Harold Armitage

“ He wished to play the schoolmaster, and the history of painting has demonstrated that, whatever may be the immediate effect of pictures that have been wrought in this mood, they have never been the pictures that have endured for all time the test of a comparison with the severest standards of excellence in art, and they have invariably sunk into their own place—amongst pictures not in the first class.
Again and again it has been shown that a man cannot be a preacher or a story-writer on canvas and at the same time an artist of the first rank. ”

“ The sadness of the story of Greuze's married life is all the more touching because he had the qualities of a true and tender husband. It is indeed not less than a tragedy that, constituted as he was, he should have been denied the companionship of a woman worthy of the great affection of which his nature was capable. Often querulous and brusque with men, his manner with women was gracious and respectful, his politeness the true politeness of the kind heart that desires the well-being of others. ”

“ There are few pictures that are more sweet and alluring than these heads of children.
In London it is an easy matter to study Greuze's child portraits, because there are a few examples at the National Gallery, and more at Hertford House. Standing before these canvases the general effect is one of sweetness and delicacy, one colour melting into another in almost imperceptible gradations, and giving an impression very unlike the one we receive from the hard edges of a painting by Maclise for example. The colours are not positive, but have been softened and harmonized. ”

“ The scenes are not the result of a discriminating observation of real life; are not, to use Zola's phrase, "Nature seen through a temperament." They are founded upon conventions, upon the artificial and sentimental ideas of life that have by some curious freak of the human mind established themselves in books and plays and pictures.
The figures in Greuze's genre pictures pose before the spectators; they gesticulate and overdo their parts like barn-stormers. Pity becomes maudlin, morality degenerates into sanctimoniousness, and humility is degraded into utter abasement. ”

“ It is due to me to be allowed to explain my own picture and to correct the interpretation which you have given to it without consulting me and without consulting history.
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"Do you wish to discourage an artist who sacrifices all to merit the favours with which the public has so far honoured him? Why, upon my first essay, attack me so openly? This is to me a new kind of painting, but it is one in which I flatter myself that I shall become perfect as time goes on. Why compare me alone, amongst all my confrères, to the most learned painter of the French school? ”

“ The father of the bride, a venerable old man with white hair, has just handed to his son-in-law a small leather bag, containing his daughter's marriage portion, and he is now holding forth in true melodramatic style, his face to the gallery, and, as one may fancy, the limelight streaming on his head. ”

“ Diderot, a clever and copious man of letters, had commenced to write about pictures, and he was now advocating that art should be devoted to the cause of morality. Greuze's picture happening to coincide with his own idea, he at once wrote an enthusiastic, one may almost say a gushing, eulogy of this and other similar works of the artist; and in that way he helped to swell the renown which Greuze had now achieved.
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Meanwhile, the artist, with that perversity which one has noted in the early life of other famous men, must now leave his own path to go to study art in Italy. ”

“ My husband almost convinces me that I continue to be young and pretty, so much does he still love me. As I have told you, this happiness is due to you, and I love you for having prevented me from loving you."
Greuze had scarcely returned from Italy when he was attracted by Mademoiselle Anne-Gabrielle Babuty, who was in charge of a bookshop in Paris. Diderot, who had himself been very much in love with her, has described her as a smart dashing young woman, of upright carriage, and with a complexion of lilies and roses. De Goncourt also speaks of her numerous charms. ”

“ To this consummation the supreme genius of Watteau contributed some of the most exquisite and poetical pictures of all time, and delivered France "from the oppressive yoke of the Italian tradition." Watteau had many imitators, and his style dominated art for many years, but eventually freedom degenerated into license, and even into sheer obscenity. Count Henry Costa, visiting Paris during this period, wrote in a letter to his parents in Savoy: "Greuze, I think, is not partial to Boucher; and rightly loathes the filthiness in fashion now, which desecrates art and ruins morality." ”

“ His acute feeling for what is beautiful has been expressed on this canvas with remarkable skill. Writing of the painting in 1765, Diderot called it "a charming picture," and Charles Normand, in giving a description of the work, has written: "The eighteenth century, amorous and unrestrained, has been made to live again in that woman, who, her eyes full of longing, her mouth partly opened, her throat scarcely veiled by a light gauze, throws from her window a kiss to her lover. ”

“ Man, by nature moral, had been corrupted by civilization, and it was therefore the least civilized who were the least corrupt.
Ideas like these, set forth with the power and the burning zeal of Rousseau, and with the deftness of Diderot, had prepared the minds of the Parisians to receive the genre pictures of Greuze, for to some extent he is an advocate of these ideas in his pictures, seeing that virtues are attributed in a generous measure to the poor and downtrodden of the people. ”

“ Whose pupil is he?" asked the bewildered Academicians, who, in the manner of Academicians, could not believe it possible for an artist outside their circle to attain either excellence or fame. The answer came, "He is a pupil of Diderot." ”

“ In Grandon's constitution the artist was subservient to the man of affairs; and De Goncourt has written that his studio was a veritable picture factory. Greuze, however, had more elevated notions of the vocation of an artist than to remain content in marking time for the rest of his life as a sort of inglorious piece-worker, and his ambition and self-confidence urged him to Paris, where he believed his powers would win for him both fame and fortune. ”

