Boucher (Salon of 1765)

[54]

Butcher

I don't know what to say about this man. The degradation of taste, color, composition, character, expression, drawing, has followed step by step the depravity of morals. What do you want this artist to throw onto the canvas? What's in his imagination. And what's in the imagination of a man who spends his life with the lowest-class prostitutes? The grace of his bergères is the grace of the Favart in Rose et Colas¹; that of his goddesses is borrowed from the Deschamps². I defy you to find in an entire countryside a blade of grass from its landscapes. And then a confusion of objects piled on top of each other, so out of place, so disparate, that it's less the picture of a sensible man than the dream of a madman. It was from him that it was written:

...velut aegri somnia, vanae
Fingentur species : ut nec pes, nec caput³...

[55] I dare say this man really doesn't know what grace is; I dare say he's never known the truth; I dare say the ideas of delicacy, honesty, innocence, simplicity, have become almost foreign to him ; I dare say that he has not seen nature for a moment, at least that which is made to interest my soul, yours, that of a well-born child, that of a woman who feels; I dare say that he is without taste. Among the infinite proofs I would give, one will suffice: in the multitude of figures of men and women he has painted, I defy anyone to find four of a character suitable for bas-relief, still less for statue. There are too many mines, little mines, mannerisms, afféterie⁴ for a severe art. He may show them to me naked, but I always see the red, the flies, the pompoms, and all the fanfiole⁵ of the toilet. Do you think he ever had something of Petrarch's honest and charming image in his head,

E'l riso, e'l canto, e'l parlar dolce, humano ⁶?

Those fine, loose analogies that call objects to the canvas and bind them there by imperceptible threads, on my God, he doesn't know what it is. [All his compositions make an unbearable fuss to the eyes⁷.] He's the deadliest enemy of silence I know; he's at the prettiest puppets in the world; he'll fall to illumination⁸. Well, my friend, it was when Boucher ceased to be an artist that he was [56] appointed premier peintre du roi⁹. Don't think that he is to his genre what Crébillon le fils is to his¹⁰. It's more or less the same mores, but the writer has a completely different talent from the painter. The only advantage the latter has over the other is a fecundity that never runs out, an incredible facility, especially in the accessories of his pastorals. When he makes children, he groups them well; but let them remain frolicking on clouds. In all this innumerable family, you won't find one to employ to the real actions of life, to study his lesson, to read, to write, to tiller hemp¹¹. They are romantic, ideal natures, little bastards of Bacchus and Silenus. Sculpture could easily accommodate these children on the rim of an antique vase. They're fat, chubby, chubby. If the artist knows how to knead marble, we'll see. In a word, take all the paintings by this man; and there will hardly be one to which you can't say like Fontenelle to the sonata: Sonate, que me veux-tu¹²? Tableau, what do you want from me? Wasn't there a time when he was taken with the fury of making Virgins¹³? Well, what were her Virgins? Sweet little chicks. And her angels? little libertine satyrs. [57] And then, in his landscapes, there's a greyness of color and a uniformity of tone that would make you mistake his canvas, two feet away, for a piece of turf or a layer of parsley cut into squares. He's no fool, though. He's a fake good painter, as one is a fake beautiful mind. He has no thought of art; he has only the concetti¹⁴.

8. Jupiter transformed into Diana to surprise Callisto (#002293)

From the same.

Oval painting approximately 2 feet high, by 1 1/2 feet wide.

In the center, we see the metamorphosed Jupiter; he's in profile; he's leaning over Calisto's lap¹⁵: with one hand he's trying to gently part her linen; this hand is the right one. He passes his left hand under her chin. Two busy hands. Calisto is painted from the front; she faintly pushes away the hand that is busy revealing her. Below this figure, the painter has spread drapery and a quiver. Trees occupy the background. To the left, we see a group of children playing in the air; above this group, Jupiter's eagle.

