All these works, acrimoniously discussed and unjustly attacked by the critics, made the name of Puvis de Chavannes widely known without augmenting his reputation. The general public, habituated to the stereotyped, elaborate, ornate school, understood nothing of such deceptive simplicity. His canvases would not sell. Even the government had made no more purchases since its acquisition of Peace. It had even refused to acquire War, when the artist offered it. As we have already said, sooner than have the two pictures separated, Puvis made up his mind to donate it. Commissions failed to come in, and nothing afforded hope that this condition of affairs was likely to change, when chance threw in the path of Puvis de Chavannes a man whose providential intervention completely transformed his destiny.
At about this epoch the city of Amiens had started to build a museum. The architect of this enterprise, M. Diot, came to see Puvis de Chavannes and said to him:
"I saw your paintings in the Salon of 1861, and was greatly pleased with them. In the edifice which I am at present constructing, there are some vast surfaces to be covered. Are your two pictures, Peace and War, still in your possession? I could find immediate use for them."
Puvis de Chavannes replied that the two paintings in question belonged to the State. The city of Amiens immediately solicited the concession of them, which was courteously granted.
PLATE IV.—LUDUS PRO PATRIA
(In the Museum, Amiens)
This great composition, of which the present plate gives only a fragment, is numbered among the most beautiful productions of Puvis de Chavannes, because of the harmony of its parts, the nobility of the postures and the charm of its detail.
The paintings were placed in the grand gallery on the first floor, where they produced a most beautiful decorative effect. Puvis de Chavannes, delighted at this unhoped-for good fortune, offered to complete the decoration of the gallery, by painting the panels occupying the spaces between the windows. The illumination is exceedingly bad, but with infinite art the painter succeeded in harmonizing his compositions with the atmosphere and light of the room. It should be noted further that the subjects treated in the panels on the right gallery relate to the picture of War, which faces them; they are a Standard-Bearer and a Woman weeping over the ruins of her home. The same holds true of the painting consecrated to Peace, the corresponding panels being a Harvester and a Woman spinning.
Puvis de Chavannes considered himself fortunate in having two of his works which he so greatly loved find a place in a museum. The municipality of Amiens was none the less delighted in possessing them; it gave proof of this by once more sending its municipal architect to him on a special embassy:
"I need two more mural paintings to decorate the main staircase of the museum. Do you happen to have what I need ready made, as you did the other time?"
The architect was jesting. Puvis de Chavannes betook himself to a corner of his studio, and unrolling two canvases, presented them to M. Diot:
"Here are what you want. These two pictures are of the same dimensions as Peace and War; they represent Repose and Labour and form part of the same series. Will they serve your purpose?"
They served the architect's purpose to perfection. Unfortunately the city of Amiens did not have the money to pay for them. The difficulty was explained to the artist who, with his customary disinterestedness, made a present of both the paintings. They were soon stretched in the places for which they were intended, in a framework of fruits and flowers, and produced an admirable effect. The municipality of Amiens was so well satisfied with these paintings that it decided at the cost of great sacrifices to commission Puvis de Chavannes to prepare a large composition destined to occupy the entire upper panel of the staircase on the side of the grand gallery. This panel was intersected by two doorways.
Puvis de Chavannes set to work immediately. In the Salon of 1865 he exhibited his Ave Picardia Nutrix, destined for the Museum of Amiens. The painting produced a veritable sensation. Even the unskilled in art experienced an instinctive emotion in the presence of this important canvas which they did not fully understand, but which they felt to be sincere; as to the artists, they were obliged to acknowledge that the painter whom they had scoffed and derided, and who had now produced the Picardia Nutrix, was unquestionably a master.
The Ave Picardia Nutrix is a glorification of the fertility and richness of the land of Picardy. The artist has wished to represent in a succession of episodes, harmoniously related one to another, all the products of the soil and all the local industries from which Picardy draws its prosperity.
