The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-21

living illustration of what Hazlitt understood |
as the qualifications necessary to success in |
life. His pictures surprise artists as pieces |
of cleverness and dexterity, and have won |
the admiration of the world. They are the
delight of French soldiers, the boast Of people
who talk about common-sense, and prefer
prose to poetry.
If we were called upon to give our personal
impressions of SO celebrated and striking a
talent as Horace Vernet's, we should ask you
to accept conclusions which do not correspond
with the popularity of 30 famous painter
and which would seem like a depreciation of
his rank in the world. But we are to report
what most people have found in Horace
Vernet. What they found in him was based
on two qualities that are conceded by the
most exacting as distinguishing him
among his contemporaries-the two quail
ties we're certainty and action. He had mar
vellous executive talent, apositive, untroubled
mind, the vanity of the typical Frenchman,
the generous and boasting disposition, the
readiness and audacity, and versatility and
vitality Of his race. He Is the most illustri
GUS of family which, for three generations
back, gave admirable or clever painters to
France.
Horace Vernet was born at Paris on the
3Oth of June, 1889. His education-educa-
tion as understood by many people-was neg
lected, and as q child he was abandoned to
!
were his first toys, and he made drawing,
anatomy, and perspective his chief study.
At the age of thirteen he was so clever with
his pencil that he was able to support himself.
Before he was twenty he became connected
with an illustrated paper, and developed
talentfor caricature. He wished to enter the
French army, and his father gave him wife
to keep him from his purpose. At twenty,
with one hundred dollars for his sole fortune,
| he was married.
In 1909 he exhibited his first picture, and
| from that time until his death he executed.
with a rapidity which astonished so many
people, the works which are widely known
as part of the glory of France, and which
have made him the master battle-painter of
the world. He was honored with medals and
decorations by all the crowned heads of Eu-
rope If visitors to his studio wished to see
these royal favors, he would tell his valet to
bring the box which contained them, tumble
them out on the table, dazzling and glitter
ing heap. "Here, he would say, sis pile
of parchments, ribboned and sealed, which
confer a crowd of privileges that 1 have for
gotten!"
Horace Vernet said he twas born and had
lived under happy star Married at twenty,
my whole fortune was but one hundred dol
lars. / commenced with drawings, and
have ended with pictures that have given me
millions of francs which have gone out of my
hands, but where 1 cannot tell.
Horace Vernet was a little man, with the
face of a soldier. His body looked frail, and
yet it served him well in his campaigns. But
he was not feminine in any respect. Nothing
affected his body, nor troubled his mind. He
was an indefatigable and wiry man. He saw
and passed through everything untouehsd.
He canAe tho East unaffected as an
agate; from Russia like q piece of steel
climate and disease seemed to have no hold
upon him. He was like a 'Mephistopheles"
in the world of Art and Nature. He under
stood everything; he carried the form of
things in his minds eye; he left
the bloom and the charm, because it
had never penetrated his being. 1t is said he
could be any character of the active world
that he was q buffoon, an officer of the
French army, diplomat, q boasting gallant,
a companion of kings. He would tell stories
to the despair of Paul de Kock, and he be-
lieved his memoirs would show more of esprit,
if less of style, than Chateaubriand's. He
was skeptical, illterate, talkative, irrepressi-
BILE man of the world. His French is said to
have been strange, raw, animated, and jocose.
Like Rubens, he was made ambassador, and
intrusted with public affairs, and he lived
like q prince. He had a way of setting people
at ease; and of making friends, and chang
ing them, with as little conjunction as he
would change his clothes.
His pictures are of all sizes, and Rubens
alone presents an example of equal facility
and rapidity of design. He has been COM
pared with certain modern journalists, who
have promptitude and prolixity, but no ideas,
and no charm of expression. His merits are
these; an admirable and spirited draughtsman,
inexhaustible invention, an eye that never
let's anything salient or characteristic escape
it. He rendered costume and action and char
acter with positive and vigorous effect. Among
his most famous pictures, we mention the
following: Judith and Holofernes," "Abra-
ham and Hagar," Raphael and Michael An
gelo at the Vatican, and the "Battle of the
Smala," ut Versailles. He was SO popular, SO
, close to the French taste, that, when Algiers
was occupied by the French troops, whole
gallery was set apart at Versailles to CONNIE.
morate the achievements of the army;
and Vernet, besides painting the taking
of the Smala the largest canvas in the
world painted number of smaller pictures
illustrative of the war. He was offered the
r peerage by Louis Philippe and declined it.
} Horace Vernet belonged to the second class
, of great painters A man of cold intellect
! devoid of the poetic sense, apparently un
G moved by the mystery and ignorant of the
a subuety of things, he lived to celebrate tn,
G military glory of France.
r The subjects treated by Horace Vernet The
g colossal scale on which he painted, were
. sufficient to appeal to the most assailabl,
a and common tastes of people. A
q love for military glory, for the magnif
: cence of action when allied with all the trap
: pings and material of war, is the most uni
: versal subject of interest to the world. He
3 had his troubles, but he never cried ovel
u them When, in 1922, the Government re
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