Puvis de Chavannes an ideal wall painting

Modern Art, 1 January 1894, unnumbered page, 236 words

It is true to say of Chavannes that he is the only man alive to whom a beautiful building might be given for decoration without fear that its beauty would be disgraced. He is the one man alive who can cover twenty feet of wall or vaulted roof with decoration that will neither deform the grandeur nor jar the grayness of the masonry. Mural decoration in his eyes is not merely a picture let into a wall, nor is it necessarily mural decoration even if it be painted on the wall itself; it is mural decoration if it form part of the wall, if it be, if I may so express myself, a variant of the stone work.

No other painter ever kept this end so strictly before his eyes. For this end Chavannes reduced his palette almost to a monochrome, for this end he models in two flat tints, for this end he draws in huge, undisciplined masses. ✽ ✽ Chavannes paints in a high key, wishing to disturb the color of the surrounding stone as little as may be. Gray and blue are the natural colors of building stone; when the subject willI not admit of subterfuge, he will introduce a shade of pale green,  ✽ ✽  but gray is always the foundation of his`palette. GEORGE MOORE