We are not going to trace the history of the rise and progress of art in France; our business, at present, is only to speak of one branch of art in that country--lithographic designs, and those chiefly of a humorous character.A history of French caricature was published in Paris, two or three years back, illustrated by numerous copies of designs, from the time of Henry III.to our own day.We can only speak of this work from memory, having been unable, in London, to procure the sight of a copy; but our impression, at the time we saw the collection, was as unfavorable as could possibly be: nothing could be more meagre than the wit, or poorer than the execution, of the whole set of drawings.Under the Empire, art, as may be imagined, was at a very low ebb; and, aping the Government of the day, and catering to the national taste and vanity, it was a kind of tawdry caricature of the sublime; of which the pictures of David and Girodet, and almost the entire collection now at the Luxembourg Palace, will give pretty fair examples.
Swollen, distorted, unnatural, the painting was something like the politics of those days; with force in it, nevertheless, and something of grandeur, that will exist in spite of taste, and is born of energetic will.A man, disposed to write comparisons of characters, might, for instance, find some striking analogies between mountebank Murat, with his irresistible bravery and horsemanship, who was a kind of mixture of Dugueselin and Ducrow, and Mountebank David, a fierce, powerful painter and genius, whose idea of beauty and sublimity seemed to have been gained from the bloody melodramas on the Boulevard.Both, however, were great in their way, and were worshipped as gods, in those heathen times of false belief and hero-worship.
As for poor caricature and freedom of the press, they, like the rightful princess in a fairy tale, with the merry fantastic dwarf, her attendant, were entirely in the power of the giant who ruled the land.The Princess Press was so closely watched and guarded (with some little show, nevertheless, of respect for her rank), that she dared not utter a word of her own thoughts; and, for poor Caricature, he was gagged, and put out of the way altogether:
imprisoned as completely as ever Asmodeus was in his phial.
How the Press and her attendant fared in succeeding reigns, is well known; their condition was little bettered by the downfall of Napoleon: with the accession of Charles X.they were more oppressed even than before--more than they could bear; for so hard were they pressed, that, as one has seen when sailors are working a capstan, back of a sudden the bars flew, knocking to the earth the men who were endeavoring to work them.The Revolution came, and up sprung Caricature in France; all sorts of fierce epigrams were discharged at the flying monarch, and speedily were prepared, too, for the new one.
About this time there lived at Paris (if our information be correct) a certain M.Philipon, an indifferent artist (painting was his profession), a tolerable designer, and an admirable wit.M.
Philipon designed many caricatures himself, married the sister of an eminent publisher of prints (M.Aubert), and the two, gathering about them a body of wits and artists like themselves, set up journals of their own:--La Caricature, first published once a week;and the Charivari afterwards, a daily paper, in which a design also appears daily.
At first the caricatures inserted in the Charivari were chiefly political; and a most curious contest speedily commenced between the State and M.Philipon's little army in the Galerie Vero-Dodat.
Half a dozen poor artists on the one side, and his Majesty Louis Philippe, his august family, and the numberless placemen and supporters of the monarchy, on the other; it was something like Thersites girding at Ajax, and piercing through the folds of the clypei septemplicis with the poisonous shafts of his scorn.Our French Thersites was not always an honest opponent, it must be confessed; and many an attack was made upon the gigantic enemy, which was cowardly, false, and malignant.But to see the monster writhing under the effects of the arrow--to see his uncouth fury in return, and the blind blows that he dealt at his diminutive opponent!--not one of these told in a hundred; when they DID tell, it may be imagined that they were fierce enough in all conscience, and served almost to annihilate the adversary.
