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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41886 ***
+
+    MASTERPIECES
+    IN COLOUR
+    EDITED BY
+    T. LEMAN HARE
+
+    CHARDIN
+
+
+
+
+IN THE SAME SERIES
+
+    ARTIST.                    AUTHOR.
+
+    VELAZQUEZ.                 S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    REYNOLDS.                  S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    TURNER.                    C. LEWIS HIND.
+    ROMNEY.                    C. LEWIS HIND.
+    GREUZE.                    ALYS EYRE MACKLIN.
+    BOTTICELLI.                HENRY B. BINNS.
+    ROSSETTI.                  LUCIEN PISSARRO.
+    BELLINI.                   GEORGE HAY.
+    FRA ANGELICO.              JAMES MASON.
+    REMBRANDT.                 JOSEF ISRAELS.
+    LEIGHTON.                  A. LYS BALDRY.
+    RAPHAEL.                   PAUL G. KONODY.
+    HOLMAN HUNT.               MARY E. COLERIDGE.
+    TITIAN.                    S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    MILLAIS.                   A. LYS BALDRY.
+    CARLO DOLCI.               GEORGE HAY.
+    GAINSBOROUGH.              MAX ROTHSCHILD.
+    TINTORETTO.                S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    LUINI.                     JAMES MASON.
+    FRANZ HALS.                EDGCUMBE STALEY.
+    VAN DYCK.                  PERCY M. TURNER.
+    LEONARDO DA VINCI.         M. W. BROCKWELL.
+    RUBENS.                    S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    WHISTLER.                  T. MARTIN WOOD.
+    HOLBEIN.                   S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    BURNE-JONES.               A. LYS BALDRY.
+    VIGÉE LE BRUN.             C. HALDANE MACFALL.
+    J. F. MILLET.              PERCY M. TURNER.
+    CHARDIN.                   PAUL G. KONODY.
+
+_In Preparation_
+
+    MEMLINC.                   W. H. JAMES WEALE.
+    ALBERT DÜRER.              HERBERT FURST.
+    FRAGONARD.                 C. HALDANE MACFALL.
+    CONSTABLE.                 C. LEWIS HIND.
+    RAEBURN.                   JAMES L. CAW.
+    BOUCHER.                   C. HALDANE MACFALL.
+    WATTEAU.                   C. LEWIS HIND.
+    MURILLO.                   S. L. BENSUSAN.
+    JOHN S. SARGENT, R.A.      T. MARTIN WOOD.
+
+    AND OTHERS.
+
+
+[Illustration: PLATE I.--STILL-LIFE. (Frontispiece)
+
+(In the Louvre)
+
+This "Still-Life," which is among the fine array of Chardin's pictures
+at the Louvre, affords a striking illustration of the master's supreme
+skill in rendering the surface qualities, textures, plastic properties,
+and mutual colour relations of the most varied objects and substances,
+such as porcelain, metals, linen, foodstuffs, wood, and so forth. The
+composition is somewhat overcrowded, and lacks the sense of order in the
+apparent disorder, that is so typical of Chardin's still-life
+arrangements.]
+
+
+
+
+    CHARDIN
+
+    BY PAUL G. KONODY
+
+    ILLUSTRATED WITH EIGHT
+    REPRODUCTIONS IN COLOUR
+
+    [Illustration: IN SEMPITERNUM.]
+
+    LONDON: T. C. & E. C. JACK
+    NEW YORK: FREDERICK A. STOKES CO.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                  Page
+      I.                                                             9
+
+     II.                                                            36
+
+    III.                                                            46
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+    Plate
+       I. Still-Life                                       Frontispiece
+              In the Louvre
+
+                                                                   Page
+      II. La Fontaine, or the Woman Drawing Water                    14
+              In the National Gallery, London
+
+     III. L'Enfant au Toton, or the Child with the Top               24
+              In the Louvre
+
+      IV. Le Bénédicité, or Grace before Meat                        34
+              In the Hermitage Collection at St. Petersburg
+
+       V. La Gouvernante, or Mother and Son                          40
+              In the Collection of Prince Liechtenstein in Vienna
+
+      VI. La Mère Laborieuse                                         50
+              In the Stockholm Museum
+
+     VII. Le Panneau de Pêches, or the Basket of Peaches             60
+              In the Louvre
+
+    VIII. La Pourvoyeuse                                             70
+              In the Louvre
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin occupies a curious position among the
+artists of his time and country. His art which, neglected and despised
+for many decades after his death, is now admitted by those best
+competent to judge to be supreme as regards technical excellence, and,
+within the narrow limits of its subject matter, to possess merits of far
+greater significance than are to be found in the work of any Frenchman,
+save Watteau, from the founding of the school of Fontainebleau to modern
+days, is apt to be regarded as an isolated phenomenon, un-French, out of
+touch, and out of sympathy with the expression of the artistic genius of
+eighteenth-century France. A grave misconception of the true inwardness
+of things! Rather should it be said that Chardin was the one typically
+French painter among a vast crowd of more or less close followers of a
+tradition imported from Italy; the one painter of the actual life of his
+people among the artificial caterers for an artificial and often
+depraved and lascivious taste; a man of the people, of the vast
+multitude formed by a homely, simple bourgeoisie; painting for the
+people the subjects that appealed to the people.
+
+In order to understand the position of Chardin in the art of his country
+it is necessary to bear in mind that the autochthonous painting of
+France, the real expression of French genius, was from its early
+beginnings closely connected with the art of the North, and not with
+that of Italy. The style of the early French miniaturists of the
+Burgundian School, of Fouquet and of Clouet, is the style of the North;
+their art is interwoven with the art of Flanders. When in the time of
+François I. the School of Fontainebleau, headed by Primaticcio and
+Rosso, promulgated the gospel that artistic salvation could only be
+found in the emulation of Raphael and the masters of the late Italian
+Renaissance, and of the Bolognese eclectics; when finally degenerated
+painters like Albani were held up as example, official art became
+altogether Italianised and stereotyped; and the climax was reached with
+the foundation of the School of Rome by Louis XIV. But, though
+officially neglected and looked upon with disfavour, the national
+element was not to be altogether crushed by the foreign importation.
+Poussin remained French in spite of Italian training, and held aloof
+from the coterie of Court painters. Jacques Callot carried on the
+national tradition, though as a satirist and etcher of scenes from
+contemporary life, rather than as a painter. And the Netherlands
+continued directly or indirectly to stir up the sluggish stream of
+national French art--directly through Watteau, who, born a Netherlander,
+became the most typically French of all French painters; indirectly,
+half a century earlier, through the brothers Le Nain, who drew their
+subjects and inspiration from the North and their sombre colour from
+Spain; and afterwards through Chardin, whose style was so closely akin
+to that of the Flemings that, when he first submitted some pieces of
+still-life to the members of the Academy, Largillière himself took them
+to be the work of some excellent unknown Flemish painter.
