Page 25 - Studio International - May 1972

and the manner of its presentation are of the horse: 'If the boat's mast, in the Poor Fisherman, Puvis de Chavannes... we shall be swamped,
utmost clarity. This is also true of the Poor was not inclined in the inhibitory direction.... crushed once again...'
Fisherman, where the narrative pretext is a this work would not express sadness — .'33 It is a "Painted 1887-89. According to Vachon (Puvis de
Chavannes, Paris 1895, p. 136), Puvis at first intended
fictitious one. 'I detest the novel illustrated in work which derives its great strength precisely to turn down the commission, finding no imaginative
oils', said Puvis, 'my only excuse is that I have from its simplicity. It was for a generation a stimulus in its theme. It should he noted, in view of
the misnomer 'frescoes' often applied to Puvis's
myself invented this vision of misery'.30 vital exemplum of the potential of a synthetic murals, that this, like all his decorative works, is Toile
It was of the Poor Fisherman that Cézanne is approach to painting,34 above all because it maroufiée, oil on canvas, glued to the wall.
said to have coined his mot: 'C'est bien imité !'31 presented with perfect clarity the equation, 14 See Nénot, La Nouvelle Sorbonne, Paris 1895, p. 9.
15Denis, Définition du Néo-Traditionnisme, 189o.
Puvis's abbreviated technique, which has an Subjective Emotion Synthetically Contrived, 16The first two works, Sainte Genevieve en Prière,
obvious motivation in large decorative works, Non-Naturalistic Style = a radically renewed Rencontre de Ste Genevieve et St Germain, done
though even there in complete contrast with the art. This was achieved by Puvis's detached 1874-78. The second pair, Ste Genevieve Ravitaille
Paris, Ste Genevieve veille sur Paris, 1897-98.
manner prevailing among his contemporaries, application of principles and technique " The last entry in Denis's published journal assumes
was particularly challenging as embodied in his suggested by common sense when challenged by a rather poignant note in this context. In Lyon in 1943
easel paintings after about 1880. The effect the demands of decorative art.35 he writes : 'unable to see the Puvis; they could have
is still startling when on the third floor of the I said above that Puvis's work still claims our taught me so much. A glimpse of the Sacred Grove:
Solidity.' (Denis, Journal, Paris 1959, vol. III, p. 242.
Louvre one passes through galleries full of attention `by virtue of its intrinsic merit'. That 18 Denis, Définition....
Corot and the Barbizon painters, to emerge in a merit must be felt. But one can try to outline its 190f the woodcutter in the Pantheon Ste Genevieve en
small room dominated by the Poor Fisherman conditions. These seem to me to be, firstly, an Priere, Puvis wrote 'Since I was obliged by the
composition to show [him] from behind, I tried to
and two versions of the Jeunes Filles au Bord de individual imaginative involvement with his make his attitude expressive of what his face would
la Mer." Moreau's work in the same room is themes. The emotional range is admittedly not reveal'. Quoted by Roger-Marx, Revue Encydopédique
obliterated. Indeed the juxtaposition is not a fair wide. Like César Franck, he tends toward 23 December 1899.
20 Medal of Honour at the Salon of 1882. The last of a
one. How would Puvis's pictures fare beside a chromatic melancholy, now intimate, now on a series of six major works, (the first pair dating from
Moreau of the truly encrusted variety, like heroic scale, but the note is always a personal 186,), decorating the Escalier d'Honneur and first
Jupiter and Semele, or even some of the late( ?) and a genuine one. Secondly, a style which can floor galleries at the Musee de Picardie.
21 In 1889 Puvis turned down a proposal from the
near-abstract oil-sketches ? How would Puvis's be objectively described as beautiful. Harmony, state that he execute a work which would be an
bland brushwork, his self-effacing, proportion, rhythm; these are aesthetic labels `apotheosis of the French Revolution'. The grounds
for his refusal were, however, that it would be
unmodulated colour, (in the Poor Fisherman which make sense when applied to his work. If impossible, with such a subject, to conceive 'une
there is not a single tonal variation in the whole we are embarrassed by such terms we are, (as oeuvre concise, claire et originate'. See Revue de Paris,
expanse of water), this poverty of form bear up Léger warned those who disliked the term loc. cit.
beside Moreau's 'erudite fancies, complicated `classicism'), the prisoners of our own times. "It is worth noting how Puvis differs from Millet in
this respect. (He was often compared with Millet in
nightmares, suave and sinister visions' (as Thirdly, this style, technically adapted to mural his lifetime.) Instead of individual pathos, a
Huysmans describes them in A Rebours) ? Or, painting, is at the same time imaginatively generalized optimism. Puvis denied having been
for that matter, beside the velvety blacks of adapted to his expressive intentions. Puvis was, influenced by Millet. See Vachon, op. cit., p. 115.
