Jean-Jacques Henner was born, on the 15th of March, 1829, in the village of Bernwiller, not far from Belfort, on the confines of Alsace.

This origin explains the strongly personal character of his talent. Offspring as he was of a land that once was German,--and that, alas, has once again become so, after having been impregnated for several centuries with the refinement and the good taste of France,--Henner unites in himself the dominant qualities of both races: from Germany he derives his laborious energy, his tenacity, his spirit of research, his poetic dreaminess; to the French imprint he owes the delicacy, the good taste, the grace, the subtlety, the careful weighing of effects, that distinguish all his work.

Jean-Jacques Henner was the youngest child of a numerous family. His parents were modest tillers of the soil, who nevertheless had won the general esteem of the neighbourhood. Of little education, but honest and industrious, Henner's father was rewarded for his integrity and blameless life by being appointed to the office of village tax collector. With as little learning as her husband, his mother possessed a dreamy spirit and a very keen intelligence. It was she who first discerned in the thoughtful and rather backward boy the germs of his future talent; it was also she who encouraged and sustained him with her wise affection when the first promise of his future talent was revealed.

His vocation manifested itself at an early age. Little Jean-Jacques could barely read when he had already begun to adorn the walls with charcoal figures that "fairly stood on their feet," and proved that the child possessed a precocious power of observation. In some of these sketches it was easy to recognize certain frequent visitors to the house, friends and neighbours; and the good-hearted villagers used to come and admire these attempts. Quite surprised at these proclivities, his father, instead of interfering with the boy's natural bent, did his best to encourage it. Being unable to provide him with a drawing-master,--and for that matter the child was still too young,--he supplied him with models, in the shape of the familiar Epinal coloured prints which little Jean-Jacques tried to reproduce to the best of his ability. It certainly was not through the aid of these naÏve and rudimentary essays in colour work that Henner learned the art of drawing, but they at least served to strengthen his desire to learn, and gave him facility in handling his pencil.

The father of little Jean-Jacques served him as best he could; it was he who laid the corner-stone of his son's future glory. In that humble household, where each member had his appointed task, from the father down to the frailest child, Jean-Jacques was the only one who took no part in the labour of the fields; he was exempted in order to continue his education and develop his taste for drawing.

Even the neighbours, astonished at his precocity, aided him as best they could. One brought paper, another an old picture, another some prints found in an out-of-the-way corner of the house, still another a supply of paints. Thus equipped, the child worked with unflagging zeal, undertook to learn the use of colours, and in order to repay his benefactors, he made portraits of them, which are still preserved in those Alsatian households and which already reveal, in more than one of those likenesses that he always caught so well, the first germs of those qualities of a great portrait painter, such as he was one day destined to become.

"You will be a great artist," his father used to say, as he kissed him; for the good man foresaw, almost by divination, the glorious destiny that awaited his son. And addressing his other sons, all of them older than little Jean-Jacques, and all of them destined to pass their days in the hard labour of tilling the soil, he told them:

"When I am no longer here, I commend your brother to you. Aid him and sustain him. Help him to achieve his career. You will be repaid for it; this I promise you, in the name of the good God."

The brothers carried out piously and to the letter these commands of their father; while Henner, for his part, promised himself to fulfil his share of the bargain. He never forgot what he owed to his older brothers; and he paid them back a hundredfold for all the benefits that he had received.

This is one of the most curious portraits painted by the artist inasmuch as it attains a maximum of perfection in spite of a combination of the most unfavourable possible means. Notwithstanding the sombre garments that barely stand out against the dull blue background, the face reveals an extraordinary intensity of life.

At the age of seven, young Henner was required to go to church every day for the purpose of learning his catechism. In the chapel where the good curÉ of Bernwiller expounded the doctrine, there happened to be a picture representing St. Sebastian. This picture attracted the attention of the child irresistibly and was the cause of many moments of inattention which brought upon him the paternal rebukes of the priest. It was wasted severity. Little Jean-Jacques had eyes for nothing else than the saint, whose widely gaping shirt revealed the muscular throat and hairy chest; and he continued to stare at their robust anatomy which so strongly resembled that of the peasants whom he saw all about him in the village.

By a singular coincidence, this painting in by-gone days once reposed for quite a long time in the home of his grandfather, where Henner himself was born. An architect named KlÉber, and destined to become later a famous general, was occupied in building the parish house in one of the neighbouring villages to Bernwiller. Coming by chance to Bernwiller, he saw the painting of St. Sebastian, which he found had been greatly impaired by age. He took steps to obtain its restoration and, while waiting for the appointed artist to arrive from Strassburg, he had it transferred to the house of Henner's grandfather. It was there that the artist from Strassburg repaired the painting, and it would almost seem as though there were some sort of obscure connection between this fact and the powerful impression which the picture produced upon the mind of little Jean-Jacques, and as though it were a sort of secret bond between the glory of the great warrior and that of the great painter.

A little later, young Henner was sent to attend school at Altkirch. Not however in the capacity of a boarding pupil, for the family did not have the means. Every day he had to cover on foot the two hours' journey, in order to reach school, and the same to return. But the child possessed the sacred fire: the kilometres seemed to him no more than a pleasant walk.

As good luck would have it, the school at Altkirch possessed a drawing-master, named Goutzwiller, an artist of real talent. He quickly divined the possibilities of his new pupil, encouraged him, grounded him, and became a true friend and, in a certain sense, a second father to him.

After three years of study at this school, Henner left Altkirch, in accordance with M. Goutzwiller's advice, in order to go to Strassburg, where he entered the studio of the artist, GuÉrin. Here it was that he exchanged the pencil for the brush. From his first attempts he manifested a pronounced taste for oppositions of shadow and light, the latter acquiring greater vigour by force of contrast. Henner's first attempt at Strassburg was a copy of Heim's Shepherd, the original of which was burned in 1870, at the time of the fire resulting from the bombardment. But the copy remains, and bears witness to the painter's early love for sombre backgrounds, shot through with shimmerings of light.

During his vacations, which were passed at Bernwiller, Henner paid numerous visits to Basle and to Colmar, where he went for the purpose of studying the old German masters, Holbein, Schongauer, and DÜrer. Holbein especially delighted and inspired him: he loved his honest, firm, frank line-work, no less than he appreciated the spirit of poetry with which the early master imbued all his models. What a schooling for a painter really enamoured of his art! In this ardent study of Holbein, Henner confirmed the opinion, that had already taken shape in his mind, that there is no good painting where there is not good drawing, and that no one has the right to claim to be a painter if he cannot lay his colours upon a solidly built foundation. The craftsman must always precede the artist.

In the case of Henner, at this time, the craftsmanship was perfect; nothing remained but to open a career for the artist. The young painter had faith, courage, and ambition; he dreamed of continuing his studies, of perfecting himself, of having other teachers. But these teachers were precisely what Strassburg could not furnish; and Paris, the great city, the centre of learning and of art, Paris was not far distant. What joy, if he could only go there! At this juncture, GuÉrin died. Having lost his master, Henner had nothing else to detain him in Strassburg. Accordingly, he put his trust in Providence, and, with his heart pulsing with hope, started on his way to the capital.