Page 37 - Gallery 19c Volume 3_Les Types de Paris_digital_Neat

(The influence of Brueghel and other Netherlandish
artists, and of their modern equivalent Meissonier
[1815–1891], may also be seen in the anecdotal genre
scenes of Charles Édouard Boutibonne [1816–1897] and
Charles Louis Baugniet [1814–1886], both included in
the exhibition [cat. nos. 8 and 3].). For those who still
found little to admire in the Catholic Church, however,
the sincere piety and naïvete of the rural peasant could
offer solace to those in need (fig. 5). Indeed, it was
precisely this sincerity, indebted to the Old Masters and
revitalized by Alphonse Legros (1837–1911), that drew
the lavish praise of Baudelaire. This quality, the critic
believed, along with the ability to transform the vulgar
and the trivial into the moral and the grand, offered a
promising path for artists who wished to create religious
paintings for a decidedly skeptical modern age. 36

Jehan-Georges Vibert, Son Éminence, le Poète
THE “TYPE” TODAY

In our own modern age, marked by the same rapid
Fig. 5: Alphonse Legros, L’Angelus, 1859, Private Collection changes and increasing complexity experienced by
Parisians more than a century ago, the lure of the
RELIGION IN THE A GE OF of an entire school of French painters, led by Jehan- “type” is just as strong. The security and convenience
GODLES SNES S Georges Vibert (1840–1902) (cat. no. 26). (Along with that categorization and classification can offer has
Vibert, Ferdinand Heilbuth [1826–1889] also made his compelled a variety of new projects and processes,
Paris’s social ills in the 19th-century drove its citizens name with his pictures of churchmen, even earning the
down two distinct religious paths, both of which were title “the painter of cardinals,” “so loyally did he render from the Genome Project of Artsy to, less desirably,
represented in its art. During the politically turbulent these cheery old gentlemen in red.”) 33 racial profiling and religious bans. Though these seem
decades of the mid-1800s, artists such as Honoré a world away from the boulevard, the beggar, and the
Daumier (1808–1879) expressed strong hostility to, and The photographic precision, brilliant color, and element parisienne, and others of the themes discussed above, the
sharp criticism of, the Roman Catholic Church. As awe of humor featured in Vibert’s work were indebted both impetus is the same. “[E]very one, every gallery, wants
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and reverence were replaced by doubt and mistrust, to technical innovations made by the artist and to his and needs a Béraud,” claimed a critic for the New York
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and anticlericism became increasingly widespread, precedents in the genre. Inspired by Dutch painters of Times in 1891, “This means a street scene . . .” It is left
the Church responded by isolating itself even more the 1600s and, like them, known as a “little master,” to wonder what will satisfy our own wants and needs as
emphatically to reinforce its aura of power. Public Vibert became enormously popular among middle class we navigate through our transforming cities, and what
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vitriol eventually lessened as the century progressed, collectors after 1867 for his scenes of the everyday life “types” will mark our time.
allowing the more mild satire and gentle finger-wagging and humanity of the Catholic clergy, wittily portrayed. 35

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