To this end he has grouped his figures in the setting of a Picardian landscape, quite faithful in colour and in line. M. Marius Vachon analyzes the painting as follows:
"Beneath the orchard of a vast estate some peasants are turning a flour mill; women are bringing apples for a keg of cider; masons are building the walls of a house, and an old woman is spinning on her distaff the native hemp. Along the banks of a stream, women are weaving fish nets; carpenters are constructing a bridge; boatmen are steering heavy-laden barges. Add to these professional labours the incidents of work-a-day life, which are taking place on every side, charming incidents, picturesque and touching; a little lad, carrying a heavy basket of fruit on his head, eager to show his strength before his elders; a mother, nursing her youngest born; some women bathing under the shadow of the willows. The composition is abundantly suggestive of delicate impressions; and it forms a magnificent decoration for the edifice in which it has been placed."
When the painting had been installed in its position in the vestibule of honour on the main floor, the municipality of Amiens perceived that the fourth side of the staircase, the only one not decorated, was precisely the one that best lent itself to the development of a painting, because of its considerable surface. The ceiling, it is true, darkened this vestibule, owing to its insufficient window space. It was, furthermore, adorned by a painting by Barrias. Nevertheless the city determined to replace the ceiling by a skylight, on condition that Puvis de Chavannes would paint the vacant panel thus made available.
PLATE V.—REPOSE
(In the Museum, Amiens)
This work is one of the earliest by this great artist. It is very interesting, because it still shows the influence of Couture's studio, where Puvis de Chavannes had been a pupil. It serves as a point of comparison for determining the evolution of the artist's talent.
However, the resources of the municipality did not permit it to incur so great an expense. It appealed to the State, which curtly refused its coÖperation. The city fathers of Amiens were in despair, the painter not less so. What was to be done? Wait until the municipality, through slow economies, was in a position to order the picture? Puvis de Chavannes, who had grown enthusiastic over the task, was boiling with impatience and listened day by day, as he expressed it, to hear if no breeze was blowing his way from Amiens.
But when the breeze remained persistently unfavourable, Puvis de Chavannes, growing tired of waiting, decided to execute the panel in any case, come what might. And he composed the admirable fresco which bears the name of Ludus pro Patria.
Everyone knows the subject of this painting, which has passed into a legend. In a plain traversed by a running stream, some young men are engaged in a game of rivalry with spears. On a knoll, an old man, surrounded by women, serves as umpire. He follows, with attentive eye, the fluctuations of the game, while a young lad, in a pose charming for its relaxation, rests one arm around his neck. Behind him a young woman holds out her baby for its father to kiss. On the left of the picture, seated at the foot of a tree, or grouped around a fountain, young girls await the end of the game in which their brothers or their betrothed take part. One of them leans towards an aged minstrel and begs him to play some dance music after the game is over.
All these groups are harmoniously disposed in an open-air setting, dotted over with cottages and stately trees, enveloped in a soft and mellow light.
This picture reveals the artist's predilection for children, a very curious and touching predilection to discover in a painter whose own fireside was never gladdened by childish laughter. Let us examine the Ludus pro Patria; in this picture Puvis de Chavannes has been lavish of childhood games and pastimes. Notwithstanding that his art was before all else synthetic, and gained its effects from harmony of attitude rather than from finish of figures, he plainly expended loving care in modelling those delicate and charming little bodies, which he has endowed with infinite grace. Is there anything more adorably exquisite than the gesture of the infant stretching out its plump arms towards its father? And does not the child standing before the group by the fountain reveal the master's tender solicitude for these little beings whose absence from his domestic life he probably regretted?
The distinguished custodian of the Museum at Amiens showed me the corner of the balustrade on which the painter rested his elbows, in front of the group of which that child forms part. After some moments of contemplation, he might be seen to mount his scaffolding, brush in hand, to add a few strokes, some new tint to that delightfully modelled little form.
The Ludus pro Patria is something more and something better than a beautiful picture; it is a symbolic work in which the noblest conceptions of patriotism are exalted. With his incomparable synthetic art, Puvis de Chavannes has endeavoured to show all the diverse manners of serving usefully one's native land. Young women, bearing the tender burden of nursing children, are rearing for their country a valiant generation, which before long will be augmented through the robust girls grouped on the left, awaiting the advent of husbands. The children, grown to manhood, will practise games of strength and skill which will render them capable of defending their common patrimony. The old man himself has his rÔle assigned in this ideal commonwealth; ripened by experience of life, he supplements the feebleness of his arms by the wisdom of his lessons; he is the honoured counsellor, the arbiter of full justice, who restrains the ardor of youth within the path of reason.
