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diff --git a/41947.txt b/41947.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 767fec3..0000000 --- a/41947.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1766 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Boucher, by Haldane Macfall - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - - - - -Title: Boucher - Masterpieces in Colour Series - -Author: Haldane Macfall - - - -Release Date: January 30, 2013 [eBook #41947] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOUCHER*** - - -E-text prepared by sp1nd, Matthew Wheaton, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 41947-h.htm or 41947-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41947/41947-h/41947-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41947/41947-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - http://archive.org/details/boucherocad00macfuoft - - - - - -Masterpieces in Colour -Edited by T. Leman Hare - -BOUCHER -1703-1770 - - * * * * * - - "MASTERPIECES IN COLOUR" SERIES - - - ARTIST. AUTHOR. - BELLINI. GEORGE HAY. - BOTTICELLI. HENRY B. BINNS. - BOUCHER. C. HALDANE MACFALL. - BURNE-JONES. A. LYS BALDRY. - CARLO DOLCI. GEORGE HAY. - CHARDIN. PAUL G. KONODY. - CONSTABLE. C. LEWIS HIND. - COROT. SIDNEY ALLNUTT. - DA VINCI. M. W. BROCKWELL. - DELACROIX. PAUL G. KONODY. - DUERER. H. E. A. FURST. - FRA ANGELICO. JAMES MASON. - FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. PAUL G. KONODY. - FRAGONARD. C. HALDANE MACFALL. - FRANZ HALS. EDGCUMBE STALEY. - GAINSBOROUGH. MAX ROTHSCHILD. - GREUZE. ALYS EYRE MACKLIN. - HOGARTH. C. LEWIS HIND. - HOLBEIN. S. L. BENSUSAN. - HOLMAN HUNT. MARY E. COLERIDGE. - INGRES. A. J. FINBERG. - LAWRENCE. S. L. BENSUSAN. - LE BRUN, VIGEE. C. HALDANE MACFALL. - LEIGHTON. A. LYS BALDRY. - LUINI. JAMES MASON. - MANTEGNA. MRS. ARTHUR BELL. - MEMLINC. W. H. J. & J. C. WEALE. - MILLAIS. A. LYS BALDRY. - MILLET. PERCY M. TURNER. - MURILLO. S. L. BENSUSAN. - PERUGINO. SELWYN BRINTON. - RAEBURN. JAMES L. CAW. - RAPHAEL. PAUL G. KONODY. - REMBRANDT. JOSEF ISRAELS. - REYNOLDS. S. L. BENSUSAN. - ROMNEY. C. LEWIS HIND. - ROSSETTI. LUCIEN PISSARRO. - RUBENS. S. L. BENSUSAN. - SARGENT. T. MARTIN WOOD. - TINTORETTO. S. L. BENSUSAN. - TITIAN. S. L. BENSUSAN. - TURNER. C. LEWIS HIND. - VAN DYCK. PERCY M. TURNER. - VELAZQUEZ. S. L. BENSUSAN. - WATTEAU. C. LEWIS HIND. - WATTS. W. LOFTUS HARE. - WHISTLER. T. MARTIN WOOD. - - _Others in Preparation._ - - * * * * * - - [Illustration: PLATE I.--MADAME DE POMPADOUR. Frontispiece - - (In the National Gallery of Scotland) - - Edinburgh is fortunate in possessing this, one of the - world-famous examples of Boucher's exquisite portraiture. He - painted with rare charm more than once this wonderful woman, - "the king's morsel," Jeanne Poisson, Madame Lenormant d'Etioles, - who became the notorious Marquise de Pompadour. He gives us - perhaps too dainty a butterfly; for, of a truth, this woman's - prettiness masked an iron nerve, an unflinching courage, and a - capacity and talents which must have reached to fame in any - human being whose frame they illumined. Nor is there hint of - those hard qualities that robbed her of mercy, nor allowed her - to bend an ear to suffering.] - - - - -BOUCHER - -by - -Haldane Macfall - -Illustrated with Eight Reproductions in Colour - - - - - - - -London: T. C. & E. C. Jack -New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co. - - - - -CONTENTS - - Page - - I. The Small Beginnings 11 - - II. The Student 16 - - III. Venus and Marriage 27 - - IV. Le Monde qui s'amuse 35 - - V. The Chateauroux 42 - - VI. The Pompadour 55 - - VII. The End 75 - - - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - Plate - - I. Madame de Pompadour Frontispiece - In the National Gallery of Scotland - - Page - - II. Madame de Pompadour 14 - In the Wallace Collection - - III. Diana leaving the Bath 24 - In the Louvre - - IV. Pastorale 34 - In the Louvre - - V. Pastorale 40 - In the Louvre - - VI. Portrait of a Young Woman 50 - In the Louvre - - VII. Interieur de Famille 60 - In the Louvre - - VIII. La Modiste 70 - In the Wallace Collection - - - - -I - -THE SMALL BEGINNINGS - - -The year after good Queen Anne came to rule over us, Louis the -Fourteenth being still King of France, on an autumn day in the October -of 1703, that saw the trees of Paris shedding their parched leaves as -a carpet to the feet of the much-bewigged dandified folk who stepped -it swaggeringly down the walks of the Palais Royal, swinging long -canes, and strutting along the shaded promenades of the more -fashionable places of the city, there stood in the vestry of the -parish church of Saint Jean-en-Greve a little group of the small -burgess folk, gathered about a little infant, whilst the tipstaff to -the king's palace, one Francois Prevost, signed solemnly as witness to -the birth-certificate and as acknowledged godfather to the aforesaid -morsel of humanity, which, as the certificate badly set forth in black -and white for ever, was henceforth to be known for good or ill as -Francois Boucher, first-born son, on the 29th of September, four days -past, of the tipstaff's friend, Nicolas Boucher, "maitre-peintre," who -stood hard by, and of his wife Elizabeth Lemesle. - -The worthy tipstaff's writing done, he bowed in the best Court manner -to Mademoiselle Boullenois, daughter to yonder consequential fellow, -the law officer from the Police Court; and handed her the inked quill -to bear witness in her turn as godmother. - - [Illustration: PLATE II.--MADAME DE POMPADOUR - - (In the Wallace Collection) - - Here we have one of the handsomest portraits of his great patron - and friend, the notorious Marquise de Pompadour, painted by - Boucher at the most brilliant phase of his art. It is a - glittering achievement. The figure is superbly placed in its - surroundings. The play of limpid light upon the beautifully - gowned woman, of which Boucher was such a master-painter, proves - it to be of his best period. The Pompadour stands, wreathed in - smiles, as the mistress of a great domain; and masks as usual - behind her pretty ways all hint of that calculating hand and - remorseless will that sent her enemies without a sigh to the - Bastille or banishment or worse--she who was past-mistress of - the art of the _lettre de cachet_.] - -The sand being flung upon the wet ink, and the blotting done, -there was exchange of compliments in the stilted manner of -good-fellowship of the day between priest and party--tapping of -snuff-boxes and taking of snuff, with more than a little gossip of the -Court and some shaking of heads, and under-lips solemnly thrust forth; -the gossip is not without authority and weight, for is not godfather -Prevost tipstaff to the king's majesty, therefore in the whirl of -things? - -The child, indeed, was born into a Paris agog with stirring affairs. -Well might heads be shaken solemnly. The French arms were knowing -defeat. The Englishman, Marlborough, was flinging back the French -armies wheresoever he gave them battle. Europe was one great armed -camp. France was suffering terrible blood-letting. Defeat came on -defeat. These were sorry times. On land all went wrong. Good generals -were set aside; intriguing good-for-nothings led the veterans into -disaster. But there was still France upon the high seas. - -Then the women folk, bored with high politics, would draw back the -talk to the infant Francois, and there would be genial banter about -the morsel; for was he not a Saturday child, therefore bound to be a -bit of a scamp! - -And so, off to Monsieur Boucher's modest little home in the Rue de -Verrerie to a glass of wine and further compliments and banter, and -more vague surmises as to what lay upon the knees of the gods for -little Francois Boucher. - - - - -II - -THE STUDENT - - -Yes, the sun of the Grand Monarque was setting. Louis Quatorze was -nearing the end of his long lease of splendour. Our little Francois -was not a month old when Admiral Rooke whipped Chateau-Renaud off the -high seas, destroying the French and Spanish fleets in Vigo Bay, and -carrying off some millions of pieces of eight from the galleons as -treasure. The child's first year saw the English troopers ride down -the French at Blenheim--a day that made "Malbrook" a name of dread to -every French child, a name to frighten into good behaviour. To the -little fellow's home came the horror-spoken talk of Ramilies; then of -Oudenarde; then of Lille--to his six-year-old ears the terrible news -of Malplaquet. - -But there was Paris a-bellringing in his ears at seven; for there was -born to the king's grandson a sickly child that was to succeed him as -Louis the Fifteenth. And Francois Boucher is one day to step from his -modest home and stand nearer at this child's side than he thinks. - -The boy Boucher, at sturdy twelve, would