Lot Essay
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes is among the most influential French artists of the nineteenth century. Enormously gifted, and largely self-taught, Puvis devised a highly effective and personal style unlike any other in the world. His use of flat secondary colors and his neo-classical figure style, derived largely from Renaissance and Baroque mural painting, were a new departure in the arts of nineteenth-century France and appealed to both academic and avant-garde painters. Among the artists deeply influenced by Puvis are Degas, Gauguin, Vuillard, Matisse, and Picasso. Indeed, Gauguin said, "Puvis de Chavannes is the best example... [his] talent and experience, which I do not have, overwhelm me"; Vuillard said, "The experiments in stylization and expressive synthesis... typical of [modern] art were all present already in the art of Puvis"; and Picasso looked directly at Puvis's figure style for guidance during his Rose and Blue periods.
The present work typifies the strengths of Puvis de Chavannes as an artist. He painted two great mural ensembles for the building today known as the Pantheon, the first between 1874 and 1877, the second in 1893. The first of these cycles, consisting of Sainte Genevive enfant en prire (fig. 1) and La vie pastorale de Sainte Genevieve (fig. 2), constituted his first commission in Paris, and his most important work up until that point. He made the present sketch in preparation of La vie pastorale de Sainte Genevive .
The genesis of this commission goes back to late 1873 when Philippe, Marquis de Chennevire was appointed Director of Beaux-Arts. As his first act in his new position, he commissioned an extensive series of mural paintings for the church of Sainte Genevive. This church, built in the eighteenth century by Jacques Germain Soufflot, had been deconsecrated under Napoleon, but reconsecrated in 1851; it remained an ecclesiastical institution until 1885 when it was transformed into the Pantheon. On 28 February 1874, Chennevire submitted a plan reporting his intention to commission the best artists in France to create:
un vaste pome de peinture et de sculpture la gloire de cette Sainte Genevieve qui restera la figure la plus idale des premiers temps de notre race, pome ou la lgende de la patronne de Paris se combinerait avec l'histoire marveilleuse des origines chretiennes de la France.
[a vast poem of painting and sculpture to the glory of Saint Genevieve who will remain the most ideal figure of the early history of our race, a poem or legend of the patroness of Paris which will combine with the miraculous history of the Christian origins of France.] Quoted in Puvis de Chavannes, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1976-1977, p. 134).
By 6 May 1874, Chenneviere had prepared a selection of artists for the commission; the artists included a surprisingly diverse group: Puvis, Millet, Gustave Moreau, Grme and others.
With the assistance of l'Abb Bonnefoy, Chennevire devised an iconographic program for the murals. According to Bonnefoy, the cycle should celebrate "l'histoire religioso-nationale de la France." Sainte Genevive enjoyed a special status in the 1870s. Because she was believed to have provided divine protection for Paris against the ravages of Attila the Hun, many Parisians prayed to her during the dark days of the Franco-Prussian War. As a result, from 1871 on, her cult experienced a reflourescence. According to the program of Chenneviere and Bonnefoy, "The first inter-columnation at right should represent the education of Saint Genevive, and the following three intercolumnations, joined in one composition, should represent the pastoral life of the young saint" (quoted in ibid., p. 135). By 12 May 1874, Chennevire had assigned these scenes to Puvis, who was to receive the substantial sum of 50,000FF.
Puvis chose specific narrative events to illustrate the iconographic program he had been assigned; the first scene (fig. 1) shows Saint Genevieve in prayer; the second scene (fig. 2) according to its inscription, records the meeting in 429 A.D. of Saint Genevive and Saint Germain d'Auxerre and Saint Loup:
In the year 429, Saint Germanus of Auxerre and Saint Loup, on their way to England to fight the Pelasgian heresy, arrive in the neighborhood of Nanterre. In the crowd gathered to meet them, Saint Germanus distinguishes a child marked for him with a divine seal. He questions her and to her parents fortells the high destiny to which she has been called. That child was Saint Genevive, patron saint of Paris. (Translated by A. Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes,
Amsterdam, n.d., p. 154)
Puvis has left a detailed account of his conception of the scene:
I chose to represent the hour when history took possession of the heroine blessed and consecrated by Saint Germain; it is not the meeting of an old man and a young girl, it is the meeting of two great souls. Their intense spiritual rapport is the focal point of the entire composition. At the left and behind the little saint are her parents who are listening to the glorious prophecy with great emotion; around them are grouped people of all classes and conditions... To surmount the difficulty presented by the columns and to maintain the unity of the composition, I have made the crowd, so to speak, pass behind the columns without taking them into account. In the left panel, some boaters approach the bank and contemplate the scene, while, from a hovel, a sick youth is carefully brought forward in order that he may be touched and cured by the bishop saints. The right panel is full of emotions caused by their passage; an old man crippled with age painfully attempts to kneel down; a young beggar keeps her distance, a little like a pariah, with the weight of a big child asleep in her arms; at the right two farm girls hasten to milk a cow; while the attendants of the bishops rest, indifferent to the impression they are creating all around them. In the background some potters, semi-savages, watch the scene from the distance. In the absence of documentation, I wanted it to resemble the truth, and I set it between the antique silhouette of Mont Valerian and the banks of the Seine; I wanted, however, in representing the youth of the heroine, that all be young and fresh around her; the year is young, it is springtime; the sky is young, it is morning; finally, the general aspect is tender and sweet like the soul of this young child, which should, so to speak, animate and transfuse the entire composition (quoted in Ph. de Chennevire, "Souvenirs d'un Directeur des Beaux-Arts," L'artiste, LIV, October 1884, pp. 266-267).
