[179]

110. The young girl mourning her dead bird

The lovely elegy! the lovely poem! the lovely idyll Gessner would make of it! This is the vignette of a piece by this poet¹. Delightful painting, the most pleasing and perhaps the most interesting of the Salon. She is facing forward, her head resting on her left hand. The dead bird sits on the top edge of the cage, head hanging, wings trailing, legs in the air. How naturally placed! How beautiful is her head! How elegantly coiffed! How expressive her face! Her pain is deep, she's in her misfortune, she's all in it. The pretty catafalque² that cage! How graceful is this garland of greenery that winds around [180]! O the beautiful hand! the beautiful hand! the beautiful arm! See the truth of the details of these fingers, and these dimples, and this softness and this tinge of redness with which the pressure of the head³ has colored the tips of these delicate fingers, and the charm of it all. We'd come right up to this hand to kiss it, if we didn't respect this child and her pain. Everything about her is enchanting, right down to her fit⁴; this neck handkerchief⁵ is thrown in a way! it's so supple and light! When you see this piece, you say: Delicious! If you stop or come back to it⁶, you exclaim: Delicious! delicious! Soon we catch ourselves conversing with this child, and consoling her. This is so true, that here's what I remember saying to her on different occasions.

But, little one, your pain is very deep, very thoughtful! What's the meaning of this dreamy, melancholy air? What, for a bird! You're not crying, you're grieving, and thought accompanies your affliction. Is it the death of this bird that draws you so strongly and so sadly into yourself? You lower your eyes, you don't answer me. Your tears are ready to flow. I'm not a father, I'm neither indiscreet nor severe. Well, I conceive⁷; he loved you, he swore it to you, and swore it for a long time! He suffered so much! the way to see what you love suffer!... And let me go on; why close my mouth with your hand? He was so handsome, so passionate, so tender, so charming, he had so much love in his eyes, so much truth in his expressions! he said those words that go so straight to the soul! and as he said them he was on your knees; that's still understandable; he was holding one of your hands, from time to time you felt the warmth of [181] a few tears falling from his eyes and running down your arms. Your mother never came back; it's not your fault, it's your mother's fault... But now you're crying! but I'm not telling you this to make you cry. And why should I cry? He promised you he wouldn't break anything he promised you. When you've been lucky enough to meet a charming child like you, to become attached to her, to please her, it's for life... And my bird?... You're smiling... (Ah my friend, how beautiful she was! if you'd seen her smile and cry!) I continued: Well, your bird? When you forget yourself, do you remember your bird? When the time came for your mother to return, the one you loved left. How happy, how contented, how transported! How hard it was to tear himself away from you! How you look at me! I know all about it. How many times he got up and sat down! How many times he said goodbye to you, and said it again, without going away! I've just seen him at his father's, and he's charmingly cheerful, the kind of cheerfulness they all share without being able to help it... And my mother?... Your mother, as soon as he'd left, came back and found you dreamy like you were a moment ago; we're always like that. Your mother spoke to you, and you didn't hear what she was saying; she commanded you to do one thing, and you did another. A few tears would come to the edge of your eyelids, and you'd either hold them back or turn away to wipe them away furtively. Your mother became impatient with your continual distractions, and scolded you, giving you an opportunity to weep without restraint and ease your heart. Shall I continue? I'm afraid what I'm about to say will renew your [182] sorrow. Do you want me to? Well, your good mother reproached herself for having upset you, she approached you, she took your hands, she kissed your forehead and cheeks, and you wept much more. Your head bent over her, and your face, which was beginning to take on a reddish hue, just as it is now taking on a reddish hue, went to hide in her bosom. How many sweet things this mother said to you, and how much those sweet things hurt you! However much your canary sang, warned you, called you, flapped his wings, complained about your forgetfulness; you didn't see him, you didn't hear him, you were busy with other thoughts; his water, nor his seed, were not renewed, and this morning the bird was no more... You're looking at me again; do I still have something to say? Ah, I can hear you; it was he who gave you the bird. Well, he'll find another one just as beautiful... That's not all yet; your eyes are fixed on me and distressed; what is it now? Speak up, I can't guess... And if the death of this bird were only the omen... what would I do? what would become of me? what if he were ungrateful? what madness! Don't worry, it won't happen, it can't happen... - But, my friend, don't you laugh to hear a serious person amusing himself by consoling a child by painting the loss of her bird, the loss of anything you please? But see how beautiful she is! How interesting! I don't like to grieve, but even so, it wouldn't displease me too much to be the cause of her pain.

