TH CENTURY ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY MAGAZINE. November 1885 to April 1586 THE CENTURY C?, NEW-YORK. F.WARNE & C2, LONDON. Vol. XXXL New Series Vol. IX:A FRENCH PAINTER AND HIS PUPILS. YOUNG painter of Boston, Mr. Robert C. Hinckley, in the fall of 1872 wished to become a pupil of the well-known Parisian artist, M. Carolus Duran. M. Duran refused, but told him that if he would take a studio he would occasionally come and see his work. The studio was taken, in conjunction with Paul Batifaud-Vaur, Duran visiting them reg- larly every Tuesday and Friday, and refus- ing, then as now, all compensation. Others joined the class, new quarters were taken, and in 1873 there were about a dozen students, two-thirds of them American or English, and the rest French. For a time there was a Per- san among them. The class has greatly in- creased in size, at one time nearly half of the fifty members being American. The school at present is at 110 Boulevard du Port Royal. ‘Among the Americans who have been mem- bers of the class are Messrs. John S. Sargent, Carroll Beckwith, Will H, Low, Charles Mel- ville Dewey, Theodore Robinson, Kenyon Cox, Frank Fowler, Walter L. Palmer, Ralph Curtis, Stephen Hills Parker, and Alexander Harrison. M. Duran is as popular as ever among his. students, whom he generously continues to favor twice a week with his teaching. Twice each month M. Duran gives to his pupils a sub- jectforasketch. A day is fixed for the bringing in of the sketches, and, after the regular lesson of the day, the easels are put aside and the sketches, al ofthe same subject, in charcoal, rayon, or oil, are placed in a good light, on the floor, stools, or easels; the professér takes aseat, lights a cigarette, and the pupils gather around to listen to the criticisms of their works, Often these criticisms lengthen into talks, or, as Monsieur Duran entitles them, “lessons.” Some of them have happily been preserved for the outside world by one of the scholars, who has reported them stenograph- ically. A selection of these is presented below. A. LESSONS TO MY PUPILS. First Lesson, Is patnTiN simply an imitative art ? No; itis, above all, an art of expression. There is ot one of the great masters of whom this is nottrue, Even the masters who were most ab- sorbed by outward beauty, being influenced by itaccording to thesensitivenessof theirnatures, understood that they neither could nor ought Vou. XXXL—38. to reproduce anything but the spirit of nature either in form or color. Thus it happens that these masters have interpreted nature,and not given a literal translation. ‘This interpretation is precisely what makes the personality of each of them. Without this individual point of view there can be no really original work. This shows how dangerous are those schools that, restricting the artists to the same meth- ods, do not permit them to develop their in- dividual feeling. These schools, however, make use of a very respectable motto: “Tradition.” But what are we all but the result of tradition ? —only we ought to be free to choose in the direction that agrees with our aspirations, and not have imposed upon us those of another man, however great he may be. In the French school, since Ingres, the tradition comes from Raphael. That’ was very well for Ingres, who freely chose the master from whom he really descended; but we who have other needs, who desire reality, —less beautiful, without doubt, but more passionate, more living, more intimate-—we should search a guide among the masters who responds most fully to our temperament. Imagine the painters of the seventeenth century in Spain, Flanders, or Holland obliged to follow in the footsteps of Raphael instead of the inspiration of their individual genius! What would have become of their produc- tions? Instead of Velasquez, Rembrandt, Ru- bens, Teniers, Ostade, and Brauwer, we should have had a lot of would-be Raphaels, counterfeited, stunted, and grotesque,—acom- monplace and disheartening plagiarism sub- stituted for their sincerely and extremely varied chefi-d’euvre, ‘The example that I have just given you in the past has a singular application at present, when the same causes are producing the same disastrous results, It is as absurd to at- tempt to impose on artists one and the same mold in which all — powerful or weak, impas- sioned or timid — must form their thought, a8 it would be to constrain them to modify their physical natures until all should resemble a given model. Art lives only by individual ex- pression. Where would we be if the great masters of all times had only looked to the past—they who not only prepared, but made the future? Works of art can only be pro- duced by the recalling of our aspirations and experiences. To live one’s work is the condi- tiny the sine gua non, ofits power and of ts truth,34 These principles apply not only to “com- positions,” but also to the painting of