Puvis turned to the early Renaissance, and specifically Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, as the model for his mural paintings of Sainte-Genevive. Masaccio's style contained both the primitive power and pristine purity that Puvis sought in his own work, and which he believed particularly appropriate for a scene from the paleo-Christian history of France. Puvis's debt to Masaccio is clearest in the half-nude kneeling figure at the left: this is a virtual quotation in reverse from The Baptism of Saint Peter in the Brancacci Chapel. Moreover, the plain but stylized trees in the background strongly recall the trees in The Tribute Money; the drapery style, and the rhythmic manner of the grouping of the figures at the center also bespeak of Puvis's study of Masaccio and Giotto.
When Puvis's paintings at Sainte-Genevive were first unveiled, they attracted enormous public attention and critical acclaim. According to Chennevire:
It was Tuesday 22 May 1877 when Puvis unveiled to the public his two compositions of the infancy of Saint Genevive. There was at that moment a great cry of admiration among the artists: painters, sculptors, architects, it seduced them all...
The sensation produced by the unveiling of these paintings was immense. It was like a festival of art. Truly, the processions of artists coming to see them took place for a long time (ibid., pp. 265 and 267).
Part of the appeal of Puvis de Chavannes's style was its Frenchness. As Alponse Germaine wrote in 1891, "What Rembrandt is to Holland, Puvis de Chavannes will be to France; his is ours; thanks to his thusness ('ipseisme'), our art will become national again" (quoted in J. Shaw, "Imagining the Motherland: Puvis de Chavannes, Modernism, and the Fantasy of France," Art Bulletin, vol. LXXIX, 1997, p. 586).
Another small-scale version by Puvis de Chavannes of L'Enfance is the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.
(fig. 1) Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Sainte Genevive enfant en prire, 1877
Panthon, Paris
(fig. 2) Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, L'enfance de Sainte Genevive, 1877
Panthon, Paris
The present work typifies the strengths of Puvis de Chavannes as an artist. He painted two great mural ensembles for the building today known as the Pantheon, the first between 1874 and 1877, the second in 1893. The first of these cycles, consisting of Sainte Genevive enfant en prire (fig. 1) and La vie pastorale de Sainte Genevieve (fig. 2), constituted his first commission in Paris, and his most important work up until that point. He made the present sketch in preparation of La vie pastorale de Sainte Genevive .
The genesis of this commission goes back to late 1873 when Philippe, Marquis de Chennevire was appointed Director of Beaux-Arts. As his first act in his new position, he commissioned an extensive series of mural paintings for the church of Sainte Genevive. This church, built in the eighteenth century by Jacques Germain Soufflot, had been deconsecrated under Napoleon, but reconsecrated in 1851; it remained an ecclesiastical institution until 1885 when it was transformed into the Pantheon. On 28 February 1874, Chennevire submitted a plan reporting his intention to commission the best artists in France to create:
un vaste pome de peinture et de sculpture la gloire de cette Sainte Genevieve qui restera la figure la plus idale des premiers temps de notre race, pome ou la lgende de la patronne de Paris se combinerait avec l'histoire marveilleuse des origines chretiennes de la France.
[a vast poem of painting and sculpture to the glory of Saint Genevieve who will remain the most ideal figure of the early history of our race, a poem or legend of the patroness of Paris which will combine with the miraculous history of the Christian origins of France.] Quoted in Puvis de Chavannes, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1976-1977, p. 134).
By 6 May 1874, Chenneviere had prepared a selection of artists for the commission; the artists included a surprisingly diverse group: Puvis, Millet, Gustave Moreau, Grme and others.
