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NAPOLEON AT FONTAINEBLEAU BEFORE HIS ABDICATION

This is the first painting by Delaroche we have seen, though we have long been familiar with his works through their engravings. He is every inch a master. You get from his work that strange and delightful shock which asserts at once his genius and power. You are not struck, but you get a shock of surprise, of awe, and of pleasure, which no man who once gets ever mistakes for anything else. This picture, of has this charm and power. You never before saw anything like it, you will never see anything like it again, and you will never forget it. It is no easy matter to describe what passes through one's mind on looking at such a bit of intense and deep genius. One feels more inclined in such a case to look, and recollect, to feel, and be grateful, than to speak.

 
"Him —
Who in our wonder and astonishment
Has built himself a livelong monument,"
 

Napoleon is represented as alone – seated hurriedly and sideways upon a chair – one leg of which has trod upon a magnificent curtain, and is trailing it down to ruin. He is dressed in his immortal grey coat, his leather breeches, and his big riding boots, soiled with travel; the shapely little feet, of which he was so proud, are drawn comfortlessly in; his hat is thrown on the ground. His attitude is that of the deepest dejection and abstraction; his body is sunk, and his head seems to bear it down, with its burden of trouble. This is finely indicated by the deep transverse fold of his waistcoat; one arm is across the back of the chair, the other on his knee, his plump hands lying idle; his hair, that thin, black straight hair, looks wet, and lies wildly across his immense forehead. But the face is where the artist has set his highest impress, and the eyes are the wonder of his face. The mouth is firm as ever – beautiful and unimpassioned as an infant's; the cheeks plump, the features expressive of weariness, but not distressed; the brow looming out from the dark hair, like something oppressively and supernaturally capacious; and then the eyes! his whole mind looking through them, – bodily distress, want of sleep, fear, doubt, shame, astonishment, anger, speculation, seeking rest but as yet finding it not; going overall possibilities, calm, confounded, but not confused. There is all this in the grey, serious, perplexed eyes; we don't know that we ever saw anything, at once so subtle, awful, and touching, as their dreary look. Your eyes begin soon to move your heart; you pity and sympathize with him, and yet you know all he has done, the havoc he has made of everything man holds sacred, or God holds just; you know how merciless he was and will be, how eaten up with ambition, how mischievous; you know that after setting at defiance all mankind, and running riot in victory, he had two years before this set his face against the heavens, and, defying the elements, had found to his own, and to his country's tremendous cost, that none can "stand before His cold." We know that he is fresh from the terrible three days at Leipsic, where he never was so amazing in his resources, and all that constitutes military genius; we know that he has been driven from his place by the might and the wrath of the great German nation, and that he is as faithless and dangerous as ever; but we still feel for him. Our soul is "purged by terror and pity," which is the end of tragic art as well as of tragic writing, and will be found like it one of the "gravest, moralest, and most profitable" of all human works. This is the touch "that makes the whole world kin."

This trouble in the eye – this looking into vacancy, and yet not being vacant – this irresolute and helpless look in one so resolute, so self-sustained, is to us one of the very highest results of that art which affects the mind through the eye.

The picture, as a work of art, is remarkable for its simplicity of idea and treatment, the severity of its manner, and the gloomy awfulness everywhere breathing from it. It seems to gather darkness as you gaze at it; the imperial eagles emblazoned on the wall are struggling through a sort of ruddy darkness produced by the deep shadow on the rich-coloured curtain. His sword is lying on a table, its hilt towards us.

But what impressed us most, and what still impresses us is, that we have seen the man as he then was, as he then was looking, and thinking, feeling, and suffering. We started at first as if we were before him, rather than he before us, and that we would not like to have that beautiful but dread countenance, and those unsearchable, penetrating cold eyes lifted up upon us.

No man need ask himself after this, if Delaroche is a great artist; but some of his other works display, if not more intensity, more variety of idea and expression. Their prevailing spirit is that of severe truthfulness, simplicity, and a kind of gloomy power – a certain awfulness, in its strict sense, not going up to sublimity perhaps, or forward into beauty, but lingering near them both. They are full of humanity, in its true sense; what he feels he feels deeply, and it asserts its energy in every bit of his handiwork.

