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321 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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MONTI'S LECTURES ON SCULPTURE. Signor Mo...
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THE OPERAS AND THE THEATRES. , On Thursd...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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A Week Ln Paris Aot) The Gratoe Expositi...
But as for the piece itse , why these extravagant plaudits ? Why this ostentatious bestowal of crosses upon the author ? Voyons . Let us see if this be a second Moliere . ... Now , Heaven forbid that I should attempt to revive the extinct unities . The French , their latest defenders , have abandoned them , and they are gone . Let us admit that the drama is only amenable to the rules of common sense But one of those rules is that a comedy , to be perfect , should be a reflex of some well-known folly of the age , and that folly capable of amendment . No good ever came of doctoring an incurable . Neither of these conditions exists in the Demi-Monde . The state of society depicted is neither well known , nor is it ( of itself ) capable of amendment . Thousands applaud that piece who have not , nor ever have had , nor ( we trust ) ever will have the slightest opportunity of ascertaining whether it be truthful or the reverse . But the author shall speak for himself upon both points ; and for this purpose I "will quote his own description of this peculiar phase of societywhence it arises , and what becomes of it . These passages are the best in
the piece . Raymond . —But in what society are we then ? For , in truth , I am at a loss Olivier . —Ah . ! my good fellow—you must have lived as long as I have in all the grades of the Parisian world to understand this , and even then it is not easy to explain . Do you like peaches ? Raymond . —Peaches ! Yes . Olivier . —Well ! Go some day into Chevet or Totet ' s shop , and ask for his best peaches . He will show you a basket of magnificent fruit , arranged so that they cannot touch , and separated the one from the other by a few leaves . Ask the price , and he will tell you : twenty sous a piece . Look around you , and you will see in the immediate neighbourhood of the former basket another , containing peaches equal in appearance to the others , but more closely packed , pressed one against the other so that how much those ? will
you cannot see all round them . Ask him , are He answer , fifteen sous . Then you will ask very naturally , how is it that those peaches , as large , as beautiful , as ripe as the otheis , are cheaper ? And he will take one up delicately in his fingers , and will turn it over , and there he will show you a little black spot no bigger than a point , and he will tell you that that is the reason of the inferior price . Now we are in the basket at fifteen sous . The women around you have everyone of them a defect in their past , a spot upon their name ; they crowd one against the other to hide this ; and with the same origin , the same exterior , and the same prejudices as women of the gentle world , they no longer belong to it , and they compose what we call the " Demi-monde "—something that is neither aristocracy nor bourgeoisie , " but -which swims like a floating island upon the Parisian world , and which gathers and admits all that falls and all that emigrates from those two continents , besides those who are shipwrecked upon the voyage , and who come no one knows
whence . Raymond . —Where is this class chiefly to be found ? Olivier . Everywhere , indistinctly ; but a Parisian recognises it immediately . Raymond . —By what ? Olivier . By the absence of husbands . It is full of married women without husbands . Raymond . —And whence comes this strange class ? - Olivier . —It is of modern creation . Formerly adultery , as we understand it , had no existence . Husbands were much more easy , and then they had , to express the same tiling , a much more trivial word , of which Moliere made use when he ridiculed the husband more than he condemned the -wife ; but ever since husbands , armed with a Code have had the power to banish from their houses the women who have broken their engagements , a transformation has been effected in the conjugal world which has resulted in this new phase of society . All these compromised , separated , repudiated to hide her shame and for her
women , what becomes of them ? The first went - weep fault in the darkest retreat she could find ; but the second sought out the first , and , when' they were two , they called a fault a misfortune , a crime a mistake , and so they excused one another and consoled one another ; but when they were three , they asked each other to dinner ; and when they were four they got up a country-dance . And around these women are grouped young girls who have begun life with a slip , false widows , sham wives , who bear the name of the men with whom they live , in fact , all the women who boast of what they have been , but hide what they are . And now this bastard society works regularly , and is considered charming by young men . Love is easier there than up above , and cheaper than down below . But the young men go from time to time among the courtesanB , who hear from them the stories of those ladies , who joke about them , and cry in full orgie as they quote names that have once been honourable , that phrase which has become acceptable to fools : " You see these ladies are no better than we are . "