With the assistance of l'Abb Bonnefoy, Chennevire devised an iconographic program for the murals. According to Bonnefoy, the cycle should celebrate "l'histoire religioso-nationale de la France." Sainte Genevive enjoyed a special status in the 1870s. Because she was believed to have provided divine protection for Paris against the ravages of Attila the Hun, many Parisians prayed to her during the dark days of the Franco-Prussian War. As a result, from 1871 on, her cult experienced a reflourescence. According to the program of Chenneviere and Bonnefoy, "The first inter-columnation at right should represent the education of Saint Genevive, and the following three intercolumnations, joined in one composition, should represent the pastoral life of the young saint" (quoted in ibid., p. 135). By 12 May 1874, Chennevire had assigned these scenes to Puvis, who was to receive the substantial sum of 50,000FF.
Puvis chose specific narrative events to illustrate the iconographic program he had been assigned; the first scene (fig. 1) shows Saint Genevieve in prayer; the second scene (fig. 2) according to its inscription, records the meeting in 429 A.D. of Saint Genevive and Saint Germain d'Auxerre and Saint Loup:
In the year 429, Saint Germanus of Auxerre and Saint Loup, on their way to England to fight the Pelasgian heresy, arrive in the neighborhood of Nanterre. In the crowd gathered to meet them, Saint Germanus distinguishes a child marked for him with a divine seal. He questions her and to her parents fortells the high destiny to which she has been called. That child was Saint Genevive, patron saint of Paris. (Translated by A. Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes,
Amsterdam, n.d., p. 154)
Puvis has left a detailed account of his conception of the scene:
I chose to represent the hour when history took possession of the heroine blessed and consecrated by Saint Germain; it is not the meeting of an old man and a young girl, it is the meeting of two great souls. Their intense spiritual rapport is the focal point of the entire composition. At the left and behind the little saint are her parents who are listening to the glorious prophecy with great emotion; around them are grouped people of all classes and conditions... To surmount the difficulty presented by the columns and to maintain the unity of the composition, I have made the crowd, so to speak, pass behind the columns without taking them into account. In the left panel, some boaters approach the bank and contemplate the scene, while, from a hovel, a sick youth is carefully brought forward in order that he may be touched and cured by the bishop saints. The right panel is full of emotions caused by their passage; an old man crippled with age painfully attempts to kneel down; a young beggar keeps her distance, a little like a pariah, with the weight of a big child asleep in her arms; at the right two farm girls hasten to milk a cow; while the attendants of the bishops rest, indifferent to the impression they are creating all around them. In the background some potters, semi-savages, watch the scene from the distance. In the absence of documentation, I wanted it to resemble the truth, and I set it between the antique silhouette of Mont Valerian and the banks of the Seine; I wanted, however, in representing the youth of the heroine, that all be young and fresh around her; the year is young, it is springtime; the sky is young, it is morning; finally, the general aspect is tender and sweet like the soul of this young child, which should, so to speak, animate and transfuse the entire composition (quoted in Ph. de Chennevire, "Souvenirs d'un Directeur des Beaux-Arts," L'artiste, LIV, October 1884, pp. 266-267).
Puvis turned to the early Renaissance, and specifically Masaccio's frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, as the model for his mural paintings of Sainte-Genevive. Masaccio's style contained both the primitive power and pristine purity that Puvis sought in his own work, and which he believed particularly appropriate for a scene from the paleo-Christian history of France. Puvis's debt to Masaccio is clearest in the half-nude kneeling figure at the left: this is a virtual quotation in reverse from The Baptism of Saint Peter in the Brancacci Chapel. Moreover, the plain but stylized trees in the background strongly recall the trees in The Tribute Money; the drapery style, and the rhythmic manner of the grouping of the figures at the center also bespeak of Puvis's study of Masaccio and Giotto.
When Puvis's paintings at Sainte-Genevive were first unveiled, they attracted enormous public attention and critical acclaim. According to Chennevire:
It was Tuesday 22 May 1877 when Puvis unveiled to the public his two compositions of the infancy of Saint Genevive. There was at that moment a great cry of admiration among the artists: painters, sculptors, architects, it seduced them all...
The sensation produced by the unveiling of these paintings was immense. It was like a festival of art. Truly, the processions of artists coming to see them took place for a long time (ibid., pp. 265 and 267).
Part of the appeal of Puvis de Chavannes's style was its Frenchness. As Alponse Germaine wrote in 1891, "What Rembrandt is to Holland, Puvis de Chavannes will be to France; his is ours; thanks to his thusness ('ipseisme'), our art will become national again" (quoted in J. Shaw, "Imagining the Motherland: Puvis de Chavannes, Modernism, and the Fantasy of France," Art Bulletin, vol. LXXIX, 1997, p. 586).
Another small-scale version by Puvis de Chavannes of L'Enfance is the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.
(fig. 1) Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Sainte Genevive enfant en prire, 1877
Panthon, Paris
(fig. 2) Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, L'enfance de Sainte Genevive, 1877
Panthon, Paris