Francois Girard, born in 1770 and died in 1837, was one of the most successful painters of the school of David. His style was simple and severe, and intellectual rather than emotional. He will be remembered for his Blind Belisarins (Jig. 9) and the Entrance of Henri' into Pierre Paul Prud'hon was born in Burgundy in 1758 and died at Paris in 1823. The solemn character of his style and subjects indicates the influence of David, but still more of the terrible scenes in which he lived. Although he did not begin serious composition until early in the present century, yet he properly belongs to the previous century, as his art shows unmistakable evidence of having been moulded by the influ ences amid which his character was formed. His painting entitled Justice and fiursning Crime is a celebrated work now in the Louvre, at Paris. In style it is of the later French of the eighteenth century, while in subject it seems to suggest the romantic school which followed.
Madame closing the survey of the chief French painters of the eighteenth century a word may be said concern ing Madame Vigee le Brun, who was born in Paris in 1755 and died in 1842. She and Angelica Kauffmann were the most prominent female painters of this period. It is not ungallant to add that the great repute their works enjoyed at one time was due in part to the extreme rarity of artists of that sex. Madame le Brun painted a number of pleasing sub
ject-compositions of an allegorical character, but her art was devoted chiefly to portraiture. Among her sitters were Lady Hamilton, the abbe Fleury, and Madame de Stael in the character of Corinna.
Jean Houor• 1.)-agonard, born in 1732 and died in 18(36, was a painter whose name is omitted from many cycloiredias, but he was an artist of high repute in his time, and deserves to be rescued from oblivion ilo less than some of those we have already mentioned. Like many of the French painters of a corrupt age devoted to frivolity before the burst ing of the hurricane of 1793, Fragonard was given over to a life of dissi pation. But for this very reason, perhaps, he was better fitted to paint those lifelike portraits of gay duchesses and actresses which were so pop ular at one time, and the like compositions that pleased a people " tickled with a straw." Among his graceful compositions, brilliant in color and in thought light as air, were the Fountain ty' the Loves and the Sacrifice of the Rose. But the Revolution was at hand; the scaffold was waiting for the pretty women who had given inspiration to the brush of Frago nard, and a 11CW epoch in French art was about to open.