+
+What are the qualities that raise Chardin's art so high above the showy
+productions of the French painters of his generation, placing him on
+a pedestal by himself, and gaining for him the respect, the admiration,
+the love of all artists and discerning art lovers? Why should this
+painter of still-life and of small unpretentious domestic genre pieces
+be extolled without reservation and ranked among the world's greatest
+masters?
+
+[Illustration: PLATE II.--LA FONTAINE (THE WOMAN DRAWING WATER)
+
+(In the National Gallery, London)
+
+"La Fontaine," or the "Woman Drawing Water," is one of the two examples
+of Chardin's art in the National Gallery. It is the subject of which
+probably most versions are in existence, and figured among the eight
+pictures sent by the master to the Salon of 1737, the first exhibition
+held since 1704, and the first in which Chardin appeared as a painter of
+genre pictures. The original version, which bears the date 1733, is at
+the Stockholm Museum, and other replicas belong to Sir Frederick Cook in
+Richmond, M. Marcille in Paris, Baron Schwiter, and to the Louvre. The
+picture was engraved by Cochin.]
+
+The question finds its simplest solution in the fact that all great and
+lasting art must be based on the study of Nature and of contemporary
+life; that erudition and the imitation of the virtues of painters that
+belong to a dead period never result in permanent appeal, especially if
+they find expression in the repetition of mythological and allegorical
+formulas which belong to the past, and have long ceased to be a living
+language. Chardin's art is living and sincere, with never a trace of
+affectation. In his paintings the most unpromising material, the most
+prosaic objects on a humble kitchen table, the uneventful daily routine
+of lower middle-class life, are rendered interesting by the warming
+flame of human sympathy which moved the master to spend his supreme
+skill upon them; by the human interest with which he knew how to invest
+even inanimate objects. No painter knew like Chardin how to express in
+terms of paint the substance and surface and texture of the most varied
+objects; few have ever equalled him in the faultless precision of his
+colour values; fewer still have carried the study of reflections to so
+fine a point, and observed with such accuracy the most subtle nuances of
+the changes wrought in the colour appearance of one object by the
+proximity of another--but these are qualities that only an artist can
+fully appreciate, and that can only be vaguely felt by the layman. They
+belong to the sphere of technique. The strong appeal of Chardin's
+still-life is due to the manner in which he invests inanimate objects
+with living interest, with a sense of intimacy that enlists our sympathy
+for the humble folk with whose existence these objects are connected,
+and who, by mere accident as it were, just happen to be without the
+frame of the picture. Perhaps they have just left the room, but the
+atmosphere is still filled with their presence.
+
+If ever there was a painter to whom the old saying _celare artem est
+summa ars_ is applicable, surely it was Chardin! A slow, meticulously
+careful worker, who bestowed no end of time and trouble upon every
+canvas, and whom nothing but perfection would satisfy, he never
+attempted to gain applause by a display of cleverness or by technical
+fireworks. The perfection of the result conceals the labour expended
+upon it and the art by means of which it is achieved. And so it is with
+the composition. His still-life arrangements, where everything is
+deliberate selection, have an appearance of accidental grouping as
+though the artist, fascinated by the colour of some viands and utensils
+on a kitchen table, had yielded to an irresistible impulse, and
+forthwith painted the things just as they offered themselves to his
+delighted vision. How different it all is to the conception of
+still-life of his compatriots of the "grand century" and even of his own
+time! It was a sad misconception of the function and range of art that
+made the seventeenth century draw the distinction between "noble" and
+"ignoble" subjects. When they "stooped" to still-life it had to be
+ennobled--that is to say, precious stuffs, elegant furniture, bronzes
+and gold or silver goblets, choice specimens of hot-house flowers, and
+such like material were piled up in what was considered picturesque
+abundance--and the whole thing was as theatrical and tasteless and
+sham-heroic as a portrait by Lebrun, the Court favourite. Even the Dutch
+and Flemish still-life painters of the period, who had a far keener
+appreciation of Nature, catered for the taste that preferred the display
+of riches to simple truth. Their flowers and fruit were carefully chosen
+faultless specimens, accompanied generally by costly objects and stuffs;
+and on the whole these large decorative pieces were painted with
+wonderful accuracy in the rendering of each individual blossom or other
+detail, but with utter disregard of atmosphere. It has been rightly said
+that these Netherlanders gave the same _kind_ of attention to every
+object, whilst Chardin bestowed upon the component parts of his
+still-life compositions not the same kind, but the same _degree_ of
+attention. And above all, whilst suggesting the texture and volume and
+material of each individual object with faultless accuracy, Chardin
+never lost sight of the ensemble--that is to say, the opposition of
+values, the interchange that takes place between the colours of two
+different objects placed in close proximity, the reflections which
+appear not only where they would naturally be expected, as on shiny
+copper or other metals, but even those on comparatively dull surfaces,
+which would probably escape the attention of the untrained eye. Chardin
+looked upon everything with a true painter's vision; and his brush
+expressed not his knowledge of the form of things, but the visual
+impression produced by their ensemble. He did not think in outline, but
+in colour. If proof were needed, it will be found in the extreme
+scarcity of sketches and drawings from his hand. Only very few sketches
+by Chardin are known, and these few proclaim the painter rather than the
+draughtsman.
+
+Still, having pointed out the gulf that divides our master from the
+still-life painters of the _grand siècle_, it is only right to add that
+he did not burst upon the world as an isolated phenomenon, and that
+painters like Desportes and Oudry form the bridge from Monnoyer, the
+best known of the French seventeenth-century compilers of showy
+monumental still-life, to Chardin. Monnoyer belongs to a time that knew
+neither respect nor genuine love for Nature and her laws. He simply
+followed the rules of the grand style, and had no eye for the play of
+reflections and the other problems, which are the delight of the
+moderns--and Chardin is essentially modern. Monnoyer's son Baptiste, and
+his son-in-law Belin de Fontenay did not depart from his artificial
+manner. But with Oudry, in spite of much that is still traditional in
+his art, we arrive already at a new conception of still-life painting.
+In a paper read by this artist to the Academy he relates how, in his
+student days, when asked by Largillière to paint some flowers, he placed
+a carefully chosen, gaily coloured bouquet in a vase, when his master
+stopped him and said: "I have set you this task to train you for colour.
+Do you think the choice you have made will do for the purpose? Get a
+bunch of flowers all white." Oudry did as he was bid, and was then told
+to observe that the flowers are brown on the shadow side, that on a
+light ground they appear in half tones, and that the whitest of them are
+darker than absolute white. Largillière then pointed out to him the
+action of reflections, and made him paint by the side of the flowers
+various white objects of different value for comparison. Oudry was not
+a little surprised at discovering that the flowers consisted of an
+accumulation of broken tones, and were given form and relief by the
+magic of shadows. Both Oudry and Desportes did not consider common
+objects unworthy of their attention, and in this way led up to the type
+of work in which Chardin afterwards achieved his triumphs.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE III.--L'ENFANT AU TOTON (THE CHILD WITH THE TOP)
+
+(In the Louvre)
+
+"L'Enfant au Toton" ("The Child with the Top") is the portrait of
+Auguste Gabriel Godefroy, son of the jeweller Godefroy, and is the
+companion picture to the "Young Man with the Violin," which represents
+the child's elder brother Charles. The two pictures were bought in 1907
+for the Louvre, at the high price of 350,000 francs. "L'Enfant au Toton"
+was first exhibited at the Salon of 1738, and was engraved by Lépicié in
+1742. A replica of the picture was in the collection of the late M.
