Alys Eyre Macklin

“ Merely clever in all else, Greuze rises above himself when he approaches these. Nothing could be fresher [Pg 77] or more lightly touched than the little blonde heads of his children, the fresh rose of their cheeks, the features suggested under the baby fat, the delicacy of the little unformed members set down with a tenderness that mocks at the limitations of pigments. The same rare quality of livingness animates the older heads. The eyes of the young girls have depth and flame, or their dewy sparkle is subdued in seductive languor. ”

“ RUIN AND DEATH Even during these brilliant days, when Greuze was considered the most fortunate of mortals, there lurked beneath the glittering surface of his life a grim reality which made happiness impossible, the misery of a private life dominated by as bad a wife as ever cursed a man’s existence. ”

“ It hangs in the Louvre, and is always surrounded by eager copyists, who strive, very frequently in vain, to reproduce the delicate tints of the flesh and the vague, wondering expression in the eyes of the charming heroine. ”

“ No painter ever copied himself with more constancy and indefatigability. He has but three or four types, and these he copies and recopies till you never want to see them again. The father is always the same venerable man, much too old to be the father of such young children; the mother does not vary; it is always the same child a size or two smaller or larger, as the case may be. ”

“ Some one repeated this to Greuze.
“How dare she venture to criticise a work of art,” he cried violently. “Let her tremble with fear lest I immortalise her by painting her as a schoolmistress, with a whip in her hand and a face that will terrify all children living or to be born.”
Under the influence of his infatuation for himself, he lost all sense of the proportion of things—witness the scene when the Dauphin, delighted with his own portrait, asked him to begin one of the Dauphine. ”

“ Tears never redden their eyes; no emotion disarranges the kerchief carefully arranged to show more than is necessary of the throat and breast. And the head of a child of twelve is often placed on the throat and bosom of a girl of seventeen.
Except when he touches flesh his colour is rarely good, the scheme too grey, with undecided reds, dull violets, dirty blues, and [Pg 74] muddy foundations. The draperies are often badly painted, a fault which he explained by saying he purposely neglected them to give more value to the painting of the flesh. ”

“ It was natural that, when manhood was arrived at, Greuze should yield to the inevitable law that draws exceptional talent to great centres. When he was about twenty he left Lyons, and with very little capital but his abilities, his blonde beauty, and a large stock of self-satisfaction, he set out gaily to make his fortune in Paris. ”

“ THE PICTURES BY WHICH WE KNOW GREUZE From time to time during these years Greuze had painted children’s heads that gave evidence of the real character of his talent, and in 1765, the year of “La Malédiction paternelle,” he produced “Le Baiser envoyé,” now in London in the collection of the Baron Alfred de Rothschild.
“Le Baiser envoyé,” or “The Kiss,” represents a young woman leaning forward among the flowers of her window-sill to throw a kiss to her departing lover. ”

“ To turn for a moment from the artist to the man, it goes without saying that one so sensitive to the beauty of woman must have been susceptible to her influence, and Greuze’s numerous heart-histories are all the more interesting in that they are as creditable to his chivalry as they are romantic. His first grande passion was his boyish love for the wife of his master Grandon at Lyons, a woman with grown-up daughters. ”

“ The children listen respectfully, some attentively, the others with an air of being absorbed in their own reflections, while the mother, sitting near, stops her spinning to tell the baby on the floor not to tease the dog. ”

“ The return of the baby, now a sturdy child on his feet, is set in the interior, where the little hero of the occasion struggles away from his eager mother and the brother who strives to amuse him, to return to the foster-mother. These [Pg 58] are the least affected of all the subject-pictures. With the exception of the foster-father, who stands in the second one with a cradle on his back and his eyes piously uplifted to the rafters, all the actors seem absorbed in what they are doing, and this sincerity accentuates the grace and sentiment which always informs Greuze’s work. ”

“ In spite of its dull colour, the portrait of the painter Jeaurat, now in the Louvre, is an interesting piece of work, showing characterisation, the brilliant eyes giving the impression of a man [Pg 39]
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[Pg 41] accustomed to observe closely and see most things. But naturally Greuze was at his best when he painted women. Very beautiful is the picture of the Marquise de Chauvelin, at present in the collection of Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, and some of his portraits of his wife justly caused a sensation. ”

