Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art | Page 9

(both of
which last, exhibited in 1817, now hang in the gallery of the
Luxembourg), the "Soldier-Laborer;" the "Soldier of Waterloo;" the
"Last Cartridge;" the "Death of Poniatowski;" the "Defense of
Saragossa," and many more, quickly followed each other, and kept up
continually and increasingly the public admiration. The critics of the
painted bas-relief school found much to say against, and little in favor
of, the new talent that seemed to look them inimically in the face, or
rather did not seem to regard them at all. But people in general, of
simple enough taste in matter of folds of drapery or classic laws of
composition or antique lines of beauty, saw before them with all the
varied sentiments of admiration, terror, or dismay, the soldier mounting
the breach at the cannon's mouth, or the general, covered with orders,
cut short in the midst of his fame. Little of the romantic, little of

poetical idealization, little of far-fetched style was there on these
canvasses, but the crowd recognized the soldier as they saw him daily,
in the midst of the scenes which the bulletin of the army or the page of
the historian had just narrated to them. They were content, they were
full of admiration, they admired the pictures, they admired the artist;
and, the spleen of critics notwithstanding, Horace Vernet was known as
one of the favorite painters of the time.
In 1819 appeared the "Massacre of the Mamelukes at Cairo," now in
the Luxembourg. We do not know how the public accepted this
production. We have no doubt, however, that they were charmed at the
gaudy éclat of the bloodthirsty tyrant, with his hookah and lion in the
foreground, and dismayed at the base assassinations multiplied in the
background. Nor do we doubt that the critics gave unfavorable
judgments thereupon, and that most of those who loved Art seriously,
said little about the picture. We would at all events express our own
regret that the authorities do not find some better works than this and
the "Battle of Tolosa," to represent in a public gallery the talent of the
most famous battle-painter of France. The Battles of Jemmapes, Valmy,
Hanau, and Montmirail, executed at this time, and hung till lately in the
gallery of the Palais Royal (now, we fear, much, if not entirely,
destroyed by the mob on the 24th February), were much more worthy
of such a place. Whether it was by a considerate discernment that the
mob attacked these, as the property of the ex-king, or by a mere
goth-and-vandalism of revolution, we do not know; but certainly we
would rather have delivered up to their wrath these others, the
"property of the nation." The same hand would hardly seem to have
executed both sets of paintings. It is not only the difference in size of
the figures on the canvass, those of the Luxembourg being life-sized,
and those of the Palais Royal only a few inches in length, but the whole
style of the works is different. The first seem painted as if they had
been designed merely to be reproduced in gay silks and worsteds at the
Gobelins, where we have seen a copy of the "Massacre of the
Mamelukes," in tapestry, which we would, for itself, have preferred to
the original. But the latter four battles, notwithstanding the
disadvantage of costume and arrangement necessarily imposed by the
difference of time and country, produce far more satisfactory works of

Art, and come much nearer to historical painting. They are painted
without pretension, without exaggeration. The details are faithfully and
carefully, though evidently rapidly, executed. The generals and
personages in the front are speaking portraits; and the whole scene is
full of that sort of life and action which impresses one at once as the
very sort of action that must have taken place. Now it is a battery of
artillery backed against a wood,--now it is a plain over which dense
ranks of infantry march in succession to the front of the fire. Here it is a
scene where in the full sunlight shows the whole details of the action;
there it is night--and a night of cloud and storm, draws her sombre veil
over the dead and wounded covering the field. A historian might find
on these canvasses, far better than in stores of manuscript, wherewith to
fill many a page of history with accurate and vivid details of these
bloody days; or rather, many a page of history would not present so
accurate and vivid a conception of what is a field of battle.
In 1822, entry to the exhibition at the Louvre being refused to his
works, Horace Vernet made an exhibition-room of his atelier, had a
catalogue made out (for what with battles, hunts, landscapes, portraits,
he had a numerous