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 FOUQUET

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FOUQUET

vigour and delicacy. In 1890 this piece found its way to the Beriin Museum. It formed part of a diptych, the other wing of which shows the Virgin, surrounded by angels, nursing the Infant Jesus. The Virgin is also a portrait, that of the beautiful Agnes Sorel of whom Chevalier was a favourite. This second wing is at Antwerp. The two parts, having been separated, were never reunited except for a short time at Paris during the Exposition of the French "Primitives" in 1904. Still another of Fouquet's portraits must be mentioned: the bust of a young man (Lichtenstein collection), dated 1450, which is admirable in the in- tensity of touch displayed in the colour scheme, with its greyish tone and deliberate reserve. This would be the master's best portrait, were it not for the pre- cious little enamel at the Louvre, in which he himself is depicted in golden lines on a black background.

His work as a miniaturist at present comprises three series: (1) the fragments of the " Livre d'heures d'Eti- enne Chevalier" (1450-00), forty of which are at Chantilly, two at the Louvre, one at the Bibliotheque Nationale, and one at the British Museum ; (2) twenty feuiUets of the " Jewish Antiq uities ' ' of Joseph us at the Bibliotheque Nationale. The second volume, discov- ered by Mr. Yates Thomson, was presented to the French Republic by King Edward VII in 1908 (Dur- rieu, op. cit. injra); (3) part of the illustrations of the "Chroniques de France" (Fr. G4G5, Bibl. Nat.). To these must be added: (4) the frontispiece and minia- tures for a French translation of the works of Boccaccio at the Royal Library of Munich (c. 1459), and the frontispiece of the statutes of the Order of St. Michael _(c. 1402) at the Bibliotheque Nationale. The most important of the.se works, as well as the most famous and the most beautiful, is unquestionably Etienne Chevalier's "Book of Hours", the "Quarante Fou- quet ' ', which is one of the treasures of Chantilly. Of the forty-four pages of the "Book of Hours" hitherto recovered, twenty-five (following the order of the Breviary) tell the .story of the Gospel and of the life of the Blessed Virgin, fourteen are scenes from the lives of the saints; one, dealing with the story of Job, is an Old-Testament scene; and one, "The Last Judg- ment", is from the Apocalyp.se. The frontispiece, two pages reproducing the diptych of Melun, and the page of the Office for the Dead, are consecrated to the memory of Etienne Chevalier. We are impressed immediately with the excjuisite clearness, animation and life. Italian mannerisms abound in the details; the artist speaks with a more flowery tongue than in his portraits. This work is one of joy in which the imagination delights in lovely caprices. Here are chubby-faced little angels, flowing_ draperies and gar- ments, Burgimdian luxuriance with the large folds of its draperies ; to one side are the playing children (■))uUi), musicians of Prato and Pistoia, pilastered niches, classic cornices, the Corinthian acanthus, and architectural foliage like the Florentine cypress and yew. His style is extremely composite. Nowhere else are its elements so deftly combined. There is gold everywhere, golden skies and golden hatching, an enveloping tissue delicately gilt. Since his time no one has been able to master the process, which is in fact only the radiant atmosphere of the artist's ideas and the colour of his spirit.

The fundamental note is wonderfully sustained despite the appearance of playful improvisation. Although the artist delights in allowing free play to pleasant reminiscences, and has made use of his sketches of travel as adornments for his ideas, the basis of all is an ardent love of reality, and he glances at them only to refresh his memory. As a story-teller and dramatist he has the regard for the letter and the text which was to lx;come the predominant trait of the great French historical painters, Poussin and Dela- croix. But above all he feels the craving for truth, which underneath the embellishments of his style con-

stitutes the real merit of his miniatures and his por- traits. Fouquet is a "naturalist" from conviction. This he is after his own fashion, but as truly as Van Eyck or Filippo Lippi. He resembles them in being of their time, but he differs from them inasmuch as with him imitation never prevails over his passionate worship of nature.

This naturalism was so strong that Fouquet lacked the power to conceive what he had not .seen. He did not dispense with models and all his works were not only observed but posed. He fails completely in ideal scenes and those of intense expression (e. g. Calvary) for which he could have no model. If his " Last Judg- ment" is a thrilling picture, it is because the memory of the glass-worker came to the aid of the painter, for the artist beheld heaven as the rose window of a cathe- dral (Dante, Parad., xxxi). In "The Martyrdom of St. ApoUonia" he depicts quite clearly a scene from a popular mystery; it is, indeed, the most exact docu- ment we possess as to the scenic efl'ects in the mys- teries of the Middle Ages (Eniil M;ile, " Le renouvelle- ment de I'art. par les mysteres" in " Gazette des Beaux Arts", 1904, I, 89). This influence of the theatre is seen throughout the "Book of Hours", in the cos- tumes, the decoration, and local colour, the capricious and grotesque appearance of which proceeds ilirectly from the store of dramatic accessories and the tinsel adornments of the actors. It was thus that the age of Fouquet conceived historical painting. Finally an- other custom of Fouquet was to give as background to the scenes taken from the Bible or the Gospel, instead of Palestine of which he knew nothing, France or Touraine which he knew so well. Thus the represen- tation of "Job" has as a decorative background the castle keep of Vincennes. The "Paschal Supper" takes place in an inn, and through the open door is seen the roof of Notre-Dame de Paris. "Calvary" is placed on the hill of Montrouge. This excess of nuiveti' must not lead us to think that Fouquet knew not what he did. The anachronism of the " Primi- tives " is a conscious and voluntary system. Fouquet was not at all naif, as has been too frequently as- serted, when in the scene of the Epiphany he substi- tuted for one of the Magi of history the portrait of King Charles VII, in a mantle ornamented with fleurs-de-lis, surrounded by his guards and rendering homage to the Blessed Virgin. Perhaps this was a way of bringing home the teaching of the Gospel and of expressing its eternal truths and undying realities rather than the historical incident. Above all it was the farti pris of an age which, weary of abstractions and symbols, underwent a passionate reaction towards the youth- ful, and towards life. No contemporary expressed life better than Fouquet. He loved it in all its forms, in art, whether Italian, Flemish, Ciothic, or Renais- sance, in the theatre as well as in nature. He loved beautiful horses, beautiful arms, rich costumes, gay colours, beautiful music (his works are full of con- certs). Heloved the eleganceof the new architecture, and he loved also the tapering spires, the cathedral windows, and the pointed towers on the pepper-box roofs. A thousand details of the life of his times would have been lost except for him, e. g. a row of quays on the banks of the Seine at the extremity of the city, a view of Paris from Montmartre or the Pt6 aux Clercs, the performance of a mystery, a funeral scene, the in- terior of the ancient basilica of St. Peter. He is the best witness of his time ; he is in turn good-natured, bantering, tender, and emotional. Neither a dreamer nor a mystic, he is full of faith and purity. Nothing could be more chaste than his work, which appeals at once to the learned and to the nias.ses. The mind of this humble miniaturist was one of the best informed and most well-ordered of his time. Above all he had also a creative side, for he is one of the jjreat landscape painters of the world. No one has depicted as well as he the charming countrysides of France. Nothing