Jean Goujon

“ Jean Goujon, the most notable sculptor of his period, is associated with Rouen, but it has not been proved that he was a native of the city. Mystery surrounds the life of this genius. We do not even know the date of his birth. His sculpture is imaginative and powerful art, and he is very successful in presenting nude figures. It is supposed that Goujon was one of the victims of the Massacre of St Bartholomew.
A picture of the monastic life of Normandy, in the thirteenth century, has been drawn in the remarkable Regestrum Visitationum of Eude Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen. ”

“ It lifts and lightens the severe dignity of the façade. And, in the court—its centre not unworthily held by the bronze statue of Louis XIV., remarkable in its exquisite details, found in the old Hôtel de Ville—we linger in joy before the graceful flowing curves and the daylight directness of the Seasons of this French Phidias. The figures on the wings are from a feebler chisel than his. Of all the crowding memories of this spot, those of the Marquise de Sévigné and of Jean Goujon are the most vivid and the most captivating. ”

“ The recumbent figures have been attributed to Jean Goujon, from the exceptional beauty of the workmanship, but without any positive proof. The tomb is of white marble, with a little black and grey introduced for some of the mouldings; the bas-reliefs represent the king's campaigns in Italy. In the bas-reliefs of the Louis XII. monument many of the costumes are more Roman than French; but those upon the tomb of François Ier. are treated with more historical truth, and represent the fashion of the day. ”

“ Above it is an admirable piece of Renaissance sculpture, by Jean Goujon, for the decoration of the rood-loft (now removed) in St. Germain l’Auxerrois. The rare beauty of the existing one at St. Étienne-du-Mont (by a far inferior artist) enables us to estimate the loss we have sustained by its disappearance. The Deposition, in the centre, marked by the highly classical style and secular or almost sensuous beauty of its Maries, and the anatomical knowledge displayed in its Dead Christ, should be contrasted with earlier specimens in adjacent rooms. ”

“ More than a million bodies are said to have been buried in that churchyard. In 1780 the cemetery was turned into a market-place. But it was again used as a burial ground for victims of the Revolution of 1830. Their bones lie now beneath the Colonne de Juillet on the Place de la Bastille. The market-place became a square: “Le Square des Innocents.” The fine old fountain dating from 1550, the work of the famous sculptors Pierre Lescot and Jean Goujon, was taken from its site in the Rue St-Denis, restored by the best sculptors of the day, and set up there in 1850. ”

“ Primaticcio and Cellini founded a school of sculptors and wood-carvers in France, of which Jean Goujon stands pre-eminent. The furniture began gradually to depart from the old Gothic traditions, as is shown in the design of the oak chest{44} of the late fifteenth century preserved in the Dublin Museum, which we illustrate, and commenced to emulate the gorgeousness of Italy. This is a particularly instructive example, showing the transition between the Gothic and the Renaissance styles.
FRONT OF OAK CHEST. FRENCH; FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
(Dublin Museum.) ”

“ The failure of the insurrection involved the fall of those deputies who had supported the demands of the populace. Before the close of the sitting, Goujon, with Romme, Duroi, Duquesnoy, Bourbotte, Soubrany and others were put under arrest by their colleagues, and on their way to the château of Taureau in Brittany had a narrow escape from a mob at Avranches. ”

“ Tie him to that pole yonder. As for the woman, place her on my cot,—we shall find means to revive her;” and he laughed menacingly. “You may retire,” he added, “but stay within call.”
They saluted and withdrew.
Goujon waited until the flap fell behind them. Then he approached me slowly, until he was quite near, and contemplated me with those snake’s eyes of his—my face, my clothes, my shoes. With a little smile of enjoyment he turned away and bent above the cot, his hands clasped behind him. At last he turned to the table, took up a candle and held the flame close to her lips. ”

