History of Medicine

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.

"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.

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.