+Groult. It is one of Chardin's most delightful presentments of innocent
+childish amusement, and illustrates at the same time the master's
+supreme skill in the painting of still-life.]
+
+Chardin's still-life pictures never appear to be grouped to form
+balanced arrangements of line and colour. The manner how the objects are
+seen in the accidental position in which they were left by the hands
+that used them holds more than a suggestion of genre painting. Indeed,
+it may be said that all Chardin's still-life partakes of genre as much
+as his genre partakes of still-life. A loaf of bread, a knife, and a
+black bottle on a crumpled piece of paper; a basket, a few eggs, and a
+copper pot, and such like material, suffice for him to create so vivid a
+picture of simple home life, that only the presence of the housewife
+or serving-maid is needed to raise the painting into the sphere of
+domestic genre. Sometimes this scarcely needed touch of actual life is
+given by the introduction of some domestic animal; and in these cases we
+already find a hint of that unity of conception which in Chardin's genre
+pieces links the living creature to the surrounding inanimate objects.
+Take the famous "Skate" at the Louvre. On a table you see an earthen
+pot, a saucepan, a kettle, and a knife, grouped in accidental disorder
+on a negligently spread white napkin on the right; on the left are some
+fish and oysters and leeks, and from the wall behind is suspended a huge
+skate. A cat is carefully feeling its way among the oyster-shells,
+deeply interested in the various victuals which it eyes with eager
+longing. Even more pronounced is this attitude of interest in Baron
+Henri de Rothschild's "Chat aux Aguets." Here a crouching cat, half
+puzzled, half excited, is seen in the extreme left corner, crouching in
+readiness to spring at a dead hare that is lying between a partridge and
+a magnificent silver tureen, and is obviously the object of the feline's
+hesitating attention.
+
+It is this complete absorption of the protagonists of Chardin's
+genre scenes in their occupations or thoughts that fills his work
+with such profound human interest. Chardin is never anecdotal, never
+sentimental--in this respect, as well as in the solidity of his
+technique, and in his scientific search for colour values and
+atmosphere, he is vastly superior to Greuze, whose genre scenes are
+never free from literary flavour and from a certain kind of affectation.
+Nor does Chardin ever fancy himself in the rôle of the moralist like our
+own Hogarth, with whom he has otherwise so much in common. He looks upon
+his simple fellow-creatures with a sympathetic eye, watching them in the
+pursuit of their daily avocation, the women conscientiously following
+the routine of their housework or tenderly occupied with the education
+of their children, the children themselves intent upon work or
+play--never posing for artistic effect, but wholly oblivious of the
+painter's watching eye. Chardin was by no means the first of his
+country's masters to devote himself to contemporary life. Just as Oudry
+took the first hesitating steps towards the Chardinesque conception of
+still-life, so Jean Raoux busied himself in the closing days of the
+seventeenth century with creating records of scenes taken from the daily
+life of the people, but he never rid himself of the sugary affected
+manner that was the taste of his time. It was left to Chardin to
+introduce into the art of genre painting in France the sense of
+intimacy, the homogeneous vision, the atmosphere of reality which we
+find in such masterpieces as the "Grace before Meat," "The Reading
+Lesson," "The Governess," "The Convalescent's Meal," "The Card Castle,"
+the "Récureuse," the "Pourvoyeuse," and the famous "Child with the Top,"
+which, after having changed hands in 1845, at the time when Chardin was
+held in slight esteem, for less than £25, was recently bought for the
+Louvre, together with the companion portrait of Charles Godefroy, "The
+Young Man with the Violin," for the enormous price of £14,000.
+
+In the case of each of these pictures the first thing that strikes your
+attention is the complete absorption of the personages in their
+occupation. In the picture of the boy building the card castle you can
+literally see him drawing in his breath for fear of upsetting the
+fragile structure which he is erecting. You imagine you can hear the
+sigh of relief with which the "Pourvoyeuse"--the woman returning from
+market--deposits her heavy load of bread on the dresser, whilst the
+sudden release of the weight that had been supported by her left arm
+seems to increase the strain on her right. How admirable is the
+expression of keen attention on the puckered brow of the child who in
+"The Reading Lesson" tries to follow with plump finger the line
+indicated by the school-mistress; or the solicitude of the governess
+who, whilst addressing some final words of advice or admonition to the
+neatly dressed boy about to depart for school, has just for the moment
+ceased brushing his three-cornered hat. There is no need to give further
+instances. In all Chardin's subject pictures he opens a door upon the
+home life of the simple bourgeoisie to which he himself belonged by
+birth and character, and allows you to watch from some safe hiding-place
+the doings of these good folk who are utterly unaware of your presence.
+
+Having devoted his early years to still-life, and his prime to domestic
+genre, Chardin lived long enough to weary his public and critics, and to
+find himself in the position of a fallen favourite. But though his
+eyesight had become affected, and his hands had lost the sureness of
+their touch, so that he had practically to give up oil-painting, he
+entered in his last years upon a short career of glorious achievement
+in an entirely new sphere--he devoted himself to portraiture in pastel,
+and gained once more the enthusiastic applause of the people, even
+though the critics continued to exercise their severe and prejudiced
+judgment, and to blame him for that very verve and violence of technique
+which later received the Goncourt brothers' unstinted praise. "What
+surprising images. What violent and inspired work; what scrumbling and
+modelling; what rapid strokes and scratches!" His pastel portraits of
+himself and of his second wife, and his magnificent head of a jockey
+have the richness and plastic life of oil-paintings, and have indeed
+more boldness and virility than the work even of the most renowned of
+all French pastellists, La Tour. In view of their freshness and vigour,
+it is difficult to realise that they are the work of a suffering
+septuagenarian.
+
+The mention of the hostility shown by Chardin's contemporary critics
+towards the system of juxtaposing touches of different colour in his
+pastels, opens up a very interesting question with regard to the
+master's technique of oil-painting and of the eighteenth-century
+critics' attitude towards it. There is no need to dwell upon the comment
+of a man like Mariette, who discovers in Chardin's paintings the signs
+of too much labour, and deplores the "heavy monotonous touch, the lack
+of ease in the brushwork, and the coldness of his work"--the "coldness"
+of the master who, alone among all the painters of his time and country,
+knew how to fill his canvases with a luscious warm atmosphere, and to
+blend his tones in the mellowest of harmonies! "His colour is not true
+enough," runs another of Mariette's comments.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE IV.--LE BÉNÉDICITÉ (GRACE BEFORE MEAT)
+
+(In the Louvre)
+
+"Le Bénédicité," or "Grace before Meat," is perhaps the most popular and
+best known of all Chardin's domestic genre pieces. It combines the
+highest technical and artistic qualities with a touching simplicity of
+sentiment that must endear it even to those who cannot appreciate its
+artistry. Several replicas of it are known, but the original is probably
+the version in the Hermitage Collection at St. Petersburg. The Louvre
+owns two examples--one from the collection of Louis XV., another from
+the La Caze Collection. This latter version appeared three times in the
+Paris sale-rooms, the last time in 1876, when it realised the sum of
+£20! Another authentic replica is in the Marcille Collection, and yet
+another at Stockholm.]