“ Goujon grew more and more excited with each word he uttered. ‘Why is it,’ he demanded, ‘that some people wear lace and jewels and others only rags? Why should a noble’s pigs be treated better than his peasants? Why should the peasants toil from year to year in order that the priests and the aristocrats may live in idleness with their women, and have fine wines to drink, and fine clothes to wear, and great houses to shelter them, while we who make the wine, and spin the cloth, and build the houses, have only swill and rags and hovels? Why should they be warm in winter and we cold? ”

“ It's so easy to disguise and imitate writing; and besides, if Goujon is such a good penman as you seem to say, why, he could all the easier alter his style. Say now yourself, can any fiddling question of handwriting get over this thing about 'avenging the tortoise'—practically a written confession—to say nothing of the chopper, and what he said to the housemaid as he left?"
"Well," said Hewitt, "perhaps not; but we'll see. Meantime"—turning to the landlord's clerk—"possibly you will be good enough to tell me one or two things. First, what was Goujon's character?" ”

“ He is too well-bred and too cultivated, he has too much aplomb. But his works show both more personal feeling and more national character than the works of his contemporaries elsewhere. For line he has a very intimate instinct, and of mass, in the sculptor's as well as the painter's sense, he has a native comprehension. Compare his "Diana" of the Louvre with Cellini's in the adjoining room from the point of view of pure sculpture. Goujon's group is superb in every way. ”

“ Comes of starting with a set of fixed notions."
"Well," answered Hewitt, "I fancy you must have been rather 'out of form,' as they say; everybody has his stupid days, and you can't keep up to concert pitch forever. To return to the case. The evidence of the chopper was very untrustworthy, especially when I had heard of Goujon's careless habits—losing shovels and leaving coal-scuttles on stairs. ”

“ Like M. Dumas, M. Goujon loved beasts, and he thought he would try to tame his visitor, and at the end of three days he had succeeded so well, that the lizard was not afraid to come near him. A week later he tried the experiment of offering the lizard, to whom he had given the name of Joseph, a spoonful of tea from his cup, and, rather to his surprise, Joseph seemed quite to enjoy it! ”

“ Madame Pierre Goujon is another young Frenchwoman who led not only a life of ease and careless happiness up to the Great War, but also, and from childhood, an uncommonly interesting one, owing to the kind fate that made her the daughter of the famous Joseph Reinach.
M. Reinach, it is hardly worth while to state even for the benefit of American readers, is one of the foremost "Intellectuals" of France. Born to great wealth, he determined in his early youth to live a life of active usefulness, and began his career as private secretary to Gambetta. ”

“ They were waiting on the landing below when Goujon spoke to the housemaid, heard him speaking, and had seen him go all the way up to the housekeeper's room and back, as they looked up the wide well of the staircase. They are men employed near the place, and seem to have good characters. But perhaps we shall find something unfavorable about them. They were drinking with Goujon, it seems, by way of 'seeing him off.'"
"Well," Hewitt said, "I scarcely think you need trouble to damage these men's characters. They are probably telling the truth. ”

“ Little by little Joseph soon grew accustomed to the people of the house, and paid no heed to them. She would even take sugar from our hands, though seldom without hesitation, as she always remained constant to Goujon.
One day Joseph was missing from her usual place on the terrace, and M. Goujon had to drink his tea alone. The whole house grieved over her loss, for 'the palace was dull,' observes M. Dumas, 'and we had made no friends except herself. But there is no sorrow so great that time cannot heal it; and, as Claudius King of Denmark said to Hamlet on a similar occasion:
.... ”

“ According to the celebrated composer Saint-Saëns, it is in these two oratorios that Gounod’s genius rose highest. Gounod’s life was spent for the most part in or near Paris, and it was in that city that most of his great works were first produced. He was a man of great energy, a constant worker, both in musical composition and in writing. He died at St. Cloud, October 18, 1893, leaving an influence on French music that will probably never be dimmed. ”