23 On the social ethos of Puvis's work, see Van
Redon's printers and drawings, the luminosity in fact, a classical painter, and his best work Gogh's letter W. 22, about Puvis's Inter Artes et
of his late pastels ? The current exhibition exemplifies that classic proposition of aesthetics, Naturam (Rouen) 'One gets the feeling of being
present at a rebirth, total but benevolent, of all the
may provide an answer. But it may be that content should be immanent in form, the things one should have believed in, should have
anticipated that the process noted by the ethic in the aesthetic. q wished for—a strange and happy mixture of very
symbolists will still be effective: the more distant antiquity and crude modernity...'
1 Published in the Revue de Paris, February 1911. 24 Salon 1872. (Not the version in the Louvre, where
ascetic the work becomes, in painterly terms,
2Péladan was referring specifically to Puvis's Victor the girl is nude, but another where she is chastely clad
the greater the 'significance' of that which is Hugo offrant sa Lyre a la Ville de Paris (1893), In the in white.)
retained. Thus Signac could ride his hobby- Paris Hotel de Ville. Quoted from L. Riotor, L'Art et " Salon 1879.
l'Idée, Paris 1896. " Salon 1881. In his salon review that year,
3He was born in 1824. He first exhibited at the Salon Huysmans came out with this qualified praise :
in 185o. He died in 1898 shortly after completing his ... although this picture disgusts me when I see it, I
second series of murals in the Pantheon. can't help being rather attracted by it when it is out
4 Not least due to the risk of losing sight of Puvis of sight' (L'Art Moderne' 1883, p. 178).
himself, when discussing his historical significance. 27 Revue de Paris, loc. cit.
R.L. Goldwater's Puvis de Chavannes: some reasons 28 See, e.g., the famous letter to Morice, Malingue
for a reputation (Art Bulletin 1946), was the first (revised ed.) No. CLXXIV.
attempt at a balanced summary of Puvis's importance "In Lautrec's parody of the Lyons Sacred Wood,
to his younger contemporaries. this figure is wittily, and aptly, substituted for
'E.g., in the Pantheon, Bonnat, Elie Delaunay, Melpomene, muse of Tragedy.
Détaille, J.-P. Laurens etc. Even more striking "Quoted by Roger-Marx, loc. cit.
contrasts between Puvis and his contemporaries can 31 Vollard, En Ecoutant Cézanne, Degas, Renoir, 1938,
be seen in the Paris Hotel de Ville. p. 5o.
6Duthuit, The Fauvist Painters, N.Y. 1946, p. 16. 32 The larger was at the Salon of 1879.
7Elsen, Rodin, N.Y. 1963, p. 123. 33 Signac, journal, 1935, in Gazette de Beaux-Arts,
'Degas to Rouart, 2 may 1882: [at the 1882 salon] July—September 1949. Seurat himself, in an enigmatic
Chavannes has the bad taste to show himself early oil-sketch, depicted Puvis's picture, on an easel,
perfectly dressed and proud, in a large portrait of in a landscape. His Baignade, Asnieres, was described
himself, done by Bonnat, with a fat dedication in the by one critic as a 'fake Puvis se Chavannes'.
sand, where he and a glass of water are posing (style 34 Gauguin to Bernard, Malingue LXXV: it's
Goncourt).' funny, Vincent wants to do Daumiers down here
9 Salon 1882. [Arles], me, on the other hand, I want to do coloured
10Among the categories in the visual arts advocated Puvis mixed with Japan'.
by Madan in the Rose + Croix Règle et Monitoire "Puvis had no proper formal training, though in the
(1891), were 'allegory, whether expressive, like late 184os he spent brief periods in the studios of
"modesty and vanity" or decorative like the work of Henri Scheffer, Delacroix, and Couture. Chassériau,
Puvis de Chavannes'. in whose studio he spent much time on an informal
" Writing in 1894 (article reprinted in his Peintres de basis during the fifties, was an important influence,
Jadis et d'Aujourd'hui Paris 1903), Wyzéwa, one of through his murals in the Cour des Comptes, on
the leading symbolist theoreticians, said : Puvis, Puvis's early work as a decorator. (See René Jullian,
unlike most painters, who paint in prose, attempts a L'oeuvre de jeunesse de Puvis de Chavannes, Gazette de
painting in verse ...' Beaux-Arts, Nov. 1938.) But by the 1880s he had left
12 Pissarro to Lucien, 7 Jan 1887, on the editorial this influence behind him. His mature style can fairly
policy of La Vogue: 'It seems they are counting on be described as essentially Sui Generis.