to have done with, but with unimpaired glee and vehemence of gesture, jerking, twisting, fidgeting, wriggling, starting, stamping, as if the incessant motion had fairly turned his head, and every muscle in his frame were saturated with the spirit of quicksilver. To be in continual motion for four hours, and to direct the motions of others by the wagging of a finger, to be not only an object of important attention to the stage and orchestra, but (in his own imagination) to pit, boxes, and gallery, as the pivot on which the whole grand machinery of that grandest of all machines, the French Opera, turns—this is indeed, for a Parisian, the acme of felicity! Every nerve must thrill with electrical satisfaction, and every pore into which vanity can creep tingle with self-conceit! Not far from this restless automaton (as if extremes met, or the volatility of youth subsided into a sort of superannuated still-life) sat an old gentleman in front of the pit, with his back to me, a white powdered head, the curls sticking out behind, and a coat of the finest black. This was all I saw of him for some time—he did not once turn his head or shift his position, any more than a wig and coat stuck upon a barber’s block—till I suddenly missed him, and soon after saw him seated on the opposite side of the house, his face as yellow and hard as a piece of mahogany, but without expressing either pleasure or pain. Neither the fiddlers’ elbows nor the dancers’ legs moved him one jot. His fiddling fancies and his dancing-days were flown, and had left this shadow, this profile, this mummy of a French gentleman of the old régime behind. A Frenchman has no object in life but to talk and move with éclat, and when he ceases to do either, he has no heart to do any thing. Deprived of his vivacity, his thoughtlessness, his animal spirits, he becomes a piece of costume, a finely-powdered wig, an embroidered coat, a pair of shoe-buckles, a gold cane, or a snuff-box. Drained of mere sensations and of their youthful blood, the old fellows seem like the ghosts of the young ones, and have none of their overweening offensiveness, or teasing officiousness. I can hardly conceive of a young French gentleman, nor of an old one who is otherwise. The latter come up to my ideal of this character, cut, as it were, out of pasteboard, moved on springs, amenable to forms, crimped and starched like a cravat, without a single tart ebullition, or voluntary motion. Some of them may be seen at present gliding along the walks of the Tuileries, and the sight of them is good for sore eyes. They are also thinly sprinkled through the play-house; for the drama and the belles-lettres were in their time the amusement and the privilege of the Court, and the contrast of their powdered heads and pale faces makes the rest of the audience appear like a set of greasy, impudent mechanics. A Frenchman is nothing without powder, an Englishman is nothing with it. The character of the one is artificial, that of the other natural. The women of France do not submit to the regular approaches and the sober discipline of age so well as the men. I had rather be in company with an old French gentleman than a young one; I prefer a young Frenchwoman to an old one. They aggravate the encroachments of age by contending with them, and instead of displaying the natural graces and venerable marks of that period of life, paint and patch their wrinkled faces, and toupee and curl their grizzled locks, till they look like Friesland hens, and are a caricature and burlesque of themselves. The old women in France that figure at the theatre or elsewhere, have very much the appearance of having kept a tavern or a booth at a fair, or of having been mistresses of a place of another description, for the greater part of their lives. A mannish hardened look and character survives the wreck of beauty and of female delicacy.