recall the death of the old -king in his lonely last years, and the setting upon the ancient throne -of France of the five-year-old child as Louis Quinze--a comely little -fellow--with Orleans as Regent. Young Francois Boucher was to spend -his youth and grow up to manhood in a France that lay under the -regency of this dissolute, brilliant Orleans. - -Nicolas Boucher, the father, seems to have been an obscure, honest -fellow, given to the _trade_ of art, and that too in mediocre fashion -enough, designing embroideries, covers for chairs, and the like--"an -inferior designer, little favoured by fortune," runs the recorded -verdict of his day. But he had the virtue of recognising his -mediocrity, and the desire to save his son from the sordid cares of -mediocre artistry; since, having himself given the boy his schooling -with pencil and brush, and brought the lad up in an atmosphere of art -and in the company of artists, he had the astuteness to send him to -the studio of Lemoyne, a really great painter and rapidly becoming -famous--he who painted the ceilings of Versailles with gods and -goddesses in handsome fashion. - -Lemoyne was a well-chosen master for the promising youth of seventeen. -He had founded his art upon that of Correggio and Veronese, had rid -himself of hard academic tendencies, and was painting in a sound -French fashion. The youth Boucher, with the quick and astounding gift, -that he displayed all through his life, of rapidly making his own what -he wanted to acquire, picked up from Lemoyne at once a French way of -stating what he desired to state, in a large, broad manner, without -having to go through the long years of drudgery to Italian models of -style which was then the only schooling for an artist--was therefore -enabled to free himself from the equally long years that it would have -taken him to rid the Italian style from his artistry. In short, the -youth of seventeen made Lemoyne's art his own in a few weeks; and, on -the eve of manhood, he so rivalled his master in accomplishment that -it is dangerous to attribute a picture of this time to the master or -the pupil without most careful evidence. - -Yet the youth vowed that he was but three months with Lemoyne, who, -said he, took scant interest in his pupils. But it must be remembered -that Boucher was a prodigious worker, with a passionate love for his -work that lasted until death took the brush from his fingers, and that -he had a quick and alert mind and hand, free from the hesitances of a -student, and always daring in experiment. To wish to achieve a thing, -for Boucher, was to set him to its achievement. He rested neither -night nor day until he mastered that which he had set out to do. On -the day he left Lemoyne's studio he stepped out of it a finished -artist, a sound painter, fully equipped with all the craftmanship, -trade-secrets, and tricks of thumb that it had taken his master his -life to learn--and a facile copyist of his style and handling. It was -the sincerest form of flattery; and Boucher, to the end of his days, -held the art of Lemoyne in the greatest reverence--as is proved by his -answer, when at the very height of his fame, to one who asked him to -complete a picture by his master: "Such works are to me sacred -vessels," said he--"I should dread to profane them by touching them." - -Lemoyne's admiration for his pupil was not lacking in return. The -youth painted, whilst with his master, a picture of a "Judgment of -Susanna," before which Lemoyne stood astounded, then burst into -prophecy of Boucher achieving greatness in the years to come. - -From Lemoyne's studio, the young fellow went to live with "Pere Cars," -the engraver, whose son, Laurent, was a friend of the youth, and who -engaged him to design the drawings for his engravers, allowing him in -return his food, lodging, and sixty livres (double-florins) a -month--some twelve pounds. Boucher accounted his fortune made. - -The cheery youth went at his work with energy and enthusiasm, blithely -setting his hand to anything that was wanted of him, bringing charm -and invention to all he did--tailpieces, frontispieces, emblems, coats -of arms, freemason's certificates, first-communion cards, initial -letters. He was soon set to work upon important designs for -engravings. He searched out the publishers of books, and let no -chance escape of working for them. - -Thus and otherwise he filled his scanty purse--that needed filling, -for he was quick at its emptying, being of a free hand and generous -disposition. And hard as he worked, so did he play. Work and pleasure -were his joy in life. - -And all the time he was taking part in the students' competitions for -the Academy. - -It was in his nineteenth year that, in this same Paris, in the house -of one of its rich families, was born a little girl-child who was to -come into Boucher's life in after years. The father, a financial -fellow, one Poisson, was a man of shady repute; indeed he was under -banishment for mis-handling the public moneys at the time of the -birth of the little girl-child, christened Jeanne Antoinette -Poisson--destined to be the Jane of the scurrilous street songs of the -years to come. But the careless student knew little of it as yet, nor -that destiny had put into the pretty child's cradle the sceptre and -diadem of France as plaything. - -Boucher, on the eve of manhood, took as little heed of the child's -coming as did the thirteen-year-old lad who sat upon the throne, and -who, in little Jane Poisson's first year, was declared to be of man's -estate and ruler of France, no longer requiring Regent Orleans to -govern for him. - -It was in this his nineteenth year that Boucher took the first prize -at the Academy with his picture of "Evilmerodach, son and successor of -Nebuchadnezzar, delivering Joachin from chains, in which his father -had for a long time held him." - -This success set the collectors buying pictures by the brilliant -youngster. But Francois Boucher needs no paying orders to make him -work--he paints for the love of the thing, declares that his "studio -is his church," and seeks to display his art and spread the repute of -it abroad. And his fame grows apace, if at a cost. Nay, he courts fame -even to the extent of hanging his pictures upon the tapestries and -carpets and such like draperies that the police oblige the citizens to -hang out from their houses along the Place Dauphin and the Pont-Neuf -during the procession of the Fete-Dieu--called the _Exposition de la -Jeunesse_. - -There was a thing happened about this time that was to be of large -significance to the young fellow's craftsmanship. Watteau had lately -died, his eager will burning out the poor stricken body. His friend De -Julienne, anxious to publish a book to Watteau's memory, strolled into -the engraving-studio behind "Pere Cars'" shop, where Boucher and his -comrade, Laurent Cars, were wont to spend a part of their time; and he -commissioned Boucher to engrave 125 of the plates after the dead -master. Watteau's essentially French influence was the impulse above -all others to thrust forward the development of Boucher's genius along -its right path, and sent his art towards its great goal. The business -was a rare delight to the young artist, and in the doing of it he -learnt many lessons which added greatly to the enhancement of his -style; whilst the payment of twenty-four livres (double-florins) a day -still further increased his delight and contentment. - - [Illustration: PLATE III.--DIANA LEAVING THE BATH - - (In the Louvre) - - The "Diana leaving the Bath with one of her Companions" is - amongst the most beautiful of those so-called Venus-pieces that - Boucher created and painted in large numbers with decorative - intent. It shows his art at its most exquisite stage, when his - painting of flesh was at its most luminous and subtle - achievement; and his treatment of the human figure in relation - to the landscape in which it was placed, at its most perfect - balance.] - -He completed the series with his wonted fiery zeal and rapid facility, -and thus and otherwise, hotly pursuing his study of nature and his -art, he arrived at the moment when his education should receive its -inevitable finishing state in the Italian tour; so to Rome he went -with Carle Van Loo and his two nephews, Francois and Louis Van Loo. - -Of Boucher's wander-years in Italy little is known. He seems to have -shown scant respect for the accepted standards of the schools and the -critics, to have found Michael Angelo "contorted," Raphael "insipid," -and Carrache "gloomy." He, in fact, was drawn only to such artists as -were to his taste, and he had the courage to say so. However, whether -he were kept idle from ill-health or not; whether his stay were short -or not, he appears again in Paris in three years--suspiciously like -the three years' conventional Italian study of a first-prize winner of -the Academy--with a large number of religious pictures to his -credit--pictures that were hailed by the Academicians and critics -alike for their beauty, their force, and their virility--pictures -which, perhaps fortunately for Boucher's repute, have vanished, or -hang in galleries under other names. - -Here we see Boucher grimly putting aside his own taste and aims in -art, and doggedly bending his will and hand to a prodigious effort to -win the reputation and standing of a "serious painter," without which -he could not hope to attain academic honours. He won them; for, in -this his twenty-eighth year, on his return to Paris, he was -"nominated" to the Academy. He had but to present an Historical -Painting in order to take his seat as an Academician. - - - - -III - -VENUS AND MARRIAGE - - -Back in his beloved Paris again; thrilled by the atmosphere and gaiety -of its merry life; in the full vigour of manhood on the eve of his -thirties; amongst congenial friends; done with the drudgery of winning -to Academic honour, Boucher saw that the public were not falling over -each other to purchase religious or historic pictures; he straightway -turned his back upon these things, and on the edge of his thirtieth -year he gave to the world his "Marriage of the Children of God with -the Children of Men," in which Venus is the avowed mistress of his -adoration. It caused a fine stir, and greatly increased his repute. - -In this picture he ends his Italian period and strikes his own -personal note. Both this and the "Venus asking arms for Aeneas from -Vulcan," together with the "Birth of Adonis" and the "Death of -Adonis," of about the same period, still show Boucher strongly under -the influence of his master, Lemoyne. Indeed, the "Birth" and "Death -of Adonis," their record lost during the scuffle and confusion of the -Revolution, for long hung side by side as pictures by Lemoyne, until, -being cleaned about 1860, Boucher's initials were discovered upon -them, and, contemporary engravings being hunted up, still further -proved their origin. But in the Venus that now figures in all his -works there is that flesh-painting of the nude, and that rosy touch -upon the flesh of the female figure, that are a far more certain -signature of Boucher's handiwork than any written name. - -Unfortunately the Salons were closed during Boucher's earlier years -until he was thirty-four, and the record of his work during these -years is difficult to follow; but with his service to Venus his -personal career begins, and the stream of his Venus-pieces steadily -flows from his hands. - -He came to her service rid of all prentice essays in craftsmanship, a -finished and consummate artist. He found in his subject a goddess to -whom he could devote his great and splendid gifts. He painted her -dainty body with a radiant delight and a rare colour-sense such as -France had never before seen or uttered. He remains to this day the -first painter of the subtle, delicate, and elusive thing that is -femininity; he caught her allure, her charm, as he was to catch the -fragrance and charm of children and flowers; and he set the statement -of these things upon canvas as they have never been uttered. - -The whole of his life long, Boucher gave himself up with equal and -passionate devotion to work and to pleasure--working at his easel -often twelve hours of his day without losing, to the end when the -brush fell from his dead fingers, his blitheness of heart or his -generosity of act, and without weakening the pleasure-loving desires -of his gadding spirit. Out of his splendid toil he made the means to -indulge his tastes for pleasure; and the gratifying of his tastes in -turn renewed and created the ideas that made the subjects of his -artistry. He brought to all he did a joy in the doing that made of his -vast labour one long pleasure--of his pleasures a riot of industry. He -played as he toiled, scarce knowing which was play and which toil. - -The gossip of his love-affairs makes no romantic story--they were but -commonplace ecstasies with unknown frail women. But hard as he worked -and lived and played, he found time to get himself married in his -thirtieth year to pretty seventeen-year-old Marie Jeanne Buseau, a -little Parisian--and for love of her, so far as he understood the -business; for she brought him no dowry. - -The young couple settled down for the next ten years in the Rue -Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. Here Boucher lived through his thirties. - -Madame was a pretty creature, if we had but Latour's pastel portrait -alone to prove it. But the pretty features were the crown to as pretty -a body, for she sat often to her lord; and it is clear from his -correspondence with a friend, Bachaumont, that she is the Psyche of -his illustrated fable--and Psyche runs much to the Altogether. -Marriage, however, was not likely to imprison Boucher's gadding eyes; -and it did not. Madame Boucher seems to have had as frail a heart, and -avoided strife by amusing herself, amongst others, with the Swedish -Ambassador, Count de Tessin, who, to gain access to the lady, -commissioned Boucher to do the Watteau-like illustrations to -_Acajou_--a dull affair. Boucher's pretty wife, herself no mean -artist, worked in his studio, and painted several smaller canvases -after his pictures, gaining some fame as a miniaturist and engraver. - -Nor did Marriage turn Boucher from his art. Two years were gone by -since his nomination to the Academy; he had now to paint the formal -Historical Picture and present it in order to take his seat as -Academician; and it was in this his thirtieth year that he painted and -won his academic rank with the "Renauld et Armide" now at the Louvre. -Here he sufficiently subordinated his own style to the academic to -ensure success; and the work was hailed by Academicians and critics, -including Diderot, with enthusiasm. But even here we have his cupids -peeping round the mythologic event; and Armide herself has pretty -French lips that knew no Greek. - -Once secure of his position, he straightway flung the last remnants of -the academic style out of his studio door; and it is a grim comment on -criticism that it was just exactly in proportion as he developed his -own personal genius and uttered the France of his day, that he was -attacked; whilst the stilted things that he knew were third-rate, and -which he wholly rejected from henceforth, were exactly the things that -were praised! - -His election to the Academy, and the enthusiasm over the picture that -won him his seat thereat, brought his name before the young king; the -following year he received his first order from the Court whose -painter he was destined to become. The decorations in the queen's -apartments were gloomy and had grown black; and he painted in their -stead the "Charity," "Abundance," "Fidelity," and "Prudence" still -there to be seen. Indeed, with his gay vision, his pretty habit of -culling only the flowers from the garden of life, and his quickness to -set down the pleasing thing in every prospect, Boucher was the -destined painter of a Court weary of pomposity and the pose of the -mock-heroic, and which was wholly giving itself up to pleasure and the -elegances. - -But neither his new dignity of Academician nor the royal favour, kept -him from the bookshops; and he illustrated, with rare beauty and a -charm worthy of Watteau, the great edition of the _Works of Moliere_ -in his thirty-first year. It is true that he made as free with -Moliere's world as with the Gods of Olympus; he peoples the plays with -characters of his own day, arrayed in the dress and habit of that day, -and moving in surroundings that he saw about him. - - [Illustration: PLATE IV.