The Judgment of Paris (7 page)

The seasons changed and, as winter arrived, Meissonier had awaited a fall of real snow. When at last it came, he set busily to work. The team of servants was ordered to trample the ground and drag heavy carts back and forth through the mud, carving out deep ruts.
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The models were once more made to pose on horseback, "notwithstanding the bitterly cold weather."
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Meissonier made sketches hurriedly for fear of a thaw destroying his wintry scene or an outbreak of bright sunlight interfering with the cheerless gray sky he had planned for the painting. For reasons of speed he engaged another model to assume the part of Napoléon and sit astride the white charger; but unfortunately the man proved unequal to the task. "He was a stout young man," Meissonier's son Charles, then eighteen, later remembered, "and the riding coat was too small for the big fellow, while the hat fell over his eyes."
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Once again, therefore, Meissonier donned the riding coat and swung into the saddle. At this point, out of doors in the frigid weather, he really began to suffer for his art. Concerned friends suggested that he abandon the park for the warmth and comfort of his studio, but Meissonier objected that in order to capture the correct light and atmosphere he needed to see his models set against a backdrop of cloud and snow.

Despite his two commodious ateliers, Meissonier was no stranger to working at his easel in the open air. Most painters contented themselves with painting outdoor scenes in the comfort of their studios. Even Géricault—otherwise so concerned with authenticity—had the replica of the
Medusa's
raft constructed inside his studio, not under the open skies.
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But such an approach was not good enough for Meissonier. He was determined that the light and shadows in his paintings should be the result of a close and protracted observation of the landscape. "Outdoor light!" he once boasted. "I was the first to paint it!"
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The claim is exaggerated, but he had worked
en plein air
("in the open air") ever since he was a young man, with his easel becoming a familiar landmark along the riverbank in Poissy.

Meissonier was something of a pioneer in this respect, since
plein-air
painting was still relatively new in France. By the 1830s a group of French painters, mainly landscapists inspired by the examples of the English artists John Constable and J. M. W Turner—the latter of whom had been making outdoor paintings from a boat floating on the Thames—took their canvases out of their studios and onto riverbanks and meadows in order to record their perceptions of the French landscape. One of them, Camille Corot, the most talented and versatile landscapist in France, regarded
plein-air
studies as essential for capturing the fugitive effects of light and color. Each summer he crisscrossed France with his easel, immortalizing the Forest of Fontainebleau, the sweeping plains of Picardy, and the misty, tree-lined ponds (known ever since as "the ponds of Corot") in Ville-d'Avray, his adopted home near Paris. A friend from Meissonier's student days, Charles-François Daubigny, was also among this vanguard, purchasing a boat, christened
Le Botin,
with which he plied both the Seine and the Oise.
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Such artistic forays into the countryside had been made easier by the invention, in 1824, of metal tubes for oil paints, which replaced the messy and awkward pig bladders in which artists of previous generations had kept their paints; and by the introduction of collapsible three-legged stools and portable easels, both of which could be carried into the countryside by the artist.
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Yet despite these conveniences,
plein-air
painters still suffered from logistical difficulties and even occupational hazards created by the vagaries of the weather. Meissonier found himself risking frostbite as he made his outdoor studies for
The Campaign of France.
"The cold was intense," Charles Meissonier later reported. "My father's feet froze in the iron stirrups. We were obliged to place foot-warmers under them, and to put near him a chafing dish over which he occasionally held his hands."
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Meissonier may have been prepared for these hardships, strangely enough, thanks to his own father's decree that children should be toughened up by means of exposure to the elements: denied the luxury of a winter coat in his youth, Meissonier used to walk to school with roasted chestnuts, purchased from a street vendor, crammed into his pockets for warmth. Only at the age of nineteen, when he was commissoned to paint a pair of watercolor portraits for ninety francs, did he finally have the means to buy himself a warm cloak.
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After all of these discomforts and exertions,
The Campaign of France
was nearing completion by January of 1863. Meissonier had been hoping to show both it and
The Battle of Solferino
at the Salon of 1863, due to open to the public in May. But even as he was preparing to submit the two works he believed would force a reappraisal of his talents, an unexpected event suddenly cast a shadow over his plans.

Under the ancien regime, the fine arts had been the business of cardinals and kings. Since the French Revolution, the politicians had taken charge. Under Napoléon III, a special section of the Ministry of State known as the Ministry of the Imperial House and the Fine Arts had been given jurisdiction over artistic matters. The tasks of training young artists, organizing exhibitions, commissioning works for churches and other public buildings—all became the responsibility of this Ministry, which was headquartered in the Louvre. Not the least among its duties was the administration of the Salon. To that end, each Salon year, usually in January, the Ministry published what was known as the
règlement,
an official set of rules and regulations stipulating the conditions under which artists submitted their works to the Salon's jury, the composition of which was detailed in the document. The artists were informed, for example, by what date they needed to send their paintings or sculptures to the Palais des Champs-Élysées for judging, how many works they could enter into the competition, and how the Selection Committee—composed of separate juries for the different visual arts—would be formed.

The author of this important document, for the previous fourteen years, had been a suave but ruthless aristocrat named Alfred-Émilien O'Hara, the Comte de Nieuwerkerke. Occupying majestic apartments in the Louvre, where he entertained lavishly amid his collection of antique armor and Italian art, Nieuwerkerke cut an impressive dash through both the Parisian art world and the Imperial court. Despite his Irish surname, he was a Continental blueblood who could claim descent from both the House of Orange in Holland and the House of Bourbon in France. Born in Paris in 1811, the young Émilien had begun his career in the military, training as an officer at the cavalry school in Saumur; but a six-month visit to Italy in 1834 convinced him to try his hand at sculpture. He began studying under Carlo Marochetti—an Italian who had worked on the Arc de Triomphe—and regularly exhibiting at the Salon, to no particular acclaim, works such as his bronze sculptures of René Descartes and Napoléon I. An urbane
seducteur
with a thick mane of hair, a well-groomed beard and, according to one admirer, eyes of "silky blue,"
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Nieuwerkerke really made his reputation when he took as his mistress Princess Mathilde, the niece of Napoléon Bonaparte and the cousin of the emperor Napoléon III.

