This time, when Dr. Potain examined him, he could no longer deceive himself as to the artist's fate; he saw that his patient was irremediably condemned7. However, a sojourn8 in a milder[Pg 67] climate might prolong his life for a few months; so he advised Algeria. The prospect9 of the journey, the desire to make the acquaintance of this land of sunshine which Delacroix, Decamps, and Fromentin had taught him to love, for a few days gave a false strength to the poor sufferer, which produced a deceptive10 appearance of renewed health and even deceived the artist himself. Besides, Mme. Bastien-Lepage, the "good little mother," was to accompany him, and this unselfish and tender devotion warmed his heart. The poor woman forced back her tears in order to smile upon the unfortunate son whom she knew to be doomed11. And so the pitiful pair set forth12 for the land of sunshine, she consumed with grief, and he almost joyous13 in the hope of a speedy cure.
His first letters to his friends bore the imprint14 of good spirits; Algeria aroused his enthusiasm by its clear and vibrant15 colours; his disease declared a brief truce16 and he began to form projects. The thought of dying had not yet even[Pg 68] vaguely17 occurred to him, though, for that matter, he had no fear of death. The previous year he had painted Gambetta on his Death-bed; and his frequent visits to Ville-d'Avray led him to discuss the inevitable18 end of life. "I am not afraid of death," he said, "dying is nothing,—the important thing is to survive oneself, and who can be sure of establishing a claim upon posterity19? But there! I am talking nonsense! So long as our work is true, nothing else matters."
But before long the ravages20 of the disease began to make headway; the kidneys no longer performed their function, and he suffered atrocious agonies which stretched him for days at a time on his back. Even the burning heat of the African sun no longer had strength enough to animate21 his shattered physique; the brush, which the artist from time to time still attempted to take up, fell from between his fingers. He, Bastien-Lepage, painter of the soil, found himself unable to transfer[Pg 71] to canvas the enchantment22 of that land of fairy tale! And he poured forth his distress23 in long and poignant24 letters, in which could be read in every line the loss of hope and the sure prevision of the now inevitable end.
PLATE VIII PLATE VIII.—THE ARTIST'S UNCLE
(Museum at Verdun)
Here is still another kindly25 and vigorous face from Lorraine, forcefully modelled, with salient jaw26 bones, betraying the obstinacy27 of the race. An air of good nature softens28 the energy of this face, and the eyes sparkle with intelligence. This portrait is treated in a free-handed manner, with unfaltering strokes, and its colouring is especially excellent.
As no amelioration took place, Bastien-Lepage made the return journey to Paris towards the end of May, 1884. He went back to his studio in the Rue Legendre, where he had formerly29 passed such happy hours in the full enjoyment30 of a talent at its zenith and a constitution apparently31 able to defy all tests. Now, however, he dragged around a dying body, with disease gnawing32 at his vitals. He could no longer sleep without the aid of powerful doses of morphine. The winter-time increased his suffering; his strength rapidly failed him; and, on the tenth of December, at six o'clock in the evening, he drew his last breath, at the age of thirty-six years.
As long as he could hold a brush, Bastien-Lepage continued to work, in spite of the sufferings[Pg 72] which racked him. During the year preceding his death, while he was already experiencing frightful33 tortures, he painted The Woman making Lye and The Little Chimney-sweep, the latter of which is here reproduced. This admirable canvas is to be seen now at the studio of the painter's brother at Neuilly, and forms part of the legacy34 which M. émile Bastien-Lepage intends to bequeath to the Louvre. It has never been shown at any Salon35, and for that matter there are a good many other paintings and portraits which have never been exhibited in public and which are not for that reason any the less remarkable36. We may cite at random37: The Portrait of M. é. Bastien-Lepage, The Prince of Wales, Mme. Juliette Drouet, A Little Girl going to School, The Little Pedler asleep, The Vintage, No Help! The Thames at London, etc.
The very year of his death, shortly before his departure for Algeria, Bastien-Lepage executed a delicious little canvas entitled The Forge, in which[Pg 73] the artist expended38 a surprising amount of talent and skill, and which enables us to realize what extraordinary heights his ever progressive genius might have attained39, but for the blind and brutal40 cruelty of Destiny.
His death was a time of mourning for the arts; the regrets which he left behind him were unanimous. Even those who had been opposed to his aesthetic41 creed42 paid homage43 to his great conscientiousness45 as an artist and his noble character as a man.
During March and April, 1885, only a few months after his death, all literary and artistic46 Paris flocked to the Hotel de Chimay, an adjunct to the école des Beaux-Arts, where a posthumous47 exhibition of his works had been organized.
