FRANCE IN 1884, AS SEEN AT THE SALON. If the pictures of a nation reflect the life of that nation, there is much to encourage all well-wishers to France in the year's work embraced within the Paris Salon. A wrong impression of French art would readily be received if one trusted to the reproductions of sculpture and paintings in the shop-windows of the Rue de Rivoli. Photographs, while often useful and agreeable, not infrequently misrepresent the essential character of a painting and vulgarize statuary. Oh flesh, flesh, how art thou' falsified when the sun reproduces in cold, crude light and unsubtle, blurred shade, the rich warm tones of the painter, and the lines of beauty which linger on clay or marble from the sculptor's hand! But if, going say from the Palais Royal straight to the Champs Elysées, by voiture or omnibus, the first experience of the Salon is gained within the borders of the Palais de l'Industrie, the English amateur will not fail to be struck with certain great qualities there manifest. Such are (1) FRESHNESS, (2) VIGOUR, (3) ORIGINALITY OF SUBJECT, (4) LOFTINESS OF SENTIMENT, and (5) POETIC FEELING. (1) One would scarcely expect great FRESHNESS in a Scripture subject from the easel of a French artist, but this quality is very manifest in M. Paul Leroy's Mardochée, in which the venerable Jew is exciting the ire of Haman by declining to bend the knee before, or to adore the proud Vizier. The picture is full of the light and shade which is indicative of powerful sunlight; its costumes, architectural surroundings and the accessories are evidently archaically and locally correct, and the delineation of character in Haman, at the head of his retinue, about to ascend the palatial staircase, and in Mordecai, dignified and placid, seated on a coping at the foot of the staircase, is full of power, and the whole design manifests freshness of conception. (2) For VIGOUR nothing exhibited this season at either the English or French capital can equal the forceful work of M. Luminais's Fuite de Gradlon. The canvas represents two horses plunging through the sea towards the spectator. On one is the venerable King; on the other a priest. From that on which the King rides a young girl is being pushed into the water. In the distance is a city being over-flooded by the ocean. Here is the story. The Bretonne King, surprised in his city by the rising of the sea, has only time to save himself, his daughter, and the priest, St. Gwenolé, on horseback. As they strain every nerve to reach the safe shore, the priest says to the King, Disembarrass yourself of the demon you carry on the croup, for it is she who, by her disorderly behaviour, has brought down upon us the anger of Heaven.' Whereupon the King, recognising in the voice of St. Gwenolé the voice of God, had the courage to cast his daughter from him at a place known to this day as Douarnenez.' The vigour in this picture in splendid animal action, in the rush of the waves, and in the fear, anxiety, and determination of purpose impressed for the moment on the various faces of the riders in this rendering of an early Christian tragedy, is almost terrific. The animus of the priest, too, and the superstition of the King, indicate that even in the sixth century men had learnt to make the yoke of Christ anything but an easy one. (3) For ORIGINALITY OF SUBJECT one naturally looks to M. Cormon. When the artists of the Salon voted, in May last, for the exhibitor who should receive the gold medal of honour, the majority of their votes were given to M. Bouguereau, whose large, graceful, beautifully classic and poetical processional picture of La Jeunesse de Bacchus is certainly the great picture of the French season, though not with sufficient unanimity to secure its award. One of those who ran him most closely was M. Cormon, who, with great freshness and vigour of style, has marked out for himself a wholly novel line of subject, He has aimed at painting pictures of prehistoric man, and has received a commission from the Museum at St. Germain-en-Laye for a series which, as far as scientific knowledge and poetic imagination will admit, shall convey to the modern popular mind some idea of a remote and not wholly artless condition of man. His Retour d'une Chasse à l'Ours is one of this series, and is a work of great power and vigour. It represents a group of Troglodytes, or 'cave' men, coming into the cavernous common home, and laying at the feet of a very old man, who is seated on a rough kind of throne, the bear which they have killed. To the right, interested in the proceedings, are the stay-athomes, among whom are some women, who, for fine proportions, dignity of bearing, and beauty of feature-faces with anything but protrusive jaws, as scientists would have us believe-almost dwarf even M. Du Maurier's type of female loveliness. This picture may be of little anthropological value; but it marks a point of departure, both in subject and artistic treatment, from the classicalism which has prevailed largely in France since the days of Vien and David, on a road in which the artist will have many followers, as is evident from the fact that he ran so hard one of the most correctly classical artists now living in the contest for the place of honour. (4) The superficial observer and casual passer-by would scarcely attribute to French artists LOFTINESS OF SENTIMENT, moral or otherwise. And yet there are numerous pictures here which appeal even to eminent Christian feeling. M. Adan's large and