But do mythological characters have other hands and feet than we do? Ah! La Grenée, what do you expect me to think of this, when I see you right next to me, and am struck by your firm color, the beauty of your flesh, and the truths of nature that pierce every point of your composition? Feet, hands, arms, shoulders, a throat, a neck, if you need them as you have [58] fucked them sometimes, the Grenée will provide you with them; for Boucher, no. Past fifty, my friend, there's hardly a painter who calls the model; they're all about practice¹⁶, and Boucher's at it: these are his old turned-and-turned figures. Hasn't he already shown us a hundred times and this Calisto, and this Jupiter, and this tiger skin with which he's covered¹⁷?

9. Angélique et Médor (#001216)

From the same.

Table of the form and size of the preceding.

The two main figures are placed to the right of the viewer. Angélique¹⁸ is lying nonchalantly on the ground and seen from the back, except for a small portion of her face that is caught and makes her look moody. On the same side, but on a deeper plane, Médor, standing, seen from the front, his body bent over, brings his hand to the trunk of a tree, on which he is apparently writing Quinault's two verses, those two lines that Lulli set so well to music¹⁹, and which give rise to all Roland's goodness of soul to show up and make me cry when the others are laughing :

Angélique commits her heart,
Médor is victorious.

Amours are busy surrounding the tree with garlands. Médor is [59] half-covered in a tiger skin, and his left hand holds a hunter's dart. Below Angelique imagine drapery, a cushion-a cushion, my friend! that goes there like the carpet in La Fontaine's Nicaise²⁰; a quiver and arrows; on the ground a fat Amour lying on his back and two others playing in the air, in the vicinity of the tree confident of Médor's happiness; and then to the left landscape and trees.

It pleased the painter to call this Angélique et Médor, but that will be all that pleases me. I defy anyone to show me anything that characterizes the scene and designates the characters. Oh dear, all you had to do was let yourself be led by the poet. How much more beautiful, grander, more picturesque and better chosen is the setting for his adventure! It's a rustic lair, it's a secluded place, it's the abode of shadow and silence²¹. That's where, far from any intruder, you can make a lover happy, not in broad daylight, out in the countryside, on a cushion. It's on the moss of the rock that Médor engraves his name and that of Angélique.

This doesn't make common sense; little boudoir composition²². And then no feet, no hands, no truth, no color, and still parsley on the trees. See or rather don't see the Medor, his legs especially; they're of a little boy who has neither taste nor study. Angelique is a little tripière²³. O the dirty word! Okay, but he paints. Round, soft drawing and flabby flesh. This man only picks up the brush to show me nipples and buttocks. I'm quite happy to see them, but I don't want them shown to me²⁴. [60]

10. Two pastorals (#002292)

From the same

Boards 7 feet 6 inches high, by 4 wide.

Well, my friend, have you ever understood anything? In the center of the canvas, a shepherdess, Catinon²⁵ in a little hat, driving a donkey; we see only the animal's head and back. On the donkey's back are clothes, luggage and a cauldron. The woman holds her animal's halter in her left hand, and a basket of flowers in her right. Her eyes are fixed on a shepherd seated on the right. This great blackbird finder is on the ground; on his lap he has a cage; on the cage are small birds. Behind this shepherd, further in the background, a small farmer stands and throws grass to the little birds. Below the shepherd, his dog. Above the peasant, even further back, a stone, plaster and joist factory, a sort of sheepfold, planted there somehow. Around the donkey, sheep. To the left, behind the shepherdess, a rustic barricade, a stream, trees, landscape. Behind the sheepfold, more trees and landscape. At the bottom, on the front, quite to the left, again a goat and sheep, and all jumbled together with pleasure: it's the best lesson to give a young pupil on the art of destroying any effect by dint of objects and work.

