Meissonier, his life and his art . STUDY OF A HOKSE. (Washed Drawing.) and the spot in which thescene takes place is veryfranlcly treated. Everythingis in its place ; the concep-tion is very modern, veryrealistic, yet by no meanstrivial. But is this a convincinQ^representation of S. Francisof Assisi ? Should the saint,so fervent and profound abeliever, be shown as thepuppet of a hallucination ?Impressive and striking asis the expression X. hasgiven him, is it quite theexpression he should have ?The life of this saint, ac-cording to the legend, was one long ecstasy. He should thereforeexpress r
Meissonier, his life and his art . STUDY OF A HOKSE. (Washed Drawing.) and the spot in which thescene takes place is veryfranlcly treated. Everythingis in its place ; the concep-tion is very modern, veryrealistic, yet by no meanstrivial. But is this a convincinQ^representation of S. Francisof Assisi ? Should the saint,so fervent and profound abeliever, be shown as thepuppet of a hallucination ?Impressive and striking asis the expression X. hasgiven him, is it quite theexpression he should have ?The life of this saint, ac-cording to the legend, was one long ecstasy. He should thereforeexpress rapture and adoration, but not amazement. In his , X. . imagines a sort of apparition of which there is norecord in the saints life. Anxious to reconcile the real and thesupernatural, hehas so treated histheme that the ap-parition impressesthe spectator andthe person in thepicture quite dif-ferently. To thelatter, it is a divinevisitant; to the for-mer only a shep-herd, and the au-reole, which to the. MEISSOMER ON HORSEBACK.(Pen Sketch.) I70 MEISSONIER saint is the token of the supernatural, to the spectator is merely thesunbeam playing about the fair hair and illumining it. . Here the painter encountered a rock which he was unable to daring to approach his subject boldly, from one point of viewor the other, he halts between two opinions, and so fails to give entiresatisfaction either to the devout or to the materialistic. He wavers,so to speak, between a genre picture and a religious picture. The painter should beware of these ambiguous artist should at once communicate his own inspiration to thespectator; he must not so treat his theme that we wonder what hisintention was. As I have already hinted, the aureole, which paintersuse only as a symbol of divine or holy persons, affirms the miracle onthe one hand, while the whole character of the picture seems to deny iton the other. The subject is nevertheless a fine one. I have seen few figur
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidmeissonierhislif00meis
