Haldane MacFall

“ Gossip of high politics came trickling down to Grasse as slowly as the fashions, yet the eleven-year-old boy’s ears heard of the death of the minister, old Cardinal Fleury, and of the effort of Louis to become king by act. Though Louis had small genius for the mighty business, and fell thenceforth into the habit of ruling France from behind petticoats, raising the youngest of the daughters of the historic and noble house of De Nesle to be his accepted consort under the rank and honours of Duchess of Chateauroux. ”

“ Boucher was grown old and ailing; and just as Boucher had been the painter of the France of fashion under the Pompadour, so Fragonard was now to become the mirror of the court, of the theatre, of the drawing-room, of the boudoir, of the age of Du Barry.
Finding a ready market for subjects of gallantry, he gave rein to his natural bent, and straightway leaped into the vogue. Pictures were the hobby of the nobility and the rich; and France under the Pompadour, and particularly at this the end of her reign, was madly spendthrift upon its hobbies and fickle fancies. ”

“ The gods of elegance were dead; a severe and frigid morality stood upon their altars.
We have a pen-picture of the old painter at this time—short, big of head, stout, full-bodied, brisk, alert, ever gay; he has red cheeks, sparkling eyes, grey hair very much frizzed out; he is to be seen wandering about the Louvre dressed in a cloak or overcoat of a mixed grey cloth, without hooks or eyes or buttons—a cloak which the old man, when he is at work, ties at the waist with it does not matter what—a piece of string, a crumpled chiffon. Every one loves “little father Fragonard.” ”

“ It is part of the irony of life that Fragonard, [Pg 47] who never entered into the favourite’s friendship, should have become the recognised artist of her day. It was a part of that grim irony that caused the Du Barry, whose age he honours, to reject the most exquisite work of his hands—in which his art is seen at its highest achievement, the tender half-melancholy of the thing stated with a lyric beauty that displays his genius in its supreme flight. ”

“ France had lain supine, a mighty people as they proved themselves when their right arms were freed—lain in chains under the heel of a king who had been capable of setting their necks under the feet of a trivial and foolish woman, whose nursery had been the gutter. ”

“ The Parliament men took courage. Philosophy, with one of its men in power, spoke out with no uncertain voice. All France was listening.
Fragonard had at last to turn his face homewards; and dawdling through Italy with Saint-Non, staying his feet at Bologna and Venice awhile, the two friends worked slowly towards Paris, Fragonard entering his beloved city, after five wander-years, in the autumn of 1761, in his twenty-ninth year, untainted and unspoiled by academic training, his art founded upon that of Boucher, enhanced by his keen study of nature. ”

“ So Boucher brought to its full blossom the art that Watteau had created—the picture of “Fêtes galentès”—and added to the artistic achievement of France the Pastorals wherein Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses dally in pleasant landscapes, and the Venus-pieces wherein Cupids flutter and romp—a world of elegance and charm presided over by the Goddess of Love. ”

“ In 1774 he was stricken down with the small-pox, and the sick-room in the palace saw the Du Barry and her party fight a duel with Choiseul’s party for his possession—never, surely, was a more grim, more fantastic warfare than that bitter intrigue to get the confessor to the king’s bedside, that meant the dismissal of the favourite before he should be allowed to receive the Absolution—in which the strange blasphemy was enacted of the Eucharist being hustled about the passages, whilst the bigots strove against its administration, and the freethinkers demanded the last consolation of the Church. ”

“ Fragonard had aforetime gone into Italy as a penniless student and an unknown man; he now travelled in the grand style as the guest of a man of affairs, visiting palaces and churches, received in state by the highest in the land, dining with the Ambassador of France, having audience of the Pope, advising Bergeret de Grandcour in the buying of art-treasures. He tasted all the delights of great wealth. ”

“ The party at once turned their faces homewards, returning to Paris in leisurely fashion by way of Venice, Vienna, and Germany, only to know, at the journey’s ending, one of those miserable and sordid quarrels that seem to dog the friendships of men of genius. Going to Bergeret de Grandcour’s house in Paris to get his portfolios of sketches, made throughout the journey, Fragonard found to his amazement and consternation that Bergeret de Grandcour angrily refused to give them up, claiming them as payment for his outlay upon him during the Italian journey. ”

