[Illustration: THE EDGE OF THE FOREST (FONTAINEBLEAU). FROM A PAINTING BY THÉODORE ROUSSEAU.]
Eighteen years before, on December 22, 1867, there had died at Barbizon, Théodore Rousseau, who, born in Paris, July 15, 1812, had been the leader of the revolution in landscape painting, in which we to-day count Corot, Daubigny, Dupré, Troyon, Diaz, Jacque, and others who, with our mania for classification, we call the "Barbizon school." The fact that these men, more than any painters before their time, had, by direct study from nature, developed strongly individual characteristics, makes this title, localized as it is by the name of a village with which a number of them had slight, if any, connection, a misnomer. The French name for the group, "the men of 1830," is more correct; for it was about that time that their influence in the Salon began to be felt, as a result of the pictorial invasion of Constable. Lacking the poetic feeling of Corot, and more realistic in his aims, though not always in result, Rousseau met with instant success when he exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1834. His picture, "Felled Trees, Forest of Compiègne," received a medal, and was purchased by the Due d'Orleans. The following year the jury, presided over by Watelet, a justly forgotten painter, refused Rousseau's pictures, and from that time until 1849, when the overthrow of Louis Philippe had opened the Salon doors to all comers, no picture by Rousseau was exhibited at the Salon.
[Illustration: ON THE RIVER OISE. FROM A PAINTING BY CHARLES FRANÇOIS DAUBIGNY.
A typical French river, with the familiar figures of peasant women washing linen in the stream. Probably painted during one of the voyages of his house-boat studio "Le Bottin," in which the painter passed many summers.]
[Illustration: THE STORMY SEA. FROM A PAINTING BY JULES DUPRÉ.
This powerful picture gives an idea of the dramatic force of one who has been fitly termed a symphonic painter.]
[Illustration: A SUNLIT GLADE. FROM A PAINTING BY LÉON GERMAIN PELOUSE.
A remarkable rendering of intricate detail without sacrifice of general effect, this picture, nevertheless, gives somewhat the impression of a photograph from nature.]
In the meantime, however, Rousseau's fame had grown, fostered by the more advanced critics of the time. He lived at Barbizon, on the border of the forest of Fontainebleau; and, basing his work on the most uncompromising study of nature, his pictures bore an impress of simple truth, which to our latter-day vision seems so obvious and easily understood that nothing could show more clearly the depth of error into which his opponents had fallen than the systematic rejection of his work for so many years. He was by nature a leader, and in his country home he was soon joined by Millet and Charles Jacque, while in Paris he had the hearty support of Delacroix and his followers of the Romantic school. While forced by circumstances to find allies in these men, Rousseau had, however, but little of the imaginative temperament. He was, above all, the close student of natural phenomena. He sat, an impartial recorder of the phases of nature's triumphal procession. Early and late, in the fields, among the rocks, or under the trees of the forest, his cunning hand noted an innumerable variety of facts which before him, through ignorance or disdain, the landscape painter had never seen. It is but fair to say that, like all pioneers in the untrodden fields of art, his means of expression at times failed to keep pace with his intention. His work is occasionally overburdened with detail, through the embarrassment of riches which nature poured at his feet. Then, heir to the processes of painting of former generations, it seemed to him necessary to endow nature with a warmth of coloring, an abuse of the richer tones of the palette, which we may presume he would have discarded but for the fact already noted, that a painter carries through his earthly pilgrimage a baggage of early-formed habits difficult to throw off _en route_. The belief that color to be beautiful must of necessity be warm, rich, and deep in tone was shared by all painters of Rousseau's time, and lingers still in the minds of many, despite the fact that nature has created the tea-rose as well as the orange. When, however, Rousseau was completely successful--as, for instance, in the "Hoar-frost," in the Walters gallery in Baltimore--the reward of his painstaking methods was measurably great. In such works as this the rendition of effect, the certainty of modelling, the sustained power throughout the work, lift it beyond mere transcription of fact into the realm of typical creations which appear more true than average reality.