“ Sumptuous as was Goujon’s sculptural investiture of the earliest work in the court of the old Louvre, this was delicate in scale and very flat; much of the sculptural decoration of the new pavilions follows Goujon fairly closely, but even more—some of it nearly in the round—is so bombastically plastic as almost to justify the term ‘Neo-Baroque’. 135Although there is actual early-seventeenth-century precedent for most of their individual details, the very lush stone dormers set against the high straight mansards of the corner pavilions are particularly novel in effect. ”

“ John Gower was too wise a man to hesitate. Had he done so, he knew well enough that he would be suspected of having knowingly harboured the crones, and of being in league with them, a suspicion which would have ruined him for ever in his native parish, and probably driven him from the county.
So he bade Mary mind the house, and keep Jane and Billy at home, and then he set off at best pace with Firminger down the road in the direction of the cottage of the crones. ”

“ Ogle R. Gowan, staunch Irish-Orange Tory as he was, was a herald of Responsible Government—and suffered for it—a prophet as to ’37, chief promoter in the first movement which resulted in Canadian volunteers, father and founder of Orangeism here, and although a strong supporter of Colborne was antagonistic to the methods of Francis Bond Head; in his military career he was chiefly conspicuous at Prescott, and carried the buckshot and bayonet record of that engagement to his grave. To such a man Mrs. Gowan, a womanly woman of great culture and heroic spirit, was a true helpmeet. ”

“ He casts a lingering glance round, but providentially Miss Gower has disappeared.
"But toothbrushes! Show me that paper."
"Do you, then, disbelieve in my word?"
"Nobody could want a toothbrush."
"Some people want them awfully," says Mr. Gower. "Haven't you noticed?"
But here Sir Maurice sees it his duty to interfere.
"Miss Bolton, will you play this next set with me?" says he, coming up to Tita.
"Oh, I should love it!" cries she. "You are so good a player. Do get us some decent people to play against, though; I hate a weak game." ”

“ FROM the wing of the bridge, Mr. Gowan, chief officer of the Chandos, temporarily in command, watched the pilot's boat come crawling crablike across the slow surges. It was a day of haze; the horizon was lost in the gray of it, and ahead the line of the coast was a darker smear upon the distance.
"Put that ladder over!" said Mr. Gowan curtly, without moving.
He was a man of fifty, handsome and gray, with that touch of distinction that men gain whose business is the exercise of authority. ”

“ Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan’s unsettled and dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little. He does nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up and throws them down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without caring about them. When I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings for the picture, I have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no belief in anybody else, because he has no belief in himself. ”

“ I ought now to mention Mr Gowan, before I say what little more I have to say about her. He must admire her beauty, and he must be proud of her, for everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, and I do not doubt that he is—but in his way. You know his way, and if it appears as careless and discontented in your eyes as it does in mine, I am not wrong in thinking that it might be better suited to her. If it does not seem so to you, I am quite sure I am wholly mistaken; for your unchanged poor child confides in your knowledge and goodness more than she could ever tell you if she was to try. ”

“ Chichester, turning her thin shoulders, that always have some queer sort of fascination in them, on Gower. She gives him a glance out of her blue-green eyes. She is enjoying herself immensely, in spite of the day, being quite alive to the fact that Captain Marryatt is growing desperate, and that old Miss Gower, whom Tita has insisted on asking to her house party, is thinking dark things of her from the ottoman over there.
"What's it good for, any way?"
"For the ducks," says Mr. Gower, who is always there. An answer to any question under the sun comes as naturally to him as sighing to the sad. ”

“ The old Goya remained, strong in the creation of a lofty art. The last twenty years of his life were full indeed, and represented its most vigorous phase, the most energetic in the whole course of his achievement. Scenes of war and disaster occupied almost the whole of this important period, full of a profound pessimism, which still does not lack a certain graceful style, and displays unceasingly some of the saddest thoughts which man has ever known. These works of Goya are not of any party, are not political nor sectarian. They are simply human. ”