THE FRENCH SCHOOL ART. PART I

The Hermitage is notably rich in French works of art, the collection being housed in forty-one rooms (Hermitage, 1st floor, rooms 273 — 297; 2nd floor, rooms 333 — 350) and covering the period from the 15th to the 20th century.
It possesses first class paintings of the greatest French artists. Especially notable are two groups of the material: one covering the 17th and 18th centuries, the other — the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The paintings are successfully supplemented by a number of sculptures and an excellent collection of objects of applied art, such as gobelins, textiles, lace, furniture, porcelain, and jewellery. A notable part of the collection is devoted to the works by famous French sculptors including monuments by Falconet, Houdon, Rodin, Mayol and many other artists. An important place belongs to a large and comprehensive collection of prints and drawings. Taken as a whole the French collection gives a full representation of the artistic life in France and is illustrative of the main phases, styles, and trends in French art.
The Middle Ages and the Renaissance are represented but fragmentary (Hermitage, rooms 273, 274). Yet there are most valuable examples of the rare fifteenth-century easel paintings; small, fantastically shaped white clay vessels inlaid with clays of different colours, made at Saint Porchaire and now very rare; Bernard Palissy’s “rustic” pottery and figures of glazed earthenware; an outstanding collection of Limoge enamels. Hermitage, rooms 259, 273. Especially noteworthy are crayon portraits by Frangois Clouet, Pierre Dumoustier and some other artists. Hermitage, rooms 274, 276).
The seventeenth-century French School is represented by an impressive range of the celebrated artists’ works. The realist movement is exemplified by the work of Valentin de Boullogne, the French follower of Caravaggio (Hermitage, room 277), and the canvases by the brothers Lena in (Hermitage, rooms 276, 277), of which the “Milk-Woman’s Family” by Louis Lena in is the most attractive. The small picture draws attention by the nobleness of the monumental group relieved against a very simple landscape, and by the moral dignity which separates entirely the works of the French seventeenth-century realists from the contemporary Dutch genre scenes with their anecdotical treatment of the subject.

A notable feature of the collection are 15 works by Nicolas Pouss in (Hermitage, room 279) dating from different periods of “his artistic career and presenting all kinds of subjects: religious, mythological, literary, as well as landscapes. The collection is especially strong in Poussin’s early works of which the “Battle of the Israelites with the Amalekites” (1625) reveals a composition undoubtedly inspired by the ancient bas-reliefs whereas the “Descent from the Cross” (about 1630) reveals a picturesque manner testifying to the artist’s study of Italian painting.
One of Poussin’s finest works of the early period and one of the chief masterpieces of the collection is “Tancred and Erminia”, painted in the 1630′s. Its subject was drawn from Torquvato Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered”, and the episode chosen represents Erminia cutting a lock of her hair to bandage Tancred’s wounds. Full of lyrical and poetic mood enhanced by the pictorial and rhythmical composition of the picture, it is at the same time most representative of the painter’s artistic conception and his search for subjects capable of evoking noble thoughts and showing to advantage the spiritual majesty and physical beauty of the human personality.
His later and more austere works “Esther before Ahasuerus” and “Moses Striking the Rock” (1649) have still greater spiritual force and elevation.
Academic School is richly represented in the collection by the paintings of Sebastien Bourdon, Eustache Lecueur, Laurent dela Hyre, Pierre Mignard and some other artists. Hermitage, rooms 278, 281. There are many brilliant works of the society portrait painters such as Nicolas Largilliere, Loran Fochier, Joseph Vivien, Hyacint Rigo (Hermitage, room 283), as well as several battle scenes by Adam van der Meulenand Jасques Соurtоis, called “Bourguignon ” (room 281). All these are but a few noteworthy examples of the seventeenth-century French School at the Hermitage.
Among the most notable paintings of the first half of the 18th century the 7 canvases by Antoine Watteau are naturally given pride of place. Hermitage, room 284. His “Hardships of War”, the “Recreations of War”, and the “Savoyard with a Marmot” — all painted during Watteau’s stay at Valenciennes, as well as “The Embarassing Proposal” and “A Capricious Woman” (“La Boudeuse”) belonging to those gallant conversations which have ensured Watteau’s fame, are outstanding examples of the artist’s early and mature style, revealing Watteau’s strong realistic tendencies and his ability to transmute the observed scene into a poetical spectacle, always lyrical and a bit sad, and always striking by the brilliance of execution. These are tiny gems standing in marked contrast to the pompous productions of Watteau’s contemporaries such as Jean Francoisde Troy, Charles Lafosse, or Jean Restout (room 284).
Watteau’s followers Nicolas Lancret and Jean Baptiste Paterare represented by a number of excellent paintings of which ” Camargo Dancing”, “Gallant Servant”, “Spring” and “Autumn” by Lancret are the noteworthiest.
Works of the mid-eighteenth century artists, both painters and sculptors, brilliant decorators and society painters, who were in fashion with the French aristocracy of the time, are present in large numbers at the Museum. There will be found mythological and decorative compositions by Coypel and Lemoyne ; flattering though brilliant portraits by Nattier, and those, more sumptuous, by Tocqu ; sculptural portraits by Сaffieri and Defernex, always exquisite and brilliant in execution,— all of them but exemplify a great many works of the mentioned group exhibited in the rooms 285 and 286.
Special notice deserves a large and comprehensive collection of Francois Boucher’s works, who is represented at the Hermitage by all kinds of subjects: landscapes, pastoral scenes, decorative works, mythological and religious subjects; his drawings are also on show. The “Pastoral Scene” is the most remarkable among the Hermitage Bouchers revealing apart from the painter’s professional virtuosity the presence of liveliness and expressiveness discarded in his later productions.