The cartoon for this magnificent panel was exhibited in the Salon of 1881; it achieved a unanimous success. The State acquired it, and at the same time commissioned Puvis to paint the picture itself for the Museum of Picardy. The finished work, in its proper dimensions, found a place in the Salon the following year, and gained its author the medal of honour from the Society of French Artists. We have followed Puvis de Chavannes in his decoration of the Museum of Amiens, from the beginning to the end of his artistic career, without regard to chronological order, because of the interest which he himself took in this extensive work, which was, one might say, his constant preoccupation. Accordingly we must go back in point of time and follow step by step this astonishing and genial worker whose accomplishment is disconcerting in its power and its fecundity.
The first works executed for the Museum of Amiens had attracted public attention to him. The municipality of Marseilles had just crowned the important enterprise of bringing the waters of the Durance into the city, by erecting a sumptuous Public Waterworks, bearing the name of the Palace of Longchamps.
Two great mural surfaces enclose the principal staircase. It was decided to decorate them with paintings. And when the time came to choose the artist, a unanimous agreement was reached on the name of Puvis de Chavannes.
The latter, being notified, accepted joyfully, as he accepted all occasions of converting a noble vision of art into a reality. And what finer fortune could come to an artist that to celebrate Marseilles, the sun-bathed city, vibrant with light, crouching royally on the azure mantle of the Mediterranean?
Puvis de Chavannes hastened to the ancient Ligurian city. He calculated the difficulties of composing a great decorative composition, free from banality, out of the habitual elements of a seaport,—a subject a thousand times treated and perilous of execution. He sought, he studied, he promenaded the quays, he strode the length and breadth of the city. At last the enlightening flash he awaited came in the course of a trip to the Chateau d'If. In the presence of that noble panorama of the city seen from the sea, he remained as if dazed, realizing that he had found what he was in search of. He would not paint Marseilles with the sea as a decorative background; it was the city herself that should form the background, and not the sea. He had his two pictures in his grasp.
And without stirring from the spot, while his friends took luncheon, he remained seated on the rocks, making notes and sketches, in order to fix fully in his mind "the line and colour of that marvellous maritime landscape."
The first of these pictures, Marseilles the Greek Colony, stands for the entire history of the Phocian city from its foundation to the present time. But, following his essentially synthetic method, he painted, not the successive transformations of Marseilles, but symbolic figures of the sources to which she owes her grandeur and her prosperity.
In the background is the strand, which as yet is only a natural harbour. Along the shore, vessels are seen building; these are the symbol of activity. Further off, horses are bringing merchandise towards the boats about to sail, symbol of the commercial instinct; masons, carpenters, stonecutters, are zealously plying their craft; and palaces, storehouses, and churches arise, symbols of wealth and of taste in art.
Among the accessory features are a woman vendor spreading before other women rich fabrics and pearls, and some slaves conveying towards the city jars of oil and skins filled with wine.
In Marseilles, Gateway of the East, a ship is seen, laden with travellers, making its way into port. All these passengers are Orientals, recognizable by the gaudiness of their garments: they admire the panorama of the rich city whose fortifications, churches, and palaces stand out in bold relief against the ruddy light of evening.
An atmosphere of warmth and brilliance emanates from these two paintings, of which the city of Marseilles has shown herself justly proud.
When Puvis de Chavannes received a commission for a mural painting he gave himself ardently to his task, but at the same time intermittently. Contrary to a generally accepted belief, his genius was not the result of "long patience," but rather the realization of a vision. He never applied himself to a painting if some external cause, no matter what, had deadened in him the essential inspiration. In such a case, he would revert to some other work which his mind could "see better" on that particular day. In this way we can understand how he could carry forward simultaneously several works of equal importance, and at the same time paint in addition occasional easel pictures.
(In the Museum, Amiens)
This painting, admirable in execution, is quite interesting to study, because it serves to show in what a purely personal manner, wholly detached from mythological traditions, Puvis de Chavannes interpreted Antiquity.
