LI BE RT É! Ary Scheffer
& French Romanticism
Sanne Baar
Bruno Chenique
Stéphanie Deschamps-Tan
Maarten Doorman
Mayken Jonkman
Quirine van der Meer Mohr
Nina Reid
Gaëlle Rio
LI BE RT É! Ary Scheffer
Dordrechts Museum
Waanders Publishers, Zwolle
& French Romanticism
Femke Hameetman
Quirine van der Meer Mohr
foreword introduction
LIBERTÉ! Ary Scheffer and the elusiveness of French Romanticism
Sanne Baar
timeline
Quirine van der Meer Mohr
BETWEEN COLOUR AND LINE
Ary Scheffer and French Romantic painting
Mayken Jonkman
THE PATH TO SUCCESS
Ary Scheffer and fame
Gaëlle Rio
ARY SCHEFFER: AT THE HEART OF ROMANTIC LIFE
Bruno Chenique
ARY SCHEFFER AND THÉODORE GÉRICAULT
A fraternity of Romantic citizens
ARY SCHEFFER AND THE HOUSE OF ORLÉANS The alliance of art with friendship epilogue
ROMANTICISM MAKES EVERYTHING NEW
CATALOGUE
The tradition of the classics
An eye for the people
Struggle for independence
Revolution and monarchy
Desire for imagination
Repentance and religion
New landscape painting notes literature i ndex of N ames about the authors
Stéphanie Deschamps-Tan
Maarten Doorman
Quirine van der Meer Mohr
Reid
ARY SCHEFFER
Portrait of Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer at the age of 19 years old (1849) oil on canvas
56 x 40,4 cm
Dordrechts Museum
Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer bequest (1899)
If ever someone was a builder of bridges, it was definitely Ary Scheffer. This Dordrecht artist (1795-1858) succeeded in becoming a pivotal figure in French Romanticism in a short space of time. With colleagues like Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Géricault by his side, the liberal Ary — a Romantic in heart and soul — fought for freedom, equality and individual expression: the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789. In a period of political unrest, he wielded his paintbrush as a weapon. He fought for imaginative power. A man who is dear to me, you will understand. For today we are championing the power of imagination at the Dordrechts Museum. Following Ary’s example, we build bridges to show as many people as possible that what fuels progress is the ability to create images, ideas and opportunities, to explore new avenues and venture off the well-trodden paths.
The Romantics knew this for a long time. While imagination had been viewed negatively up until then, they embraced this fundamental human quality. They perfectly sensed that imaginative power was crucial at a time of unrest and uncertainty. Fortunately, this Romantic philosophy endures in all sorts of areas. The ideals they articulated surface in our visual language and play a great role in society. You recognize it not only in the desire for personal and political freedom, but also in social engagement, the urge to demonstrate and the leaning towards national pride. There are few movements in which art, philosophy and societal development interact so strongly.
This school of thought is what we highlight in Liberté! Alongside celebrated French contemporaries such as Théodore Géricault, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Eugène Delacroix, we show the spirited ideals of ‘our’ Ary Scheffer. We show how these artists inspired one another and together unleased a revolution in painting. On display, naturally, is Ary’s The Heavenly and Earthly Love (1850), depicting two women who personify heavenly and earthly love. It alludes to the Symposium , in which the Greek philosopher Plato explores the source, nature and purpose of love. Heavenly love is clothed, while earthly love is largely naked in this painting. It was first displayed in 1854 in our museum and caused quite a stir at the time. One visitor even shrieked upon seeing the painting. She fled with her hands over her eyes, leaving her perplexed husband behind. He looked after her and thought: ‘But Eve was totally naked’.
The Dordrechts Museum has a close bond with Ary. He may have left the town at the age of three, but he always remained connected to it. His work has been
part of our museum since 1857, when the artist himself donated the painting Christ in Gethsemané . Various bequests from the Scheffer family extended the collection. In 1899, Cornelia Scheffer left our museum the studio estate of her father: more than one hundred paintings, three hundred drawings and two hundred engravings and lithographs. Ever since, we have been entrusted with the care of the largest collection of his works. As a result, our museum began to burst at the seams, so in 1904 it moved from Botermarkt to its current location. Our permanent presentation still includes — in accordance with the bequest — a gallery dedicated to Ary Scheffer. Every two years the Vereniging Dordrechts Museum, founders and friends of the museum, present De Scheffer: a prize to stimulate young painting talent. Many of the town’s residents know his name through the Schefferplein, a fine place to enjoy when the weather is good. Its terraces offer a view of the statue that Cornelia commissioned after her father’s death.