“ He was too keen an artist, his was too original a genius, to imitate their style or take on their Dutch accent. He simply took from them such part of their craftsmanship as could enter into the facile gracious genius of France without clogging its grace. He is now content with his house and garden for scenery, with his family for models. He realises that an artist has no need to go abroad to find “paintable things. ”

“ Whatever may be said of this cold-blooded, calculating, grasping woman, who crushed down every nice instinct of womanhood to win a king’s favour, who knew no scruple, who was without mercy, without pardon or forgiveness, without remorse ”

“ He returned to Paris a poor old man. [Pg 77]
The enthusiasm was gone out of his invention, the volition out of his hand’s cunning, the breath out of his career. He was out of the fashion; a man risen from the dead. His efforts to catch the spirit of the time were pathetic. He painted rarely now. He won a passing success with an historic canvas or so, done in the new manner. But what did Fragonard know of political allegories? what enthusiasm had he for the famous days of the Revolution? ”

“ Here, far away from the din and strife, Fragonard set up his world-famous decorative panels in the salon of his host, which they admirably fitted, painting for the overdoors, “Love the Conqueror,” “Love-folly,” “Love pursuing a Dove,” “Love embracing the Universe,” and a panel over the fireplace, “Triumph of Love.” ”

“ Without hate for Royalty or for the Republic, the artists, by birth plebeian and in manners bourgeois, many of them old men, could but blink with fearful eyes at the vast upheaval. Their art was completely put out of fashion—a new art, solemn and severe, classical and heroic, was born. For half a century the charming art of France of the eighteenth century lay wholly [Pg 73] buried—a thing of contempt wherever it showed above the ashes.
Fragonard’s powerful young friend David, the painter, now stood sternly watchful over the old man’s welfare ”

“ For the next sixteen years she was the most powerful person at court, the greatest personality in the State—making and unmaking ministers like a sovereign, and disposing of high offices, honours, titles, and pensions. The king squandered upon her some seventy odd millions of the public money as money is now valued. Her energy and her industry must have been colossal. Her intelligence saved the king from the boredom of decision in difficult affairs. ”

“ Through every shock of good and evil fortune he remains alert and cheerful. The old face smiles even through tears. [Pg 78]
Thus, walking with aging step towards the end, he saw Napoleon created Emperor of the French, his triumphant career marred only at rare intervals by such disasters as Trafalgar—heard perhaps of the suicide of the unfortunate but gallant Villeneuve at the disgrace of trial by court-martial for this very loss of Trafalgar. ”

“ The old artist could not look without uneasiness upon the ruin of the aristocracy, of the farmers-general, and of the gentle class, now in exile or prison or under trial—his means of livelihood utterly gone. ”

“ He painted “The High Priest Coresus slaying himself to save Callirhoë,” which, though badly hung at the Salon, and still to be seen at the Louvre, was hailed with high praise by the academicians and critics. The only adverse criticisms of coldness and timidity levelled against it sound strange in the light of his after-career, which, whatever its weaknesses, was not exactly marked with coldness nor eke with timidity. ”

“ The move was for Fragonard but the prelude to a longer journey.
The old artist walks now more sluggishly than of old, his four-and-seventy years have taken the briskness out of his step. Returning from the Champ de Mars on a sultry day in August he becomes heated—enters a café to eat an ice; congestion of the brain sets in. At five of the clock in the morning of the 22nd day of August 1806, Fragonard enters into the eternal sleep—at the hour that his master Boucher had gone to sleep.
Thus passed away the last of the great [Pg 79] painters of France’s gaiety and lightness of heart. ”

“ In “The Ladder” (“L’Escalade” or “Le Rendezvous”) the Du Barry plays the part of a timid young girl who starts as she sees her shepherd-lover to be the king; the “Pursuit” follows; then the “Souvenirs” and “Love Crowned.” The last of the five, the discarded mistress in “Deserted,” was only begun; and was not completed by Fragonard until twenty years later at Grasse, to complete the set.
What it was that struck a chill into the frail Du Barry’s favour, so that the masterpieces of Fragonard never entered within her doors, is not fully known. ”