At this exhibition the entire body of his works had been brought together. The museums had loaned the canvases which they possessed48 and the private collectors had done their share towards the glorification49 of the artist by entrusting50 to the[Pg 74] organizers a goodly number of paintings and portraits which had never figured in any of the Salons51.
Thus it was made possible to comprehend at a single glance the life-work of this remarkable artist and to appreciate the distance he had traversed, the progress he had made during his brief existence, and the brilliant prospects52 that were destroyed by his untimely death.
From all these numerous works, exhibited side by side, what stood out most clearly was the unity53 of thought which had conceived them and the dogged fidelity54 to principles which had controlled their execution. At the same time they revealed the amazing adaptability55 of his talent, which essayed the most diverse and conflicting subjects with the same realistic vigour56, bestowing57 even upon his vaporous and delicate portraits of women a touch which, while light, is unmistakably his own, and in which we recognize that noble, conscientious44 workmanship, free from all artifice58, which[Pg 75] was the distinctive59 hall-mark both of his painting and of his character.
But the quality which dominates all the rest in the work of Bastien-Lepage, and which emanates60 from it like the fragrance61 which is exhaled62 by certain precious essences, is his ardent63 and deep-rooted love for his native soil. This form of local patriotism64, determined65 by the boundaries of Lorraine, underwent a noble expansion to the point of encircling the entire earth; for while the painter chose his models out of the familiar landscape of his childhood's home, his observation and his art broke out of the bounds of this special setting and embraced rustic66 humanity throughout France and even beyond. His peasants are unmistakably from the banks of the Meuse in type and in customs, but they are from the world at large in gesture and in philosophy of life. Whether he comes from the North or from the South, the tiller of the soil wages the same conflict with ungrateful furrows67, the spade and the plough[Pg 76] imprint the same calluses on his bony hands, the sun browns his energetic and stubborn features to the same deep tan. It is in this respect that the art of Bastien-Lepage assumes a higher significance; like Millet68, it is not a peasant whom he paints, but the peasant, forever unchanging in spite of latitude69. But if his work has attained this higher eminence70 of generalization71, it is precisely72 for the reason that the artist's watchful73 eye has succeeded in discovering, in the life of the peasantry, that state of mind which is common to them all, that immutable74 gesture which they have always made and always will make. He has understood and translated with inspired eloquence75 their rugged76 strength, their na?ve awkwardness, their simple intelligence.
Another glorious distinction of Bastien-Lepage was that he loved the fields as well as he loved the peasants. Not fields drowned beneath melancholy shadow and pallid77 shifting light, but fields bathed in sunshine, until the golden tassels78 of the grain[Pg 77] crackle like sparks under the fire of the midday sun. Always and everywhere he sought for light, and in the midst of it his modest protagonists79 of rustic life stand out in all their vigour.
It would be easy to cite, among our best contemporary painters, a considerable number of artists who are brilliantly continuing the tradition left by Bastien-Lepage and emulating80 his predilection81 for the luminous82 brilliance83 of the open air. How often, in the presence of a canvas by Lhermitte, our thoughts go back to the painter of Lorraine, whose vigorous execution and joyous colouring seem to have been reincarnated84! Art is indebted to Bastien-Lepage for having reinstated nature in all her literal truth by proving that, in order to be beautiful, she has no need of artificial and superfluous85 adornment86.
Lorraine, out of gratitude87, wished to perpetuate88 the memory of this glorious son of the Meuse, who had so eloquently89 celebrated91 the vitality92 and poetry of his natal93 earth. It was at Damvillers[Pg 78] itself that it was decided94 to raise a monument to the great painter; and around its pedestal there were gathered the "good little mother," all in tears, the assembled population of the village and the whole region round about, and even the Government took part in the pious95 ceremony by sending as its representative M. Gustave Larroumet, director of the Beaux-Arts. This eloquent90 art critic brought as a tribute to the departed painter the official seal of immortality96, and he pronounced it in terms vibrant with emotion.
"At the moment," he said, "when ordinarily the best of artists have done no more than to give indications of their originality97 and when ripening98 years alone begin to keep the promises of youth, Jules Bastien-Lepage died, leaving masterpieces behind him, besides having liberated99 an artistic formula from the tendencies and exaggerations which hampered100 it, and indicated to the art of painting a new pathway along which his young[Pg 79] heirs are advancing with an assured step. He loved nature and truth; he loved his own people, and no one ever lived who was surrounded with a greater degree of affection; he inspired faithful friendships which he himself enjoyed to the full; and those whom he left behind soothe101 their heart-ache with the balm of tender memories; he practised his art without ever making sacrifice to passing fashion or sordid102 profit; there was no place in his mind or in his heart for any other than noble and generous thoughts. Let us comfort ourselves, therefore, for what his death has taken from us by the thought of what his life has left to us, and let us assign him his place in the ranks of the younger master painters who have been mown down in full flower, close beside that of Géricault and of Henri Regnault."
