A History of Art for Beginners and Students by Clara Erskine Clement Waters (best novels for beginners TXT) 📕

that when he was dying he exclaimed, “How much I resemble the Grand Dauphin—son of a king, father of a king, and never a king myself!” In spite of his being less than his father or his son, he was a good painter of horses. When Horace Vernet was but fifteen years old he supported himself by drawing; he studied with Vincent, and drew from living models. In 1814 he showed such bravery at the Barriere of Clichy that he was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor: before he died he was a grand officer of the order on account of his artistic merits. He was also a member of the Institute and Director of the Academy of Rome.

His best works were executed in Rome, where he spent seven years; he travelled in Algiers, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Russia, and England, and was everywhere received with the honors which his genius merited. His works embraced a great variety of subjects, and it is said that he often finished his picture the first time he went over it, and did not retouch it. There is no doubt that in certain ways the excellence of Vernet has been overestimated, and he has been too much praised; but his remarkable memory, which enabled him truthfully to paint scenes he had witnessed, and his facility of execution, are worthy of honorable mention.

When twenty years old Vernet was married, and from this time he kept an expense account in which all the prices he received for his works are set down. The smallest is twenty-four sous for a tulip; the largest is fifty thousand francs for the portrait of the Empress of Russia.

About 1817 Vernet became the favorite of the Duke of Orleans, and was therefore unpopular with the royal party. In 1820 he had made himself so displeasing to the king by some lithographs which were scattered among the people, that it was thought best for him to leave Paris. However, he overcame all this, and four years later Charles X. sat to him for his portrait. From this time orders and money flowed in from all sides.

The Vernets had originated in Avignon, and in 1826, when the museum there was opened, Horace and his father were invited to be present. Every honor was shown them; poems were read in their praise; they were conducted to the home of their ancestors, which they piously saluted, and inscribed their names upon the door-posts. After they returned to Paris they received rich gifts in return for the pictures they had given to Avignon. The Gallery Vernet, which contains works by Antoine, François, Joseph, Carle, and Horace Vernet, is regarded as a sacred place by the people of that region.

When Horace Vernet was Director of the Academy in Rome he held salons weekly; they were very gay, and all people of distinction who lived in Rome or visited that city were seen at these receptions, dancing and amusing themselves in the lively French manner. But after 1830 he felt that the Villa Medici was a prison. He wished to follow the French army in the East, and three years later did go to Algiers. In the same year the king decided to convert the palace at Versailles into an historical museum, and from this time Vernet had but two ideas, the East and Versailles. Almost every work he did was connected with these two thoughts.

Louis Philippe now desired him to paint four battle-pieces; but Vernet objected that no room was large enough to please him: for this reason a floor was removed, two stories turned into one, and the grand Gallery of Battles made. At length he had a difficulty with the king and went to Russia; but hearing that his father was dying he returned to Paris, and was made welcome back to Versailles, where he was really necessary.

We cannot stay to recount the honors which were showered upon him, and which he always received with great modesty of demeanor. He went from one triumph to another until 1848, when the Revolution almost broke his heart; he worked on, but his happiness was over. In the great Exposition of 1855 he had a whole salon devoted to his works, and men from all the world came to see and to praise. He lived still eight years; he made pictures of incidents in the Crimean War; he painted a portrait of Napoleon III., but he wrote of himself: “When time has worn out a portion of our faculties we are not entirely destroyed; but it is necessary to know how to leave the first rank and content one’s self with the fourth.”

His industry and the amount of work he did are simply marvellous. He loved excitement and adventure, and the works which have these elements were his best—and he liked best to do them. His color cannot be praised; he had no lofty intellectual aims; he was clever to a high degree, but he was not great; he was one to whom the happy medium of praise should be given, for he neither merits severity of criticism nor immoderate praise; he was simply a gifted painter and “the greatest and last of the Vernets.”

He is also the last French painter of whom we shall speak, as we do not propose to take up the excellent artists of our own day, who would require a volume devoted strictly to themselves.