Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/505

Rh R E S R E T 487 Nicolas is Le Cosier Ilumain DtvoiU], tliat among his random and often chimerical speculations on social, ethical, and political matters thoughts of extraordinary justness now and then occur, that his observation of manners was keen, and that his narrative faculty, at least in short tales and detached passages, was exception- ally good. Original editions of Restif are, as has been said, bibliographical curiosities. The works of Oh. Monselet (1853) and P. Lacroix (1875), Assdzat's selection from the Contemporaries, with excellent introductions (3 vols., 1875), and the valuable reprint of Monsieur Nicolas (14 vols., 1883-84), will be sufficient to enable even curious readers to form a judgment of him. The selection from the Contem- foraines preserves Restif's curious printing and spelling. EESTOUT, JEAN (1692-1768), French painter, born at Kouen, March 26, 1692, was the son of Jean Restout, the first of that name, and of Marie M. Jouvenet, sister and pupil of the well-known Jean Jouvenet. Jean Restout's father died young, and his son was placed at Paris with his uncle Jean Jouvenet. In 1717, the Royal Academy having elected him a member on the work which he had executed for the Great Prize, he remained in Paris, instead of proceeding to Italy, exhibited at all the salons, and filled successively every post of academical distinction. He died on January 1, 1768. He left several pupils, none of whom were of great distinction. His works, chiefly of vast size altarpieces (Louvre Museum), ceilings, designs for Gobelin tapestries were much engraved by Cochin, Drevet, and others ; his diploma picture may still be seen at St Cloud. RESTOUT, JEAN BERNARD, son of the above, was born at Paris, February 22, 1732, and died in the same city on July 18, 1797. In 1758 he won the Great Prize, and on his return from Italy was received into the Academy ; but his refusal to comply with rules led to a quarrel with that body which alienated him from his profession. Roland brought him into notice by appointing him keeper of the Garde Meuble, but this piece of favour nearly cost him his life during the Terror : he was cast into prison and was only saved from the guillotine by the reaction of Thermidor. The St Bruno painted by him at Rome is in the Louvre. RETFORD, EAST, a market town and borough of Nottinghamshire, is situated on the Idle and on the Great Northern and Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire Railways, 36 miles north-east of Nottingham by rail, and eight south-west of Gainsborough. The church of St Swithin, a large cruciform structure with a square em- battled tower, dates from the 13th century, but was rebuilt in 1658 by a brief granted by Richard Cromwell. Among the modern buildings are the town-hall, the corn exchange, the court-house, and the covered markets. There is a large trade in corn, cheese, and hops, and the town possesses iron foundries, paper and corn mills, and india-rubber works. The population of the municipal borough in 1871 was 3194, but in 1878 the area was extended to 4532 acres, and in 1881 the population was 9748. The town derives its name from an ancient ford over the Idle. In Domesday it is written Redcford, and early in the 13th century it is called Este Reddfurthc. It is a borough by prescription, and was granted in 1279 to the burgesses by Edward I. at a fee farm rent of 10, with the right of choosing a bailiff. Its rights were confirmed and extended by Edward III., Henry IV., and James I. It sent two members to parliament in the reign of Edward I., but the privilege was dormant from 1330 to 1571. The parliamentary borough, which was largely rural, having been extended in 1829 to include the whole wapentake of Bassetlaw, and comprising 207,906 acres in 1881, ceased to exist as a borough in 1885. The municipal borough is divided into three wards, and is governed by a mayor, six aldermen, and eighteen councillors. RETHEL, ALFRED (1816-1859), historical painter, was born at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1816. He very early showed an interest in art, and at the age of thirteen he executed a drawing which procured his admission to the academy of Diisseldorf. Here he studied for several years, and pro- duced, among other works, a figure of St Boniface which attracted much attention. At the age of twenty he removed to Frankfort where he studied under Philip Veit ; and, having, in common with so many of the German artists of the period, manifested an aptitude for fresco-paint- ing, he was selected to decorate the walls of the imperial hall at Rorner with figures of famous men. At the same period he produced a series of designs illustrative of Old Testament history. Four years later he was the successful competitor for the work of ornamenting the restored council house of his native city with frescos depicting prominent events in the career of Charlemagne, but various discussions and delays prevented the execution of this work for some six years. Meanwhile Rethel occupied himself with the production of easel pictures, and of drawings ; and in 1842 he began a most striking and important series of designs dealing with the Crossing of the Alps by Hannibal, in which the weird power which animates his later art becomes first apparent. In 1844 Rethel visited Rome, occupying his time both in study and in production, and executing, along with other subjects, an altarpiece for one of the churches of his native land. In 1846 he returned to Aix, and commenced his Charlemagne frescos. But the strain of production, aggravated by a lack of sympathy, and by vexatious delays and interferences, produced a most, injurious effect upon both the health and the spirits of the artist. Symptoms of mental derangement, remotely attri- butable, it is believed, to an accident from which he suffered in childhood, began to manifest themselves in strange and groundless suspicions against his friends and brother artists. While he hovered between madness and sanity, " with a mind " as Mr Ruskin has said in reference to the very parallel case of William Blake "disturbed, but not deceived, by its sickness, nay, partly exalted by it," Rethel produced some of the most striking, individual, and impressive of his works. Strange legends are told of the effect produced by some of his weird subjects. He painted Nemesis pursuing a Murderer a flat stretch of landscape, with a slaughtered body relieved against the flushing evening sky, while in front is the assassin speeding away into the darkness, clutching his blood-stained knife, thorns and thistles springing up around his path, and above, hover- ing over his head, with unhasting but ceaseless flight, an angel of vengeance, holding an hour-glass from which the last sands are escaping, and a sword which is slowly descending upon the fated head. The picture, so the story goes, was won in a lottery at Frankfort by a personage of high rank, who had been guilty of an undiscovered crime, and the contemplation of his prize drove him to distraction, and he became a lunatic. Another design which Rethel executed was Death the Avenger, a skeleton appearing at a masked ball, scraping daintily, like a violinist, upon two human bones. The drawing haunted the memory of his artist friends and disturbed their dreams ; and, in expia- tion, he produced his pathetic design of Death the Friend, a skeleton draped in long monk's robes, tolling solemnly the passing bell in a church tower, while beside the open window, lit by the last sunset radiance, sits an old sexton, with the peaceful face of a quiet departure. Rethel also executed a powerful series of drawings the Dance of Death suggested by the Belgian insurrections of 1848. It is by such designs as these, executed in a technique founded upon that of Diirer, and animated by an imagina- tion akin to that of the elder master, that Rethel is most widely known. Certainly his fame can rest very securely upon such works as Death the Avenger and Death the Friend, those " inexpressibly noble and pathetic wood- cut grotesques," as Mr Ruskin has so justly styled them. Rethel died at Diisseldorf on December 1, 1859. His picture of Peter and John at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple, is preserved in the Leipsic Museum, and his St Boniface and several of his cartoons for the frescos at Aix in the Berlin National Gallery. His life by Wolfgang Miiller von Kbnigswinter has been published. See also Art Journal, November 1865.