Before you take your cane at the door, look for one instant at the statue-room.Yonder is Jouffley's "Jeune Fille confiant son premier secret a Venus." Charming, charming! It is from the exhibition of this year only; and I think the best sculpture in the gallery--pretty, fanciful, naive; admirable in workmanship and imitation of Nature.I have seldom seen flesh better represented in marble.Examine, also, Jaley's "Pudeur," Jacquot's "Nymph," and Rude's "Boy with the Tortoise." These are not very exalted subjects, or what are called exalted, and do not go beyond simple, smiling beauty and nature.But what then? Are we gods, Miltons, Michel Angelos, that can leave earth when we please; and soar to heights immeasurable? No, my dear MacGilp; but the fools of academicians would fain make us so.Are you not, and half the painters in London, panting for an opportunity to show your genius in a great "historical picture?" O blind race! Have you wings?
Not a feather: and yet you must be ever puffing, sweating up to the tops of rugged hills; and, arrived there, clapping and shaking your ragged elbows, and making as if you would fly! Come down, silly Daedalus; come down to the lowly places in which Nature ordered you to walk.The sweet flowers are springing there; the fat muttons are waiting there; the pleasant sun shines there; be content and humble, and take your share of the good cheer.
While we have been indulging in this discussion, the omnibus has gayly conducted us across the water; and le garde qui veille a la porte du Louvre ne defend pas our entry.
What a paradise this gallery is for French students, or foreigners who sojourn in the capital! It is hardly necessary to say that the brethren of the brush are not usually supplied by Fortune with any extraordinary wealth, or means of enjoying the luxuries with which Paris, more than any other city, abounds.But here they have a luxury which surpasses all others, and spend their days in a palace which all the money of all the Rothschilds could not buy.They sleep, perhaps, in a garret, and dine in a cellar; but no grandee in Europe has such a drawing-room.Kings' houses have, at best, but damask hangings, and gilt cornices.What are these to a wall covered with canvas by Paul Veronese, or a hundred yards of Rubens?
Artists from England, who have a national gallery that resembles a moderate-sized gin-shop, who may not copy pictures, except under particular restrictions, and on rare and particular days, may revel here to their hearts' content.Here is a room half a mile long, with as many windows as Aladdin's palace, open from sunrise till evening, and free to all manners and all varieties of study: the only puzzle to the student is to select the one he shall begin upon, and keep his eyes away from the rest.
Fontaine's grand staircase, with its arches, and painted ceilings and shining Doric columns, leads directly to the gallery; but it is thought too fine for working days, and is only opened for the public entrance on Sabbath.A little back stair (leading from a court, in which stand numerous bas-reliefs, and a solemn sphinx, of polished granite,) is the common entry for students and others, who, during the week, enter the gallery.
Hither have lately been transported a number of the works of French artists, which formerly covered the walls of the Luxembourg (death only entitles the French painter to a place in the Louvre); and let us confine ourselves to the Frenchmen only, for the space of this letter.
I have seen, in a fine private collection at St.Germain, one or two admirable single figures of David, full of life, truth, and gayety.The color is not good, but all the rest excellent; and one of these so much-lauded pictures is the portrait of a washer-woman.
"Pope Pius," at the Louvre, is as bad in color as remarkable for its vigor and look of life.The man had a genius for painting portraits and common life, but must attempt the heroic;--failed signally; and what is worse, carried a whole nation blundering after him.Had you told a Frenchman so, twenty years ago, he would have thrown the dementi in your teeth; or, at least, laughed at you in scornful incredulity.They say of us that we don't know when we are beaten: they go a step further, and swear their defeats are victories.David was a part of the glory of the empire; and one might as well have said then that "Romulus" was a bad picture, as that Toulouse was a lost battle.Old-fashioned people, who believe in the Emperor, believe in the Theatre Francais, and believe that Ducis improved upon Shakspeare, have the above opinion.Still, it is curious to remark, in this place, how art and literature become party matters, and political sects have their favorite painters and authors.
Nevertheless, Jacques Louis David is dead, he died about a year after his bodily demise in 1825.The romanticism killed him.
Walter Scott, from his Castle of Abbotsford, sent out a troop of gallant young Scotch adventurers, merry outlaws, valiant knights, and savage Highlanders, who, with trunk hosen and buff jerkins, fierce two-handed swords, and harness on their back, did challenge, combat, and overcome the heroes and demigods of Greece and Rome.
Notre Dame a la rescousse! Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert has borne Hector of Troy clear out of his saddle.Andromache may weep: but her spouse is beyond the reach of physic.See! Robin Hood twangs his bow, and the heathen gods fly, howling.Montjoie Saint Denis!
down goes Ajax under the mace of Dunois; and yonder are Leonidas and Romulus begging their lives of Rob Roy Macgregor.Classicism is dead.Sir John Froissart has taken Dr.Lempriere by the nose, and reigns sovereign.