+
+Let us now listen to Diderot, though in fairness it should be stated
+that the remarks which follow refer to Chardin's later work between 1761
+and 1767. First of all he is set down as "ever a faithful imitator of
+Nature in his own manner, which is rude and abrupt--a nature low,
+common, and domestic." A strange pronouncement on the part of the same
+ill-balanced critic who, four years later, condemned Boucher because "in
+all this numberless family you will not find one employed in a real act
+of life, studying his lesson, reading, writing, stripping hemp." Thus
+Chardin's vice is turned into virtue when it is a question of abusing a
+master who avoided the "low, common, and domestic." In his topical
+criticism on the Salon of 1761 Diderot tells us of Chardin, that it is
+long since he has "finished" anything; that he shirks trouble, and works
+like a man of the world who is endowed with talent and skill. In 1765
+Diderot utters the following curious statement: "Chardin's technique is
+strange. When you are near you cannot distinguish anything; but as you
+step back the objects take form and begin to be real nature." On a later
+occasion he describes Chardin's style as "a harsh method of painting
+with the thumb as much as with the brush; a juxtaposition of touches, a
+confused and sparkling accumulation of pasty and rich colours."
+Diderot is borne out by Bachaumont who at the same period writes:
+"His method is irregular. He places his colours one after the other,
+almost without mixing, so that his work bears a certain resemblance to
+mosaic, or _point carré_ needlework." This description, given by two
+independent contemporaries, almost suggests the technique of the modern
+impressionists and pointillists; and if the present appearance of
+Chardin's paintings scarcely tallies with Diderot's and Bachaumont's
+explanation, it should not be forgotten that a century and a half have
+passed over these erstwhile "rude and violent" mosaics of colour
+touches, and that this stretch of time is quite sufficient to allow the
+colours to re-act upon each other--in a chemical sense, to permeate each
+other, to fuse and blend, and to form a mellow, warm, harmonious surface
+that shows no trace of harsh and abrupt touches. Thus it would appear
+that Chardin discounted the effects of time and worked for posterity.
+In one of his rare happy moments Diderot realised this fact, and took up
+the cudgels for our master. In his critique of the 1767 Salon he
+explains that "Chardin sees his works twelve years hence; and those who
+condemn him are as wrong as those young artists who copy servilely at
+Rome the pictures painted 150 years ago."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Chardin's physical appearance, such as we find it in authentic
+portraits, his character, as it is revealed to us by his words and his
+actions, and the whole quiet and comparatively uneventful course of his
+life, are in most absolute harmony with his art. Indeed, Chardin's
+personality might, with a little imagination, be reconstructed from his
+pictures. He was a bourgeois to the finger-tips--a righteous,
+kind-hearted, hard-working man who never knew the consuming fire of a
+great passion, and who was apparently free from the vagaries,
+inconsistencies, and irregularities usually associated with the artistic
+temperament. Though never overburdened with the weight of worldly
+possessions, he was never in real poverty, never felt the pangs of
+hunger. He had as good an education as his father's humble condition
+would permit, and his choice of a career not only met with no
+opposition, but was warmly encouraged. In his profession he rose slowly
+and gradually to high honour, and never experienced serious rebuffs or
+checks. His disposition was not of the kind to kindle enmity or even
+jealousy. His early affection for the girl who was to become his first
+wife was faithful, but not of the kind to prompt him to hasty action--he
+waited until his financial position enabled him to keep a modest home,
+and then he married. He married a second time, nine years after his
+first wife's death, and this time his choice fell upon a widow with a
+small fortune, a practical shrewd woman, who was of no little help to
+him in the management of his affairs. It was not exactly a love match,
+but the two simple people suited each other, were of the same social
+position, and in similar comfortable circumstances, and managed to live
+peacefully and contentedly in modest bourgeois fashion.
+
+How dull, how bald, how negative the smooth course of this life of
+virtue and honest labour seems, contrasted with the eventful, stormy,
+passionate life of a Boucher or a Fragonard who were in the stream of
+fashion, and adopted the manner and licentiousness and vices of their
+courtly patrons. There is never an immodest thought, never a piquant
+suggestion in Chardin's paintings. They reflect his own life; perhaps
+they represent the very surroundings in which he spent his busy days,
+for we find in their sequence the clear indication of growing prosperity
+from a condition which verges on poverty--respectable, not sordid,
+poverty--to comparative luxury; from drudgery in kitchen and courtyard
+to tea in the cosy parlour. There can be but little doubt that many
+a time the master's brush was devoted to the recording of his own home,
+his own family, the even tenor of his life.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE V.--LA GOUVERNANTE (MOTHER AND SON)
+
+(In the collection of Prince Liechtenstein in Vienna)
+
+"La Gouvernante," or "Mother and Son," is one of the most attractive of
+the many Chardin pictures in the collection of Prince Liechtenstein in
+Vienna. Observe the perfectly natural attitude of the woman and the
+child, in which there is not the slightest hint of posing for the
+artist. Like all Chardin's genre pictures, it is, as it were, a glimpse
+of real life. This picture and its companion "La Mère Laborieuse"
+figured at the sale of Chardin's works after his death, when his art
+received such scant appreciation that the pair only realised 30 livres 4
+sous!]
+
+The man's character--and more than that, his _milieu_--are expressed in
+no uncertain fashion in his three auto-portraits, two of which are at
+the Louvre, and one in the Collection of M. Léon Michel-Lévy. A good,
+kind-hearted, simple-minded man he appears in these pastel portraits,
+which all date from the last years of his life, a man incapable of
+wickedness or meanness, and endowed with a keen sense of humour that
+lingers about the corners of his mouth. It is a face that immediately
+enlists sympathy by its obvious readiness for sympathy with others. And
+so convincing are these portraits in their straightforward bold
+statement, that they may be accepted as documentary testimony to the
+man's character, even if we had not the evidence of Fragonard's much
+earlier portrait of Chardin, which was until recently in the Rodolphe
+Kann Collection, and is at present in the possession of Messrs. Duveen
+Bros. With the exception of such differences as may be accounted for by
+the differences of age, all these portraits tally to a remarkable
+degree. The features are the same, and the expression is identical--the
+same keen, penetrating eyes, which even in his declining years have lost
+none of their searching intelligence, even though they have to be aided
+by round horn-rimmed spectacles; the same revelation of a lovable
+nature, even though in M. Michel-Lévy's version worry and suffering have
+left their traces on the features. He is the embodiment of decent
+middle-class respectability. Decency and a high sense of honour marked
+every act of his life, and decency had to be kept up in external
+appearances. On his very deathbed, when he was tortured by the pangs of
+one of the most terrible of diseases, dropsy having set in upon stone,
+he still insisted upon his daily shave!