--PASTORALE - - (In the Louvre) - - The "Pastorale," painted a few years after the famous "Diana," - also belongs to Boucher's greatest years, and is another of the - glories of the Louvre. It is one of his masterpieces in the - realm of the Pastoral which he also created--those pleasant - landscapes of France in which he places handsomely dressed - Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses playing at a dandified - comedy of the Simple Life.] - - - - -IV - -LE MONDE QUI S'AMUSE - - -The Homely had come upon the town out of Holland, painted with most -consummate artistry by Chardin, and was soon in the vogue. Boucher had -a quick eye for the mode. And he straightway set himself to the -painting of "La Belle Cuisiniere." Still-life and homely subjects need -an accuracy of realism and a Dutch sense of these things, a sense of -sincerity and an appreciation of the dignity of the work-a-day life of -the people, in which Boucher was wholly lacking. Above all, it calls -for a sense of "character," which, in Boucher, was always weak. It was -a sneer against him that his very broomsticks called for pompons and -ribbons--and there was more than a little truth in the spite. He is -more concerned with the accident of the kissing of a kitchen-maid than -with the kitchen's habit. He cannot even peep into a scullery without -dragging in Venus by the skirts, and tricking her out in a -property-wardrobe of a scullery-wench, in which the girl is clearly -but acting the part. - -However, these passing vogues and experiments in different methods -were only gay asides--he was working the while upon his own subjects; -and, to the display by its several members ordered by the Academy, he -sent four little paintings of fauns and cupids which won him the -honour of election as deputy-professor. His brain and hand were very -busy, and he turns from one thing to another with amazing facility, -bringing distinction to all that he does. - -But he painted about this time two pictures of infants, "L'Amour -Oiseleur" and "L'Amour Moissonneur," which were the beginning of that -host of cupids that he let fly from his studio; they frolic across his -canvases and join the retinue of Venus, peeping out from clouds, over -waves, round curtains, painted with a perfection that has never been -surpassed in the portrayal of infants. He painted their round limbs, -their lusty life, their delightful awkwardnesses, their jolly fat -grace, their naive surprise at life and glory in it, as they had never -been painted before, and have never been painted since. - -He also gave forth in this his thirty-third year a "Pastoral" and a -"Shepherd and Shepherdess in Conversation," with sheep about them and -in a pleasant landscape, which were his first essays in the style that -he created and which made him famous. - -His friend Meissonnier, the inventor of the rococo, stood godfather to -Boucher's first-born son in the May of 1736. - -From the very beginning Boucher seems to have been engraved. And these -engravings, done by the best gravers of his day, greatly extended his -reputation and popularised him; he fully realised the value of the -advertisement as well as his profits from it. Before his thirty-third -year was run out he published his well-known "Cries of Paris." -Boucher's description of them, "studies from the low classes," holds -the key to that something of failure to realise the dramatic verities -that is over all; it gives also the attitude of the France that he -knew towards the France that he did not, and could not understand. He -created that dainty, pleasant atmosphere that comes floating up to the -windows on a fresh morning in Paris from the musical cries of -the street vendors; but of the deeper significance of the -street-sellers--of the miserable accent in their life, of their weary -toil, of the dignity of their labour--he knew nothing; his brush could -not refrain from making elegance and fine manners peep from behind the -street-porter's fustian or the milkmaid's skirt. - -But his thirty-third year was to contain a more far-reaching -significance even than the creation of his cupid-pieces and pastorals. -The "Cries of Paris" were scarce printed when Boucher's illustration -to "Don Quixote" appeared--"Sancho pursued by the servants of the -Duke." This design was to have far-reaching results that Boucher -little suspected. - -The painter Oudry had been called to the conduct of the great tapestry -looms at Beauvais a couple of years before; and in his efforts to -furnish the looms with good designs, he now called Boucher to his aid, -whose original and fresh style, colour, and arrangement, together with -his personal vision, and the enthusiasm and zeal with which he threw -himself into the work, at once increased the reputation and the -products of the famous looms. This large designing for the tapestries -was, in return, of immense value to the development of the genius of -the man, enlarging his breadth of style and giving scope to that great -decorative sense that was his superb gift. Thenceforth he was destined -to play a supreme part in the history of the world-famed factories. He -now produced painting after painting for the Beauvais looms. - - [Illustration: PLATE V.--PASTORALE - - (In the Louvre) - - This Pastoral, known as "The Shepherd and Shepherdesses," is - another canvas painted at the height of Boucher's career, in - which dandified shepherds and shepherdesses seem to have stepped - out of the Opera in order to play their light comedy of - beribboned simple living in a pleasant landscape of France. It - was of these pastorals a waggish critic complained that the - shepherds and shepherdesses look as if they must soon be off to - the Opera again. But what the carpers omitted was to praise the - painting of the pleasant lands of France in which these dainty - comedies were set. Boucher has never received his meed of honour - as one of the finest landscape-painters of eighteenth-century - France.] - -Life is now one long triumph for Boucher, only disturbed in this year -by the sad news of the suicide of his old master, Lemoyne. It was in -this, Boucher's thirty-fourth year, that the Salon was opened for the -first time since Boucher's infancy, and he contributed several -canvases to it. - -Rigaud, the old Academician, now close upon eighty, straggling through -the great galleries, might well blink and gasp at the change that had -come over French art since he last exhibited there, thirty-three years -gone by; but his scoffs and regrets held no terrors for the younger -Academicians gathered about. He stood in a new world. A new generation -was in possession. The grand manner, the severe etiquette, formal -mock-heroics, and solemn pomposity of Louis the Fourteenth were -vanished, and the Agreeable and the Pleasant Make-Believe of Louis the -Fifteenth reigned in their stead. Old Rigaud might blink indeed! Just -as the imposing and stilted etiquette of the reception-room had given -place to the easy manners and airy etiquette of the dainty boudoir, so -had light chatter and gay wit and the quick repartee usurped the heavy -splendours of a consequential age. France, weary of an eternal pose of -the grand manner, was seeking change in joyousness and amusement. -Gallantry and gaiety were become the object of the ambition of a -dandified and elegant day. France became a coquette; dressed herself -as a porcelain shepherdess; and with beribboned crook and sheep, -seeking pleasant prospects to stroll through, gave herself to -dalliance--her powder-puff and patch-box and fan a serious part of her -unseriousness. - - - - -V - -THE CHATEAUROUX - - -At thirty-five Boucher has arrived. He is in the vogue; in favour at -Court--as well as in the fashion. In his three years from taking his -seat at the Academy to the opening of the first Salon he has created a -new and original style--his cupid pieces, his pastorals, his -Venus-pieces, his tapestry. Boucher's kingdom lay in the realm of the -decorative painter--and he has found it. Torn from the surroundings -for which he designed them, as part and parcel of the general scheme, -his pictures are as out of place as an Italian altarpiece in an -English dining-room, yet they suffer less. Several may still be seen, -as he set them up in frames of his own planning, as overdoors in the -palace of the Soubise, now given up to the national archives. - -The ghost of the Prince of Soubise, who commissioned them, may haunt -his palace, but his kin know the place no longer. The overdoors -wrought by Boucher's skill look down now on the nation's collection of -historic documents. The "Three Graces enchaining Love," the fine -pastoral of "The Cage," and the pastoral of the "Shepherd placing a -Rose in his Shepherdess's Hair," were to see a mightier change than -the usurpation of Louis the Fourteenth's pompous age by the elegant -years of Louis the Fifteenth. But this was not as yet. Here at least -we see Boucher's art rid of all outside influences, and at the full -tide of creation; here we have the inimitable lightness of touch, the -figures and landscape bathed in the airy volume of atmosphere. - -He seems at this time to have played with pastel, due probably to his -friendship with Latour, who sent a portrait of Boucher's wife to this -Salon. Boucher showed in the use of chalks the artistry and skill that -were always at his command. - -He also was putting to its full use his innate sense of landscape, -raising to high achievement that astonishing balance of landscape and -figures in his design--a balance that has never been surpassed; his -figures never override his landscape; his landscape never overpowers -his figures. His earnest counsels to his pupils and his constant -deploring of the lack of the landscape art in France prove the great -stress he laid upon it. - -The designing of a frontispiece for the catalogue of a personal -friend, one Gersaint, a merchant of oriental wares, started Boucher in -his thirty-third year upon that series of Chinese pictures and -tapestries known as the "Chinoiseries," in which he frittered away -only too many precious hours, for they were received with great favour -by the public. The paintings of Chinese subjects designed for the -looms of Beauvais are still to be seen at Besancon. - -But busy as were his brain and hand in the exercise of his wide and -versatile gifts, pouring out "Chinoiseries," illustrations for books, -tapestries on a large scale, landscapes, models for the gilt bronze -decorations of porcelain vases, scheming handsome frames for his -pictures, designing furniture and fans--Boucher was true, above all, -"to his goddess," and painted the famed "Birth of Venus," which, -thanks to the Swedish Ambassador's fondness for Madame Boucher, now -hangs at Stockholm; our amorous Count de Tessin, to be just, seems to -have had a rare flair for the artistic--besides artist's wives. It was -on the 15th of April in 1742, the last year of his thirties, that the -Royal favour was marked by the grant of a pension of 400 livres -(double florins) to Boucher with promise of early benefits to follow. -Two years afterwards it was raised to 600 livres. - -This was the year that he painted the beautiful canvas of "Diana -leaving the Bath with one of her Companions," now at the Louvre. It -was also the year that saw his landscape, the "Hamlet of Isse" at the -Salon. This "Hameau d'Isse" was to be enlarged for the Opera, proving -him to be decorator there, where he was arranging waterfalls, -cascades, and the rest of the pretty business, without staying his -hand from his art. - -At forty Boucher has come into his kingdom. The ten years of these -forties were to be a vast triumph for him. He was to produce -masterpiece after masterpiece. His art had caught the taste of the -day. He was at the height of his powers. He had done great things--he -was to do greater. During these ten years of his forties he poured -forth vivid and glowing works of sustained power and originality. - -We have a picture of him as he was in the flesh at this time--the -pastel portrait by Lundberg, now at the Louvre--a gay, somewhat -dissipated, handsomely dressed dandy of the time, smiling out of his -careless day, the debonnair man of fashion, the laughing eyes showing -signs of the night carousals, which were the rest from the prodigious -toil of this vital and forthright spirit. - -It was in this our artist's fortieth year that the gifted old Cardinal -Fleury, who had guided the fortunes of France with rare skill, died, -broken by his ninety years and the blunders of the disastrous war that -he had so strenuously opposed; and Louis, essaying the strut of -kingship, became king by act. His indolent character, unequal to the -mighty business, his indeterminate will fretted by the set of -quarrelling and intriguing rogues that he gathered about him as his -ministers, he fell into the habit that became his thenceforth, the -only thing to which he paid the tribute of constancy--he ruled France -from behind pretty petticoats. He had early shown the adulterous blood -of his great-grandfather; two, if not three, of five sisters of the -noble and historic house of De Nesle had yielded to his gadding fancy; -the youngest now ousted her sister De Mailly from the king's favour, -was publicly acknowledged as the king's mistress, and became Duchess -of Chateauroux. Boucher painted her handsome being as a shepherdess in -one of his pastorals. She was no ordinary toy of a king. A woman of -talent, with hot ambitions for the king's majesty, fired with the -pride of race of the old French noblesse, it was during her short -years of ascendancy over the king that he roused from his body's -torpor and made an effort to reach the dignity and eminence befitting -to the lord of a great and gallant people. He stepped forth awhile -from his drunken bouts and manifold mean adulteries, and set himself -at the head of the army in Flanders, and strutted it as conqueror. -Poor Chateauroux only got the hate of the people for reward, Louis the -honours; for the people resented the public dishonour of her state. -Power she found to be a dead-sea apple in her pretty mouth. The glory -of it all, the splendours, were not the easily won delights for which -she had looked. She had to fight a duel, that never ended, with the -king's witty, crafty, and scurrilous Prime Minister, the notorious -Maurepas--and Maurepas willed that no woman should ever come between -him and the king--Maurepas who knew no mercy, no decency, no chivalry, -no scruple. At Chateauroux's urging, Louis placed himself at the -head of the army; and France went near mad with joy that she had -again found a king. Crafty Maurepas urged on the business; the -Chateauroux suddenly realised his cunning glee--it separated her from -the king. - - [Illustration: PLATE VI.--PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN - - (In the Louvre) - - Of the rare portraits painted by Boucher, it is strange that the - sitter to this finely painted canvas is now wholly forgotten. - But the picture remains to prove to us the wide range of - Boucher's genius.] - -Out of the whirl of things Boucher's fortune was ripening, little as -he might suspect it. - -He was painting masterpieces that make his name live. To his fortieth -year belong the famed "Birth of Venus," the "Venus leaving the Bath," -the "Muse Clio," the "Muse Melpomene," and the three well-known -pastorals now at the Louvre--"The Sleeping Shepherdess," the "Nest," -and the "Shepherd and Shepherdesses." Of the many famous Venus-pieces -that his hand painted during these years it is not easy to write the -list. But having signed the "Marriage of Love and Psyche" at -forty-one, he turned his experimental hand to the homely, realistic -Dutch style that was having a wide vogue, and painted the -"Dejeuner"--a family of the prosperous class of the day at -breakfast--showing with rare charm the surroundings and home life of -the well-to-do of his time. - -All goes well with Boucher. He changes into better quarters in the Rue -de Grenelle-Saint-Honore, where he lived for the next five years, -until 1749; but his eyes are fixed upon a studio and apartments at -the old palace of the Louvre, though the hard intriguing of his -powerful friends at Court on his behalf failed for some time. He had, -indeed, to make another move before he arrived at his longed-for goal. -Pensions Boucher, like others, had found to be somewhat empty affairs; -but rooms at the Louvre were a solid possession eagerly sought after -by the artists. - -In this year of 1744 Boucher created a new fashion at the annual Salon -by sending studies and sketches instead of finished pictures; and it -set a value upon such things not before realised by artists, for -success was instant and loud. - -Towards the end of the next, Boucher's forty-second year, the Swedish -Ambassador, Count de Tessin, who was to take his leave of Paris, -commissioned four pictures to represent the day of a woman of fashion, -and to be entitled "Morning," "Midday," "Evening," and "Night." -Boucher painted one of these for him, now known as the "Marchande de -Modes." The others were painted later, and all had a wide vogue as -engravings. The correspondence has interest since it reveals Boucher's -business habits; he was paid for a picture on its delivery, and for -each of these he was to receive 600 livres (double florins or -dollars)--about a hundred and twenty pounds. - -In an official document of the Director of Buildings to the king (or -Minister of Fine Art, as we should say), written in this year of 1745, -Boucher being forty-two, is a "list of the best painters," in which -Boucher is singled out for distinction as "an historic painter, living -in the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honore, opposite the Rue des Deux-Ecus, -pupil of Lemoyne, excelling also in landscape, grotesques, and -ornaments in the manner of Watteau; and equally skilled in painting -flowers, fruit, architecture, and subjects of gallantry and of -fashion." - -Not so bad for dry officialdom; the critics could learn a lesson. For -he was nothing less. What indeed does he not do? and wondrous well! -this painter of the age. - -And the mighty rush of events is about to sweep him into further -prominence; the very things which he probably passed by with a gay -shrug are to enrich him, to help him to his highest fulfilment. - -Poor Chateauroux saw that she must lose the king's gadding favour in -the conflict with Maurepas unless she joined her lord, now with the -army. She realised full well that she had created the new Louis of -Ambition--that her going must bring the people's hate to her. But she -dared not lose the king. And she went. Maurepas