Alexandre Francois Desporics, born at Champigneul in 1661 and dying in 1743, distinguished himself by painting a class of subjects similar to that represented by Ondry.
Francois Boucher was among the most distinguished colorists whom France produced in the eighteenth century. He was born at Paris in 1703 and died there in 1770. Boucher was a pupil of Francois Lemoine (1688-1737). Ile reached success early, being appointed painter to the king and receiving the patronage of the great to a remarkable degree. Besides portraits, he executed numerous historical compositions. Such success, based on insufficient grounds, was likely to produce a reaction, and he is now awarded less esteem than he actually deserves. Boucher fell into the frivolous spirit of the age, and his paintings appeal to the eye rather than to the mind. But they are brilliant and well modulated in color, and show an easy mastery of technique.
Simeon Chardin was one of the most agreeable French genre-painters of this period. Ile selected domestic subjects, and excelled in seizing traits of nature and as a colorist. IIis works will live. Chardin was born in 1699 and died in 1779• Jean Papliste Gnus,' surpassed Chardin in somewhat the same line, occupying a high position in an age when French art was in a transition state. He was born at Tonnius in 1725 and died in 1805, having weath ered the stormy scenes of the French Revolution. Like so many of the French school, Greuze was admirable in his harmonies of color. His paintings command high prices, for few have equalled him in represent ing the simple, artless grace of girlhood. His painting of a Girl with a Broken Pitcher is one of his most noted works.
Charles van Lao, who was one of four painters in his family, was born at Nice in 1705 and died in 1765. It has been said of him that " he had all the signs of genius," but, influenced by the false taste of the age and selecting subjects unsuited to his abilities, he failed to make a permanent impression.
Claude Louis Vernet, born at Avignon in 1714, is justly celebrated as the founder of marine-painting in France. His works are numerous, treating every variety of marine effect. His storm-scenes are most suc cessful. He was evidently a close student of Willem van de Velde (1633 1707), the great Dutch marine-painter. Vernet died in 1789.
Joseph Hen deserves distinction as the artist who undertook to reform the vitiated taste and style into which French painters had fallen.
It was reserved for the nineteenth century to show once more the truth that true art should be based upon the study of nature rather than of art. Still, Vien deserves credit for undertaking a reform, even if it began by a study of the masterpieces of ancient art rather than of nature. He attempted to restore simplicity, and produced a number of meritorious historical paintings, of which St. Germain of Auxerre is one of the best. In his Hermit of his most successful works—he laid aside conventional ideas and allowed Nature to be his sole instructor. Vien was born at Montpellier in 1710 and died at Paris in 1809.
Jacques Louis David, a pupil of Vien, was born in 1748 at Paris, and died at Brussels in 1825. He carried the art-reform introduced by Vien to a further degree, and in the choice of subjects as well as in style attempted a close imitation of the classic art of antiquity. There is no question that the works of David, so greatly the reverse of the style then in vogue, produced a remarkable effect on the art of France. The influence was felt not only in the paintings, but also in the decorative art, of the period: Roman furniture became the fashion, and even the costume of the women inclined for a time toward that of Roman dames. This was doubtless clue in part to the growing democratic feeling which culminated in the French Revolution. David was a poor colorist, and failed in the proper distribu tion of light, and the figures in his historical compositions resemble in hardness and severe simplicity sculpture rather than painting. But the time was ripe for a change, and the classic subjects treated by this painter had much influence in establishing his popularity. Prominent among these were the litircus Brutus and the Oath of the Horatii 5o,fig. 7). Paint ings of another character by David were court-scenes in the imperial career of Napoleon I., and he produced a portrait in which the historic significance of this hero is symbolically depicted. The tamer of anarchy sits tranquilly on a fiery, plunging steed and spurs up the steep slope of the St. Bernard, pointing toward the highest goal (pl. 5o, fig. 8). It was Bona parte's own wish to be painted thus. While David can hardly be called a great painter, he was a force during this period of French art, and founded a school.