The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4): Revised edition continued by the author to the end of the XIX centuryMuther, Richard
History
The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4): Revised edition continued by the author to the end of the XIX century
Muther, Richard
Painting -- History
to be found? Naturally, there alone, where Rousseau had discovered them.
Rousseau taught that man by nature was good, that he was noble,
conscious of his moral obligations, self-sacrificing and uncorrupted
when he came from the hands of his Maker, and that it was civilisation
which first corrupted him. It followed that the most civilised are the
most corrupt, and virtues are to be met with, if anywhere, amongst the
lower orders, who are the least affected by culture. Not beneath an
embroidered waistcoat, only beneath a woollen smock, can a noble heart
beat. The happy ignorance of the young Savoyard, eating his cheese or
his oranges in a church porch, lies nearer to the original perfection of
mankind than the most subtle erudition of the most ingenious of the
encyclopædists. Amongst nature's noblemen one must seek for the secret
of virtue, which has been lost by the aristocracy in the stream of
civilisation. Thus beneath the ægis of Rousseau's philosophy the Third
Estate makes its entry into French salons. From the man of the people
society wanted to learn how to become once more simple, unassuming, and
virtuous; and it was a gruesome irony of fate that this "man of the
people" should reveal himself later, when the guillotine stood in the
Place de la Concorde, as by no means so lamblike, modest, and
self-sacrificing as that noble society had imagined him.
[Illustration: _Cassell & Co._
GREUZE. GIRL CARRYING A LAMB.]
_Greuze_ represented this phase of French art when the riotous carnival
of _rococo_ had come to an end, and the Ash Wednesday of rule and
fasting and penitence had ensued. It was considered that the aim of art
must be to instruct and elevate, not merely to amuse; it should set an
example to raise and inspire the good, to serve as a warning for the
bad. "_Rendre la vertu aimable, le vice odieux, le ridicule saillant,
voilà le projet de tout honnête homme qui prend la plume, le pinceau ou
le ciseau._" In these words Diderot formulated his programme. It was his
wish that the corrupt man, when he went to an exhibition, should feel
pricks of conscience at the pictures and read in them his own
condemnation. "_Si ses pas le conduisent au Salon, qu'il craigne
d'arrêter ses regards sur la toile._" Educational effects, "moral
stories told in pictures," that is the keynote of Diderot's demands upon
the painter, and of the accomplishment of Greuze in answer to this
claim. He is the French Hogarth, whether he paints in sombre colours the
misery that the drunkard brings upon his family, and the horrors of
poverty, or depicts in brighter tones the love of children for their
parents and the works of charity; and with him too, as with the
Englishman, his title was chosen with a didactic after-thought to
heighten the effect of his picture. Thus such scenes as these occurred:
"The Father's Curse," "The Consolation of Age," "The Son's Correction,"
"The Ungrateful Son," "The Beloved Mother," "The Spoilt Child," "The
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