Bastien Lepage by Fr. Crastre

Author:Fr. Crastre [Crastre, Fr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-06-25T16:00:00+00:00

PLATE VII.—THE LITTLE CHIMNEY-SWEEP

(Collection of É. Bastien-Lepage)

This attractive picture, full of charm and vigour, belongs to the closing years of the artist's life, at the time when he was enjoying the flood tide of his talent. How much force and truth there is in this picture of the little chimney-sweep, and what graceful nimbleness in the movements of the cats that he is watching at play.

Nevertheless Jeanne d'Arc listening to the Voices was rather badly received by the critics. Without disputing the originality and vigour of the inspired shepherdess, they reproached the artist for the presence of the traditional saints. Bastien-Lepage had indicated these under the form of luminous vapour, radiating through the branches overhanging the garden: St. Michael in the golden armour of a knight of the fifteenth century, St. Margaret and St. Catherine as phantoms so diaphanous as to be hardly perceptible. The idealists complained that the picture was lacking in idealism; the realists were somewhat disconcerted to find the apparitions there at all. It must be acknowledged that Bastien-Lepage ceases to be himself the moment that he ventures to attempt the supernatural or even allegory pure and simple. He feels that he is no longer on familiar ground, he hesitates, he fumbles, and the harmony of the work suffers in consequence. Nevertheless, in spite of this undeniable defect, the face of Jeanne d'Arc will be remembered as a piece of powerful painting and genuine inspiration.

At all events, Bastien-Lepage was keenly aware of the half-way nature of his success, and from that day renounced forever the element of the marvellous and confined himself to that concrete and tangible poetry which emanates from the earth.

Some little time after his Jeanne d'Arc, he produced The Mendicant, veteran knight of the road, whose lazy life is passed in going from door to door, asking charity and compelling it if need be; suspicious looking old tramp, perhaps a thief as well, who inspires fear and whose sack is often filled through unwillingness to provoke him. The artist has pictured him with a stout stick in his hand, stowing away the slice of bread which a pretty slip of a girl in a blue apron has just given him. This fine and vigorous canvas scored almost as much of a success, at the Salon of 1881, as the admirable Portrait of Albert Wolff, a critic on the Figaro and close personal friend of the artist.

In 1882 he won a further success with his superb Father Jacques, a masterly study of the Lorraine peasant, and with his charming Portrait of Mme. W.

In 1883 came Love in a Village, one of his most popular canvases, in which he depicted with charming naturalness the uncomplicated and naïve courtship of rustic lovers. Here are a pair who are untroubled by curious glances; the nearer houses of the village are quite close by. Bending slightly towards his sweetheart, the man is murmuring his avowals in her ear, in a voice that, we suspect, is by no means steady.

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