por- traits, which many wrongly believe to be another art, because the greater part of por- trait painters have only represented the vis- ible form of their subject. If we study the masters that are looked upon as first in this order, we shall see that they have not been contented with the material appearance, but that, putting themselves aside, they have sought the particular characteristics of the model —his mind and his temperament as well as his manner. To place all one’s mod- els on the same background is like serving all kinds of fish with the same sauce. ‘We will review some of those who, right or wrong, have come down to us as types : Hol- bein, Velasquez, Rembrandt, Titian, Raphael, Van Dyck. Which of these painters best agrees with the ideas I have just expressed ? Among the persons painted by Holbein, Ve- lasquez, and Rembrandt, there is not one that does not seem to be known to you in- timately. You exclaim, in spite of yourself: “1 feel as if I knew him — what a good like- ness it must be!” Each has his own individ- uality apart from the habits and plastic ten- dencies of the painter. Titian, in spite of his admirable works in this art, is a transition be- tween these first and those less close in their yal of the individuality of their subjects. Raphael, in his love for beauty and harmony, ‘only heeded the model posing before him as far as it coincided a his ideal. In all his portraits we see Raphael ; but it is impossible fo disengage the precise individuality of the person portrayed.* In Van Dyck it is yet more noticeable, He has painted commoners and nobles, giving them all the same style, the same elegance, that sprang from his own taste and graceful personality. ‘This necessity of self-abnegation, indispen- sable to the portraitist, is the only thing that separates the portrait from composition. 1 leave to Ingres, who did wonders in this direction, and to Delacroix, who really was unable to make a portrait, the task of saying to which of these two genres supremacy be- longs —if supremacy there be. Ingres said that only the greatest masters had made true portraits. Delacroix wrote, with a sadness that one feels between the lines, that portraiture is the most difficult thing in art. I myself believe that each offers different but equivalent difficul- ties, the placing on view of one person being ‘as complex as that often. Ina picture you must draw all from your own soul,—your remem- brance of the phenomena of nature and your feeling toward nature, your past joys and griefs. A FRENCH PAINTER AND HIS PUPILS. Second Lesson. The Flight into Egypt. ‘TweRe are two methods of understanding 2 subject. It may be treated heroically or in- timately. In the latter case the artist enters into the life of the personages that he desires to represent, observing them as human beings; as it were, following them; taking account of their impressions, their joys, and their suf- ferings, The heroic manner, on the contrary, expresses but an instant of their life, when raised to an exceptional pitch. ‘The person- ages presented are, as you might say, deified, so much do they seem to be absolved from the daily necessities of humanity. But, for this very reason, they lose many sympathetic charms that we only find in beings living, thinking, and suffering like ourselves. The latter alone can move us, because we find our own experiences in their melancholy, their terrors, their passions. The heroic method, necessarily restricted, is obliged to impose upon its personages a sort of conventional grandeur that suppresses the better part of their originality. In the subject that now occupies us, let us take our personages at their starting-point and accompany them through the different episodes that must have marked their precipitate flight. You all know the legend. Joseph is warned in a dream that the time has come to quit Judea with the Virgin Mary and the Divine Child. Picture to yourselves the incidents of this departure. See the group precipitately leaving in the night; follow them hour by hour; imagine the scenes that must have fol- lowed one another, at the moming fires, in the glimmering twilight, in the moonlight, or under the bright light of day. Tiepolo has made, in thought, this journey as Ihave indicated it to you; he has pic- tured these episodes; very many of them are most touching and very delicately felt He has portrayed the solitude of a hamlet during the night; the holy travelers are crost ing it hastily, not daring to trust themselves to any hospitality. Then, farther on, they ar- rive on the banks of a river that ‘must be crossed. Angels push the boat, and, farther on, the Virgin Mary is supported by them as they climb a steep ascent. You are not to imitate Tiepolo, nor to bear in mind his compositions ; but you must pro- ceed like him. It is the only way to avoid the commonplace— the only way to find charmingly intimate scenes; the child Jesus crying, smiling, or being nursed by his mother. *M, Duran, we think, will not find many to agree with him in so sweeping a ‘condemnation of Raphael's portraits.