Georges Rouault in New York

Judges, clowns and whores (but no Christs):
Georges Rouault in New York

ROBERT ZALLER

When Georges Rouault died at the then-grand age of 86 in 1958, the French government gave him a state funeral. He was that big, and not in France alone. No one could reckon with modern art without considering Rouault. But Rouault’s star faded insensibly thereafter as America began to colonize the art world (as well as all the others). It was not that he became minor; somehow, he became invisible.

This can happen. The death of someone considered a major figure generally produces one of two consequences: It confirms his role in the pantheon, or it drastically shrinks his reputation. The latter does not come about because a coven of critics meets to decide that everyone was wrong about X. Rather, discussion soon ceases altogether.

Such was the case with Rouault. Exhibitions dwindled; monographs dried up. American Expressionism and, soon after, American Pop eclipsed everything else, while a new market for French Impressionism opened up. The only French artist of Rouault’s generation to prosper in the environment of the 1960s was Matisse, whose bright, clear palette seemed the natural heir of the Impressionists (as well as the precursor of Pop). And Rouault was the anti-Matisse.

A Gothic tint to everything

His colors are dark, earth-toned: northern France, not the sunny south. One seems to peer through gloom at exposed viscera: Arms and legs are sausage-like, as if they were inner organs, not external members. There’s a Gothic tint to everything, a sensibility that seems to combine the satiric thrust of Daumier with the demonic leer of gargoyles.

And yet there’s great poignancy too— the despair of a fallen world. “Peace hardly seems to reign/ In this anguished world/ Of shadows and pretenses”: These are not words about Rouault, but by him, from his preface to an edition of his great religious cycle, Miserère. But who, of course, ever heard of a great religious painter in modern times? Rembrandt was the last of these (I except the astonishing New Testament illustrations by Domenico Tiepolo in the 1780s). We have had, certainly, many versions of the fallen world in our day: Goya, Beckmann, Guston. None of them, however, has been painted by a believer— except the work of Rouault.

Who reads Claudel today?

If there’s any analogue to Rouault, it’s in the plays and poetry of his fiercely devout contemporary Paul Claudel. But no one reads Claudel any more either: a great, unreadable writer. As I say, these things happen. In a resolutely secular world, the world in which man is the measure of all things, certain ways of seeing, feeling, experiencing, are no longer possible.

Can we, then, still see Rouault? The modest but haunting exhibit of his work at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York—27 mostly early and middle period oils and drawings— poses the question, but in a somewhat roundabout way. Judges, clowns and whores are all people playing a role; such people are, by the same token, particularly exposed to the sight of others. Judges and whores, after all, typically sit on benches, often enough each other’s benches. Both, too, pronounce verdicts on their clientele, though only judges express them as a matter of professional responsibility.

Every judge a Pharisee

Clowns say even less than whores, but their very silence is the mirror in which we behold ourselves. These three types, then, are a fair summary of the human condition, and at the same time a parody. Rouault sees in every judge a Pharisee; in every clown the blankness of servitude; in every whore, the terrible candor of the flesh. His strength as a painter is his ability to portray types; his limitation, a certain didacticism. But his figures, even in the most casual sketches, are deeply suffused with life.

Not all is gloom in Rouault, especially in the washes and watercolors where he gives himself freer rein, and a 1917 Nude with Raised Arms startlingly recalls Nolde. Works such as Woman with Red Hair and Acrobats XIII are, I think, great by any standard.

The nakedness of Christ

What is absent in this very welcome show, however, are any specifically religious pieces. Rouault’s religious sensibility is, of course, apparent everywhere (though not in everything he did), but there are none of the Biblical scenes that anchor his work and express their confessional basis. Perhaps we’re too embarrassed to behold the nakedness of Christ, at least in a modernist image, though nudity of every other kind is easy enough for us. But somehow Rouault’s whores don’t fully express themselves without his Christs, or express themselves wrongly.

Like the pampered consumers we are, we like to pick and choose among available wares. Rouault, though, must be taken whole. I’m not sure we can do that any longer, but I hope some gallery or museum will give us the chance some day. In the meantime, I’ll say thanks for a partial view. Rouault has been out of sight too long.