Pierre Grassou
by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
DEDICATION
To the Lieutenant-Colonel of Artillery, Periollas,
As a Testimony of the Affectionate Esteem of the Author,
De Balzac
PIERRE GRASSOU
Whenever you have gone to take a serious look at the
exhibition of
works of
sculpture and
painting, such as it has been since the
revolution of 1830, have you not been seized by a sense of uneasiness,
weariness,
sadness, at the sight of those long and over-crowded
galleries? Since 1830, the true Salon no longer exists. The Louvre has
again been taken by assault,--this time by a
populace of artists who
have maintained themselves in it.
In other days, when the Salon presented only the choicest works of
art, it conferred the highest honor on the creations there exhibited.
Among the two hundred selected
paintings, the public could still
choose: a crown was awarded to the
masterpiece by hands
unseen. Eager,
impassioned discussions arose about some picture. The abuse showered
on Delacroix, on Ingres, contributed no less to their fame than the
praises and fanaticism of their adherents. To-day, neither the crowd
nor the
criticism grows impassioned about the products of that bazaar.
Forced to make the
selection for itself, which in former days the
examining jury made for it, the attention of the public is soon
wearied and the
exhibition closes. Before the year 1817 the pictures
admitted never went beyond the first two columns of the long gallery
of the old masters; but in that year, to the great
astonishment of the
public, they filled the whole space. Historical, high-art, genre
paintings, easel pictures, landscapes, flowers, animals, and water-
colors,--these eight specialties could surely not offer more than
twenty pictures in one year
worthy of the eyes of the public, which,
indeed, cannot give its attention to a greater number of such works.
The more the number of artists increases, the more careful and
exacting the jury of
admission ought to be.
The true
character of the Salon was lost as soon as it spread along
the galleries. The Salon should have remained within fixed limits of
inflexible pro
portions, where each
distinct specialty could show its
masterpieces only. An experience of ten years has shown the excellence
of the former
institution. Now, instead of a
tournament, we have a
mob; instead of a noble
exhibition, we have a tumultuous bazaar;
instead of a choice
selection we have a chaotic mass. What is the
result? A great artist is swamped. Decamps' "Turkish Cafe," "Children
at a Fountain," "Joseph," and "The Torture," would have redounded far
more to his credit if the four pictures had been exhibited in the
great Salon with the hundred good pictures of that year, than his
twenty pictures could, among three thousand others, jumbled together
in six galleries.
By some strange
contradiction, ever since the doors are open to every
one there has been much talk of unknown and unrecognized
genius. When,
twelve years earlier, Ingres' "Courtesan," and that of Sigalon, the
"Medusa" of Gericault, the "Massacre of Scio" by Delacroix, the
"Baptism of Henri IV." by Eugene Deveria, admitted by celebrated
artists accused of
jealousy, showed the world, in spite of the denials
of
criticism, that young and
vigorous palettes existed, no such
complaint was made. Now, when the veriest dauber of
canvas can send in
his work, the whole talk is of
genius neglected! Where judgment no
longer exists, there is no longer anything judged. But whatever
artists may be doing now, they will come back in time to the
examination and
selection which presents their works to the admiration
of the crowd for whom they work. Without
selection by the Academy
there will be no Salon, and without the Salon art may perish.
Ever since the
catalogue has grown into a book, many names have
appeared in it which still remain in their native
obscurity, in spite
of the ten or a dozen pictures attached to them. Among these names
perhaps the most unknown to fame is that of an artist named Pierre
Grassou, coming from Fougeres, and called simply "Fougeres" among his
brother-artists, who, at the present moment holds a place, as the
saying is, "in the sun," and who suggested the rather bitter
reflections by which this
sketch of his life is introduced,--
reflections that are
applicable to many other individuals of the tribe
of artists.
In 1832, Fougeres lived in the rue de Navarin, on the fourth floor of
one of those tall, narrow houses which
resemble the obelisk of Luxor,
and possess an alley, a dark little
stairway with dangerous turnings,
three windows only on each floor, and, within the building, a
courtyard, or, to speak more
correctly, a square pit or well. Above
the three or four rooms occupied by Grassou of Fougeres was his
studio, looking over to Montmartre. This
studio was painted in brick-
color, for a
background; the floor was tinted brown and well frotted;
each chair was furnished with a bit of
carpet bound round the edges;
the sofa, simple enough, was clean as that in the bedroom of some
worthy bourgeoise. All these things denoted the tidy ways of a small
mind and the
thrift of a poor man. A
bureau was there, in which to put
away the
studio implements, a table for breakfast, a sideboard, a
secretary; in short, all the articles necessary to a
painter, neatly
arranged and very clean. The stove participated in this Dutch
cleanliness, which was all the more
visible because the pure and
little changing light from the north flooded with its cold clear beams
the vast
apartment. Fougeres, being merely a genre
painter, does not
need the
immense machinery and
outfit which ruin
historicalpainters;
he has never recognized within himself sufficient
faculty to attempt
high-art, and he
therefore clings to easel
painting.
At the
beginning of the month of December of that year, a season at
which the bourgeois of Paris
conceive, periodically, the burlesque
idea of perpetuating their forms and figures already too bulky in
themselves, Pierre Grassou, who had risen early, prepared his palette,
and lighted his stove, was eating a roll steeped in milk, and waiting
till the frost on his windows had melted
sufficiently to let the full
light in. The weather was fine and dry. At this moment the artist, who
ate his bread with that patient, resigned air that tells so much,
heard and recognized the step of a man who had upon his life the
influence such men have on the lives of nearly all artists,--the step
of Elie Magus, a picture-dealer, a usurer in
canvas. The next moment
Elie Magus entered and found the
painter in the act of
beginning his
work in the tidy
studio.
"How are you, old rascal?" said the
painter.
Fougeres had the cross of the Legion of honor, and Elie Magus bought
his pictures at two and three hundred francs
apiece, so he gave
himself the airs of a fine artist.
"Business is very bad," replied Elie. "You artists have such
pretensions! You talk of two hundred francs when you haven't put six
sous' worth of color on a
canvas. However, you are a good fellow, I'll
say that. You are steady; and I've come to put a good bit of business
in your way."
"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," said Fougeres. "Do you know Latin?"
"No."
"Well, it means that the Greeks never proposed a good bit of business
to the Trojans without getting their fair share of it. In the olden
time they used to say, 'Take my horse.' Now we say, 'Take my bear.'
Well, what do you want, Ulysses-Lagingeole-Elie Magus?"
These words will give an idea of the mildness and wit with which
Fougeres employed what
painters call
studio fun.
"Well, I don't deny that you are to paint me two pictures for
nothing."
"Oh! oh!"
"I'll leave you to do it, or not; I don't ask it. But you're an honest
man."
"Come, out with it!"