This is plain enough , there is no mistaking it—the " Demi-monde" is the result of adultery . It does as well as it can , and keeps itself as respectable as possible ; but the woman once involved in it has no more hope of regaining her lost position than one pitted with the small-pox of getting back her complexion . I think , therefore , that I am justified in saying that this piece can serve no good end . And what , after all , is this M . Olivier de Jalin , who is so oracularly severe upon the shortcomings of the " Demi-monde ? " He frequents it . We find hun involved in it . We find him . intriguing with Suzanne—the incarnation of its worst qualities . Surely there is something very strange in this French notion of honour ? Both Jalin and that silly old nobleman , theMarquis de Thonnerins , after levelling themselves with this woman , after assisting in her debasement , make that very debasement a pretext for their interference when she attempts , by the medium , of matrimony , to rise into a respectable sphere . " It is not I ( says Jaliii ) who oppose your marriage , it is reason justice , the social law which requires that an honest man should murry an honest woman . " Yet both Jalin and the Marquis would call themselves
44 honest" men . So are they all honourable men I But these are not the sort of men to cast stones at even worse women than the Baronne cPAnge . Although the language of the piece is not very explicit upon the point , I think it would not be very difficult to prove that Jalin ' s interference proceeded from an interested motive—that he was himself in love with Suzanne . If bo , his conduct becomes positively despicable . It is astonishing what puffery will do ; but there are some things which are superior to its power . It can fill a theatre and prompt the claque , but it cannot insure the honours posterity . The success of the Demi-Monde ia as ephemeral aa that of the Dame aux CanuSlias . It may draw crowds for a time , but it la not Tartufe ; nor is Dumas the Younger a Moliere .
321 The Leader. [Saturday,
321 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Monti's Lectures On Sculpture. Signor Mo...
MONTI'S LECTURES ON SCULPTURE . Signor Monti commenced his course of Lectures on Ancient and Modern Sculpture , accompanied by technical demonstrations , on Wednesday evening , at his studio , in Great Marlborough-street . We had regarded the announcement of these series with peculiar interest , and the result of the first lecture ha s ully r egarded our expectation . The audience fit , though few , were provided with comfortable seats , in the large room which had been fitted up with appropriate tastefulness . We see no reason why these lectures should be thought to appeal to a limited section of the public ; Signor Monti , in his luminous and sympathetic expositions , has the art of teaching without pedantry , and of popularising without triviality of treatment .
The fulness and completeness of the matter satisfy the critical , while the elegance and modesty of the manner charm and engage the general audience . The lecturer speaks as a man who knows and feels his subject , and warming as he proceeds , he communicates his sympathy to his hearers . The result is rather a delightful causerie than a set , formal discourse ; every topic is touched firmly and powerfully , but finely and delicately too . The learning sits lightly , like a graceful garment ; the illustrations are natural and spontaneous ornaments of the lecturer ' s argument . Signor Monti is singularly unembarrassed in a strange tongue : he handles our English language like a block of fine marble , and shapes it into thoughts of grace and images of beauty . If there be once and
again a form of expression cast in a more Southern mould—if the pronunciation forget a consonant or two for the sake of a luxurious vowel which belongs to warmer and more genial dialects than ours—we are not at all persuaded that these musical accidentals , if we may so call them , do not lend a zest to the speech which we could not willingly forego , were they not , we believe , the evidence o an anxiety which we can assure Signor Monti he has no cause to feel . No doubt he will gain confidence in his succeeding appearances . We took a note or two of the first lecture , and Ave shall continue to give our readers a slight sketch of each in succession , advising , however , as many as can , to avail themselves of this opportunity of learning in half a dozen pleasant evenings more of the history of Art than they will ever pick up in books , or exhibitions .