The subject of this little poem is so fine, that many people didn't hear it⁸; they thought this young girl was only crying for her canary. Greuze has already painted the same subject once. He placed in front of a cracked [183]glass a tall girl in white satin, penetrated by a deep melancholy. Don't you think it would be just as foolish to attribute the weeping of the girl in this Salon to the loss of a bird, as the melancholy of the girl in the previous Salon to her broken mirror. This child is crying about something else, I tell you. First of all, you've heard her, she agrees, and her affliction says it all. Such pain! At her age! And for a bird! - But how old is she? - What can I tell you, and what question have you asked me? Her head is between fifteen and sixteen, and her arm and hand between eighteen and nineteen. It's a flaw in this composition that becomes all the more noticeable as the head is pressed against the hand, one of the parts gives everything against the measure of the other⁹. Place the hand differently, and it will no longer be noticed that it is a little too strong and too characterized. My friend, the head was taken from one model and the hand from another¹⁰. By the way, it's a very real hand, very beautiful, very perfectly colored and drawn. If you'd like to move on to the piece this light stain¹¹ with a slightly purplish color tone, it' a very beautiful thing. The head is well-lit, the most pleasing color you could give a blonde; perhaps one would ask for it to be a little more round humped¹². The striped handkerchief is wide¹³, light, of the most beautiful transparency; all strongly touched, without detracting from the finer details¹⁴. This painter may have done as well, but not better.

This piece is oval, 2 feet high, and belongs to M. de la Live de la Briche¹⁵. [184]

When the Salon was wallpapered¹⁶, it was first honored to M de Marigny¹⁷. Poisson Mécène¹⁸ went there with the procession of favorite artists he admits to his table; the others were there¹⁹. He went, he looked, he approved, he scorned; Greuze's Pleureuse stopped him and surprised him. This is beautiful, he said to the artist, who replied: Monsieur, je le sais; on me loue de reste, mais je manque d'ouvrage²⁰. - It's, replied Vernet²¹, that you have a cloud of enemies and among those enemies, a quidam who seems to love you to bits, and who will lose you. - And who is this quidam?" asked Greuze. - It's you, replied Vernet.

1Salomon Gessner, a poet from Zurich, was famous among German-speaking audiences for his idylls, featuring shepherds and shepherdesses in rural settings. It was undoubtedly Grimm who had introduced Gessner to Diderot and Diderot had accompanied Huber in translating the Idylles into French in 1761. In 1772, Gessner published two of Diderot's tales, Les Deux Amis de Bourbonneand the Entretien d'un père avec ses enfants, following his Idylles, first in German, then in French.

Gessner's works are often illustrated. When the engraving does not occupy a full page, it is called a "vignette". At the start of the Salon de 1765, Diderot wrote: "Take Vanloo's allegory, I agree, but leave me Greuze's La Pleureuse. While you remain ecstatic about the artist's science and the effects of art, I will speak to my little afflicted one, I will console her, I will kiss her hands, I will wipe away her tears, and when I have left her, I will meditate a few sweet verses on the loss of her bird." (DPV XIV 40)

2" Catafalque. s. m. This is a word used by Painters & Sculptors to signify the representation of a coffin or tomb raised in funeral services. This word comes from the Italian catafalco, which properly means a scaffold." (Furetière, 1690) When princes died, an ephemeral monument, the catafalque, was built around their coffin, usually in the church where the funeral was held (the pompes funèbres). This monument (or scaffolding) could assume grandiose proportions.

3 The head rests on the fingers.

4" Adjustment, also means Ornament, adornment. Ornatus, munditia. This tenant has well and truly made ajustemens in this house, for which the landlord will not reimburse him. This woman is always in great adjustment, in the latest cleanliness. Your actions & your adjustment have an air of quality that enchants. Mol[ière]" (Trévoux, paraphrasing Élise in the Critique de l'École des femmes).