had overdone his -jibings. The indiscretion at once rang through the land; became the -jest of the army--and Maurepas was not far from the bottom of the -business. The discreet indiscretion of covered ways between the king's -lodgings and hers only added to the mockeries, and increased the -people's hate against, of course, the Chateauroux. Then upon a day in -August the small-pox seized Louis at Metz; poor Chateauroux fought for -possession of the king in the sick room, until his fear of -death--Louis' sole piety--sent her packing--shrinking back in the -hired carriage at each halting-place for change of horses, lest she -should be seen and torn from her place and destroyed by the populace. -But Louis recovered; Paris rang with bells at joy on his recovery, and -he entered the city amidst mad enthusiasm, hailed as The Well-Beloved. -He sent for the Chateauroux to find her dying, Maurepas having to -deliver the message of recall. She died suddenly and in great agony, -swearing that Maurepas had poisoned her--died in the arms of her poor -discarded sister, the De Mailly. - -But this year of 1745 Boucher hears a mightier scandal that is to mean -vast things to all France--and not least of all to Francois Boucher. - - - - -VI - -THE POMPADOUR - - -A young bride had become the gossip of the rich merchant society of -Paris--that class that was ousting the old noblesse from power. She -was a beautiful, a remarkable woman; her wit was repeated in the -drawing-rooms, she had all the accomplishments; her charming -name--Madame Lenormant d'Etioles. - -Draw aside the curtains of the past and we discover our little Jeanne -Poisson--grown into this exquisite creature. It has come about in -strange fashion enough. The father--a scandalous fellow--having -fingered the commissariat moneys in ugly ways to his own use, had been -banished for the ugly business. Nor is Jeanne's mother any better than -she should be; and the wags wink knowingly at the handsome and rich -man of fashion, Monsieur Lenormant de Tournehem, who has been the -favoured gallant during the absence of the light-fingered Poisson. -And, of a truth, Lenormant de Tournehem takes astonishing interest in -the little Jeanne--watching over her up-growing and giving her the -best of education at the convent, where she wins all hearts, and is -known as "the little queen." The truth spoken with wondrous prophecy, -if unthinkingly, as we shall see. Complacent Poisson came home, and -took the rich and fashionable, bland and smiling Lenormant de -Tournehem to his arms. Has he not wealth and estates? therefore as -excellent a friend for Poisson as for Madame Poisson. The girl Jeanne -leaves the convent to be taught the accomplishments by the supreme -masters of France, the wits foregather at Madame Poisson's, and the -brilliant Jeanne is soon mistress of the arts--coquetry not least of -all; has also the most exquisite taste in dress. Under all is a heart -cold as steel; calculating as the higher mathematics. She has but one -hindrance to ambition--her mean birth. Lenormant de Tournehem rids her -even of this slur by making his nephew, Lenormant d'Etioles, marry -her, giving the young couple half his fortune for dowry, and the -promise of the rest when he dies--also he grants him a splendid -town-house, as splendid a country seat. And consequential -self-respecting little Lenormant d'Etioles is lord of Etioles, amongst -other seignories. So Jane Fish appears as Madame Lenormant d'Etioles, -seductive, beautiful, accomplished, to whose house repair the new -philosophy, the wits, and artists. She has a certain sense of virtue; -indeed openly vows that no one but the king shall ever come between -her and her lord. But, deep in her heart, she has harboured a fierce -ambition--that the king shall help her to keep her bond. She puts -forth all her gifts, all her powers, to win to the strange goal; -confides it to her worldly mother and "uncle," Lenormant de Tournehem; -finds keen allies therein to the reaching of that strange goal. The -death of the Chateauroux clears the way. At a masked ball the king is -intrigued as to the personality of a beautiful woman who plagues him -with her art; he orders the unmasking. Madame Lenormant d'Etioles -stands revealed, drops her handkerchief as by accident; the whisper -runs through the Court that "the handkerchief has been thrown!" The -king stoops and picks it up. A few evenings later she is smuggled into -the "private apartments." She goes again a month later; in the morning -is seized with sudden terror--she daren't go back to her angry lord -lest he do her grievous harm; he will have missed her. The king is -touched; allows her to hide from henceforth in the secret apartments; -promises the beautiful creature a lodging, her husband's banishment, -and early acknowledgment as titular mistress--before the whole Court -at Easter, says the pious Great One. But he has to join the army to -play the Conqueror at Fontenoy; and it is later in the year -(September) before Madame d'Etioles is presented to the Court in a -vast company and proceeds to the queen's apartments to kiss hands on -appointment. Thus was Jeanne Poisson raised to the great aristocracy -of France in her twenty-third year as Marquise de Pompadour. - -Boucher had been one of the brilliant group of artists of the -d'Etioles' circle. That the Pompadour's influence had much effect upon -his position at Court for a year or two is unlikely; for she had to -fight for possession of the king day and night, as the Chateauroux -had done, against the queen's party and the unscrupulous enmity of -Maurepas. To set down Boucher's favour at Court to her is ridiculous. -He was painting for the queen's apartments at thirty-one when the -Pompadour was a school-girl of twelve. But in the year following her -rise to power, Boucher painted four pictures for the large room of the -Dauphin, which were "placed elsewhere"; and, the year after that, he -was at work upon two pictures for the bedroom of the king at the -castle of Marly. It is likely enough that the Pompadour directed this -order. She had almost immediately secured the office of the -Director-General of Buildings, which covered the direction of the -royal art treasures, for "uncle" Lenormant de Tournehem, who was also -a friend of the artist. And from this year it is significant that -Boucher paints no more for the opposing camp of the Queen and Dauphin. - - [Illustration: PLATE VII.--INTERIEUR DE FAMILLE - - (In the Louvre) - - Boucher had a quick ear for the vogue. Twice he found the Home - to be in the artistic fashion; and each time he painted Home - life in order to be in the mode. This interior, showing a - well-to-do French family of the times at the midday meal, is not - only rendered with glitter and atmosphere, but it is valuable as - a rich record of the manners and furnishments of his day.] - -He was now giving all his strength to the "Rape of Europa" that he -painted for the competition ordered by the Academy at the command of -Lenormant de Tournehem in the king's name, in which ten chosen -Academicians were to paint subjects in their own style for six prizes -and a gold medal, to be awarded in secret vote by the competing -artists themselves. Boucher won, by his amiable nature, the good-will -of them all by proposing that they should so arrange as to share the -prizes equally, and thus prevent any sense of soreness inevitable in -the losers. - -But greatly as he won the good-fellowship of his fellow-artists by it, -this picture caused a murmur to rise amongst the critics who, -aforetime loud in his praise, now began to complain of his "abuse of -rose tints" in the painting of the female nude. The fact was that -Diderot and the men of the New Philosophy were turning their eyes to -the whole foundations upon which France was built, art as well as -society, and were beginning to demand of art "grandeur and morality in -its subjects." They were soon to be clamouring for "the statement of a -great maxim, a lesson for the spectator." Diderot, with bull-like -courage, picked out the greatest, and turned upon Boucher, blaming him -for triviality. - -The nations, weary of war, concluded the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in -the October of 1748. No sooner was peace concluded than Louis -relapsed into his old habit of dandified indolence and profligate -ease; and, putting from him his duties as the lord of a great people, -he gave himself up to shameless intrigues. He allowed the Pompadour to -usurp his magnificence and to rule over the land. He yielded himself -utterly, if sometimes sulkily, to her domination; and for sixteen -years she was the most powerful person at Court, the greatest force in -the state--making and unmaking ministers, disposing of office, -honours, titles, pensions. All political affairs were discussed