I'm not telling you anything, neither about the color, nor the typefaces, nor the other [61] details; it's as before. My friend, is there no police at this Academy? In the absence of a commissioner of paintings to prevent this from entering, wouldn't it be permissible to kick it along the Salon, up the stairs, into the courtyard, until the shepherd, the shepherdess, the sheepfold²⁶ the donkey, the birds, the cage, the trees, the child, the whole pastoral was in the street? Alas! No, it must remain in place; but indignant good taste nonetheless makes the brutal, but just execution.

11. Autre Pastorale (#001208)

From the same.

Same size, shape and merit as the previous²⁷.

And you think, my friend, that my brutal taste will be more forgiving for this one? Not at all. I can hear it screaming inside me: Hors du Salon, hors du Salon. No matter how many times I repeat Chardin's lesson: De la douceur, de la douceur²⁸... he gets depressed, and shouts only louder: Hors du Salon.

This is the image of a delirium. On the right, on the front, still the shepherdess Catinon or Favart²⁹, lying down and asleep, with a good fluxion over her left eye³⁰. Why also fall asleep in a damp place, a little cat in her lap? Behind this woman, starting from the edge of the canvas, and sinking successively, through different planes, and turnips, and cabbages and leeks, and an earthen pot, and a seringa in this pot, and a large quarter of stone, and on this large quarter of stone a large vase of flower garlands, and trees, and greenery, and landscape. Opposite [62] the sleeper, a shepherd stands contemplating her; he is separated from her by a small rustic barricade: in one hand he carries a basket of flowers; in the other he holds a rose. There, my friend, tell me what a kitten is doing on the lap of an unsleeping peasant woman at the door of her thatched cottage. And isn't this rose in the peasant's hand an inconceivable platitude? And why doesn't this simpleton bend down, take a kiss, or be ready to kiss a mouth that's there? Why doesn't he come forward slowly? But do you think that's all the painter wanted to put on his canvas? Of course not! Isn't there another landscape beyond? Isn't there the smoke rising behind the trees, apparently from a nearby hamlet?

A naughty little painting by Philippe d'Orléans³¹, where we see the two prettiest little innocent children possible, annoying with the tip of their finger a sparrow placed in front of them, stops, gives more pleasure than all that: it's that we can see from the little girl's expression that she's playing mischievously with the bird. Same confusion of objects, and same falseness of color as in the previous one. What an abuse of brush facility! [63]

12. Four pastorals

From the same.

Two are oval, and all four are about 15 inches high by 13 wide.

I am just, I am good, and I ask no better than to praise. These four pieces form a charming little poem. Write that the painter once in his life had a moment of reason. A shepherd ties a letter around a pigeon's neck; the pigeon leaves. A shepherdess receives the letter, reads it to one of her friends and is given an appointment. She is there, and so is the shepherd.

The first one. (#001211)

To the viewer's left, the shepherd sits on a piece of rock. He has the pigeon on his lap, tying up the letter. His staff and dog are behind him; at his feet he has a basket of flowers, which he may be offering to his shepherdess. Further to the left, a few pieces of rock. To the right, greenery, a stream and sheep. Simple and wise, all that's missing is color.

The second one (#001215)

The messenger pigeon, the Mercury bird, can be seen arriving on the left; it's coming with a rush. The shepherdess, standing with her hand resting against a tree in front of her, spots him between the trees; he fixes her gaze; she has quite the air of impatience and desire. Her position, her action are simple, [64] natural, interesting, elegant. And that dog who sees the bird coming, who has both paws raised on a bit of terrace, who has his head raised towards the messenger, who barks at him in joy, and who seems to be wagging his tail, he is imagined with wit. The animal's action marks a long-established gallant trade. On the right, behind the shepherdess, we see her distaff on the ground, a basket of flowers, a small hat with a kerchief; at her feet a sheep. Even simpler, and better composed; all that's missing is color. The subject is so clear that the painter could not obscure it with details.

The third one (#021497)

To the right we see two young girls, one on the front and reading the letter, on the shot that follows, her companion. The first has her back to me, which is wrong, as she could easily have been given the physiognomy of her action; it was her companion who needed to be placed this way. The confidence takes place in a solitary, out-of-the-way spot, at the foot of a rustic stone factory, from which a fountain emerges, above which there is a small Amour in bas-relief. To the left, goats, billy goats and sheep.