After a feeling apology for his deficiencies as a lecturer in English , Signor Monti proceeded to say —( we transcribe as nearly as possible his own words)—that the aim of the lectures was to further a just appreciation of the works of sculpture by the internal evidence presented by the works themselves . To do this e fficiently , it was necessary to discard , —First , the idea that sculpture is only the result of an instinct for imitation , and a desire to produce decoration and pleasure : these are only the means by which sculpture is made to exist . Secondly , the standard of beauty ( taken in a literal sense ) applied indiscriminately to judge of art : rather have the standard of truth , as leading to a more just result . Thirdly , the prevalent habit of applying in the judgment of works of different ages and nations the same and only standard of individual sympathy or predilection : being the expression of different conditions , every one of them must be judged according to those conditions that have originated them . Sculpture , and the other arts of design , belong to that class of human expressions that have for their basis— -forvi , and which , along with the other ways of expression granted to man , word ( literature ) and sound ( music ) , are the means by which he can assert his intellectual existence—the life of his soul , his poetry .
It is the power of thus expressing the ideas of his mind that places man above all created beings . ' Sculpture is the art that embodies these ideas informs of more or less relief ; and it becomes only itself when it is based upon the consciousness that the conceptions of the mind are impressed upon the beholder by the production of such forms . Form stands related to conception as a symbol , as a consistent expression , aa a
display . Art used as a sign makes a slave of form . The symbol to be easily recognised , its form must be unalterable . The Egyptians , the Assyrians , & c , are instances of it among the ancients—the early Christian art among the moderns . When form , instead of the slave , is the companion and fulfilment of the conception , art then reaches its climax . This was the art of Phidias , and that of the fifteenth century of the modern era . But when Form becomes prevalent over conception by substituting the charm of materialism to that of the idea , having itself as the only end , it leads art to decadence . This is exemplified by the Greek art under the Romans , and by the disfiguremerits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of the Christian era . of the
Egypt appears the most ancient nation that , conscious powerful means of expression sculpture would be , employed it in the embodiment of its religious ideas , its laws , of its history . The condition of these ideas , and the circumstances of that society being fixed and definite—their art assumes a dennite and fixed character . Being only a symbol , its form must serve the conception , and thus , in order that the symbol be easily recognised , the form is not allowed to change . This determined uniformity in Egyptian art resisted all fo reign invasion and influence . . Examples of statues of kings , the Memnon and the Sesostris , and of bas-relieis of the earliest time , demonstrating the different ways of working of the Egyptian spulptor , were presented by the lecturer , followed by others of the time when Egypt was under foreign influence , resisting it , and continuing true to itself as long as the nation existed . Next to the Egyptian art comes the Assyrian . It equally uses form as a symbolbut of a less severe character than that of the Egyptians .
, Instead o strict religious tenets , it is the power and muniflcenco ot tneir kings , and their exaltation , that ia the aim of the Assyrian art . To this is auueu a tendency to display quite in keeping with the Oriental ideas of that race . Several diagrams , showing examples from the Nineveh marbles , were presenter followed by others of Persian art , described as a palo continuation , a last pulsation of the art of the Assyrians . anina The lecturer closed his remarks on Egyptian and Assyrian art by ^? j " g thorn in their formal and imposed conditions as the instrument of power dl ™ j by intelligence for its own perpetuation , in fact , the sym bolism of re ason , wium tho next lecture he intends bringing forward the symbolism of imagination speaking of the art of India .
The Operas And The Theatres. , On Thursd...
THE OPERAS AND THE THEATRES . , On Thursday , Don Giovanni was produced , with some important changes in * usual cast . TAMnuHim , who , although inexorable uge has converted iub v » into a bark , ia still the accomplished a nd olegant actor , still tho finished emu »
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 2, 1855, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02061855/page/20/
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