Morning journal and courier., 1882-09-06
Mefssonier i'm His Studio


 Personally Meissonier is 8 man whom it is difficult to describe. Picture to yourself, as I said in one of nay letters last spring, lit tie bit of fellow, pas plus haut que ca, as the song says, and as brisk and as merry as if he was listening to some stimulating music to which all other ears were deaf. On this body of dwarf is set a magnificent head-a head that is almost that of 8 visionary-with long locks of waving and snowy white hair, and with venerable long beard white as the hair. He reminds you of one of those psrsonifications of rivers in which the an cients delighted, rather of one of those musing fathers of the earth that Coysevox has carved for us under the thick linden trees of the park at Versailles. When one looks at this imposing head and venerable beard, one entirely loses sight of the slender body that ends in pair of trousers like those of an English horse trainer. Learned and witty ! to the utmost limit, and, like a true Parisian, fond of ridiculing everything, with a sharp / eye to his own glory, the great painter is more interesting within the walls of his stu dio and surrounded by the tokens of his work.
 The studio is an enormous one and fairly flooded with light. It Is crowded with pie lures, with incompleted sketches and with precious furniture, arms aud hangings. It is so large that even the Marriage of Cana" could have been painted in it with ease, and yet it is here that Meissonisr touches and re-
 touches, with religious patience, those di- minutive pictures that the amateurs so | glad to cover with gold pieces and bank notes In spite of it's size, the studio is ar- l ranged with a coquettishness that is almost | feminine. Here and there, on the arm | chairs and divans, are negligently cast clothes ! of richly colored velvets, a musketeer's hat with it's white trailing plume, a theatrical | sword with an elaborately carved hilt, and | piles of brilliantly colored silks and eastern | stuffs Everywhere, drawn up in line, on | easels, hanging on the walls and even resting against the tables, pictures and marquettes, | which we never grow tired of admiring. The l work of the artist that is now the furthest ! advanced represents two lovers singing a l duet. The man, draped in purple simarre, | is allowing his fingers to wander over the | keys of an organ, while his head is thrown | back toward her who stands beside him. 1 The picture contains all the charm of a mys- | tic ode, all the tenderness of two hearts l which are filled with but one and the same | feeling. The red and green colors in the | picture are as dazzling as oriental goods | spread out in the intense glare of an eastern | sun.
 The master chats pleasantly with such wis | itors and friends as may come in. His voice l is @ clear one, but at the end of his sentences | 1t becomes weak and has some almost child
 like infections. He laughs easily and readi-
 ly, and, from force of habit, can listen grave | ly and calmly to the hyperbolical praises that
 are so prodigally bestowed upon him and his 1 work. Meissonier does not content himself
 with being one of the great contemporary
 masters. He is also as learned collector of
 rare books any bibliophilist of the in.
 stitute. It is by studying these that he is en.
 abIed to produce in his pictures such faithful
 representations of the centuries that have
 vanished and of scenes of adventure and
 chivalry that have been forgotta~> by ths
 common herd. xy