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PARIS was not built in a day. The same may
be said of our panorama, which, far from being an improvisation, is the outcome of long,
deliberate reflection. The first faint notion of such an undertaking suggested itself to
our minds as we viewed the fine exhibition of portraits of noted personages of this
century which was opened six years ago on the Quai Malaquais.
The curiosity with which the public examined the lineaments, the
details of every-day life, and even the costumes of the celebrities who had disappeared
within the last thirty or forty years, struck us forcibly as characteristic of the time.
The same public may be seen daily crowding outside the shop-windows
wherein are displayed the photographs of men and women of note, the gods and goddesses of
the hour, professional beauties, ministers in office, celebrated actresses, notorious
criminals—all those, in fact, to whom the gale of popular favor lends an ephemeral
existence. Exhibitions, indeed, are the craze of the present century.
It appeared to us, however, that in thus ministering to the general
taste photography usurped too large a share of the public attention. Why should not
painting claim a like position before the world? Why should not the artist give attention
to the variegated fancies of the age, and snatch from the living scenes that surround him
a vivid sketch of Parisian life, depicting, for instance, a recent sitting at the
Chambers, the last race at Longchamp, or the latest fashion in female attire? Surely such
work would prove as interesting to the average sight-seer as the time-worn Andromeda, the
ever-recurring Cleopatra, and all that Grieco-Roman toggery with which even the French
Institute itself is beginning to be heartily tired. |
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Often these questions came up during our
long, familiar chats, when, of course, many an obstacle was suggested and many an
objection propounded. Under what aspect were we to embody our notion of “actual”
life? In a country so instinctively mobile as our own, might we not run the risk of
wasting our time over a task that must perforce be out of date even before we had quite
got through it? To execute a work that would last was of paramount importance, or we
should have to give up the idea at once. Now, in order to compass such a result, and at
the same time excite and retain public interest in the undertaking, we must needs find
something more durable to paint than a mere picture of the present “fleeting
hour.” Our object should be rather to revive, if possible, a long period of time; a
whole century, for instance, wherein the past and the present would be, so to speak,
juxtaposited; a graphic representation that would afford to the eye of the spectator as
many elements of comparison as possible, from an epoch when the French Royal Guards had
muskets down to our own Lebel rifles, and from a time when our grandmothers had curtains
to their bonnets until the present day, when our elegant and fashionable ladies wear
feathers in their hats.
These views seemed so beautiful, so grand, so ambitious, and at the
same time so difficult, nay, so impossible of realization, that we relinquished the
thought of such a work as quickly as it had suggested itself to us. Indeed, we had given
up all talk on the subject, when one fine spring morning, while taking a stroll after
breakfast, we happened to come upon that lovely spot which every visitor to Paris delights
especially to recall — the entrance gates to the Tuileries in front of the Avenue des
Champs- lys es. Just at |
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