dreary-toned picture, painted after the manner of Mr. Boughton's grey skies and rainy roads, of L'Abandonnée, is one of the least of these. The poor sorrowing and forsaken girl, with a baby on her arm, trudging, in the early morning, away from home out into the cold and friendless world, points effectively the moral of the inequality of the sexes before the law and in the eyes of charity. The injunction to give, if only a cup of cold water for Christ's sake, is exemplified in the Légende de St. Julien l'Hospitalier, by M. Bordes. It represents the old saint, in his narrow dwelling, and with his scanty means, intent upon an act of charity towards the poor, suffering, footsore traveller who has sought a refuge and refreshment at his door. Who, looking upon the weary and jaded stranger, could have seen in him aught but a man of sorrows and privations? Lift up your eyes from the bread and the platter, O Julien, good Julien ! look up and see to whom you minister! Dreamt ye that Christ Himself would sup with ye to-day? Perhaps He would sup oftener with men if they would only let Him. A finely conceived and executed picture, illustrative of another Christian virtue, that of laying down one's life, if need be, for others, is that by M. L. Mélingue of Desgenettes s'inoculant la Peste. It represents a little group of doctors in the midst of numerous patients, in an Eastern plague hospital, who are dead or dying. The realism in the depiction of these poor wretches is very painful. But the effect of the picture as a whole is painless, for the central figure, a splendidly healthy and intellectual specimen of manhood, having bared his breast, is, with a steady nerve and an untrembling eye, in the act of injecting the poison into his own system. The philanthropic character of the experiment is self-evident, and the motive of the picture is therefore as admirable as is its accomplishment, which is saying much. (5) The number of pictures at the Salon characterized by POETIC FEELING is legion; but there is one by M. E. A. Bretona picture by whom, we believe, was an unhappily rejected one at the Royal Academy this year-which calls for special reference because it is simply saturated with poetry, as were the works of the late George Mason and Millet. It is entitled 'Le vieux Monde qui s'en va.' A sun sinking beyond the trees; an old man wearily descending the darkening way; and an ancient tower crumbling in decay. Thus every day is seen the old world passing away, but not every day is found an artist who can unfold the sweet poetry of such mutations of temporal things. In this article we can but briefly and slightly indicate the greatness of the year's art-products of France. But in the greatness of those products, and in the greatness of the national qualities which they exemplify, may be discerned a near future of healthier and more peaceful national life for and within the great French Republic. SYDNEY ROBJOHNS. TWO WAYS OF SHOWING KINDNESS. THERE are two ways of showing kindness. There are some kind-hearted estimable people who cannot see sorrow nor hear of it without pity, and probably without some endeavour to mitigate it. Misery is a painful sight, and like other painful sights, they would fain have it removed. But they have no thought of coming into close contact with it; let others deal with it, not them; let others touch the offensive thing. They will give their money to help, but they will not let the smooth and easy course of their daily life be disturbed by personal dealings with misery and woe. There are others whose kindness is of a different quality. They are in their element when searching out misery and relieving it. The cry of woe, so repulsive to others, is, in a sense, an attraction to them. Wherever there is distress they take it home to their hearts; they make it their own, they live to lessen it. They identify themselves with the sufferers, they are ever thinking of them, they cannot rest till they are relieved. How often in middle-class circles do we hear of some good woman-a maiden aunt or widow, it may be-of gentle, loving sympathy, sure to hasten to the scene when by sickness or death any family in the circle lies overwhelmed! How often, among the poor, do we find some active, handy, warm-hearted neighbour whom all that know her instinctively seek for in times of distress! "The world's a room of sickness, where each heart Knows its own anguish and unrest. The truest wisdom there, and noblest art Is his who skills of comfort best; Whom, by the softest step and gentlest tone, Enfeebled spirits own, And love to raise the languid eye When, like an angel's wing, they feel him fleeting by.' There is a very great difference between these two ways of showing kindness. On the one hand, placing the distress of another outside yourself, pitying it, no doubt, but still giving it a wide berth, as if you would rather anything than that it should come near to you; and on the other hand, taking it inside your own heart, bearing the burden of it, and exerting yourself to mitigate or remove it, as if it were your own personal sorrow. How priceless are friends of this order to those who are in trouble! how quickly they are recognised, how intensely they are loved!-The Rev. Professor W. G. Blaikie, D. D., in 'The Quiver' for June. A GOOD Conscience is to the soul what health is to the body: it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us, and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can possibly befall us.-Addison. |