the sadness of the country, its monotonous desolation, as well as its
repose. The pictures in themselves are almost narrative; the wide slopes
of bare meadow after harvesting, the sombre note of little pine-clusters
on a sandy hill, and the melancholy of the dyke lands, his own country
has spoken to him as a mother to a son who understood and who will
interpret her well. See the “Ruisseau en Picardie,” “Lac en Picardie,”
“Route près d’Equihen,” “Moonlight at Equihen.” It is into these
sympathetic surroundings that he introduced the studies he cared to make
of human life, Biblical subjects and a few classic themes. These are not
anachronisms, strictly speaking, but show a modern spirit, which places
his conception of Christ amongst men and women of to-day, as Rembrandt
placed his religious pictures in the land of his birth, which makes the
divine legend suddenly appear in the centre of the Norman wheat-field,
or sends Mary and Joseph with the Holy Child by moonlight from a little
provincial farm in Picardy. Tobias by a French riverside walks with a
celestial visitor. Judith is a woman of the people, and nothing but the
essence of tradition may be read in Cazin’s popularising of Bible story,
in his introduction of Hebraic legend to the scenes and actors of
humble, everyday peasant life. His painting of “Judith” was originally
intended for the Gobelin manufactories.
Despite the fact that his mind was full of his historic and epic legend,
and that dramatic subjects constantly presented themselves to his
attention as schemes for pictures, his trend towards landscape was too
strong, and it is extremely interesting to observe this impassioned
hero-worshipper carried toward his dreamy, peaceful current which became
his inevitable course. As the painter of lovely landscapes, Cazin is
known chiefly as the portrayer of moon-setting and falling rain on a
far, unknown country side.
Some one has said, “Turn a hundred painters loose in France before their
respective bents have been decided--and ninety-nine will be landscape
painters.”
So paintable is the French country, so seductive to the senses and
imagination, that the land germinates and brings forth the very finest
fruit of open-air painting: witness Troyon, Daubigny, Corot, Lorrain,
Poussin, Puvis de Chavannes, Cazin.
Cazin had a magnificent head. His eyes were blue, his features finely
chiselled and strong. His manners were most charming, and he was widely
beloved.
[Illustration: THE HOLY FAMILY]
Properly speaking, no school perishes with the death of Cazin, although,
strangely enough, no master displayed greater avidity to inculcate
principles of art. Despite his pedagogic passion Cazin leaves behind him
no disciples who menace his fame. His art was too personal and varied to
permit of a school’s foundation.
[Illustration: THE END OF THE VILLAGE]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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