It is remarkable how many of his best pictures are from English history, and how many are possessed by Englishmen. The following short sketch of his chief pictures may be interesting. His earliest works were on religious subjects; they are now forgotten. The first which attracted attention was the picture of Joan of Arc in prison, examined by Cardinal Winchester; this has been engraved, and is very great – full of his peculiar gloom. Then followed Flora Macdonald succouring the Pretender; the death of Queen Elizabeth, almost too intense and painful for pleasurable regard; a scene at the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; Death of the English Princes in the Tower; Richelieu on the Rhone, with Cinq Mars and De Thou as prisoners; Death of Cardinal Mazarin; Cromwell regarding the dead body of Charles I. This last is a truly great and impressive picture – we hardly know one more so, or more exactly suited for Art. The great Protector, with his well-known face, in which ugliness and affection and power kept such strange company, is by himself in a dark room. And yet not by himself. The coffin in which Charles, his king, is lying at rest, having ceased from troubling, is before him, and he has lifted up the lid and is gazing on the dead king – calm, with the paleness and dignity of death – of such a death, upon that fine face. You look into the face of the living man; you know what he is thinking of. Awe, regret, resolution. He knows the full extent of what has been done – of what he has done. He thinks, if the dead had not been false, anything else might have been forgiven; if he had but done this, and not done that; and his great human affections take their course, and he may wish it had been otherwise. But you know that having taken this gaze, and having let his mind go forth in its large issues, as was his way, he would again shut that lid, and shut his mind, and go away certain that it was right, that it was the only thing, and that he will abide by it to the end. It is no mean art that can put this into a few square inches of paper, or that can raise this out of any ordinary looker-on's brain. What a contrast to Napoleon's smooth, placid face and cold eyes, that rough visage, furrowed with sorrow and internal convulsions, and yet how much better, greater, worthier, the one than the other! We have often wondered, if they had met a Lutzen, or at some of the wild work of that time, what they would have made of each other. We would lay the odds upon the Brewer's Son. The intellect might not be so immense, the self-possession not so absolute, but the nature, the whole man, would be more powerful, because more in the right and more in sympathy with mankind. He would never try an impossible thing; he would seldom do a wrong thing, an outrage to human nature or its Author; and for all that makes true greatness and true courage, we would not compare the one with the other. But to return to our artist. There is St. Amelia praying, very beautiful; Death of Duke of Guise at Blois; Charles I. in the Guard-room, mocked by the soldiers; Lord Strafford going to execution, kneeling as he passes under the window of Laud's cell, whose outstretched hands bless him. This is a great picture; nothing is seen of Laud but the thin, passionate, imploring hands, and yet you know what they express, you know what sort of a face there will be in the darkness within. Strafford is very fine.

There is a charming portrait of his wife as the angel Gabriel; a St. Cecilia playing; and a beautiful Holy Family, the Virgin, a portrait of his wife, and the child, a beautiful rosy creature, full of favour, with those deep, unfathomable, clear eyes, filled with infinity, such as you see in Raphael's Sistine Jesus.

NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS

Last year at this time we were all impressed, as we seldom are by anything of this sort, by Delaroche's picture of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. We are none of us likely to forget the feeling then experienced of being admitted into that dread presence, and looking, not only at the bodily form, but into the very soul of that great and miserable man. We may now get a different and yet a similar impression, from what we cannot but regard as a nobler and more touching work – something deeper and finer still. Those who knew what we thought of the first, will understand how much praise of the second is involved in our saying this. Last year we saw before us the spectacle of power, perhaps the most intense and enormous ever committed by the Divine Disposer to one of his creatures, in ruins, having all but played the game out. It was the setting sun of a day of astonishment, brightness, and tempest, lightning and thunder; but the great orb was sinking in disastrous storm and gloom – going down never to rise again. In this new picture, we have the rising sun climbing up its young morning sky; the hours of glory, of havoc, and of shame, are before him, and us. The innocent brightness of his new-born day is not yet gone; it will soon go.

Nothing can be simpler, or more everyday-like, than the body of the picture. A steady, painstaking mule, with his shoulder to the steep, his head well down, his nostrils dilated, his eye full of stress and courage, his last hind leg straining forward himself and his burden, his shaggy legs clotted with the sweat-ice-drops, the weatherworn harness painted as like as it can look, his ruffled and heated hide, the leash of thongs, which, dangling, has often amused and tickled his old and hungry sides, swinging forward in the gusty wind – his whole heart and soul in his work; he is led by his old master, with his homely, hardy, and honest face, his sinewy alpenstock in his hand. Far back on the mule sits Napoleon, consulting his own ease alone, not sparing man or beast – he was not given to spare man or beast – his muscles relaxed, his lean shapely leg instinctively gripping the saddle, his small handsome foot resting idly in the stirrup, the old useless knotted bridle lying on the mule's neck, his grey coat buttoned high up, and blown forward by the wind, his right hand in his inner coat, his slight graceful chest well up, and, above it, his face! and, above it, that well-known hat, firmly held by the prodigious head within, the powdery snow grizzling its rim. Ay, that face! look at it; let its vague, proud, melancholy gaze, not at you, or at anything, but into the immense future, take possession of your mind. He is turning the north side of the Alps; he is about descending into Italy; and what of that? – we all know now what of that, and do not know yet all of it. We were then, such of us as may have been born, as unconscious of what was before us and him, as that patient mule or his simple master. Look at the face narrowly: it is thin; the cheeks sunken; the chin exquisite, with its sweet dimple; the mouth gentle, and firm, and sensitive, but still as death, not thinking of words or speech, but merely letting the difficult air of that Alpine region in and out. That same mouth which was to ignore the word impossible and call it a beast, and to know it, and be beaten by it in the end; that thin, delicate, straight nose leading you to the eyes, with their pencilled and well-pronounced brows; there is the shadow of youth, and of indifferent health, under and around these eyes, giving to their power and meaning a singular charm – they are the wonder of the picture. He is looking seriously, but blankly, far on and up, seeing nothing outwardly, the mind's eye seeing – who can tell what? His cheek is pale with the longing of greatness. The young and mighty spirit within is awakening, and hardly knows itself and its visions, but it looks out clearly and firmly, though with a sort of vague sadness, into its appointed field.