and -arranged under her guidance; ministers, ambassadors, generals -transacted their business in her stately boudoirs; the whole patronage -of the sovereign was dispensed by her pretty hands; the prizes of the -Church, of the army, of the magistracy could be obtained solely -through her favour and good-will. Her energy must have been -prodigious. Possessed of extraordinary talents and exquisite tastes, -she gave full rein to them, and it was in the indulgence of her better -qualities that Destiny brought Boucher into the friendship of this -wonderful woman. She became not only his patron but his pupil, -engraving several of his designs. - -But this, her sovereignty over the king, easy and light in its outward -seeming, was a haggard nightmare to the calculating woman who had so -longed for it. She knew no single hour's rest from the night she won -to the king's bed. She had to fight her enemies, secret and open, for -possession of the king's will, day and night; and she fought--with -rare courage. She won by consummate skill and unending pluck. She made -herself an essential part of the king's freedom from care. The Court -party fought her for power with constant vigilance. Maurepas brought -all his unscrupulous art, all his ironic mimicry, all his vile jibes -and unchivalrous hatred to bear against her. He had made himself a -necessity to the king; and he never slept away a chance of injuring -her. He knew no mercy, no nobility, no pity. He made her the detested -object of the people. With his own hands he penned the witty verses -and epigrams that were sung and flung about the streets of Paris. - -But she had an enemy more subtle than any at the Court--hour by hour -she had to dispute the king with the king's boredom. And it was in the -effort to do so that she created her celebrated theatre in the -private apartments, calling Boucher and others to her aid in the doing -of it. Here the noblest of France vied with each other to obtain the -smallest part to play, an instrument in its orchestra, an invitation -to its performances. - -Boucher left the Opera to become its decorator in 1748, and did not -return until her death. For her, he also decorated her beautiful rooms -at Bellevue. She bought at high prices many of his greatest -masterpieces. - -The Pompadour's power so greatly increased that she openly took -command of the king's will; dared and succeeded in getting his -favourite Maurepas banished; and herself took to the use of the kingly -"we." Her rascally father was created Lord of Marigny; her brother, -whom the king liked well and called "little brother," was created -Marquis de Vandieres; her only child, Alexandrine, signed her name as -a princess of the blood royal, and would have been married to the -blood royal had she not caught the small-pox and died. She amassed a -private fortune, castles, and estates such as no mistress had dreamed -of; and into them she poured art treasures that cost the nation -thirty-six millions of money. She created the porcelain factory of -Sevres, kept keen watch over the Gobelins looms, and founded the great -Military School of St. Cyr amidst work that would have kept several -statesmen busy, and of deadly intrigues at Court that would have -broken the spirit of many a brilliant man. - -It was in her hectic desire to keep the king from being bored that she -stooped, and made Boucher stoop, to the employment of his high -artistry in the painting of a series of indecent pictures wherewith to -tickle the jaded desires of Boredom, and thereby gave rise to the -widespread impression that Boucher's art was ever infected by base -design. But Boucher was, at his very worst, but a healthy animal; and -even in these secret works for the king he did not reach so low as did -many an artist of more pious memory who painted with no excuse but his -own pleasure. - -As a matter of fact, the Pompadour has been blamed too much for this -evil act, and too much forgotten for her splendid patronage of the man -who, under it and during these great years of his forties, produced a -series of masterpieces that place him in the foremost rank of the -painters of his century. It is impossible to reckon the number of the -pastorals and Venus-pieces that his master-hand painted and loved to -paint, during these the supreme years of his genius. It is significant -that they were painted during the years that saw the Pompadour in -supreme power. - -Boucher was so firmly established in 1750, his forty-seventh year, -that he moved into a new house in the Rue Richelieu, near the Palais -Royal. Disappointed in not receiving a studio and apartments at the -Louvre, he was allowed to use a studio in the king's library. He was -now making money so easily that he was able to collect pictures and -precious stones and the gaily coloured curiosities that appealed to -his tastes. - -The critics were becoming more and more censorious; and one of them -hits true with the comment that in his pastorals his shepherdesses -look as if they had stepped over from the Opera and would soon be off -again thereto. - -In his forty-eighth year Boucher's art was at its most luminous -stage--his atmosphere clear and subtle and exquisitely rendered; his -yellows golden; his whites satin-like and silvery; his flesh-tones -upon the nude bodies of his goddesses unsurpassed by previous art. The -beauty of it all was not to last much longer. - -Lenormant de Tournehem died suddenly in the November of 1751; the -Pompadour's brother, Abel Poisson de Vandieres, was appointed -Director-General in his stead at the age of twenty-five--and soon -afterwards, on the death of his father, created Marquis de Marigny--a -shy, handsome youth, a gentleman and an honourable fellow, whom the -king liked well, and against whom his sister's sole complaint was that -he lacked the brazen effrontery of the courtiers of the day. No man -did more for the advancement of the art of his time. A pension of a -thousand livres falling vacant, the young fellow secured it for -Boucher; and almost immediately afterwards, a studio becoming vacant -at the Louvre owing to the death of Coypel, first painter to the king, -Boucher came to his coveted home, eagerly moving in with his family as -soon as its wretched state could be put into repair. - -The decoration of the new wing to the palace at Fontainebleau brought -the commission for the painting of the ceiling and the principal -picture in the Council Chamber to Boucher, who had already decorated -the Dining-Room. This was the period of his painting the "Rising" and -the "Setting of the Sun" for the Pompadour, now in the Watteau -collection, two canvases that were always favourites with the painter, -bitterly as they were assailed by the critic Grimm. - - [Illustration: PLATE VIII.--LA MODISTE - - (In the Wallace Collection) - - The "Modiste" that now hangs at the Wallace is a slight - variation on the "Toilet" that went to Stockholm, commissioned - by the Swedish Ambassador as "Morning" (with three others, to - represent the Midday, Evening, and Night of a fashionable - woman's day, but which were never painted). The "Modiste" or - "Morning," was engraved by Gaillard as "La Marchande de Modes," - which adds somewhat to the confusion of its title.] - -He was turning out so much work that it was impossible to give as much -care to his pictures as he ought. For he refused sternly, his life -long, to raise his prices; by consequence he had to create a larger -amount of work in order to meet his expenditure. It was about this -time that Reynolds, passing through Paris, went to visit him and found -him painting on a huge canvas without models or sketches. "On -expressing my surprise," writes Reynolds, "he replied that he had -considered the model as necessary during his youth until he had -completed his study of art, but that he had not used one for a long -time past." - -He soon had not the time, not only to paint from nature but even to -give his pictures the work necessary to complete them. The feverish -haste which took possession of him in his frantic endeavour to meet -the vast demand for his pictures, and the eager efforts of his -engravers to satisfy the public call for engravings after his works, -gave him less and less leisure to joy in their doing. And his eyesight -began to fail. His flesh-tints deepened to a reddish hue; and he -stands baffled before his work, suspecting his sight, since what every -one cries out upon as being bright vermilion, he only sees as a dull -earthy colour. Boucher has topped the height of his achievement; he -has to "descend the other side of the hill." Boucher begins to grow -old. - -In Boucher's fifty-first year an ugly intrigue of the queen's party at -Court to sap the Pompadour's influence over the king by drawing away -the king's affections towards Madame de Choiseul-Romanet, a reckless -young