PASTEUR and the ART WORLD
What does Louis Pasteur have to do with the art world?
Quite a lot, it turns out.
Thanks to the publications
of the historian of medicine and science, Bert Hansen, and a former student and
collaborator of his, Richard Weisberg, we have a window on an aspect of
Pasteur’s life that has been neglected or overlooked. Pasteur displayed a keen
interest in art, had artistic sensibility of his own, cultivated friendships
with artists, and frequently helped them in their careers.
As a teenager Pasteur
studied art in his hometown of Arbois and then at Besancon, working mainly in
pastels. Examples of his work, quite accomplished for his age and showing an
appreciation for facial detail and expression, can be seen at http://orphea-linux.sis.pasteur.fr/index2.pgi.
(click on Pasteur: oevre artistique)
Pasteur went on to study physics and chemistry, obtain his degrees,
marry, and fill various teaching and research positions until 1858 when he came
to Paris permanently. In his travels for research he made a point of visiting
art museums. He had an eye for sculpture as well as painting. In 1863, age 41,
he began giving lectures at the École des Beaux-Arts, the leading art school in
Paris, discussing physical and chemical properties of pigments, paints, and
related materials. There he befriended a number of current and future artists.
In those days most artists made their reputation by being accepted into
the Paris Salon, a huge annual exhibition sponsored by the French Government.
It was a juried show (with some established artists grandfathered in), opening
May 1, lasting 6-8 weeks, and accepting between 2,000 and 5,000 works. Pasteur
visited the Salon regularly, studied the press reviews, and knew some of the
artists.
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| "Solitude" by Jean-Jacques Henner |
One of his close friends
was the artist Jean-Jacques Henner. Henner, less well-known today, was a
leading artist in Pasteur’s time, regularly exhibited in the Salon, a
member of the Académie des Beaux Arts (which was limited to 40 seats, 14 of
which were reserved for painting), and a winner of a number of awards. He is
known for portraits and for scenes of women in somewhat spiritual settings. His work hangs today in the d’Orsay, National Gallery, Hermitage, and the
Cantor Museum at Stanford (see insert). Pasteur entertained Henner in his home
and on one occasion asked him to put in a good word for another artist at a
Salon showing.
Pasteur also took an interest in sculpture, which led to a warm relationship with the
sculptor Jean-Joseph Perraud. Perraud too had won numerous awards, was in the
Académie, and had been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He did a bust
of Pasteur for which he refused payment, and when he was ill Pasteur helped
secure medical care for him. Pasteur spoke at his funeral and later delivered a
second eulogy at the unveiling of a bust of the artist in his hometown of
Monay, done by a former student.
The sculptor Paul Dubois and Pasteur knew each other well. They had both been guests of honor of the Emperor
and Empress at a royal chateaux in 1865, and Dubois had won a number of honors
and commissions. A famous
full-length work is his “Florentine Singer”(visible at: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/asset-viewer/a-fifteenth-century-florentine-singer/MQE_A8SRHMGNUw?hl=en).
But Dubois was most known for
portrait busts, and executed one of Pasteur, commissioned by the Danish brewer Jacob Christian Jacobsen. After
the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 Pasteur, partly as an anti-German move, began
studies to improve beer brewing. Beer spoiled easily, yeasts were hard to maintain, and
so forth, and Pasteur cleared up many of these problems. The Danish brewer,
Jacobsen (owner of Carlsberg Brewery, named after his son, Carl), was one of
the first to utilize Pasteur’s research to upgrade his brewing techniques. He became
hugely successful and established a laboratory for research on the science of
brewing, now called the Carlsberg Laboratory. Results of all research were to
be made public. To show his appreciation to Pasteur Jacobsen commissioned
Dubois to sculpt a bust of the scientist. The original marble version was
completed in 1879, shown at the Salon in 1880, and then placed in the new
laboratory. A plaster copy went to Pasteur and a bronze copy was installed by
Jacobsen’s son, Carl, on the exterior of his brewery (viewable at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/egdrossell/14671473537
). Yet another copy, in bronze, was awarded to the Rockefeller Institute in
1909 by the Pasteur Institute in thanks for assistance in a meningitis outbreak
in France. This was in fact a pandemic of meningococcal meningitis that began
in New York in 1904-5 and then spread to Europe. Simon Flexner of the
Rockefeller Institute had determined that anti-meningococcal serum prepared
from immunized horses reduced the mortality rate considerably when injected
intrathecally (the fluid space around the spinal cord), especially if given early. Large quantities were manufactured by
the Rockefeller Institute and sent to a variety of countries, including France.
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| Pasteur in his Laboratory |
A few final words about another artist friend, Albert Edelfelt. Originally from Finland, he migrated to Paris, training at the École des Beaux Arts. Introduced by Pasteur’s son, he and Pasteur became close friends and Edelfelt over the
years painted portraits of Pasteur and several members of his family. The
portrait of Pasteur, painted in 1885 (insert), reveals him in his
laboratory peering at a jar containing a drying rabbit spinal cord. While
posing for the painting Pasteur was working actively on developing a rabies
vaccine but the first case of preventing rabies in a human, that of Joseph Meister, was not until July of that
year, just after the painting was finished. The work was entered in the Paris
Salon in May of the next year, by which time Pasteur was an international hero,
and it enhanced his fame even more. It was pioneering for its time in that the
subject is not looking at the viewer nor is he in a chair or other posed
setting. Rather he is concentrating on his work and the painting radiates this
intensity of thought. A copy was made by the artist for Pasteur while the
original was purchased by the French government and held at Versaille for many
years until it was placed in the Museé d’Orsay, where it hangs now.
I'll stop here, mentioning only that the cited articles tell of other artists in Pasteur's life. Pasteur enjoyed art, had an appreciation for it (though he appears not
to have been interested in impressionism), welcomed artists as friends, and
developed close relationships with several. A good balance to his intense
scientific work.
Some works consulted:
Hansen and Weisberg: J Med Biography, May 29, 2015. (two
articles)
Weisberg and Hansen: Bull Hist Medicine 2015. v89: 59-91 (on
Edelfelt)
Hansen. Lecture before American Osler Society, 2014.
Debré, Patrice. Louis
Pasteur. 1998 (Eng trans)
Flexner, S. J Exper. Med. 1913, v17: 553.
