Fromentin by Georges Beaume — Read

One of the masters of to-day, of a generous and impulsive nature, who does not wish to be quoted by name, but whose works may be admired in the Luxembourg, consented to give me some information regarding Fromentin, whose pupil he once was. I should like, as a conclusion to this study, to be able to transcribe literally what he told; but at least I shall draw a pious inspiration from his words.

Fromentin laid on his colours very thickly. His solid grounds were always most carefully prepared and his composition calculated in advance down to the smallest detail. At the start, he came under the influence of Decamps, Marilhat, and more especially Delacroix, and in consequence neglected line work, devoting himself solely to the distribution of colours. Delacroix and the romantic school of his time did not interpret Algeria well, because they failed to see it well. They saw it through the black holes of windows, in all the violence of its whites and reds, in the picturesqueness of its costumes and the long stretches of its dusty streets. But Fromentin had visited Italy, and during his excursions across this museum of diverse aspects he made a special study of the effects of sunshine upon the handiwork of man. It was while still saturated with the brilliance and with the art treasures of Italy that he first saw the land of Africa, or rather that he first conceived the desire to learn to know its secrets. Fromentin never put upon his canvases the Africa of the desert, in which there is nothing but the white of the burnoose and the gray of the dune, but Algeria the Fair, Algeria already civilized. He was enraptured by the sight of it and by the penetrating conception, full of eager curiosity, which he had already formed of it. For Fromentin does not command by the audacity of his colours; he commands by the charm of his apportionment of light and shadow, and by the precision of a style which seeks, irrespective of form, to show us the soul of people and of things. He sees with the eyes of a poet, he expresses himself in the manner of a philosopher, he forces us to reflect. He detests all that is vulgar, superfluous, and extravagant. All that pertains to reality has for him a significance, of which he seeks the cause, and for which he frequently discovers a definitive expression.