—Ep1ToR.A FRENCH PAINTER AND HIS PUPILS. The travelers have rested in the shade, as you might have done; they have had in their flight a crowd of emotions, such as you may have felt in your journeys. Call up your re- membrances and apply them, so that the per- sonages may be before your eyes, moving, walking, resting, forming a whole with the nature that surrounds them and of which they reflect the influence. This sympathy that has made you live in thought with your subjects has shown them to you in varied circumstances, under the numerous effects of light, shade, or twilight. Choose one of these effects—that one of which you have kept the clearest and most vivid remembrance. Your group must harmonize with the hour, solemn or cheerful, that you have chosen, ‘As you are very different from one another, your compositions will reflect the variety of your natures. ‘This habit of living with your personages will have the effect of presenting them to your mind under a fixed form. Having fol- lowed and analyzed all their actions, all their sentiments, you will in the end know them as if they were real beings. It will appear to be the remembrance of an actual scene. Do not hurry to place this vision on can- vas. Turn it over in Your mind, that it may be refined and completed at every point of view. It is only when you have,thus mentally elabo- rated your composition, that you should de- Gide to execute it; for then you will have lived it. Third Lesson. Subject of Sketch : Circe. To vector upon their attitudes, to compose the groups, to give variety to all parts of this subject, you would have to make the same reasoning that I recall to you continuously. You must take into account the character of the personages, the actions they have just passed through’ before the decisive moment that can best be reproduced by painting. It is by this retrospective study of the acts and gestures of your heroes that you will be able to introduce among them that variety without which there is no picturesqueness. The action of each, in harmony with the action preced- ing it, will give an impression of life. The character of each individual must be pre- served, making the scene interesting by the diferent manifestations of the same sentiment. Thus, in the subject that occupies us, what were Ulysses’s companions doing at the mo- ment that Circe’s wand touches them and changes them into swine? They were de- grading themselves by the misuse of pleasures, ttl they had fallen t0 the level of the brutes, 375 ‘Those who descend to this level have lost the sign of human dignity; they are touched by the wand; that is to say, they have trans- formed themselves into swine. Some as- sumed, laughing coarsely, the bestial mask; others are in a state of dejected stupefaction ; others wallow with a sort of fury, seeming to forget already that they have been human and have known how to hold themselves erect. ‘Then, in the midst of this orgy (where only one companion refuses to abdicate his reason), see rising up the complex and mysterious figure of Circe. Fourth Lesson, Subject of Sketch: The Birth of Venus. In the Grecian mythology Venus is the goddess of love. Her birth is the festival of life. The daughter of the inconstant waves brings to the world, of which she is to be the queen, youth, light, the pleasure of the senses, the attraction of the flesh. So much for the moral personification of the subject ; let us now seek the physical side, All are transported at the sight of this beau- tiful moist body, the long, floating hair, and the juvenile grace. We might say that the in- habitants of the waves had decked themselves in their finest toilets to receive and do her honor. They are intoxicated with delight. Musset has said admirably : “ Regrettez-vous le temps oi le ciel sor la terre Marchait et respirait dans ‘un peuple de diewx Od Venus Astarté, fille de onde amére, Secouait, vierge encor, les larmes de sa 'mére, Et fécondait le monde en tordant ses cheveux?” We have found the temperament of our subject ; let us now see its picturesque points. Let us enter into the pagan world as well as our own; give to this divine beauty noisy mirth, a gay uproar of amorous nymphs, of Tritons in shell armor, blonde and dimpled cupids, and birds of variegated plumage. We have not roses enough in our palette to throw at the feet of her who brings love and life to a dazzled and grateful world. Place around Venus everything that loves, for she is the personification of this exquisite and ideal sen- timent. Here, then, is the work in your im- agination. Let it now become plastic. Call to mind all that has been painted on this subject. ‘You will see how few artists have understood it; how superficial they have been, When Venus appears, she is pure; no one