Liberté! is the result of a research project extending over many years, to which numerous people have greatly contributed. Let us thank in particular curator Quirine van der Meer Mohr and project manager Sanne Baar, under whose inspirational leadership the exhibition and this book have been realized. Together with the team at the Dordrechts Museum, they have achieved a wonderful result. Naturally, we are immensely grateful for the valuable contributions of all the authors of this book. Special thanks also go to Marloes Waanders of Waanders Publishers and graphic designer Jantijn van den Heuvel for this beautiful book. The exhibition design is the work of Jelena Stefanovic and Sappho Panhuysen. My warm thanks to them too.
For the development of Liberté! we worked closely with Musée de la Vie romantique (part of Paris Musées), which is located in Ary’s former home in Paris. Our thanks to director Gaëlle Rio for sharing her knowledge and network. Sincere thanks also to curator Mayken Jonkman from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. She was involved in the project as both a writer and advisor. We often think back to one of our first visits to Paris, where we philosophized into the early hours about this project with the late Ger Luijten, director of the Fondation Custodia. We would have loved to raise a toast to this wonderful project with him and are grateful for the collaboration with the staff of the Fondation Custodia.
Never before have so many paintings of French Romanticism been brought together in the Netherlands. The exhibition includes more than sixty loans from some
forty lenders. The works come from the collections of the Château de Versailles, the National Gallery Alexandros Soutsos Museum in Athens, and the Musée du Louvre and Musée de la Vie romantique in Paris. We are extremely happy that we are able to present The Raft of the Médusa (1819-20), a sketch in oil paint by Géricault from Musée d’Angers. And that the collection Fondation Josée et René de Chambrun has lent Scheffer’s Scene from the Days of July (1831) for the first time. Besides the lenders, we thank the Dutch embassy in Paris, the French embassy in The Hague and the Institut Français. Merci pour la belle cooperation franco-neérlandaise.
A major exhibition like Liberté! cannot be realised without the substantial support of third parties. A final word of special thanks therefore goes to the funds that have helped make this exhibition and catalogue possible. We are very grateful to the VriendenLoterij, Mondriaan Fonds, Turing Foundation, Cultuurfonds (Marten Orges Fonds and Het Prins Fonds), Zabawas, M.A.O.C. Gravin van Bylandt Stichting, Hendrik Mullerfonds, and the Bedrijfsvrienden Dordrechts Museum and Vereniging Dordrechts Museum for their contributions. We hope the exhibition will be a surprising introduction for many to this special and impressive period in art and history, and a worthy tribute to Ary Scheffer, the Dordrecht romantic from Paris.
Femke Hameetman
Artistic director Dordrechts Museum
LIBE RTÉ! Ary Scheffer and the elusiveness of French
Romanticism
The collection of the Fondation Custodia in Paris contains a letter from the organization committee for an exhibition held in tribute to Ary Scheffer. The celebrated painter died on 15 June 1858. In the Netherlands there were plans to erect a memorial in his honour, and France didn’t want to lag behind. ‘La France […] la véritable patrie de son talent et de son gloire’, states this letter to an art collector, who was asked to loan his Scheffers for the occasion. 1 France, the true fatherland of his talent and fame. For even though Scheffer was born in Dordrecht, Paris eventually became his home. He moved there when he was sixteen and grew to become one of the country’s most celebrated painters. The memorial exhibition took place in May 1859. The Marquis of Hertford had a gallery specially built in the garden of a building on the Boulevard des Italiens. The painters JeanAuguste-Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix and Horace Vernet served on the committee, and Scheffer’s daughter Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer acted as advisor. All key works by Scheffer hung side by side and above one another. The well-attended exhibition was a major tribute to this Dutch Parisian.
Three years later, on 8 May 1862, a statue of Ary Scheffer was unveiled at Beursplein in Dordrecht. The city’s citizens turned out in throngs to partake
in the festivities, and friends and family travelled from Paris. It had taken almost four years to complete. The first design was the work of Auguste Bartholdi, Scheffer’s former pupil, who later achieved fame as the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty in New York. Daughter Cornelia was not satisfied with this proposal — she was also a sculptor who had served her apprenticeship with her father — and she produced a new design that was realized for her by Joseph Mezzara. City committees were set up at home and abroad to finance the memorial. Ingres, Delacroix and Vernet were again involved in Paris. Numerous French painters contributed financially, among them younger artists such as Eugène AmauryDuval, Rosa Bonheur and Constant Troyon. 2 The square was renamed the Scheffersplein, where the sculpture stands to this day.