“ Shortly after that Sunday in December when the Du Barry went shrieking to her hideous death at the guillotine, Fragonard, turning his face to the South of his birth, was rolling up amongst his baggage the four finished canvases of “The Romance of Love and Youth,” and the unfinished fifth canvas, “Deserted,” ordered and repudiated by the Du Barry. He bundled his [Pg 75] family into a chaise, and lumbered out of Paris, rumbling on clattering wheels through the guards at the gates, and making southwards towards Provence for his friend’s house at Grasse. ”

“ The picture of a young woman sometimes known as “L’Etude” (but perhaps better known as “La Chanteuse” or “Song”) at the Louvre is another of those little canvases painted by Fragonard under the strong influence of the Dutch school, as we may see not only in the handling of the paint, and in the arrangement of the figure, but in the very ruffle about the girl’s neck, the lace cuffs to the sleeves, and the treatment of the dress. ”

“ She not only encouraged and brought out the best achievement of her age; she did Art an even more handsome benefit. She [Pg 38] insisted on artists painting their age and not aping the dead past.
To Fragonard personally she rendered no particular service. His real achievement began on the eve of her death, when she was a worn-out and broken woman. Nor had Fragonard ever that close touch with the royal house or its favourites during any part of his lifetime that meant so much to the fortunes of his master, Boucher. ”

“ Stainville, and to make him his Prime Minister. He was created Duc de Choiseul in December 1758. He had as ally one of the most astute and subtle and daring minds in eighteenth-century France—his sister Beatrice, the famous Duchesse de Grammont. The king found a born leader of men. Choiseul brought back dignity to the throne. He came near to saving France. Choiseul was the public opinion of the nation. He founded his strength on Parliament and on the new philosophy. He became a national hero. He could do no wrong. He rose to power in 1758; and at once stemmed the tide of disaster to France. ”

“ Now the career of a rich man was incomplete without the making of the Grand Tour. At the least the gentleman of means must have roamed through Italy. And it was thus that, with Bergeret de Grandcour, Fragonard now made his second journey into Italy in his forty-second year. ”

“ Robespierre and Danton fought the scoundrel Hébert for life, and overthrew him. The Hebertists went to the guillotine, dying in abject terror. Danton, with his appeals for cessation of the bloodshed of the Terror, alone stood between Robespierre and supreme power. Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Eglantine and their humane fellows, were sent to the guillotine. Between the 10th of June and the 27th of July, in 1794, fourteen hundred people in Paris alone died on the scaffold.
Fragonard dreaded to fly from the tempest. It was as safe to remain in Paris as to leave the city. Any day he might be taken. ”

“ The lad glanced with wonder, we may be sure, at the great “Rape of Europa” that stood upon the master’s easel, whilst his mother poured out in the rough accent of Provence the tale of the genius of her son—stole, too, a stealthy scrutiny of the Venus-pieces and Pastorals that [Pg 19] stood about the studio, and was filled with awed admiration. The mother besought the genius of France to make a genius of her son ”

“ There were two patrons for whom Fragonard was about to create a series of masterpieces in the decoration of their splendid and luxurious homes—works of Art which were to have strange adventures and histories. They were both women. ”

“ The “Heureuse Fécondité,” the “Visit to the Nurse” (the second one) , the “Schoolmistress,” the “Good Mother,” the “Retour au logis,” the “L’Education fait tout,” the “Dites donc, si’l vous plaît,” are of this period.
In all he did he proves himself an artist, incapable of mediocrity, bringing distinction and style to all that he touches.
Fragonard also excelled in the painting of miniatures. ”

“ This is an example of Fragonard in his grand-manner mood—a picture of the large decorative years that produced such masterpieces as the “Serment d’Amour,” in which we see him ever interested above all things in the painting of bosky leafage and the dignity of great trees for background.
There came to live with the newly married couple his wife’s younger sister Marguerite and her young brother Henri Gérard, who was learning engraving.
Fragonard’s marriage at once affected his habits and his art. The wild oats of his artistic [Pg 51] career were near sown. ”