+
+Yet Chardin, the bourgeois incarnate, was anything but a Philistine.
+From this he was saved by his life-long devotion to, and his ardent
+enthusiasm for, his art. He was not given to bursts of the theatrical
+eloquence that is so dear to the men of his race; but the scanty records
+we have of his sayings testify to the humble, profound respect in which
+he held the art of painting. "Art is an island of which I have only
+skirted the coast-line," runs the often quoted phrase to which he gave
+utterance at a time when he had attained to his highest achievement. To
+an artist who talked to him about his method of improving the colours,
+he replied in characteristic fashion: "And who has told you, sir, that
+one paints with colours?" "With what then?" questioned his perplexed
+interviewer. "One _uses_ colours, but one paints with feeling."
+
+Brilliant technician as he was, and admirable critic of his own and
+other artists' work, Chardin lacked the gift to communicate his
+knowledge to others. He was a bad teacher--he was a wretched teacher.
+Even such pliable material as Fragonard's genius yielded no results to
+his honest efforts. It was Boucher who, at the height of his vogue and
+overburdened with commissions that did not allow him the time to devote
+himself to the nursing of a raw talent, recommended Fragonard to work in
+Chardin's studio; but six months' teaching by the master failed to bring
+out the pupil's brilliant gifts. Chardin knew not how to impart his
+marvellous technique to young Fragonard, and Fragonard returned to
+Boucher without having appreciably benefited by Chardin's instruction.
+The master had no better luck with his own son, though in this case the
+failure was due rather to lack of talent than to bad teaching, for Van
+Loo and Natoire were equally unsuccessful in their efforts to develop
+the unfortunate young man's feeble gifts. There is a touch of deepest
+pathos in the reference made by Chardin to his son at the close of an
+address to his Academic colleagues in 1765: "Gentlemen, gentlemen, be
+indulgent! He who has not felt the difficulty of art does nothing that
+counts; he who, like my son, has felt it too much, does nothing at all.
+Farewell, gentlemen, and be indulgent, be indulgent!"
+
+Chardin had no artistic progeny to carry on his tradition, partly,
+perhaps, because he failed as a teacher, more probably because the
+Revolution and the Empire were close at hand when he died, and because
+the social upheavals led to new ideals and to an art that was based on
+an altogether different æsthetic code. The star of David rose when
+Chardin's gave its last flickers; and Chardin himself was among the
+commissioners who signed on the 10th of January 1778 the highly
+laudatory report on David's large battle sketch sent to Paris by the
+Director of the School of Rome. Yet who would venture to-day to mention
+the two in the same breath. David has fallen into well-deserved
+oblivion, and the example of Chardin's glorious paintings has done what
+was beyond the master's own power--it has created a School that is daily
+enlisting an increasing number of highly gifted followers. Chardin's
+name is honoured and revered in every modern painter's studio.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin was born in Paris on November 2, 1699, the
+second son of Jean Chardin, cabinetmaker, or to be more strict,
+billiard-table maker, a hard-working man who rose to be syndic of his
+corporation, but who, the father of a family of five, was fortunately
+not sufficiently prosperous to give his son a literary education. I say
+fortunately, because it was probably his ignorance of mythology and
+classic lore that made Chardin, who often bitterly regretted his
+educational deficiencies, turn his attention to those subjects which
+required a keenly observing eye and a sure hand, and not a fertile
+imagination stimulated by book-knowledge. His lack of education saved
+Chardin from allegorical and mythological clap-trap, and made him the
+great painter of the visible world of his time. Though Jean Chardin
+wanted his son to take up his own profession, he was quick in
+recognising and encouraging the boy's early talent, and finally made him
+enter the Atelier of Pierre Jacques Cazes where Siméon received his
+first systematic training. Cazes was a capable enough painter in the
+traditional grand manner of Le Brun, which had been taught to him by Bon
+Boullogne. He had taken the Prix de Rome, and issued victorious from
+several other competitions, but, like Rigaud and Largillière and several
+other distinguished painters of the period, never availed himself of the
+privilege entailed by the award of the Prix de Rome. Indeed, he was not
+a little proud of this fact, as he showed by his reply to Crozat who
+commiserated with him for having never seen the Italian masterpieces--"I
+have proved that one can do without them." Yet whatever merit there may
+have been in Cazes' work, and whatever may have been his own opinion on
+this subject, prosperity came not his way; and although he was appointed
+Professor at the Academy, and rose to great popularity as a teacher, he
+remained so poor that he could not afford to provide his pupils with
+living models. They had to learn what they could from copying their
+master's compositions and studies.
+
+The copying of designs, based on literary conceptions and knowledge of
+the classics, could not possibly be either beneficial or attractive for
+a youth who lacked the education needed for understanding these
+subjects, and who was, moreover, deeply interested in the life that came
+under his personal observation. The tasks set to him by Cazes must have
+appeared to Chardin like the drudgery of acquiring proficiency in a
+hieroglyphic language that conveyed no definite meaning to him. Still,
+Chardin made such progress under his first master that Noël Nicolas
+Coypel engaged him as assistant to paint the details in some
+decorative over-door panels representing the Seasons and the Pleasures
+of the Chase.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VI.--LA MÈRE LABORIEUSE
+
+(In the Stockholm Museum)
+
+"La Mère Laborieuse," which is the companion picture to "La
+Gouvernante," was first exhibited at the Salon of 1745, where it
+attracted the attention of Count Tessin, who immediately commissioned
+the replica which is now at the Stockholm Museum. The picture was
+engraved by Lépicié in the same year in which it was first exhibited.]
+
+In Coypel Chardin found a master of very different calibre--a teacher
+after his own heart. The systematised knowledge of the principles
+adopted by the late Bolognese masters, rules of composition and of the
+distribution of light and shade, were certainly of little use to him
+when, on beginning his work in Coypel's studio, he was set the task of
+painting a gun in the hand of a sportsman. Chardin was amazed at the
+trouble taken by his employer, and at the amount of thought expended by
+him upon the placing and lighting of the object. The painting of this
+gun was Chardin's first valuable lesson. He was made to realise the
+importance of a comparatively insignificant accessory. He was shown how
+its position would affect the rhythm of the design. He was taught to
+paint with minute accuracy whatever his eye beheld. He was told,
+perhaps for the first time, that it was not enough to paint a
+hieroglyphic that will be recognised to represent a gun, but that the
+paint should express the true appearance of the object, its plastic
+form, its surface, the texture of the material, the play of light and
+shade and reflections. The lesson of this gun gave the death blow to
+traditional recipes, and laid the foundation of Chardin's art.
