It is impossible to speak of Henner, and yet pass over in silence his success as a portrait painter, in which capacity he was equal, if not superior, to the painter of nymphs and Magdalens.
In his portrait work Henner was first of all the portrayer of women, as indeed, throughout his life, he had been in all his paintings.
There was no dearth of models. They came to him in throngs, and his studio in the Place Pigalle witnessed a procession of the most magnificent beauties of France and the world at large. Henner, however, was never a flattering portrait painter, nor even a complaisant one. He had too much respect for himself and for his art to trade upon his professional integrity; he was too fervent a worshipper of nature to distort it, or even to paraphrase it. His portraits are literally portraits, in the highest sense of the word; I mean that they are faithful copies of the person represented, and that no trace of adulation could be found in a single one of them. But he excelled in extracting from the physiognomy of his model that one intimate note which each one of us conceals within himself, and that is now and then betrayed upon our features in a fugitive yet unmistakable gleam. It is this hidden note, this inner flame, this latent nobility, this moral beauty which Henner had the peculiar gift of divining and interpreting.
Is it at all surprising, with such advantages, that Henner's portraits are of such superior workmanship that they are almost always masterpieces? Unfortunately, it is impossible here to enter upon an extensive study of Henner the portrait painter; we must content ourselves with citing the most celebrated of his portraits of women: Mme. Paul Dubois, Mme. Bonard, Mme. SÉdille, a charming countenance, seen full-face, the black shawl throwing her rich beauty into relief; Mme. Jules Ferry, Mme. Scheurer-Kestner, Mme. Charles Hayem, Mme. Koechlin-Schwartz, Mlle. FormigÉ, Mme. Pasteur and Mlle. Pasteur, the magnificent portrait of Miss Eldin, whose regal blond beauty is framed in a bewitching Gainsborough hat; Mlle. Marcille, Mlle. Mosenthal, Mlle. SÉdille, Mlle. Gentien, an admirable symphony of black tones, in which all the accessories, the gloves and fan, are of sombre colour; this portrait is one of Henner's best; Mme. Eumont, whose black garments form a curious contrast to her powdered hair; then, three masterpieces: the portraits of the three daughters of Mme. PorgÈs, and also that of Mme. PorgÈs herself with her youngest child; the Comtesse d'Ideville, whose red robe forms a warm and luminous contrast to the sombre background of the picture; Her Imperial Highness, the Countess of Eu, daughter of Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil; the Princesse de Broglie, nÉe Say, daughter of the millionaire refiner; Mme. Fournier-SarlevÈze, a fascinating woman, who died prematurely; Mme. Raffalowitz, Mme. Oulman, Mme. Henry Fouquier, and her charming daughter, Mlle. Fouquier, Mme. Rodrigues, Mlle. Leroux, Mlle. de Morell, Mme. FougÈre-Dubourg, Mme. Kutner; Mme. Daniel Dollfus, portrayed standing; the Marquise de Mosges; Mme. Hippolyte Adam; Mme. de Rute, Mme. Jules Siegfried, Mme. Duplay, Mme. Fabre, Mme. Peltreau, the Baroness Brincard; Mlle. HoschedÉ; Mlle. Chanzy, Mlle. Fernande Dubourg; Mme. Herzog, Mme. Silhal, Mme. Brossard, Mme. Loreau, Mme. de CrÉpy, Mme. Raphael, Mme. Jules Walfrey, Mme. Charras, Mme. Marochetti, Mme. DiÉmer, Mme. Carmian, Mme. Monthier, in black and with black drapery over her shoulders, Mme. de Beausacq (the Comtesse Diane), a beautiful portrait of which we give a reproduction; this portrait was executed by Henner at the request of Sully-Prudhomme and bequeathed to the Louvre; but it has not yet been transferred to that great national museum; it is still in the Luxembourg, and is regarded as one of its choicest treasures.
Furthermore, mention should be made of Mlle. Valentine Edmond About, Mlle. Brincard, Mme. Jules Claretie, the Comtesse Kessler, one of the master's most successful portraits and one that he obtained from a single sitting; Mme. Shopey, a fascinating Creole from the island of Bourbon, whose profile has an ideal beauty that inspired Henner to produce a veritable masterpiece; he was no less successful in portraying Mme. Noetzlin, another exquisite exotic beauty, whose languid indolence and captivating charm he has rendered with infinite vigour and grace.
But one of his most beautiful portraits is that of Mme. Karekehia, the mother of Nubar Pacha, who, although quite advanced in age, is represented in a charming pose that emphasizes her natural attractions. Nowhere else perhaps did Henner rise to such a height, or obtain such a degree of truth in his interpretation of a human physiognomy.
And how many other portraits there are, equally beautiful, equally powerful, if only we might cite them all!
Painter of women though he was, Henner did not refuse as a settled policy to paint men, but it was difficult to make up his mind to do so. Not that he showed less ability in his portraiture of men. It was simply that it cost him something to renounce, even temporarily, the cult of feminine beauty, to which he had dedicated himself. He loved to make rays of light play harmoniously over blond flesh, over silken fabrics, over draperies; and the uniformity of masculine garments does not lend itself to this sort of magic. None the less, he produced a few portraits of men which are absolutely remarkable; portraits of personal friends, for the most part, which he painted with a solicitude that makes itself felt: such are the portraits of Jules Claretie, of Dr. Leroy, of the painter Parrot, of the sculptor Paul Dubois, the poet Sully-Prudhomme, of the publisher Georges Charpentier, of General Chanzy. Henner also painted a little portrait of Pasteur, which was never shown at the Salon, but is nevertheless one of the most keenly alive and most perfect of his works.
It would also be only fitting to consider Henner's work from the particular point of view of landscape painting which occupies so large a place in his pictures; but the circumscribed space of the present study does not permit of this.
Henner aged peacefully in the tranquillity of his studio and the harmonious regularity of an existence consecrated to labour and to art. In 1900, at the time of the Universal Exposition, he obtained one of the four grand prizes bestowed by the judges upon the greatest artists.
In this life of Henner's, unmarked by any extraordinary event, everything is as limpid and as clear as a woodland spring whose transparent waters flow peacefully, slipping noiselessly under cover of the moss. Until the end, Henner retained his modesty, his natural simplicity, his aversion to notoriety; and when in 1905 he died, there was no dissenting voice in the general praise of his character and his talent.
Henner possessed the rare privilege, not of having created a type, but of having left upon contemporary art the imprint of his powerful personality. We are also in debt to him for a return to the dignity of the great classic types, to a beauty of form achieved in accordance with an original and rejuvenated conception. Like Puvis de Chavannes, he has taught us to appreciate the majestic harmony of antique composition, and also, like him, he has given us an example of a richness of colour carried to the culminating point by the simplest of means. Steeped in classicism beneath its brilliant exterior, grounded on a mastery of line-work, underneath the gleaming colours, Henner's art has broken down all opposition, silenced all criticism, and evoked universal admiration because it unites these two masterly qualities which form the basis of imperishable painting: conscientiousness and genius.