Following vigorous promotion by Princess Mathilde, who was the daughter of one of Napoléon's younger brothers, Nieuwerkerke had been appointed Directeur-Général des Musees in 1849. In this capacity he was given charge of a number of museums, including the Louvre and the Luxembourg, the latter of which had been founded in 1818 in order to exhibit works by living artists. Most important from the point of view of painters and sculptors, Nieuwerkerke oversaw the Salon. He had therefore become by far the most powerful figure in the French art world.
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Nieuwerkerke concerned himself, naturally enough, with upholding what he regarded as the highest artistic and moral standards. He wanted both to encourage history painting and to discourage Realism, the new movement, led by Courbet, whose followers had abandoned noble and elevated subjects in order to depict gritty scenes featuring peasants and prostitutes. "This is the painting of democrats," sniffed the debonair Nieuwerkerke, "of men who don't change their underwear."
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In order to achieve his lofty aims for French art, he had already forced through a number of reforms, such as taking the decision in 1855 that the Salon should instead be held only biennially in order give artists more time to complete and display paintings of the highest merit. Then in 1857 he decreed that the painting jury should no longer be made up, as previously, by painters elected by their peers. Instead, the only men eligible to serve would be members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the self-perpetuating elite of forty "immortals" whose duty it was to guide and protect French art. With these wise and venerable men acting as gatekeepers, Nieuwerkerke believed, only works of the most compelling aesthetic and moral standards would be permitted into the artistic
sanctum sanctorum
that was the Paris Salon.

J$e
Comte de Nieuwerkerke (Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres)

Then in 1863 Nieuwerkerke introduced yet another reform. Whereas previously artists had been allowed to submit an unlimited number of works to the jury, the latest regulations stated that they could submit no more than three. Nieuwerkerke's reasoning was that artists had been sending as many as eight or ten rather inferior works, in the hope of having at least one or two accepted, instead of concentrating their efforts on a true masterpiece—a large and heroic history painting, for instance—that would take its honored place in the pantheon of French art.

Nieuwerkerke's previous reforms had not been popular with large numbers of artists. The fact that the Salon was held only every two years meant that an artist whose offerings were rejected from one particular Salon would face, in effect, a four-year exile from the Palais des Champs-Élysées. Furthermore, many artists were displeased by the complete domination of the juries by members of the Académie, most of whom had made their reputations in the dim and distant past, usually with grand history paintings. The majority of them were only too happy to enforce Nieuwerkerke's ideals and exclude from show "the painting of democrats." Indeed, these judges had rejected so many artists from the 1859 Salon—Édouard Manet among them—that Nieuwerkerke's soirées in his Louvre apartments were interrupted by mobs of painters chanting protests beneath his windows.

Not surprisingly, a large group of artists also objected to Nieuwerkerke's change to the rules for the 1863 Salon. Ten days after the publication of the regulations, on January 25, a letter with a signed petition was sent to the Minister of State, the Comte de Walewski, who was Nieuwerkerke's superior as well as an illegitimate son of Napoléon Bonaparte.
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The letter complained that the new proviso was prejudicial to the fortunes of French artists. It argued that the Salon was intended to operate as a kind of shop window for collectors, and so exhibition in the Palais des Champs-Élysées was absolutely vital to the economic well-being of artists. Nieuwerkerke's new regulations left them, however, with an even poorer chance of having their wares displayed. "A measure that would result in making it impossible for us to present to the public the fruit of our work," the petition read, "would go, it seems to us, precisely against the spirit that presided over the creation of the Salon."
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This letter concluded with a hope that the Comte de Walewski would "do the right thing with a complaint which is, for us, of such a high interest."
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Six sheets of paper adorned with 182 signatures were attached. Many of the most prominent and successful artists in France had added their names, including both Delacroix and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, bitter professional rivals who usually disagreed on everything. Also signing the petition were a pair of accomplished landscape painters, Camille Corot and Eugène Isabey, the latter of whom had once been court painter to King Louis-Philippe. However, the signature boldly leading the charge, the one scrawled with a thick-nibbed pen at the top of the first page, was that of Ernest Meissonier.

Meissonier and Nieuwerkerke knew one another well. Meissonier had attended the soirées hosted by Princess Mathilde on Sunday evenings at her mansion in the Rue de Courcelles, and he and Nieuwerkerke shared a number of friends, such as Théophile Gautier. In 1855, moreover, Nieuwerkerke had been Vice President of the International Awards Jury when it presented Meissonier with the Grand Medal of Honor at the Universal Exposition in Paris. For these and other reasons, Nieuwerkerke might have expected Meissonier, of all people, to support his latest reform. After all, Meissonier was guaranteed a place at every Salon since he was classified as
hors concours
("outside the competition"). This distinction, given only to those who had received three major awards at previous Salons, meant he was not required to submit his work to the jury for inspection. Nor was he guilty of the practice that Nieuwerkerke wished to snuff out—that of dashing off half-finished paintings and hoping that one or two of them might slip past the jury. Meissonier sought, indeed, the same high standards of morality and aesthetic purity as Nieuwerkerke: he regarded mediocre artists, he once said, as "national scourges."
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