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diff --git a/41886-0.txt b/41886-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4ad9449 --- /dev/null +++ b/41886-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1121 @@ +*** 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 *** |