‘LES GRANDS PEINTRES CONTEMPORAINS’
The exhibition in Paris and the statue in Dordrecht speak volumes about the reputation that Ary Scheffer enjoyed towards the end of his life. An artist who deserved to be remembered. Who hailed from the Netherlands, but whose talent had blossomed in France. The pride of Dordrecht, a master in France. Recognized, moreover, by such celebrated painters as Ingres and Delacroix. Together with his friend
VAN ES
The Unveiling of the Scheffer Statue in Dordrecht (1862)
wood engraving
130 x 225 mm Regional Archive Dordrecht
FRÉDÉRIC AUGUSTE BARTHOLDI
Model of the Statue of Ary Scheffer (1859)
clay
22.4 x 7.4 x 7 cm
Musée Barholdi (Colmar)
Model of the Statue of Ary Scheffer (1861)
bronze
63 x 33 x 22.5 cm
Dordrechts Museum purchased 1932
A. JORDA
Les Grands Peintres
Contemporains:
Scheffer, Ingres, Delacroix, Dechamps (c. 1860)
photo collage
95 x 57 mm
Dordrechts Museum purchased 2022
and colleague Paul Delaroche, Scheffer ranks as one of the most reproduced artists of the nineteenth century. It is with good reason that he occupied a place of honour in a remarkable photo collage entitled Les grands peintres contemporains . In this catalogue, Mayken Jonkman describes Scheffer’s path to success. The contribution from Stéphanie Deschamps-Tan notes the close relationships he maintained in royal circles — as a good friend and advisor, drawing tutor and court painter to the House of Orléans.
Yet not everybody was as positive all the time. The celebrated critic Théophile Thoré wrote in 1846: ‘Ary Scheffer is the only one who has the privilege of being admired by everybody, even though true artists consider him to sometimes be rather hesitant or weak in his execution.’ 3 He was often accused of the latter, especially in his later work. Nonetheless, the extremely critical Théophile Gautier wrote in 1859 that he regretted never meeting Scheffer personally, because he was ‘one of the most striking figures of this century’. 4 Through both his personality and his art, Scheffer played an influential role in French painting in the
first half of the nineteenth century. The classicism of Jacques-Louis David and consorts still held sway around 1800. By the time Scheffer died, however, the Romantic painting of Delacroix and Théodore Géricault had shaken up the art world, and the realism of the Barbizon School had gained a foothold. Classical and religious subjects had been replaced by themes inspired by medieval issues, modern literature and a focus on the landscape. Artists had become aware of wider societal issues and highlighted human feelings. At the same time, institutes such as the Académie des Beauxarts still attached great importance to academic tradition, and classicism enjoyed renewed attention in the art of Ingres. Scheffer stuck his nose into everything. As a pupil of the classicist Pierre Guérin, a study friend of Géricault and Delacroix, an admirer of Ingres, and a promotor of Barbizon painter Théodore Rousseau, he witnessed all artistic developments of his day. The first essay in this catalogue shows how Scheffer made an important contribution to them through his work and his support for the artists around him.
JOSEPH MEZZARA
THE ROMANTIC ERA
This period in painting is often called Romanticism, but opinions differ as to what exactly this term means. That began during the period itself, when writers, historians and art critics made frantic attempts to interpret new developments. In 1829, one historian declared that Romanticism is ‘just that which cannot be defined’. 5 To this day, there is no comprehensive definition of the term. It is ‘for lack of a better name’, as Hugh Honour stated in Romanticism , that we must use ‘Romanticism’ to denote the varied character of cultural and artistic developments in this period in Europe.6 Romantic painting in France is not the same as Romantic painting in the Netherlands, England or Germany. The work of Scheffer, Géricault or Delacroix is totally different to that of Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, Joseph Mallord William Turner or Caspar David Friedrich. Each country had its own spearheads and local inspirations, but people also shared influences and ideas.
Les années romantiques was the title of the last major retrospective, held in 1996, on French painting in the years 1815-1850.7 In 2019, the Petit Palais staged the exhibition Paris Romantique 1815-1848, about cultural life in Paris during these years.8 The Romantic era, shall we say, in which a certain philosophy determined the cultural direction that found expression in art in various ways. Use of the term ‘Romanticism’ should also be viewed in that light in Liberté! Ary Scheffer & French Romanticism : not as a specific artistic style, but as a period and zeitgeist. Maarten Doorman shines his light on that subject in a striking rebuttal that makes Romanticism both timeless and contemporary.
