PDVIS
585
PUVIS
those of Delacroix and Couture. Another sojourn in
Italy, where he remained a year, fixed his ideas and
determined his creed. He returned convinced of the
artistic dignity and great eminence of decorative
painting. The art of the great Italian masters, their
manner of expressing in large compositions stamped
with simpUcity, the marvellous thoughts and the be-
liefs common to a period or a people, WcO-s thenceforth
the object which he set about realizing for his con-
temporaries. Without being positively Cliristian his
inspiration preserves a clearly spiritual character. In
the midst of the materialistic invasion of the second
half of the nineteenth century Puvis (with Eugene
Carriere) was the noblest champion of religious art in
France. As a painter his originality freed him from
early influences and tendencies. In a sense he was
really self-tauglit. While admiring Delacroix, he de-
tested the Romantic anarchy, with its disordered
passions, and despised academic conventions, the
timid taste and feeble ideas of
the so-styled classicals. If he
was in sympathy with any sec-
tion of the school, it was doubt-
less with the small group of
landscape painters. In view of
the importance with which he
endowed landscape, the atmos-
phere which he instils into his
frescoes, his liking for familiar
horizons and lowly countrysides,
together with his way of depict-
ing and ennobling them, it
seems evident that Puvis
studied Corot. Finally in the
paintings of Theodore Chas-
seriau the young artist found
an ideal similar to his own, a
kindred spirit and a model for
his Amiens pictures.
Puvis's first "Salon" was a "Pieta," exhibited in 18.52, but he was constantly rejected for some years afterwards. His already remarkable pictures, such as his "Salome" or his "Julia", shocked the public by a determined absence of shad- Pierre Puvis
ows (as in mosaics) and by an Engraved by
hieratic and Byzantine strangene.ss. At the Salon of 1859 he showed a "Return from the Hunt" (Museum of Marseilles), which is a striking work of youthful, heroic, barbarous movement. A great dec- orative talent became more and more evident in these stray works. Then came the opportunity to paint a hall for a private citizen: "At la,st", said the artist, "I have water to swim in." Henceforth he forced himself to that regimen of work which he observed all his life, the regimen of a Carthusian or cenobite in art; one meal a day at about seven in the evening, two rapid walks lasting an hour before and after work between his dwelling at Montmartre and his studio at Neuilly, sessions of nine or ten hours of incessant work, in the evening, reading, drawing, music, and conversation with his friends. Several journeys in- terrupted this regular life.
It is not known to whom the merit belongs of having singled out the young painter and appointed him to the work which was his true vocation, nor who com- missioned him to paint the frescoes of the staircase in the museum of Amiens, but it was through this chance that Puvis vmdertook the work which became his true sphere, that of monumental painting. In 1861 appeared "War" and "Peace"; in 186.3 "Work" and "Rest"; in 186.5 these were completed by a new work "Ave Picardia Nutrix". There is noth- ing simpler or nobler than these paintings. They
are considered by more than one authority his best
work, and in any case are the manifestation of a singu-
larly new art. He showed an admirable faculty for
generalization, a power of expressing life in universal
features without cold allegories or romantic disturb-
ances, while retaining a rustic realism and accent.
But because of its very novelty, its mural simplicity,
this new and vigorous work created astonishment and
scandal, with which the artist had to contend for many
years. Still sharper criticisms were aroused by his
"Autumn", "Sleep", "Harvest" (1870), and espe-
cially by the "Poor Sinner" (Salon of 1875), in which
the touching archaism had the effect of a challenge.
Puvis was accused of not knowing how to paint or
draw. His ideas and projects seemed incomprehen-
sible and like a defiance of public taste. There was
no attempt to understand the methods of sj'nthesis
and simplification due to the particular circumstances
of fresco, these pieces being persistently regarded from
the same standpoint as the other
Salon pictures. The result was
a prolonged misunderstanding
lasting fifteen years, during
which much ink was wasted.
Finally the intelligent initiative
of the Marquis de Cheunevi-
eres, the best director of the fine
arts France has ever had, af-
forded the unjustly criticised
painter the opportunity for a
decisive triumph. This was in
cdiHiexion with the paintings of
the "Childhood of St. Gene-
vieve" (1876-8), in the ancient
church of that name, now the
Pantheon. All that had been
misunderstood at the Salon be-
came clear here, all that, seen
at close range amid factitious
surroundings, had seemed a de-
fect vanished and acquired a
meaning in the perfect accord
of the work with the monu-
ment. For the first time it was
perceived that decoration had
its own laws and that in this
uE Chavannes light each of the artist's appar-
Lafosse, 1868 ent weaknesses became a charm
and a necessity. Thenceforth the master held a unique position in the French school. Without the title he was a sort of painter laureate. During his last twenty years each of his successive works increased his hence- forth undisputed reputation; they were "Ludus pro patria"( 1880-2), for the Museum of Amiens; "Doux pays" (1882), for M. Leon Bonnat; for the Lyons Mu- seum, the "Sacred Wood Dear to the Arts and Muses " (1884) with the "Antique Vision", "Christian Inspir- ation", the "Sa6ne"and the "Rhone" (1886); "Inter artes et naturara" (Rouen Museum); "Summer", " Winter "," Victor Hugo Presenting his Lyre to Paris", for the Paris Hotel de Ville (189,3-5), and his last pictures, two new scenes from the legend of St. Genevieve: "St. Genevieve Revictualling the Pari- sians" (1897) and "St. Genevieve Watching over Paris" (1898). After an interval of twenty years this last picture met with the same popularity as that which had welcomed the first scene of the "Child- hood". It is a sublime picture, showing a .single figure, in a monastic costume, standing erect and mo- tionless in the night, watching over the blue roofs of the sleeping city.
During this last portion of his life the master exer- ci.sed a wholly new jurisdiction over art; without being the leader of a school, or oven strictly speaking ha\-ing disciples, his word was law. To him the Government had recourse on solemn occasions, for instance the