+
+Chardin did well under the new tuition, so well that Jean-Baptiste Van
+Loo engaged him to help in the restoration of some paintings in the
+gallery of Fontainebleau. It must have been a formidable task, since not
+only Chardin, but J. B. Van Loo's younger brother Charles and some
+Academy students were made to join the master's staff. Five francs a day
+and an excellent dinner on the completion of the work were the wages for
+the job which in some way was a memorable event in our master's life.
+With the exception of a visit to Rouen in his old age, the trip to
+Fontainebleau afforded Chardin the only glimpse he ever had of the
+world beyond Paris and the surrounding district.
+
+The first record we have of Chardin's independent activity has reference
+to an astonishing piece of work which has disappeared long since, but is
+known to us from an etching by J. de Goncourt. The work in question was
+a large signboard, 14 feet 3 inches long by 2 feet 3 inches wide,
+commissioned from him by a surgeon who was on terms of friendship with
+Chardin's father. Perhaps the young artist had seen Watteau's famous
+signboard for Gersaint, now in the German Emperor's Collection. However
+this may be, like Watteau he departed from the customary practice of
+filling the board with a design made up of the implements of the
+patron's craft,[1] and painted an animated street scene, representing
+the sequel to a duel. The scene is outside the house of a surgeon who
+is attending to the wound of the defeated combatant, whilst a group of
+idle folk of all conditions, attracted by curiosity, have assembled in
+the street, and are watching the proceedings, and excitedly discussing
+the occurrence. Although Goncourt's etching naturally gives no
+indication of the colour and technique of this remarkable and
+unconventional painting, it enables us to see the very natural and
+skilful grouping and the excellent management of light and shade which
+Chardin had mastered even at that early period.
+
+The sign was put up on a Sunday, and attracted a vast crowd whose
+exclamations induced the surgeon to step outside his house and ascertain
+the cause of the stir. Being a man of little taste, his anger was
+aroused by Chardin's bold departure from convention, but the general
+approval with which the _quartier_ greeted Chardin's original conception
+soon soothed his ruffled spirit, and the incident led to no further
+unpleasantness.
+
+Save for the story of the surgeon's sign, nothing is known of Chardin's
+doings from his days of apprenticeship to his first appearance, in 1728,
+at the _Exposition de la Jeunesse_, a kind of open-air Salon without
+jury, held annually in the Place Dauphine on Corpus Christi day, between
+6 A.M. and midday, "weather permitting." With the exception of the
+annual Salon at the Louvre, which was only open to the works of the
+members of the Academy, this _Exposition de la Jeunesse_ was the only
+opportunity given to artists for submitting their works to the public.
+At the time when Chardin made his début at this picture fair, the annual
+Academy Salon instituted by Louis XIV. had been abandoned for some
+years, so that even the members of the Academy were driven to the Place
+Dauphine in order to keep in touch with the public. In the contemporary
+criticisms of the _Mercure_ the names of all the greatest French masters
+of the first half of the eighteenth century are to be found among the
+exhibitors of the _Jeunesse_--the shining lights of the profession,
+Coypel, Rigaud, De Troy, among the crowd of youngsters eager to make
+their reputation. Lancret, Oudry, Boucher, Nattier, Lemoine--none of
+them disdained to show their works under conditions which had much more
+in common with those that obtain at an annual fair, than with those we
+are accustomed to associate with a picture exhibition. The spectacle of
+dignified Academicians thus seeking public suffrage in the street
+finally induced Louis de Boullogne, Director of the Academy, to seek for
+an amelioration of the prevailing conditions, and thanks to the
+intervention of the Comptroller-general of the King's Buildings the
+Salon of the Louvre was re-opened in 1725 for a term of four
+days--"outsiders" being excluded as of yore.
+
+On Corpus Christi day, 1728, Chardin, then in his twenty-ninth year,
+availed himself for the first time of the opportunity given to rising
+talent, and made his appearance at the Place Dauphine with a dozen
+still-life paintings, including "The Skate" and "The Buffet"--the two
+masterpieces which are counted to-day among the treasured possessions of
+the Louvre. This sudden revelation of so personal and fully developed a
+talent caused no little stir. Chardin was hailed as a master worthy to
+be placed beside the great Netherlandish still-life painters, and was
+urged by his friends to "present himself" forthwith at the Academy.
+Chardin reluctantly followed the advice, and, having arranged his
+pictures ready for inspection in the first room of the Academy at the
+Louvre, retired to an adjoining apartment, where he awaited, not without
+serious misgivings, the result of his bold venture.
+
+His fears proved to be unfounded. A contemporary of Chardin's has left
+an amusing account of what befell our timid artist. M. de Largillière
+entered the first room and carefully examined the pictures placed there
+by Chardin. Then he passed into the next room to speak to the
+candidate. "You have here some very fine pictures which are surely the
+work of some good Flemish painter--an excellent school for colour, this
+Flemish school. Now let us see your works." "Sir, you have just seen
+them." "What! these were your pictures?" "Yes, sir." "Then," said
+Largillière, "present yourself, my friend, present yourself." Cazes,
+Chardin's old master, likewise fell into the innocent trap, and was
+equally complimentary, without suspecting the authorship of the exposed
+pictures. In fact, he undertook to stand as his pupil's sponsor. When
+Louis de Boullogne, Director of the Academy and painter to the king,
+arrived, Chardin informed him that the exhibited pictures were painted
+by him, and that the Academy might dispose of those which were approved
+of. "He is not yet 'confirmed' (_agréé_) and he talks already of being
+'received' (_reçu_)![2] However," he added, "you have done well to
+mention it." He reported the proposal, which was immediately
+accepted. The ballot resulted in Chardin being at the same time,
+"confirmed" and "received." On Sept. 25, 1728, he was sworn in, and
+became a full member of the Academy. In recognition of his rare genius,
+and in consideration of his impecunious condition, his entrance fee was
+reduced to 100 livres. "The Buffet" and a "Kitchen" piece were accepted
+as "diploma pictures."
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VII.--LE PANNEAU DE PÊCHES
+
+(In the Louvre)
+
+"Le Panneau de Pêches," (The Basket of Peaches) is a magnificent
+instance of Chardin's extraordinary skill in the rendering of textures
+and substances. Note the perfect truth of all the colour-values, the
+play of light and shade and reflections, such as the opening up of the
+shadow thrown by the tumbler owing to the refractive qualities of the
+wine contained in the glass. Note, also, the "accidental" appearance of
+the carefully grouped objects--the manner in which the knife-handle
+projects from the table. The plate is reproduced from the original
+painting at the Louvre in Paris.]
+
+In spite of this sudden success, Chardin was by no means on the road to
+fortune. His pictures sold slowly and at very low prices. He always had
+a very modest opinion of the financial value of his works, and was ever
+ready to part with them at ridiculously low prices, or to offer them as
+presents to his friends. The story goes that on one occasion, when his
+friend Le Bas wished to buy a picture which Chardin was just finishing,
+he offered to exchange it for a pretty waistcoat. When the king's sister
+admired one of his pastel portraits and asked the price, he immediately
+begged her to accept it "as a token of gratitude for her interest in his
+work." Admirably tactful is the form in which Chardin gives practical
+expression to his gratitude for M. de Vandières' successful efforts at
+procuring him a pension from the king. Through Lépicié, the secretary of
+the Academy, he begs Vandières to accept the dedication of an engraving
+after his "Lady with a Bird-organ"; and asks permission to state on the
+margin _that the original painting is in the Collection of M. de
+Vandières_. The request was granted.