Presenting Scheffer alongside his colleagues reveals the complexity of Romanticism and the diversity of French painting during the period 1815-1850. Scheffer’s social role in cultural life in Paris — ‘la vie romantique’ — also brings together various arts. Himself a painter and sculptor, with a great many pupils in his studio, he organized soirées at his home on Rue Chaptal, where composers such as Franz Liszt and Frédéric Chopin, the singer Pauline Viardot and the writer George Sand gathered, as Gaëlle Rio describes in this catalogue.
LIBERTÉ!
No matter how elusive Romanticism is, the artistic ideals of Scheffer and his French colleagues seem to characterize it to some degree. In her extensive 2009 study of the Salon of 1827 — the official art exhibition — Eva Bouillo
describes how contemporary art critics saw three hallmarks at the core of Romanticism: la vérité, l’originalité, la liberté (truth, originality and liberty).9 A painting had to be truthful and original, and to achieve that it was necessary to break free of artistic conventions.
Moreover, the pursuit of ‘liberty’ was not simply artistic, but also applied — if not more so — on a personal and social level. The individual and his feelings were emphasized. In addition, Scheffer and the Romantics were socially engaged, as we can read in the contribution by Bruno Chenique. The fall of Napoleon in 1815, the social unrest and revolutions of 1830 and 1848, the wars of independence in Poland and Greece: Romantic artists recorded these events and entered the fray with their brushes. One of the most iconic paintings of French Romanticism is La Liberté guidant le peuple — ‘Liberty Leading the People’. It is a general misunderstanding that Delacroix painted a scene from the French Revolution, because it actually depicts the July revolution of 1830. Scheffer himself played a key role in this event. However, the ideals of the big revolution of 1789 — Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité! — are never far away with the French Romantics, although Maarten Doorman points out that they attached greater importance to individual liberty than to the ideal of equality.
In 1826, Scheffer did, for that matter, paint a scene from the French Revolution: the moment that hundreds of citizens from Marseille advanced on Paris and entered the city singing loudly. ‘Allons enfants de la Patrie …’ — the painting was given the same name as this song, which later became the French national anthem: the Marseillaise (p. 129). It was immediately published as a print by Gottfried Engelmann entitled Allons! . It constituted a political statement and a daring deed: the song was banned during the Bourbon regime between 1815 and 1830.
Liberté! is therefore a common thread running through the exhibition and this catalogue about Ary Scheffer and his French colleagues, for whom artistic and personal liberty are of paramount importance and whose art was regularly inspired by social engagement. As far back as 1937, Marthe Kolb wrote a thesis about Ary Scheffer and his time, in which she placed the Dordrecht native in the context of his French contemporaries. 10 After the extensive publications by Leo Ewals and various monographic exhibitions in Dordrecht and Paris, this is the first group exhibition compiled around him. 11 Indeed, it is the first exhibition in the Netherlands about French Romanticism. Or during the Romantic years. We are still looking for a better term.
ARY SCHEFFER
28 July 1830: Liberty Leading the People (1830)
Allons! (1826) lithograph
279 x 368 mm
Dordrechts Museum
Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer bequest (1899)
EUGÈNE DELACROIX
oil on canvas
260 x 325 cm
Musée du Louvre (Paris)
Sanne Baar
tAry Scheffer is born on 10 February in Dordrecht. His parents Johan Bernard Scheffer (1764-1809) and Cornelia Lamme (1769-1839) are both painters. The couple have another two sons: Karel Arnoldus (1796-1853) and Henry Scheffer (1798-1862). Arnold later becomes a writer and political activist, Henry a painter.
Philosopher and writer Madame de Staël (1766-1817) is forced to travel around Europe owing to her political exile. That is how she meets the philosophers Goethe, Schiller and Herder in Germany. Her novel De l’Allemagne (1810) played a major role in shaping the concept of Romanticism in France.
After the death of her husband Johan Bernard Scheffer (1809), Cornelia departs for Paris with her sons Ary, Arnold and Henry. Ary and Henry are apprenticed to Pierre Guérin (1774-1833). Among the figures they meet here are Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) and Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863).
The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 marks the start of the French Revolution. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité! resounds across the city. Louis xvi is executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, followed by Marie Antoinette in October of the same year.
The abolition of slavery takes a long time in France. Trade in and ownership of enslaved people is outlawed in 1794, but Napoleon re-introduces slavery in 1802 under pressure from the colonies. The slave trade is abolished again after the fall of Napoleon, and ownership of enslaved people is eventually abolished for good in 1848. Artists such as Géricault and Ary Scheffer align themselves with the abolitionist movement that campaigns to end slavery.
