1816: the Grandest Tour

France: Chapter 14

The young man showed them into a high-ceilinged room with tall windows, the light from which was carefully filtered through layers of felt and other drapery. Though bare of much domestic furniture, the space was cluttered with easels, stools, plaster casts, models of every shape and description, and, of course, canvasses.

"Mon cher docteur!" cried a voice from the center of the room. Its owner weaved through the jungle of oils and brushes to emerge and fondly embrace his friend. "Delighted you could honor us today," he continued in French. (Boxborough, a stickler for protocol, had arranged the visit in advance.)

Pierre-Narcisse Guérin was a slender, tall man with sharp, fine features. His dark hair, though receding at the temple and touched by streaks of gray, was still full enough to gather in the tousled waves so fashionable since wigs had gone the way of the Holy Roman Empire. Guérin greeted each of the four tourists with an amiable bow, and surprising warmth when Boxborough mentioned their native Great Britain.

"I know our two nations were so recently at war," he said, "but this has never lessened my regard for some of your English masters: Romney, Lawrence, Constable – each one an example for my students."

"Sensible Englishmen cherish such praise," said Dr. Boxborough jovially. "And is this young man here one of those students?" he said, indicating the serious youth who had let them in.

"Yes indeed!" said Guérin. "May I present Eugène Delacroix."

The young man bowed.

"He comes from a very good family, very accomplished. They've fallen on hard times under the new regime, but every king needs a good painter. And Eugène will prove one of the best, I have no doubt."

Guérin showed them around the studio, displaying numerous paintings and sketches in different states of completion. Most of his own were scenes of history and myth, pictured in a precise but engaging Classical style. He moved on to some works of his students, ending with the small canvass young Eugène was working on. It was a Roman bust of a woman from the back, her face turned in profile.

"He's very accomplished in his figuration," said the master of his pupil. Eugène seemed not to mind being talked about as if he weren't in the room. "But I sometimes have him work with a restricted palette like this, even at his advanced level."

"Freedom within boundaries, you think?" asked Boxborough.

"Quite so. I'm not opposed to the new ideas we see in color and motion of the figures. But I always return to the essential mastery of the line, of drawing. Once a painter has line at his disposal, he can bend any other rule to his will. Passion, sentiment, these will all find their place: but we must cultivate our garden before we can enjoy the fruits. Don't you agree?"

"Well-expressed, indeed," said the doctor, whose contemplative nodding showed he followed the master into his realm of increasing abstraction. George and company, glancing furtively at each other, did not.

A knock sounded at the door and Eugène sprang up to answer it.

"More visitors!" said Guérin, a trifle surprised. "Our model is not due for an hour at least."

The door opened to reveal a man in his early twenties, just about the age of the four tourists themselves.

"But if it isn't Passion himself!" cried the older painter with a hint of raillery. "My former student, sirs, and already the talk of the salons."

As the young man approached, Eugène took his coat and he tousled the boy's hair as a brother might.

"May I present Theodore Géricault," said Guérin. Géricault bowed with an easy grace on the introduction of each visitor. He had come to visit them both and view the progress of his friend Eugène's pieces before that day's life session began.