+
+Small wonder, then, if in spite of the modesty of his personal
+requirements Chardin, even after his election to the Academy, had to
+wait over two years before he was in a position to marry Marguerite
+Sainctar, whom he had met at a dance some years before, and who during
+the period of waiting had lost her health, her parents, and her modest
+fortune, and had to go to live with her guardian. Chardin's father, who
+had warmly approved of his son's engagement, now objected to the
+marriage, but nothing could deter Siméon from his honourable purpose,
+and the marriage took place at St. Sulpice on February 1, 1731. He took
+his wife to his parents' house at the corner of the Rue Princesse,
+where he had been living before his marriage, and before the end of
+the year he was presented with a son, who was given the name Pierre
+Jean-Baptiste. Two years later a daughter was born--Marguerite Agnes;
+but Chardin's domestic happiness was not destined to last long, for on
+April 14, 1735, he lost both wife and daughter.
+
+His son was, however, his greatest source of grief. Remembering the
+imaginary disadvantages he had suffered from his lack of humanistic
+education, he determined that his boy should be better equipped for the
+artistic profession, and had him thoroughly well instructed in the
+classics. He then had him prepared at one of the Academy ateliers for
+competing for the Prix de Rome. No doubt owing to his father's then
+rather powerful influence, Pierre Chardin gained the coveted prize in
+1754, and after having passed his three years' probation at the recently
+established _École des élèves protégés_, which he had entered with the
+second batch of pupils by whom the first successful "Romans" were
+replaced, he set out for Rome in October 1757. But Pierre, discouraged
+perhaps from his earliest attempts by the perfection of his father's art
+which he could never hope to attain, indolent moreover and intractable,
+made little progress under Natoire, who was then Director of the School
+of Rome. Pierre worked little, quarrelled with his colleagues, and never
+produced either a copy or an original work that was considered good
+enough to be sent to Paris. "He does not know how to handle the brush,
+and what he does looks like a tired and not very pleasing attempt," runs
+Natoire's report to Marigny in 1761. He returned to Paris in 1762, but
+his whole life was a failure. He fully realised his inability ever to
+arrive at artistic achievement. In 1767 he went to Venice with the
+French ambassador, the Marquis de Paulmy, and was never heard of since.
+It was said that he had found his death in the waters of a Venetian
+Canal.
+
+But to return to Siméon Chardin--we find him again among the exhibitors
+of the Place Dauphine in 1732, with some pieces of still-life, two large
+decorative panels of musical trophies, and a wonderfully realistic
+painting in imitation of a bronze bas-relief after a terra-cotta of
+Duquesnoy. These imitation reliefs were then much in vogue for
+over-doors and wall decorations in the houses of the great, as, for
+instance, in the Palace of Compiègne. Two authentic pieces of the kind,
+executed in grisaille, are in the Collection of Dr. Tuffier. The one of
+the 1732 exhibition was bought by Van Loo for 200 livres, and is now in
+the Marcille Collection. According to contemporary criticism the
+bronze-tone of the relief was so perfectly rendered that it produced an
+illusion "which touch alone can destroy."
+
+About this time Chardin's still-life period comes to a close, and we
+find him henceforth devoting the best of his power to the domestic genre
+"à la Teniers" (as it was dubbed by his own patrons and contemporaries),
+though even in later years still-life pieces continue to figure now and
+then among his Salon exhibits. His first triumphs in the new field of
+action were scored in 1734, when his sixteen contributions to the
+_Jeunesse_ exhibition included the "Washerwoman" (now in the Hermitage
+Collection), the "Woman drawing Water" (painted in several versions or
+replicas, of which the best known are at the Stockholm Museum, and in
+the Collections of Sir Frederick Cook at Richmond and of M. Eudoxe
+Marcille in Paris); the "Card Castle" (now in the Collection of Baron
+Henri de Rothschild); and the "Lady sealing a Letter" (in the German
+Emperor's Collection). It is interesting to note that this last named
+picture is the only genre piece by Chardin with life size figures.
+
+Chardin's new departure immediately found favour, and although he
+continued to charge ludicrously inadequate prices for his work, which,
+with the deliberate slowness of his method, prevented him from rising to
+well deserved prosperity, he not only experienced no difficulty in
+disposing of his pictures, but had to duplicate and reduplicate them to
+meet the demand of his patrons, foremost among whom were the Swedish
+Count Tessin and the Austrian Prince Liechtenstein. In view of the many
+versions that exist of most of the master's genre pieces it is often
+difficult or impossible to decide which is the original, and which a
+replica. The artist's modesty with regard to his charges may be gathered
+from the fact that, at the time of his highest vogue, he only asked
+twenty-five louis-d'or a piece for two pictures commissioned by Count
+Tessin, whilst the painter Wille was able to secure a pair for
+thirty-six livres.
+
+Three of the genre pictures of the 1734 exhibition were sent by Chardin
+in the following year to a competitive show held by the Academicians to
+fill the vacancies of professor, adjuncts, and councillors of the
+Academy; but Chardin was among the unsuccessful candidates, the votes
+declaring in favour of Michel and Carle Van Loo, Boucher, Natoire,
+Lancret, and Parrocel.
+
+The regular course of the Academy Salons, which had been interrupted
+since 1704, save for the tentative four days' exhibition at the Louvre
+in 1725, was resumed in 1737, first in alternate years, and then
+annually without break until the present day. At the inaugural
+exhibition Chardin exhibited again the three pieces of the 1732 and 1735
+shows, together with Van Loo's bronze relief, the portrait of his friend
+Aved (known as "Le Souffleur," or "The Chemist"), and several pictures
+of children playing, a class of subject in which the master stands
+unrivalled among the Frenchmen of his time. Fragonard, of course,
+achieved greatness as a painter of children, but to him the child was an
+object for portraiture, whilst Chardin, the student of life, painted the
+_life_, the work and pleasures, of the child, at the same time never
+losing sight of portraiture.
+
+[Illustration: PLATE VIII.--LA POURVOYEUSE
+
+(In the Louvre)
+
+"La Pourvoyeuse," of which picture the first dated version, painted in
+1738, is in the possession of the German Emperor, is one of the most
+masterly of Chardin's earlier pictures of homely incidents of everyday
+life. The attitude of the woman, who has just returned from market and
+is depositing her load of victuals, is admirably true to life; and the
+still-life painting of the black bottles on the ground, the pewter
+plate, the loaf of bread, and so forth, testifies to the master's
+supreme skill. From the glimpse of the courtyard through the open door,
+it can be seen that the setting of the sun is identical with that of
+"The Fountain"--that is to say, that it represents the modest house in
+the Rue Princesse, in which Chardin lived up to the time of his second
+marriage. Another replica is in the collection of Prince Liechtenstein
+in Vienna. Our plate is reproduced from the version in the Louvre.]