Every one must be struck with this look of sorrow; a certain startled air of surprise, of hope, and of fear; his mind plays deeply with the future that is far off, – besides doing anything but play with his work to-morrow, that, as we shall soon hear, was earnest enough, as Marengo can tell. Such is the natural impression, such the feelings, this picture made and awakened in our minds through our eyes. It has a certain plain truth and immediateness of its own, which leads to the idea of all that followed; and, lest this effect be said to be ours, not the picture's, we would ask any man to try and bring such an idea, or indeed any idea, into the head of any one looking at David's absurd piece of horsemanship, called Crossing the Alps. And what is that idea? Everything ripening for that harvest, he is putting his sickle forth to reap. France, terrified and bleeding, and half free, getting sight of its future king – rousing itself and gathering itself up to act. Italy, Austria, and the drowsy, rotten, bewildered kingdoms, turning uneasily in their sleep, and awakening, some of them never again to rest; even the utmost north to bear witness of him, and take terrible vengeance for his wrongs. Egypt has already been filled with the glory, the execration, and disgrace of his name; and that Holy Land, the theatre of the unspeakable wonders and goodness of the Prince of Peace, that too has seen him, and has cast him out, by the hearty courage and hatred of an English captain and his sailors. England also is to play a part; to annihilate his fleets, beat him and his best marshals wherever she meets them, and finish him utterly at last.

And what changes – as strange, though more hidden – in character, in affection, in moral worth, are to take place in that beautiful and spiritual countenance, in that soul of which it is the image; infinite pride, and glory, and guilt, working their fell will upon him – his being (that most dreadful of all calamities to a creature like man) left altogether to himself. How the wild, fierce courage of Lodi and Arcole is to waste away into the amazing meanness of "Sauve gui peut" – the Regent's letter, and the pitiful bullying on board the Bellerophon. Before him lis his victories, his mighty civil plans, his code of laws, his endless activity, his prodigious aims, even his medals so beautiful, so ridiculous, so full of lies – one of them telling its own shame, having on one side Hercules strangling the monster of the sea (England), and on the other the words "Struck at London!!" his perfidy and cruelty; the murdered young D'Enghien; the poisoned soldiers at Jaffa. The red field of Leipsic rises stark on our sight, where the great German people, that honest and right-hearted but slow race, fell and rose again, never again to fall so low, and, by and by, through the same vital energy, it may be soon, to rise higher than many think, when, rousing themselves like a strong man after sleep, they shall drive their enemies, be they kings or priests, as old Hermann and his Teuts chased the Roman Eagles across the Rhine, and returning, lift up like them their beer horns in peace; this has always seemed to us the great moral lesson to the world of Napoleon's career. But our readers are impatient; they have, perhaps, parted company with us long ago. One thing they will agree with us in, that this picture raises up the mind of the looker; fills his memory with living forms; breathes the breath of life and of human nature into the eventful past, and projects the mind forward upon the still greater future; deepens impressions, and writes "Vanity of vanity, all is vanity," on such mad ambition —

 
"The glories of our earthly state,
Are shadows, not substantial things."
 

But to return to our picture. Behind Napoleon is another guide, leading the horse of a soldier, muffled up, and battling with the keen mountain wind. This closes the scene; around and above are the everlasting Alps, looking as they did when Hannibal passed nearly 3000 years before, and as they will do thousands of years hence. They bear down upon the eye in a formidable way, as if frowning at the intruder on their snows and silence, and as if crowding down to withstand his steps. Under is the spotless snow, with some bits of ice, troubling the hoofs of the mule. This completes the picture, which, as we have already said, is homely and simple in its body, in all that first meets the eye, though informed throughout with the finest phantasy when the mind rests upon it and reaches its soul.