In his admirable biographic and critical study of Bastien-Lepage, whose personal friend he had been, M. L. de Fourcaud, by way of conclusion, bids him this touching103 farewell:[Pg 80]
"Poor Bastien-Lepage, snatched away one winter's night, at thirty-six years of age, in the fairest flowering of his bright promise, in the richest expansion of his personality; may each returning month of May bring at least an abundance of blossoms to the apple tree beside his grave! For the blossoms of the apple were always, in his eyes, so fair a sight!"
To-day he sleeps forever in a corner of that Lorraine land which he loved so dearly, and perhaps in the cemetery104 of his native village his shade can still hear the familiar accents of his native dialect. The great painter of Lorraine could never have slept his eternal sleep in any other soil than that.
Painter of flowers, painter of nature, painter of the earth which is forever deathless and forever renewed, Bastien-Lepage has chosen that better part; his work will live as long as these, his models, and will go down through the centuries in all the splendour of increasing beauty and eternal youth.
The End
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incur
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| vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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irritable
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| adj.急躁的；过敏的；易怒的 | |
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rue
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| n.懊悔，芸香，后悔；v.后悔，悲伤，懊悔 | |
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bowels
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| n.肠，内脏，内部；肠( bowel的名词复数 )；内部，最深处 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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sojourn
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| v./n.旅居，寄居；逗留 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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deceptive
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| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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joyous
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| adj.充满快乐的；令人高兴的 | |
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imprint
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| n.印痕，痕迹；深刻的印象；vt.压印，牢记 | |
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vibrant
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| adj.震颤的，响亮的，充满活力的，精力充沛的，(色彩)鲜明的 | |
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truce
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| n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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animate
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| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
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enchantment
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| n.迷惑，妖术，魅力 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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softens
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| （使）变软( soften的第三人称单数 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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gnawing
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| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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frightful
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| adj.可怕的；讨厌的 | |
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legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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salon
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| n.[法]沙龙；客厅；营业性的高级服务室 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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expended
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| v.花费( expend的过去式和过去分词 )；使用（钱等）做某事；用光；耗尽 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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conscientious
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| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
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conscientiousness
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| 责任心 | |
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artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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posthumous
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| adj.遗腹的；父亡后出生的；死后的，身后的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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glorification
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| n.赞颂 | |
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entrusting
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salons
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| n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅 | |
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prospects
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unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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adaptability
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| n.适应性 | |
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vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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artifice
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| n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计 | |
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distinctive
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| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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emanates
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| v.从…处传出，传出( emanate的第三人称单数 )；产生，表现，显示 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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exhaled
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| v.呼出，发散出( exhale的过去式和过去分词 )；吐出（肺中的空气、烟等），呼气 | |
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ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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patriotism
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| n.爱国精神，爱国心，爱国主义 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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millet
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| n.小米，谷子 | |
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latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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generalization
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| n.普遍性，一般性，概括 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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watchful
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| adj.注意的，警惕的 | |
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immutable
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| adj.不可改变的，永恒的 | |
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eloquence
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| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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pallid
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| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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tassels
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| n.穗( tassel的名词复数 )；流苏状物；（植物的）穗；玉蜀黍的穗状雄花v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的第三人称单数 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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protagonists
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| n.（戏剧的）主角( protagonist的名词复数 )；（故事的）主人公；现实事件（尤指冲突和争端的）主要参与者；领导者 | |
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emulating
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| v.与…竞争( emulate的现在分词 )；努力赶上；计算机程序等仿真；模仿 | |
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predilection
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| n.偏好 | |
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luminous
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| adj.发光的，发亮的；光明的；明白易懂的；有启发的 | |
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83
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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84
reincarnated
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| v.赋予新形体，使转世化身( reincarnate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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85
superfluous
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| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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86
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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87
gratitude
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| adj.感激，感谢 | |
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88
perpetuate
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| v.使永存，使永记不忘 | |
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89
eloquently
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| adv. 雄辩地(有口才地, 富于表情地) | |
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90
eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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91
celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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92
vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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93
natal
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| adj.出生的，先天的 | |
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94
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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95
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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96
immortality
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| n.不死，不朽 | |
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97
originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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98
ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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99
liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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100
hampered
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| 妨碍，束缚，限制( hamper的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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101
soothe
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| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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102
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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103
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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104
cemetery
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| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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