+
+His success was decisive. His reputation was now firmly established,
+and still further increased by his next year's exhibit of eight
+pictures--among them the "Boy with the Top," and also the "Lady sealing
+a Letter," which he had already shown at the Jeunesse exhibition in
+1734. Six pictures followed in the next year, including the "Governess,"
+the "Pourvoyeuse" (now in the Louvre), and the "Cup of Tea"; and in 1740
+his popularity reached its zenith with the exhibition of his masterpiece
+"Grace before Meat" (_le Bénédicité_), in addition to which he showed
+the two _singeries_--"The Monkey Painter" and "The Monkey Antiquary"
+(now in the Louvre)--even Chardin could not hold out against the bad
+taste which applauded this stupid invention of the Netherlanders--and
+several other domestic genre pieces. A replica of the Bénédicité was
+commissioned by Count Tessin for the King of Sweden, and is now at the
+Stockholm Museum.
+
+The bad state of his health seriously interfered with his work during
+the next few years, and his contributions to the Salon of 1741 were
+restricted to "The Morning Toilet" and "M. Lenoir's Son building a Card
+Castle," whilst he was an absentee from the following year's exhibition.
+
+In 1743 Chardin lost his mother, with whom he had been living since his
+wife's death, and who had been looking after his boy's early education.
+Chardin, slow worker as he always was, and overwhelmed with commissions
+for new pictures and replicas, which he continued to paint at starvation
+rates, had no time to devote to the bringing up of his son, which was
+perhaps one of the reasons which induced him to marry, in the year
+following his mother's death, a musketeer's widow, of thirty-seven,
+Françoise Marguerite Pouget, a worthy woman of no particular personal
+charm, to judge from the portrait left by the master's chalks, but an
+excellent housekeeper who managed to bring a certain degree of order
+into her husband's affairs, and proved to be of no little assistance to
+him in his business dealings. It was not exactly a love match, but there
+is no reason for doubting that the two worthy people lived in complete
+harmony and enjoyed a fair amount of comfort. The repeated references to
+his "financial troubles" need not be taken in too literal a sense, since
+from 1744, the year of his marriage, when he transferred his quarters to
+his wife's house in the Rue Princesse, until 1774, when his affairs
+really took a turn for the bad, he enjoyed the ownership of a house
+which he was then able to sell for 18,000 livres, a by no means paltry
+amount for these days. Moreover, in 1752, Lépicié's endeavours resulted
+in the grant of a pension of 500 livres by the king, which, according to
+the petitioner's own words, was sufficient to secure Chardin's comfort.
+True enough, when the artist died in 1779, his widow applied for relief
+on the pretext of being practically left without means of subsistence.
+But an investigation of the case led to the discovery that she was in
+enjoyment of an annual income of from 6000 to 8000 livres! A daughter,
+who was born to the master by his second wife, died soon after having
+seen the light of the world.
+
+The year 1746 was apparently more productive than the five preceding
+years; but henceforth the number of his subject pictures became more and
+more restricted, and Chardin, perhaps discouraged by the public
+grumbling at his lack of original invention, returned to the sphere of
+his early successes--to still-life. Meanwhile his probity and
+uprightness had gained him the highest esteem of his Academic colleagues
+and brought him new honours in his official position. He was appointed
+Treasurer of the Academy in 1755, and soon afterwards succeeded J. A.
+Portail as "hanger" of the Salon exhibition, a difficult office which
+needed a man of Chardin's tact, fairness, and honesty.
+
+When Chardin took up his duties as Treasurer he found the finances of
+the Academy in a deplorable condition. His predecessor J. B. Reydellet,
+who had acted as "huissier and concierge," had neither been able to
+exercise a restraining influence upon the rowdy tendencies of the
+students, nor to keep even a semblance of order in the accounts. On his
+death his legacy to the Academy was a deficit of close on 10,000 livres.
+Chardin, assisted by his business-like wife, did his best to wipe off
+the effects of his predecessor's negligence or incompetence, but the
+task added very considerably to his worries, especially as, owing to
+financial stress, the Academicians' pensions were frequently kept in
+arrear, and for years Royal support was withheld. Matters reached a
+climax in 1772, when the Academy found itself in such straits, that the
+question of dissolving the institution had to be seriously considered.
+Chardin's appeal to Marigny, and through him to the Abbé Terray,
+Comptroller-General of Finances, however, led to the desired result, and
+the much needed support was granted.
+
+The quarters at the Louvre, vacated by the death of the king's engraver
+and goldsmith Marteau in March 1757, were given to Chardin, who let his
+house in the Rue Princesse to Joseph Vernet--another change which must
+have contributed considerably to the ageing master's peace of mind. In
+his wonted slow manner he continued to paint still-life, and received
+several important commissions for the decoration of Royal and other
+residences. Thus, in 1764, his friend Cochin procured for him, through
+Marigny, a commission for some over-doors for the Château of Choisy.
+They depicted the attributes of Science, Art, and Music, and were
+exhibited in the Salon of 1765. A similar order for two over-doors in
+the music-room of the Château of Bellevue--the instruments of civil and
+of military music--followed in the next year. The payment for the five,
+which was delayed until 1771, amounted to 5000 livres.
+
+Chardin's last years were saddened by the tragic end of his son and by a
+terribly painful illness. His duties as Treasurer became too much for
+him, and he resigned this office to the sculptor Coustou in 1774. There
+was a small deficit which he volunteered to make good, but this offer
+was declined, and a banquet was given to him by his colleagues as an
+expression of their appreciation of his services. The acute suffering
+caused by his illness did not prevent him from continuing his artistic
+work, and we find him at the very end of his career branching out in an
+entirely new direction. The pastel portraits of his closing years betray
+no decline in keenness of vision and in power of expression. Indeed,
+they must be counted among his finest achievements. He worked to the
+very last, and sent some pastel heads to the Salon of 1779. On the 6th
+of December of the same year he breathed his last. His remains were
+buried at St. Germain-l'Auxerrois, in the parish of the Louvre. With him
+died the art of the French eighteenth century. A kind fate had saved him
+from the misfortune that fell to the share of his contemporaries
+Fragonard and Greuze, who outlived him by many years, but who also
+outlived the _ancien régime_ and died in poverty and neglect and misery.
+
+
+    The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., London and Derby
+    The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] A signboard of the conventional type, but painted with all Chardin's
+consummate mastery, is the one executed for the perfume distiller
+Pinaud, which appeared at the Guildhall Exhibition in 1902, and at
+Whitechapel in 1907.
+
+[2] The candidates had to pass through a probationary stage before they
+were definitely received by the Academy.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Simple typographical errors were corrected.
+
+Page 30: "Goncourt brothers'" was printed as "brothers' Goncourt".
+
+Table of Contents added by Transcriber.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chardin, by Paul G. Konody
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41886 ***