Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/340

 320 VERNET After once failing, he gained the great prize of the academy and went to Rome, but re- mained only a few months. He was subject to fits of melancholy bordering on insanity. Returning to France, he resumed his art, and marriage and a happy domestic life cured him of his melancholy. In 1804 he exhibited " The Battle of Marengo," which French critics re- gard as the commencement of the modern French school of military painting. This was followed by paintings of the principal battles of Napoleon. His smaller pictures, and espe- cially his caricatures ridiculing the allies, were engraved in great numbers by the first artists of Paris. Throughout life he was remarkable for his industry, for his fine musical taste, and for his engaging ocial traits. III. Jean Emite Horace, known as Horace Vernet, son of the preceding, born in Paris, June 30, 1789, died there, Jan. 17, 1863. His education, both lit- erary and artistic, was very irregular and un- systematic. His father imbued him with his own tastes for horses, military subjects, and caricatures. He was skilled in all bodily exer- cises. In 1807 he was made a conscript, but was released after his marriage with Mile. Louise Pujol in 1810. Soon after he exhibited his first military painting, "The Capture of a Redoubt." In this picture he broke away from the conventional classicism of David and his school, and henceforth through life he painted military subjects so as to represent the reality presented by observation and expe- rience. In 1811 he was appointed designer to the depot of war. At the exhibition of 1812 he gained a first medal by " The Taking of an intrenched Camp." As a sub-lieutenant of the national guard he participated in the de- fence of the barrier of Clichy, a painting of which he afterward executed. After the res- toration of the Bourbons, the royal family gave him commissions which he executed, but at the same time during many years he con- tinued to paint pictures and make designs of scenes in the history of the grande armee and of the life of Napoleon, which the court re- garded as almost seditious. The " Dog of the Regiment," " Barrier of Clichy," " Soldier of Waterloo," " Death of Poniutowski," " Bivou- ac of Col. Moncey," and many others became immensely popular, and engravings by the first artists of Paris and the newly discovered art of lithography made them known in every cottage of France. At the exhibition of 1822 most of his paintings were refused admission on account of their Bonapartist tendency. He then opened an exhibition in his own studio, which was attended by crowds. Lonis Phi- lippe, then duke of Orleans, and Charles X., both anxious to secure the friendship of so popular an artist, patronized him. In 1828 he was made a member of the institute, and in 1828 director of the French academy in Rome. After the accession of Louis Philippe Vernet was for a time the representative of the French government at Rome. In 1833 he visited Al- VERNIER giers, and in 1835 returned to Paris. He vis- ited St. Petersburg in 1836, '38, and '42, Al- giers in 1837, '45, and '63, and Egypt, Syria, Palestine, and Turkey in 1839-'40. On his travels he wrote many letters, which were published by M. Durande in 1864. In 1841 Vernet published a small work Du droit des peintres et des sculpteurs sur leurs ourrages, and in 1848 a memoire, previously read before the institute, Des rapports entre le costume des Hebreux et des Arabes modernes, a subject which he had illustrated in a series of paint- ings, "Rebecca at the Well," "The Good Sa- maritan," and others. But from 1836 to his death his principal labor was devoted to paint- ing battle pieces and pieces illustrative of the life of the Arabs of Algiers. Among the lat- ter are the " Lion Hunt," " Council of Arabs," and " Arab Mother rescuing her Child from a Lion;" among the battle pieces, Jena, Fried- land, Wagram, and Fontenoy, and a whole series representing the exploits of the French in Algiers, the " Capture of the Sinala," " Bat- tle of Isly," and many others, some of them of immense size. He also made hundreds of de- signs for illustrated works. At the universal exposition of 1855 he received the grand medal of honor. In 1862 he had begun a religious painting in his villa at Hyeres. A severe fall led to his return to Paris, where he expired after several months of great suffering. His only child, Louise, married the painter Paul Delaroche, and left two sons, Horace and Phi- lippe, who by a legal authorization assumed the name Delaroche- Vernet. See Joseph, Carle et Horace Vernet, correspondance et biographic*, by Durande (Paris, 1865). VERNIER, an instrument attached to a scale for the purpose of measuring spaces smaller than those into which the scale is actually di- ~ Vernier. vidcd. The principle of the vernier will be best understood from the figure. The lower scale, marked 8-9, is part of a scale of inches divided into tenths. The upper scale, marked .... 10, is the vernier, and is movable upon the scale of inches. The ten divisions of the vernier are exactly equal to nine subdivisions of the scale of inches, consequently each divi- sion of the vernier equals -^ of -^ of an inch, or 0-09 inch. When the of the vernier co- incides with one of the marks of the principal scale, the 1 of the vernier will fall 0-01 inch short of the next division of the principal scale, the 2 of the vernier will fall 0-02 inch short of the next division of the principal scale, and so on. If we shove the vernier forward O'Ol inch, its 1 will exactly coincide with one of the