This one is less interesting than the last, and that's the artist's fault. Besides, this place really was the rendezvous; it's the love fountain. Always wrong color.

The fourth (#021498)

The rendezvous. In the center, toward the viewer's right, the shepherdess seated on the ground, a sheep beside her, a lamb on her lap, her shepherd gently clasping her in his arms and looking at her passionately. [65] Above the shepherd, his tethered dog. Very nice. To the left a basket of flowers. To the right, a broken tree. Still very good. In the background, hamlet, hut, part of a house. It was here that the letter should have been read, and it was at the fountain of Love that the rendezvous should have been set.

Whatever the case, the whole is fine, delicate, beautifully thought out; these are four little eglogues à la Fontenelle. Perhaps the simpler, more naive mores of Theocritus, or those of Daphnis and Chloe, would have interested me more³². Whatever these shepherds do, mine would have done; but the moment before they would not have suspected; instead these knew in advance what would happen to them, and that displeases me, unless it is quite frankly pronounced.

My faith, my dear philosopher, I fear that all this is still a little false in thought as in color. A shepherd and a shepherdess who have succeeded in making a letter carrier out of a pigeon are prodigiously corrupted, all the more so as country love knows none of the hindrances that civil life has placed on this passion: between shepherds, when one loves and is loved, all is said; the considerations of convenience and fortune on which paternal consent depends, and which are the source of unhappy passions in society, do not exist in pastoral life. So why train a pigeon to carry letters? Apparently there's some torrent between the shepherd and the shepherdess, which prevents him in bad weather from going on his errands himself?

And then, however much I may suppose a site and poetic mores, I cannot find any where the pigeon can be letter carrier and commissionaire, if not at the French opera³³. A commissionaire has to be clever, deft, careful ; and the pigeon is only innocent. I also think that a shepherdess who has perverted the dove's morals enough to accustom her to this servile and abject employment, would have something else to do, when her lover is beside her, than to hold a lamb in her lap. All these people are from the French opera, where it is customary to spend the precious moments of a rendezvous chanting a madrigal in the ears of one's mistress, or dancing rigaudons around her to express one's love. Ah, how I hate this false genre ! My dear philosopher, you got too angry with this Butcher and then in the midst of your outburst your bonhomie grabbed you, and for fear of being unfair you relented too much. I, who am not as good as you, and who have said no insult to Mr. Boucher, whatever I think of him as you do, I remain ruthless. This is fine, pretty, true even, if you like, but in a false genre and one I abhor.

13. Another pastoral.

Of the same.

It's a standing shepherdess, holding a crown in one hand, and carrying a basket of flowers in the other; she's stopped in front of a shepherd sitting on the ground, his dog at his feet. What does it say? Behind her, on the far left, we see a group of bushy trees, at the top of which, though we're not sure how it got there, is a fountain, a round hole pouring water. These trees apparently hide a rock, but they didn't have to. I've mellowed at little cost; if it hadn't been for the previous four, I might well have said to this one: Hors du Salon; but I'll never grace the next one. [66]

14. Another pastoral.

From the same³⁴.

Oval table approximately 2 feet high, by one foot 6 inches wide.

Will I never get out of these cursed pastorals? It's a girl tying a letter to a pigeon's neck; she's seated, we see her in profile. The pigeon is on her lap, ready for the role, as you can see from its hanging wing. The bird, the shepherdess's hands and lap, are embarrassed by an entire rosebush. Tell me, please, if it's not a rival jealous of killing this little composition, who has stuffed this shrub there. One has to be an enemy of oneself to play such tricks.

The booklet speaks again of a Paysage où l'on voit un moulin à l'eau (#006169). I've been looking for it but haven't been able to discover it; I don't think you'll lose much.

Notes

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