France conquers the Netherlands in 1795, marking the start of the French Period
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) engineers a coup in 1799 and appoints himself First Consul of France. He crowns himself emperor in 1804. After the disastrous Russian campaign, he is defeated at Leipzig in 1813 and banished to Elba. He returns to France in 1815 for one hundred days but is finally defeated at Waterloo in June.
The Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 is followed in France by the Second White Terror against supporters of Napoleon. Louis xviii of the House of Bourbon , who has been in power since 1813, seeks a balance between revolution and restoration. His brother Charles x is crowned king in 1824. This period becomes known as the Restoration
Théodore Géricault presents The Raft of the Médusa at the Salon. The painter offers sharp criticism of the failing government and the maintenance of slavery.
Supported by France, Great Britain and Russia, the Greeks declare their independence in 1821: this marks the start of the Greek War of Independence against the oppression of the Ottoman Empire. Many artists support the Greeks.
Eugène Delacroix and Paul Delaroche (1797-1856) present their iconic works The Massacre at Chios and Joan of Arc Being Interrogated by the Cardinal of Winchester at the 1824 Salon. While Delacroix shocks with the horrors of the Greek War of Independence, Delaroche is lauded for the drama of his history painting.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) lives alternately in Italy and France. He is the leader of the classical style within Romanticism. In 1827 he presents The Apotheosis of Homer at the Salon. That same year, Scheffer causes furore with The Souliot Women
In July the bourgeoisie revolt against the regime of Charles x . The insurrection lasts three days.
Louis-Philippe i of the House of Orléans is crowned King of France. The July Monarchy is initially progressive but eventually becomes more conservative.
On the night of 28 November 1830, nationalists in Poland revolt against the regime of Czar Nicholas i of Russia. More than 50,000 Poles flee to western Europe, with a large Polish community forming in Paris. Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) is one of the refugees.
Scheffer buys a house at Rue Chaptal 16. The building is now home to the Musée de la Vie romantique. Scheffer’s daughter Cornelia Scheffer is born on 29 July that same year.
Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, writer and feminist avant la lettre , known by the pseudonym George Sand (1804-1876), arrives in Paris.
King Louis-Philippe commissions the construction of the Gallery of Battles in Versailles. Delacroix, Vernet, Henry and Ary Scheffer and many others paint important battle scenes to glorify France.
To the great disapproval of the Romantics, the jury of the 1836 Salon refuses to display the work of young painters like Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), including The Descent of the Cattle in the High Jura Mountains (p. 181). In protest, Scheffer organizes an alternative exhibition at his home.
During the July Monarchy, France conducts various colonial wars of conquest in North Africa. France establishes colonies in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Horace Vernet (1789-1863) and Delacroix travel to Algeria and Morocco with the royal army.
Romanticism regards music as the ultimate form of art, the medium for expressing feelings. Franz Liszt (1811-1886) and Frédéric Chopin are the pioneers in Paris. Piano music in particular flourishes. Liszt performs his first piano recital in Paris in 1839.
Pauline Viardot-Garciá (1821-1910) (singer, pianist and composer) marries art historian and opera director Louis Viardot. They had been introduced to each other by George Sand. The Viardots are friends with Ary Scheffer and Frédéric Chopin, and the composers Clara Schumann, Gioacchino Rossini and Charles Gounod.
The crown prince, Duke Ferdinand-Philippe of Orléans (1810-1842), dies in a fatal road accident. Ary Scheffer was a friend of his and is closely involved in the design of the memorial chapel. The stained-glass windows are the work of Ingres , another good friend of the crown prince.
Poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) writes about the Salon of 1845-46: ‘To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art — that is, intimacy, spirituality, colour, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts’. However, he refers to Ary Scheffer as an ‘ape of sentiment’.
A new revolution takes place in February 1848, known as the February Revolution . Louis-Philippe abdicates and flees to London. The Second French Republic is proclaimed.
Ary Scheffer dies on 15 June 1859, aged 63, at his country house in Argenteuil.
A major memorial exhibition devoted to Ary Scheffer opens in May. The organizing committee includes the painters Vernet, Ingres and Delacroix.
A statue in honour of Scheffer is unveiled in the centre of Dordrecht on 8 May.
After the death of Cornelia Marjolin-Scheffer, she and her husband René Marjolin bequeath to the Vereniging Dordrechts Museum the studio inventory of her father and a legacy to support young artists. The Scheffer Art Prize is still awarded every two years by the museum.
Quirine van der Meer Mohr