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From the Pincio, Salvator Rosa was generally accompanied home by the most distinguished persons, both for talent and rank; and while the frugal Poussin was lighting out some reverend prelate or antiquarian with one sorry taper, Salvator, the prodigal Salvator, was passing the evening in his elegant gallery, in the midst of princes, nobles, and men of wit and science, where he made new claims on their admiration, both as an artist and as an improvisatore; for till within a few years of his death he continued to recite his own poetry, and sing his own compositions to the harpsichord or lute.
If so, in the name of Napoleon and Louis XIV, but, let us hope, with the science and restraint of Poussin and Ingres, they will turn, most likely, to the classical tradition and, while endeavouring to create significant form, will assert vehemently that they are expressing their political convictions. Sooner or later the critic who wishes to be taken seriously must say his word about Derain.
"In growing old," he said, "I feel myself becoming more and more inflamed with the desire of surpassing myself and reaching the highest degree of perfection." Thus toiling, struggling, and suffering, Poussin spent his later years.
He was by that time thirty years old, and had no more desire than Claude to return to France, where painting was with difficulty beginning to obtain a standing. His reputation, however, had penetrated thither. King Louis XIII. was growing weary of Simon Vouet's factitious lustre; he wanted Le Poussin to go to Paris. The painter for a long while held out; the king insisted.
So, by insisting on the fact that Matisse, Cézanne, Poussin, Piero, and Giotto are all in the tradition we insist on the fact that they are all artists. We rob them of their amusing but adscititious qualities; we make them utterly uninteresting to precisely 99.99 per cent. of our fellow-creatures; and ourselves we make unpopular.
Here's my honored Potiphar, who has this morning been taken to a darkened room in a grand old house, in a lonely, aristocratic street; and there a picture-agent has shown him a splendid Nicolas Poussin, painted in his prime for the family, whose heir in reduced circumstances must now part with it at a tearful sacrifice.
Whereas most of the great and many of the secondary English writers, thinkers, and artists have been great "characters," the slightly monotonous good sense and refinement of French literary and artistic life is broken only by a few such massive or surprising figures as those of Rabelais, La Fontaine, Poussin, Rousseau, Flaubert, Cézanne a formidable list but a short one, to which, however, a few names could be added.
Nor did either of these two contribute anything to the glory of their country by practice or by precept within its confines, both of them passing most of their lives and painting their best works in Italy and under Italian influence. NICHOLAS POUSSIN was born at Villiers near Les Andelys on the banks of the Seine, in 1594, where he studied for some time under Quentin Varin till he was eighteen.
Brown, Mr. Wilde, and Mr. Mueller, who have smitten me with vast admiration within these few days past, while I am continually turning away disappointed from the landscapes of the most famous among the old masters, unable to find any charm or illusion in them. Yet I suppose Claude, Poussin, and Salvator Rosa must have won their renown by real achievements.
I do not pretend to be a judge of pictures, but I fancy I appreciate an original idea when I see it, and I thought that this picture might answer my purpose. "What is the price of the painting?" I asked. "Well, sir," said he, "to you, as a man of influence, I will fix the price of this great painting, from a comparatively unknown work of Gaspar Poussin, at four dollars and a half."
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