“ The derangement of the draperies, the incongruity of the lapful of flowers, the impossible way in which the pitcher is being carried, are not less characteristic of Greuze than the sweet face and the general charm and beauty of the painting. It is, indeed, one of Greuze's most winsome works, and its fascination will continue to captivate all but the most hypercritical. The original is in the Louvre, but Greuze painted the subject again with modifications, and there are a number of sketches and studies in existence. ”

“ In strong contrast to Greuze's melodramatic, affected, domestic scenes are those by Chardin, another French artist of the eighteenth century. No ethical teaching is obtruded in his pictures; there is no pose, and the spectator can enjoy the real poetry of life, the sweetness and simplicity of well-ordered homes, undisturbed by the poseurs who clamour for our regard in many of the pictures by Greuze. ”

“ The bridegroom, a tall, handsome fellow, listens in a respectful attitude; and the pretty bride, whose eyes are downcast, has her arm linked in his, and the fingers of one hand are laid lovingly upon one of his hands. ”

“ Hundreds of years have been needed to convince painters that the Italian artists wrought great pictures because they expressed their own ideas of beauty, just as away from Italy Rembrandt "saw picturesque grandeur and noble dignity in the Jews' quarter of Amsterdam, and lamented not that its inhabitants were not Greeks." ”

“ It was peculiarly fitting that a lady should deposit upon the coffin of Greuze a bouquet of immortelles, for his romantic and chivalrous regard for women, from a very early period in his career, had a great influence upon his life and work. Even as a pupil of Grandon, Greuze fell in love with his master's wife, a woman of very great beauty and charm. He never told his love; but one day Grandon's daughter surprised Greuze on his knees in the studio. ”

“ Exceptionally romantic, too, was his love for the beautiful Lætitia during the two years that he spent in Italy. Greuze had carried with him to that country letters of introduction to the Duc del Or...., by whom he had been received with great cordiality. The Duke's wife had died, but he had a charming daughter, Lætitia, to whom it was arranged that Greuze should give lessons in painting. Greuze was a man to whom women and girls were instinctively attracted, and Lætitia fell in love with him, with all the violence and passion of the Italian temperament. ”

“ Charles Blanc has written that Greuze is a moralist who is passionately fond of beautiful shoulders, a preacher who loves to see and to reveal to us the bosoms of young girls; and Lady Dilke has pointed out that "even in Un {38} Père de Famille qui lit la Bible à ses Enfants ... the instinct which bade him associate with his lessons of grace and morality the stimulus of voluptuous charm has tempted him to give prominence to the girl whose thoughts are far away, and whose kerchief is torn just where it should hide the budding breast." ”

“ Many years later, when Greuze was once {20} more a poor man, he wrote in reply to the Grand Duchess of Russia, who had offered ten thousand livres for the portrait of Lætitia, "If you were to give me all the riches of the Empire of Russia they would not pay for that picture," and probably in his old age he read yet again the letter he had received from Lætitia, eight years after he quitted Rome. "Yes, my dear Greuze, your old pupil is now a good mother; I have five charming children, whom I adore. My eldest daughter is worthy to be offered as a subject for your happy talent ”

“ Although it is not apparent why an architect, who to-day undergoes severe discipline in drawing, should be the worse because he had a propensity for sketching, it has yet been stated by some of the biographers of Greuze that the father used persuasions and threats to prevent the son from making drawings, and that the boy was thereby driven to the device of exercising his skill surreptitiously in his bedroom. ”

“ While these opinions of modern critics upon anecdotal art are in our minds, it will be appropriate to mention Greuze's own views as revealed in what he called "une note historique" upon his painting of La Belle-Mère. "For a long time I had wished," he says, "to paint that character, but in each sketch the expression of the stepmother always appeared to me to be feeble and unsatisfactory. One day, however, when I was crossing the Pont-Neuf, I saw two women, who spoke to one another with much vehemence. One of them began to shed tears, and she exclaimed, 'Such a stepmother too! ”

“ The girls in a number of the pictures are too self-conscious and affected, imperfections that one may see prominently illustrated in Fidelity and in Ariadne, in the Wallace Collection.
A few, indeed, of Greuze's heads can scarcely be called paintings of children at all, so many of the elements of womanhood has he mingled with what is otherwise typical of childhood. As representations of the charm and the insouciance of childhood, a painting by Greuze would ill bear comparison, for example, with a work by Chardin amongst his own compatriots, with works by Reynolds and Gainsborough ”

“ Instead of adding to the great store of fêtes {47} galantes, and the triumphs of love of the time, Greuze looked for his subjects upon the quays, and boulevards, and market-places, and in the cottages of humble people.
"Courage, my good Greuze," said Diderot of one of Greuze's pictures of domestic drama; "introduce morality into painting. What! has not the palette been long enough, and too long, consecrated to debauchery and vice? ”

“ The attention of the people was withdrawn from him, and such regard as was paid to pictures during this distracted epoch went to the paintings of David, who was both painter and politician. Greuze's ironical inquiry each morning, "Who is King to-day, then?" is significant of the instability of the time. No more the elite of Paris crowded round his easel; but one of his two daughters still remained with him; and a number of his scholars, especially his girl pupils, were faithful to the end.
"You have a family and you have talent, young man," he once said to Prudhon ”

“ To see many of his genre pictures together is to receive an impression of monotony. It is clear that the range of the artist is narrow, that he is making a few ideas cover a great area of canvas, and that he ceased to grow intellectually at an early stage of his career.
Greuze and Hogarth have often been compared, but there are many essential differences between the two men. ”