is born unchaste, She is yet ignorant of her empire. It is not only Venus that must be pictured ; it is what she represents, what she makes us experience. Itis the festival of youth—Venus in the highest expression of her glory. Your376 love, your need of loving, must be questioned, To have a response, touch the most secret strings of your heart. Imagine that love, un- til now unknown, has come to the world ; that inclosed in her quiver are not onl sharpened arrows, but also the highest ambi- tions that ennoble man. “Ce que l'homme ici bas appelle le génie— Crest le besoin d’aimer,” Pe Ge ‘Musset has said. Remember your emotions when you were twenty and loved for the first time. T would make Venus almost like a Ma- donna, painting her with a religious senti- ment. ’ Like an immaculate lily opening in the sun, she enters into life radiant with beauty, as chaste, as pure as the foam of the waves, I would ‘make her appearing majestic and superb; the entire earth should come to her. For, let us insist upon it, she gives to the en- raptured world unlimited felicity, inundating it with a flood of light ; sensuality is replaced by the union of hearts. This searching for expression gives us at once numberless acces- sory personages. Recall the pictures that have been made on this subject, and you will be struck by the small degree of logic, the little common sense as there is to be found in them, ‘Their author have lived more through their eyes than by their hearts and brains. Raphael, in a picture that is entitled the “Triumph of Galatea,” but which I think should perhaps be called “The Birth of Venus,” has understood nothing of the subject. I say 50, in spite of all clamors and the fact that it is the custom to call ita chef@euore. Evi- dently it contains charming points, admirable from a plastic point of view, but, from an as- thetic point of view, nothing. Beautiful forms, always beautiful forms; Raphael is always har- monious, elegant, but he has never emotions, is never a true thinker. If Raphael, if Titian, have not grasped this subject, what shall we say of others who have attempted it ? It is in seeking the human side, the inti- mate side, that you will solve the enigma. Your joy, your conviction, your entire nature should contribute to your work. You must live that which you would paint. Fifth Lesson. Subject of Sketch : Romeo and Juliet. Wun you would take a subject from a legend, a drama, or a poem, you must know A FRENCH PAINTER AND HIS PUPILS. how to find the characteristic of the work; you must be able to choose the situation that will give the most complete idea of the poet's creation. This or that episode would only be an illustration. It is the synthesis that you should give,— the entire essence of the work thus passing into your picture, and not a mere reflection of the thought of another. What is Romeo? What is Juliet? It is not by reproducing this or that scene of Shakspere’s drama that you can paint these creations of his genius. It is in presenting them in their most striking aspect that you best convey the idea you have formed of them. If you represent only the griefs, the tears, the death of Juliet and her lover, you give but one phase of their existence ; you have not expressed them. ‘Before all and above all, they are the ex- pression of love—love with all its youth, all Its ardor, its heedlessness, its apprehensions, and its delirium! I have given you this subject of Romeo precisely to see if you understand what is the dominant emotion, and to recommend you always to seek for it. Now, the dominant note of “Romeo and Juliet” is, we have said, love; as “ Othello” is violent jealousy, “Macbeth” is an iffordinate ambition, as “Hamlet” is a painful reverie mastering a fine but unbalanced intelligence, born for a calm life, but forced into action. ‘Ask yourselves then what Shaks} at in writing his drama. Lovers, You must paint, then, lovers. If you had this story to illustrate, you would make drawings of the duel, balcony, or grave scene,—making your compositions more or less dramatic. But when you have “ Romeo and Juliet ” to char- acterize, you are bound to give appropriate expression to the sentiment that exhales from the whole work. ‘Any other subject presenting the same characteristics of passionate and exalted love would interest us equally. It is the picture of love that moves us, not the personality of those who experience it. Ask your heart how to paint Romeo and Juliet. it will give you aresponse. Then you will be eloquent. ‘That which will make the celebrity in the future of all of us who are occupied with art, will not be our cleverness, but perhaps a litde ray of personality. You will be nothing if you imitate another, be he ever so great; you will be some one, even the humblest of you, if you are true to yourselves. You must love glory more than gold, art more than glory— and nature more than all. aimed he not? Carolus Duran,