FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206  
207   208   >>  
n is represented holding upon his own beast the poor maltreated Jew and walking by his side. The figure-painting is wonderful in its vigor and _verve_. The fourth picture is Alexandre Cabanel's _Phedre_. The source of the artist's inspiration was the well-known passage from Euripides: "Consumed upon a bed of grief, Phedre shuts herself up in her palace, and with a thin veil envelops her blonde head. It is now the third day that her body has partaken of no nourishment: attacked by a concealed ill, she longs to put an end to her sad fate." Phedre, as she lies wishing only for death as a surcease of sorrow, gazed upon with solicitude by her pitying attendants, is a vivid picture of all-consuming grief. The decorative work of the bed and the wall is chaste and classic. Of the minor pictures, that of Dagnan-Bouveret, _Un Accident_, is one of the best. It is indeed a rare picture in the excellence of its execution in every detail. A boy has been badly wounded in the wrist by some accident, and the surgeon is engaged in dressing the injured part. The dirty foot of the boy as it peeps out beneath the chair, shod in a rough sabot which fails to conceal its grime, the bowl standing on the table half full of blood and water while the wrist is now being skilfully bandaged by the surgeon, whose operations are watched with great solicitude by the group of sympathetic relatives,--all these features give a living interest to this painting which is unusual. The red, grimy hands of the old mother of the boy are very faithfully painted. The expression on the lad's face of heroic endurance and a determination not to cry in any case is touching. As for Mademoiselle Sara Bernhardt's _La Jeune Fille et la Mort_--a veiled skeleton coming up behind a young girl and touching her on the shoulder--it would attract little attention if it had not been signed by the flighty (and lately _fleeing_) actress. The verses underneath the picture are the best part of it: La Mort glisse en son reve, et tout bas: "Viens," dit elle, "L'Amour c'est l'ephemere, et je suis l'immortelle." The great names--Meissonier, Gerome, Munkacsy, Madrazo, Berne-Bellecour, Detaille, De Neuville, Rosa Bonheur, Flameng, etc.--are conspicuous this year by their absence from the catalogue of the Salon. It is whispered that the reason Munkacsy does not exhibit is because the administration of the Beaux-Arts saw fit to place the pictures by foreign artists separatel
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   182   183   184   185   186   187   188   189   190   191   192   193   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   201   202   203   204   205   206  
207   208   >>  



Top keywords:
picture
 

Phedre

 

touching

 
surgeon
 

Munkacsy

 

solicitude

 

pictures

 

painting

 

shoulder

 

attract


skeleton

 
veiled
 

coming

 
Bernhardt
 
determination
 

unusual

 

interest

 

living

 

sympathetic

 

relatives


features

 

mother

 

endurance

 

heroic

 

painted

 
faithfully
 

expression

 

Mademoiselle

 

conspicuous

 

catalogue


absence

 

Flameng

 
Bonheur
 

Detaille

 

Bellecour

 

Neuville

 

whispered

 

foreign

 

separatel

 

artists


reason
 
exhibit
 

administration

 

Madrazo

 

underneath

 
verses
 

glisse

 
actress
 
fleeing
 

signed