An occasion soon presented itself for us to learn another side of our trade by working with our master on a ceiling ordered of him by the state for the Palace of the Luxembourg. The vast studios which the city of Paris provides on occasions of this kind, with a liberality that should make our home corporations reflect, are situated out beyond the Exhibition buildings, in a curious, unfrequented quarter, ignored alike by Parisians and tourists, where the city stores compromising statues and the valuable debris of her many revolutions.
There, among throneless Napoleons and riderless bronze steeds, we toiled for over six months side by side with our master, on gigantic APOTHEOSIS OF MARIE DE MEDICIS, serving in turn as painter and painted, and leaving the imprint of our hands and the reflection of our faces scattered about the composition.
Day after day, when work was over, we would hoist the big canvas by means of a system of ropes and pulleys, from a perpendicular to the horizontal position it was to occupy permanently, and then sit straining our necks and discussing the progress of the work until the tardy spring twilight warned us to depart.
The year 1877 brought Carolus-Duran the MEDAILLE D'HONNEUR, a crowning recompense that set the atelier mad with delight. We immediately organized a great (but economical) banquet to commemorate the event, over which our master presided, with much modesty, considering the amount of incense we burned before him, and the speeches we made. One of our number even burst into some very bad French verses, asserting that the painters of the world in general fell back before him -. . . EPOUVANTES -CRAIGNANT EGALEMENT SA BROSSE ET SON EPEE.
This allusion to his proficiency in fencing was considered particularly neat, and became the favorite song of the studio, to be howled in and out of season.
Curiously enough, there is always something in Carolus-Duran's attitude when at work which recalls the swordsman. With an enormous palette in one hand and a brush in the other, he has a way of planting himself in front of his sitter that is amusingly suggestive of a duel. His lithe body sways to and fro, his fine leonine face quivers with the intense study of his model; then with a sudden spring forward, a few rapid touches are dashed on the canvas (like home strokes in the enemy's weakest spot) with a precision of hand acquired only by long years of fencing.
An order to paint the king and queen of Portugal was the next step on the road to fame, another rung on the pleasant ladder of success. When this work was done the delighted sovereign presented the painter with the order of "Christ of Portugal," together with many other gifts, among which a caricature of the master at work, signed by his sitter, is not the least valued.
When the great schism occurred several years ago which rent the art world of France, Carolus-Duran was elected vice- president of the new school under Meissonier, to whose office he succeeded on that master's death; and now directs and presides over the yearly exhibition known as the SALON DU CHAMP DE MARS.
At his chateau near Paris or at Saint Raphael, on the Mediterranean, the master lives, like Leonardo of old, the existence of a grand seigneur, surrounded by his family, innumerable guests, and the horses and dogs he loves, - a group of which his ornate figure and expressive face form the natural centre. Each year he lives more away from the world, but no more inspiriting sight can be imagined than the welcome the president receives of a "varnishing" day, when he makes his entry surrounded by his pupils. The students cheer themselves hoarse, and the public climbs on everything that comes to hand to see him pass. It is hard to realize then that this is the same man who, not content with his youthful progress, retired into an Italian monastery that he might commune face to face with nature undisturbed.
The works of no other painter give me the same sensation of quivering vitality, except the Velasquez in the Madrid Gallery and, perhaps, Sargent at his best; and one feels all through the American painter's work the influence of his first and only master.
"TOUT CE QUI N'EST PAS INDISPENSABLE EST NUISIBLE," a phrase which is often on Carolus-Duran's lips, may be taken as the keynote of his work, where one finds a noble simplicity of line and color scheme, an elimination of useless detail, a contempt for tricks to enforce an effect, and above all a comprehension and mastery of light, vitality, and texture - those three unities of the painter's art - that bring his canvases very near to those of his self-imposed Spanish master.
Those who know the French painter's more important works and his many splendid studies from the nude, feel it a pity that such masterpieces as the equestrian portrait of Mlle.
Croisette, of the Comedie Francaise, the REVEIL, the superb full length of Mme. Pelouse on the Terrace of Chenonceau, and the head of Gounod in the Luxembourg, could not be collected into one exhibition, that lovers of art here in America might realize for themselves how this master's works are of the class that typify a school and an epoch, and engrave their author's name among those destined to become household words in the mouths of future generations.