“ To turn to the much pleasanter theme of his good qualities, Greuze was an innovator. He was the first to go to humble life for [Pg 76] inspiration, and he brought into the painting of bourgeois subjects a distinct character till then seen only in historical scenes. He created in France the moral type of painting. On Sundays in the Louvre you still see those who do not understand the beauty of colour, line, and subtler poetry, and find utility the essential condition of all art, lingering admiringly before “La Malédiction paternelle” and “Le Fils puni” ”

“ Opportunist philosophers appeared quickly on the scene, and began to preach the pleasant doctrine that man was born very good, full of honesty and good feeling, running over [Pg 21] with generosity and all the virtues, and if he did not keep so, it was because the miserable conventions of society had drawn him from the original perfection of his state. To find virtue you must look among those of humble estate, the poor who thought of nothing but their work and the bringing up of their large families. ”

“ One can imagine nothing more piquant and pretty; the only reproach the painter merits [Pg 55] is that he has not made the little girl sorry enough to no longer feel the temptation to return to the fountain. I said this to Greuze, and we laughed together.” With good-natured malice Madame Roland goes on to relate how when Greuze told her the Emperor Joseph II. had complimented him on the personal quality of his work, saying he was the poet of his pictures, she replied, “It is true one never quite understands how beautiful your pictures are till you describe them.” ”

“ The peasant [Pg 75] mothers of large families have that charming coquettishness which is the hall-mark of every female he painted. The picturesque interiors are equally wanting in variety.
It has been urged by Greuze’s admirers that if he had been properly trained, or had at least been spared those early years in Grandon’s picture-manufactory, had been less inclined to listen to flatteries and the advice of Diderot, who praised him for “not making his peasants coarse,” he might have overcome his faults and developed the qualities of a Chardin. ”

“ Caracalla is even more ignoble than his father, a wooden figure, without suppleness or movement. Those who force their talent do nothing with grace.”
PLATE VI.—LES DEUX SŒURS
“Les Deux Sœurs,” or “The Two Sisters,” has been until recently in the private collection of Baron Arthur de Rothschild, who bequeathed it to the Louvre, where it now hangs. If it lacks some of the charm of Greuze’s other pictures of girls, it possesses many of his most charming qualities—delicacy of colouring, graceful figures, appealing gesture. The arrangement of the scarves and draperies is essentially “Greuze.” ”

“ Although he nominally gives to his girls and women a profession by labelling them washerwomen, knitters, philosophers, chesnut-sellers, kitchen wenches, and so forth, they all have the air of being members of one family, and striking likenesses at that. And one and all have the appearance of posing in light opera rather than of playing a part in life. ”

“ His peasant women take on attitudes and smirk as they feed the carefully placed children; no sweeping or labour of any sort seems to soil the hands of the busiest housewife; clinging children never succeed in disarranging the garments or hair of the mothers and nurses. ”

“ The reply to this is that anything touching on genius cannot be held in check or turned from its own full expansion, that it is more than likely that Greuze expressed all he had to say, and himself summed up his own limitations when he said, “Be piquant, if you cannot be true.” ”

“ The moist half-open lips you also find in most of his girl-heads. The lovely colour scheme is particularly happy even for Greuze. The original is in the Wallace Collection, London.
The term “learn the business” is used advisedly. Grandon’s studio was more a manufactory of pictures than anything else, and was just as bad a school as a young artist could well have. Pictures were copied, recopied, and adapted, turned out for all the world as Jean Baptiste’s godmother turned the loaves out of her oven ”

“ It is badly drawn, it has the wrist broken; the distance from the neck to the breast-bone is exaggerated. Neither do you see the beginning of the right knee nor where it goes to beneath the covering of the bed. ”

“ Having exhausted all other means of protest, Greuze took refuge in the sulkiness of a naughty child, and more or less independent now that he was at last to have the coveted logement in the Louvre, he declared he would never again send a picture to the Academy. ”

“ James, well enough done to be at first mistaken for an engraving. This had been copied at nights when he was supposed to be asleep, and touched and convinced, the father finally gave in and sent him off to Lyons to learn the business in the studio of the painter Grandon.
PLATE II.—L’INNOCENCE TENANT DEUX PIGEONS
“L’Innocence tenant deux Pigeons,” or “Innocence holding two Pigeons,” is a typical example of the eyes Greuze never tired of painting, large innocent orbs with a sparkle that suggests the morning sun on flowers wet with dew. ”