beauty of the Court, brought about a strange alliance. The Count -de Stainville, one of the Pompadour's bitterest enemies, was shown the -king's letter of invitation to his young kinswoman; and he, deeply -wounded in his pride that his kinswoman should have been offered to -the king, went to the Pompadour and exposed the plot. A close -alliance followed; and De Stainville thenceforth became her chief -guide in affairs of state. It was at her instance that the king called -him to be his Prime Minister, raising him to the Duchy of Choiseul--a -name he made illustrious as one of the greatest Ministers of France. - -In his fifty-second year Boucher was appointed to the directorship of -the Gobelins looms, to the huge delight of the weavers and all -concerned with the tapestry factory. This was the year of his painting -the famous portrait of the Pompadour, to whom he several times paid -this "tribute of immorality." For the Gobelins looms he produced many -handsome designs; and he was painting with astounding industry. But -his hand's skill began to falter. His art shows weariness in his -sixtieth year, and sickness fell upon him, and held him in servitude -now with rare moments of respite. The critics, notoriously Diderot, -were now attacking him with shameless virulence. Boucher passed it all -by; but he felt the change that was taking place in the public taste. -The ideas of the New Philosophy were infecting public opinion; the Man -of Feeling had arisen in the land; and France, humiliated in war, and -resenting the follies and the greed of her shameless privileged class, -was openly resenting it and all its works. Choiseul had planted his -strength deep in the people's party, and was come near to being its -god. His masterly mind had checked Frederick of Prussia to the North; -and the nations, exhausted by the struggle, signed the Peace of Paris -in 1763. Choiseul, with France at peace abroad, turned to the blotting -out of the turbulent order of the Jesuits at home. Their attempt to -end the Pompadour's relations with the king made this powerful woman -eager to complete his design; the chance was soon to come, and the -Order was abolished from France and its vast property seized by the -state. - -The Pompadour lived but a short while to enjoy her triumph. Worn out -by her superhuman activities, assailed by debt, she fell ill of a -racking cough, dying on the 15th of April, 1764, in her forty-second -year, keeping her ascendancy over the king and the supreme power in -France to her last hour. Death found her transacting affairs of state. -Louis, weary of his servitude, had only a heartless epigram to cast -at the body of the dead woman as she passed to her last resting-place. - - - - -VII - -THE END - - -The death of the Pompadour robbed Boucher of a friend; but her -brother, Marigny, remained faithfully attached to the old artist, and -seized every chance to honour him. On the death of Carle van Loo, -Boucher, at sixty-two, was made first painter to the king, with all -his pensions and privileges that were consistent with this the supreme -appointment in the art world. - -There had been serious intention of making Boucher the head of the -Ecole des Eleves Proteges; he had the art of making himself liked and -of inspiring the love of the arts. He was very popular with the -students and artists, owing to his kindliness, his eagerness to render -service, his readiness to encourage the youngsters or to console them. -When the riot took place, provoked by the Academicians by their award -of the Prix de Rome in 1767, the students insulted the Academicians, -but hailed Boucher with enthusiastic applause. The reason was not far -to seek. When a student came to the old master for advice he did not -"play the pontiff," and, scorning the false dignity of big phrases, he -took the brush in his hand and showed the way out of all difficulties -by simplehearted example, despising rules, and putting himself out in -order to make things clear to a young artist. - -However, the Academicians feared he would be an unorthodox master for -youth, and appointed another in his place. - -A long and serious illness thwarted his keen energies. Diderot was -giving himself up to outrageous violence against him. If the old -painter exhibited at the Salon, Diderot fiercely assailed his art; if -he did not exhibit, Diderot as bitterly assailed him for his -negligences. Above all, he attacked Boucher in that he did not paint -what Diderot would have painted--but could not. "When he paints -infants," cries Diderot, "you will not find one employed in a real act -of life--studying his lesson, reading, writing, stripping hemp." - -Poor unfortunate infants! for whom Philosophy could find no happier -joy in life than _stripping hemp_! Boucher was but an artist. He -painted his generation as far as he could see it, and, with all his -faults and weaknesses, he never debauched his art with foreign and -alien things that had no part in the nation's life; he painted fair -France into his landscapes, not a make-believe land he did not know -with preposterous Greek ruins; and best of all, to his eternal honour, -he painted infants glad in their gladness to be alive, with no desire -to send their happy little bodies to school, with no sickly ambition -to make them into budding philosophers, with no thought of making them -pose and lie as Men of Feeling. He had no joy in setting their little -bodies to toil--in making them "teach a lesson to the spectator," in -making them stoop their little shoulders to the "picking of hemp." - -He continued to paint as he had always painted--except that he painted -less well. The wreath of roses was wilting on a grey head. The blood -jigged less warmly in the frail body. The features showed pallid--the -eyes haggard. The sight failed. The hand alone kept something of its -cunning. - -He went to Holland with his friend Randon du Boisset, but health -shrank farther from him. Diderot had near spent his last jibe. - -In 1768, Boucher's sixty-fifth year, the neglected queen went to her -grave. The king's grief and contrition and vows to amend his life came -too late, and lasted little longer than the drying of the floods of -tears over the body of his dead consort. A year later he was become -the creature of a pretty woman of the gutters, whom he caused to be -married to the Count du Barry--the infamously famous Madame du Barry. - -But neither the remonstrances of Choiseul with the king against this -further degradation of the throne of France, nor his unconcealed scorn -of the upstart countess, nor the dangerous enemy he made for himself -thereby, signified now to Boucher, first painter to the king. - -Boucher was failing. His son was a prig and a disappointment. His two -favourite pupils, Baudoin and Deshayes, who had married his two girls, -died. - -To the Salon of 1769 he sent his "Caravan of Bohemians." It was his -last display. He had been going about for some time like a gaunt ghost -of his former self, afflicted with all the ills inevitable to a life -feverishly consumed in work and the pursuit of pleasure. - -They went to his studio at five of the clock one May morning, and -found him seated at his easel, before a canvas of Venus, dead, with -the paint-filled brush fallen out of his fingers. - -So passed he away on the 30th of May 1770, in his sixty-seventh year. - - * * * * * - -When Boucher died, the generation of which he was the limner was near -come to its violent end. The rosy carnivals and gay gallantries of his -age gave way to the blood-stained romance and fierce tempest of the -Revolution. The garrets of the old curiosity-shops received the -discarded canvases of the master. His shepherds and shepherdesses were -put to rout by the Romans of his pupil, citizen David. The old order -was brought into contempt and overthrown. And with it, Boucher's art, -like much that was gracious and charming and good in the evil thing, -went down also, and was overwhelmed for a while. - -For a while only. For just as, out of the blood and terror of the -Revolution, a real France arose, phoenix-wise, from the ruin, and in -being born, whilst putting off the vilenesses of the thing from which -she sprang, took on also to herself the gracious and winsome qualities -that place her amongst the most fascinating peoples of the ages; so -Boucher has come into his kingdom again--the most gracious of painters -that the years have yielded. - - -The plates are printed by BEMROSE & SONS, LTD., Derby and London - -The text at the BALLANTYNE PRESS, Edinburgh - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOUCHER*** - - -******* This file should be named 41947.txt or 41947.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/1/9/4/41947 - - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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