Every one must be struck with the personal beauty of Napoleon as represented here. He was in his 31st year; had been four years married to Josephine – the happiest years of his life; he had just come from Egypt, having been hunted across the Mediterranean by Nelson. His peasant guide, who succeeded to the old man, and who brought him within sight of Italy, described him as "a very dark man, and with an eye which, though affable, he did not like to encounter." We can believe him; a single look of that eye, or a word from that mouth, cheered and set in motion the wearied army as they toiled up "the Valley of Desolation;" and if they stuck fast in despair, the Consul had the drums beat, and trumpets sounded, as for the charge. This never failed. He knew his men.

This picture was conceived by Delaroche last year, on the spot where the scene is laid, and painted very soon after. He was at Nice for his health, and had for his guide up the St. Bernard, the son of the man leading the mule, who told him many things about Napoleon, and how he looked. As regards colour, it is the best of Dela-roche's pictures we have seen; it is a curious study to mark how little, and how much, the young, thin, spiritual face differs from that of last year's picture.

There is something to our minds, not unseasonable in directing our thoughts to such a spectacle of mere human greatness, at this (Christmas) sacred time. So much mischief, crime, and misery, and yet so much power, intelligence, progress, and a certain dreadful usefulness in the career of such a man. What a contrast to His life, who entered our world 1850 years ago, and whose birth was heralded by the angel song, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men;" whose religion and example, and continual living influence, has kept this strange world of ours from being tenfold more wicked and miserable than it is. We would conclude with the words of the poet of In Memoriam —

 
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells across the snow,
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.
 
 
"Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler forms of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
 
 
"Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
 
 
"Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace."
 

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

If this picture in any degree fulfil its object, if we are impressed and moved by it, then it is not matter for words, it partakes of the unspeakableness of its subject. If it fall short of this, it fails utterly, and is not worth any words but those of displeasure, for nothing is more worthless, nothing is more truly profane, and few things are more common, than the attempt to represent sacred ideas by a man who is himself profane, and incapable of impressing others. For it is as unseemly, and in the true sense as profane, for a painter to paint such subjects if he do not feel them, as it is for a man to preach the great truths of our most holy faith, being himself an unbeliever, or at the best a Gallio, in both cases working merely for effect, or to bring in wages.

This picture is not liable to any such rebuke. Whatever may be thought of its central idea and of its expression, no one can doubt – no one can escape coming-under – its power, its true sacredness. Watch the people studying it; listen, not to their words, but to their silence; they are all as if performing an act of worship, or at least of devout reverence. The meaning of the picture reaches you at once: that lonely, serious, sorrowful, majestic countenance and form; those wonderful listening eyes, so full of concern, of compassion – "acquainted with grief;" the attitude of anxious hearkening, as if "waiting to be gracious." This idea rules the whole. We all feel who He is, and what He is desiring; and we feel, perhaps it may be in a way never felt before, the divine depth of the words, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man open unto me, I will come in to him, and sup with him, and he with me;" and we see that though He is a king, and is "travelling in the greatness of his strength, mighty to save," He cannot open the door – it must open from within – He can only stand and knock.

We confess that, with this thought filling our mind, we care little for the beautiful and ingenious symbols with which the painter has enriched his work; that garden run wild, that Paradise Lost, with the cold starlight indicating and concealing its ruin – all things waste, the light from the lantern falling on the apple (a wonderful bit of painting) – the fruit of that forbidden tree the darnel or tares choking up the door, and the gentle but inveterate ivy grasping it to the lintel; the Jewish and the Gentile emblems clasped together across his breast; the crown, at once royal and of thorns set with blood-red carbuncles; and many other emblems full of subtle spiritual meaning. We confess to rather wishing the first impression had been left alone.

The faults of the picture as a work of art are, like its virtues, those of its school – imitation is sometimes mistaken for representation. There is a want of the unity, breadth, and spaciousness of nature about the landscape, as if the painter had looked with one eye shut, and thus lost the stereoscopic effect of reality – the solidarity of binocular vision; this gives a displeasing flatness. It is too full of astonishing bits, as if it had been looked at, as well as painted, piece-meal. With regard to the face of our Saviour, this is hardly a subject for criticism, – as we have said, it is full of majesty and tenderness and meaning; but we have never yet seen any image of that face so expressive as not to make us wish that it had been left alone to the heart and imagination of each for himself. In the "Entombment," by Titian, one of the three or four greatest pictures in the world, the face of the dead Saviour is in shadow, as if the painter preferred leaving it thus, to making it more definite; as if he relied on the idea – on the spiritual image – rising up of itself; as if he dared not be definite; thus showing at once his greatness and modesty by acknowledging that there is "that within which passeth show."