BASTIEN-LEPAGE AND MODERN REALISM.
PERHAPS no two men could be named whose works exercise a greater influence on painting at the present day than Millet and Bastien-Lepage, the earliest and the latest of the French 'peasant-painters.' Although, in a sense, the one is an out-come of the other, — since Millet led the way, and hewed the path which others have since found an easy road, — yet Bastien-Lepage's attitude to his work is so different and so personal, that apart from the question of technique, which in his case is much more accomplislied than that of Millet, he also is entitled to the honour of making a departure, in its way perhaps as important as that of his great predecessor.
It would be idle at this time of day to speak in praise of Millet. He has secured immortality, and one may safely say that his works will always hold a high and an honoured place among the world's treasures. But in the case of Bastien-Lepage this is not by any means admitted. Now, whereas Millefs art was intensely spiritual, concentrating itself on the motive of his pictures, and in every case subordinating the facts of nature to the expression of sentiment; in the case of Lepage, although he is commonly allowed to be a most consummate painter in his rendering oijacts, his claims to feeling, sentiment, and that spiritual quality which makes fine art, as distinct from lifeless imitation, are not so readily allowed him. And yet it seems to me that he is as strong, at least, in sentiment as in execution.
And it is on this question of sentiment — of the painters relation to his subject — that the work of Lepage takes, perhaps, its greatest importance. Of the many interesting characteristics of Lepage's work, perhaps the most remarkable is his sympathetic intimacy with his subject. Although the human interest is always dominant, yet nothing escapes him — nothing is trivial or unimportant. One reads in his works the life-history of the workaday human beings he painted — the brilliant actress, the man of the world, the tramp, the peasants of his native village, — all his personages are placed before us in the most satisfying completeness, without the appearance of artifice, but as they live; and without comment, as far as i.i possible, on the authors part. And it is in this loving, yet impartial presentation that I think Lepage stands on new ground. Millet tells us his view of life, Lepage does not; and, although it is impossible to desire a fuller revelation of character than he gives, he gi-es it for itself, his own view is not put forward. We can but guess it. Strong enough to embody the thing in its fulness, by reason of his marvellous accomplishment as a painter, he invests the whole of his canvas with a new and living interest. He insists on the claims of smaller things — commonly slurred over and suppressed — to a full and complete realisation; completely overturning the old formuliE by showing that it is possible to do this, not only without sacrifice of breadth, simplicity, truth, or any other quality, but to an immense gain of beauty in the work itself. Who tiiat has seen, or studied, his 'Potato Gatherers,' will not remember the wonderful foreground . the fresh-broken earth, the weeds, all searched and painted with the subtlest truth, and yet not obtrusive. It would be a long matter to go through the list of his works, but I remember, among others, a small picture of a waving cornfield, with the birds singing in the sunny sky — a simple subject enough, and one that we have all seen many times, in nature and in art; yet so fresh, so true, so full of air and movement, and of the subtle poetry of the open fields, that it was to ine a fresh revelation of beauty, and I never can see a corn-field now without feeling the richer for having seen that work. And as in the small things, much more in the greater is his work remarkable, mainly by reason of its exquisite and subtle truth. It is evident that he cut himself away as far as possible from current ideas, and set himself before nature with the simple devotion of the early Italians, or of Holbein. In his open-air pictures, his figures are realised almost as completely as in sculpture; one can measure the distance from one figure to another.
Tins is the true 'plein-air'; he felt and showed the sky, not as a painted thing in the background, but coming close to us, and all round about us. It is disputed how far as an open-air painter he is original. It has been said, 'C'est Manet qui a seme, c'est Bastien-Lepage qui re'colte'; and though I am not familiar with much of Manet's works, that which I have seen leads me to think that Lepage is not consciously indebted to him. Manet gave a certain direction to the thought of his time, and Lepage was 'in the movement.' The most likely source of his inspiration was in his early life as a country boy. Damvillers is, I believe, a small village, not more picturesque or paintable than any other French, or many an English village; and yet a few things, truly seen and recorded there, have