5" Mouchoir de col, est un linge garni ordinairement de dentelles, dont les dames se servent pour cacher & pour parer leur gorge. Strophium, strophiolum. A mouchoir of silk cloth, Venetian stitch. A black taffeta handkerchief. Les Dames portent par modestie des mouchoirs en pointe & tout unis." (Trévoux)

6Mathon de la Cour, more explicit, writes: "Parmi les morceaux qui sont au Louvre, plusieurs ont coûté des efforts & des travaux immenses. Guess which one won all the votes? It's a small oval painting, in which there is only one figure. It's true that this figure is by M. GREUZE. It is a masterpiece of naturalness and expression. [...] Connoisseurs, women, petty masters, pedants, witty people, ignoramuses & fools, all spectators agree on this painting. We think we see nature; we share this girl's pain; we would especially like to console her." (Lettres à M** sur les Peintures, les Sculptures & les Gravures exposées au Sallon du Louvre en 1765, Paris, Bauche et Dhoury, 1765, lettre III, p. 52-53)

7 I understand it: I understand what's happening to you.

8Diderot takes particular aim at Mathon de la Cour, who took the subject literally: "There is an age when the need to love makes one surrender to the first object that presents itself. We become strongly attached without knowing why. Until chance comes to offer a more interesting object that fills the heart's void, the faculty of loving is often exercised with a spaniel or a bird." (Mathon de la Cour, op. cit., p. 54)

9That is, with the head resting on the hand, we can compare their dimensions, their respective proportions.

10Greuze drew the head after a younger girl, and the hand after an older one. Model can mean a real person or a drawing or painting.

11" It is said proverbially, it is a man who has only one stain ; to say, only one defect: he means sometimes who is worth nothing at all, who has every conceivable vice. Unicam habet labem. On dir aussi, chercher des taches dans le soleil, quand on cherche des défauts dans les choses les plus parfaites & le splus accomplies." (Trévoux)

12" Bosse, in terms of Sculpture, means bas-relief or full-relief. This work is raised in bosse, in demi-bosse ; it is a bas-relief which has projecting & detached parts. Prostypa. In round bosse, it is a full relief of which all the parts have their true roundness, & are isolated like the figures. Ectypa. It is also said of Doctors that they raise in bossthe cemeteries.

It is also said in Painting, to work from the bosse. Statua, signum. To say, copy or draw a relief figure." (Trévoux)

13Large is understood here technically to characterize the painter's touch, i.e. his way of spreading the paint on the canvas. The brushstroke plays a key role in defining a style, in this case the neo-classical style. A broad brushstroke consists in spreading a large, uniform layer of paint, as opposed to a jagged brushstroke, which juxtaposes small dabs of paint. Even if the color is the same, the effect is different, dynamic and powerful when painted with small strokes, smooth and harmonious, but weaker, when done broadly. "Large, Broadly, (Painting.) to paint large is not, as one might think, to give great broad brushstrokes ; but by not over-expressing the small parts of the objects one imitates, & by bringing them together on general masses of light & shadow which give a certain speciousness to each of the parts of these objects, & consequently to the whole, & make it appear much larger than it really is; to do otherwise, is what is called having a small & petty manner, which only produces a bad effect. " (Encyclopédie, IX, 293b)

14This technical praise perhaps outbids Mathon de la Cour's comment: "This precious piece is finished with the greatest care: but I will not dwell on the details. The merit of illusion, whatever it may be, disappears next to that of feeling. For me to pay much attention to the transparency of the muslin, the beauty of the hand, the perfection of the cage, my head would have had to be hidden." (Mathon de la Cour, op. cit., p. 53)

15 As a sign of Greuze's fame, the painting he is exhibiting has already been sold (though Greuze complains later that he lacks customers). The owner was the brother of Lalive de July, Greuze's patron. The Lalive family owed their fortune to their father, a fermier général at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. Diderot frequented their château at La Chevrette.

16 Tapestry means hanging paintings for exhibition. From 1765, Chardin is the upholsterer of the Salon.

17As Director General of the King's Buildings, Abel Poisson, Marquis de Marigny, brother of Madame de Pompadour, oversaw the activities of the Royal Academy of Painting. He visited the exhibition as a preview. Diderot hates him.

18Sobriquet given to Marigny, who was not noble by birth and was really named Poisson. As for Mécène, he was a minister of Emperor Augustus and a friend of Horace and Virgil. A great patron of the arts, Mécène was in some ways the equivalent of Marigny in Paris in imperial Rome.

19Marigny arrives with his small court of protégés; the other artists wait for him in the Salon near their hanging works.

20 I don't have enough commissions to live on properly.

21Joseph Vernet was related to Marigny, who had commissioned him to paint the Ports de France for the king.