Completely opposed to these works are the panels of Puvis de Chavannes, one of the first decorative artists of our time. His painting is vague, and somewhat foggy; his figures are clumsy, thick of ankle, neck, and wrist, but otherwise attenuated to the last degree; and were it not that the far-off people are smaller than those near the spectator, no one would know that they are on different planes, for of aërial perspective there is none. Yet there is a certain purity of sentiment about this, as in all M. de Chavannes' work, which is almost Archaic. The very dulness of the surface and the opacity of the medium employed render these pictures a suitable wall covering for Soufflot's grandiose classicality. The treatment is dignified, poetic, refined, but at the same time intensely modern and realistic--witness a hen and chickens picking up some grain in the foreground, and the charming vistas of landscape background. The colour is tame, and all the members of the Geneviève family are remarkable for plainness, not to say ugliness of face and clumsiness of figure; but the feeling which pervades the whole work is that of a sort of Pagan Renaissance, suitable to Soufflot's "_gâteau de Savoie_."
[Illustration: PUVIS DE CHAVANNES (FRAGMENT).]
The first of the series, properly entitled _La jeunesse et la vie pastorale de Sainte-Geneviève_ represents the maiden praying, while a woodcutter and his wife are looking on. The centre and principal compartment is occupied with the discovery by S. Germain of her little saintship, surrounded by her father and mother and a small and admiring crowd. On the left, boatmen are contemplating the scene from the river bank, while upon the right is an old man trying to bend his knee to receive the good bishop's blessing. A youth, sick unto death, and a poor little beggar are being led to the man of God, and two women hurry up from milking to see what is going on. The Seine flows through the pastures of Nanterre, and Mont Valérien smiles down upon the company, not having yet learned the art of war. This is all delightfully pastoral and _naïve_. The little maid's face, as she looks up at the good bishop, is sweetness itself; the parents bend their heads, and a neighbour holds up her wee swaddled babe; but the _ensemble_ is marred by the parrot-like profile of S. Germain and the general ugliness of the company. Ugliness is a veritable passion with Puvis de Chavannes, a gospel which he never loses faith in, a partner allied to eccentricity in all his works.