In 1852, the date when his real career began, Puvis de Chavannes was twenty-eight years of age. He was at this time a handsome young fellow, tall of stature and large of frame, quick-witted, jovial and enthusiastic, and combining the whole-souled simplicity of the artist with the polished manners of a man of the world, inherited from his father. Many people conceive of Puvis de Chavannes as melancholy and sombre. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was fond of all the joys of living, friendly gatherings, abundant good cheer. But what he prized above all, thanks to the perfect balance of his physique, was the ability to apply his robust health to incessant work, which he pursued without intermission up to the day of his death. In 1850, Puvis de Chavannes made his début by sending to the Salon a _Pietà_, which was accepted. His joy was great, for it was the joy of the first step. Later on, his satisfaction in that picture diminished. It had certain defects, and gave evidence of inexperience, which the young painter was quick to perceive. That same year he painted _Jean Cavalier at the bed-side of his Mother_, and an _Ecce Homo_, bold in execution and violent in tone. [Illustration: PLATE III.--THE POOR FISHERMAN (In the Musée de Luxembourg, Paris) No one else, excepting Millet, had the skill to render with so much truth the physical and moral distress of the unfortunate. This resigned fisherman, bending his back under the inclement sky, is a veritable masterpiece, both in execution and in observation.] In 1852, the pictures which he submitted to the Salon were rejected by the jury, and this ostracism continued for several years. It was an epoch when every effort towards artistic independence was officially and systematically repressed. The young artist was not alone in disfavour; he shared it with a number of his friends, some of whom were already famous, or at least well known. Equally with himself, Courbet, Dupré, Barye, Rousseau, Millet, Troyon, Corot, Diaz and Delacroix found themselves ejected from the doors of the temple. In the eyes of the Academy, they were all of them madmen or revolutionaries; for his part, he was treated with less honour: he was regarded as a maniac of no importance. His exclusion lasted for nine years, during which the critics and the public united in making him the target for their sarcasms.