convenience soon became evident, it was increasingly put into
practice, and was so well based that later reformers have only
needed to follow the lines laid down by Puttkammer. As
minister of the interior Puttkammer's activities were less
commendable. His reactionary conservative temper was in complete
harmony with the views of Bismarck and the emperor William,
and with their powerful support he attempted, in defiance of
modern democratic principles and even of the spirit of the
constitution, to re-establish the old Prussian system of rigid
discipline from above. He was above all concerned to nip in
the bud any tendencies in the bureaucracy to revolt, and it was
on his initiative that, on the 4th of January 1882, a royal
ordinance laid it down as the duty of all officials to give the government
their unconditional support at political elections. Similarly
though he carried out many useful administrative reforms, in a
effort to combat Social Democracy he seriously interfered
with the liberty of public meeting and attempted the forcible
suppression of strike movements. This “Puttkammer régime”
was intensely unpopular; it was attacked in the Reichstag not
only by Radicals like Richter and Rickert, but by National
Liberals like Bennigsen, and when the emperor Frederick III.,
whose Liberal tendencies were notorious, succeeded to the throne,
it was clear that it could not last. In spite of Bismarck's support
Puttkammer was forced to resign on the 8th of June 1888.
Under William II., however, whose principles were those of his
grandfather, Puttkammer was largely rehabilitated. On the 1st
of January 1889 he received the Order of the Black Eagle. He was
appointed a secular canon (Domherr) of Merseburg, and in 1891
became Oberpräsident of Prussian Pomerania. In this office,
which he held till 1899, he did very useful work in collaboration
with the provincial estates. He died on his property at Karzin in
Pomerania on the 15th of March 1900. (J. Hn.)
PUTTY, originally tin oxide in a state of fine division used
for polishing glass, granite, &c., now known as “ putty powder ”
or “ polisher's putty ” (from O. Fr. potée, a potful, hence brass,
tin, pewter, &c., calcined in a pot). More commonly the term
is applied to a kind of cement composed of fine powdered chalk
intimately mixed with linseed oil, either boiled or raw, to the
consistency of a tough dough. It is principally used by glaziers
for bedding and fixing sheets of glass in windows and other
frames, and by joiners and painters for filling up nail-holes
and other inequalities in the surface of woodwork. The oxidation
of the oil gradually hardens the putty into a very dense
adherent mass, but when it is required to dry quickly, boiled
oil and sometimes litharge and other driers are used. The word
is also used of a line lime cement employed by masons.
PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, PIERRE CECILE (1824-1898),
French painter, was born at Lyons on the 14th of December 1824.
His father was a mining engineer, the descendant of an old family
of Burgundy. Pierre Puvis was educated at the Lyons College
and at the Lycee Henri IV. in Paris, and was intended to follow
his father's profession when a serious illness interrupted his
studies. A journey to Italy opened his mind to fresh ideas, and
on his return to France he announced his intention of becoming
a painter, and went to study first under Henri Scheffer, and then
under Couture. On leaving this master in 1852 he established
himself in a studio in the Place Pigalle (which he did not give
up till 1897), and there organized a sort of academy for a group
of fellow students who wished to work from the living model.
Puvis 'first exhibited in the Salon of' 1850 a “ Pieta, " and in the
same year he painted “ Mademoiselle de Sombreuil Drinking a
Glass of Blood to Save her Father, ” and “ Jean Cavalier .by his
Mother's Deathbed, ” besides an “ Ecce Homo, ” now in the church
of Champagnat (Saone-et-Loire). In 1852 and in the two following
years Puvis's pictures were rejected by the Salon, and were
sent to a private exhibition in the Galeries Bonne Nouvelle.
The public laughed at his work as loudly as at that of Courbet,
but the young painter was none the less warmly defended by
Theophile Gautier and Theodore de Banville. For nine years
Puvis was excluded from the Salons. In 1857 he had painted
“ Martyrdom of St Sebastian, ” “ Meditation, " “ Village
Firemen, ” “ ]ulie, ” “ Herodias, ” and “ Saint Camilla ”fxxrr.
compositions showing a great variety of impulse, still undecided
in style and reflecting the influence of the Italian masters as
well as of Delacroix and Couture. In 1859 Puvis reappeared
in the Salon with the “Return from Hunting ” (now in the
Marseilles Gallery). But not till he produced “ Peace ” and
“ War ” did he really impress his critics, inaugurating a vast
series of decorative paintings. For these two works a second class
medal was awarded to him, and the state offered to purchase
the “ Peace.” Puvis, not choosing to part the pair, made a
gift of “ War ” to the state. He then set to work again, and in
1864 exhibited “Autumn ” and “ Sleep, ” but found no purchasers.
One of these pictures is now in the Lyons Museum,
and the other at Lille. “ Peace ” and “ War ” were placed in
the great gallery of the museum at Amiens, where Puvis
completed their effect by painting four panels-a “ Standard-Bearer,
” “ Woman Weeping over the Ruins of her Home, ” a
“ Reaper, ” and a “ Woman Spinning.” These works were so
much admired that further decorations were ordered for the
same building, and the artist presented to the city of Amiens
“Labour” and “ Repose, ” for which the municipality could
not afford to pay. At their request Puvis undertook another
work, intended for the upper landing of the staircase, and in
1865 a composition entitled “ Ave Picardia Nutrix, ” allegorical
of the fertility of the province, was added to the collection. In
1879 the city wished to complete the decoration of the building,
and the painter, again at his own expense, executed the cartoon
of “ Ludus pro patria, " exhibited in the Salon of 1881 and
purchased by the state, which at the same time gave him a
commission for the finished work. While toiling at these large
works, Puvis de Chavannes rested himself by painting easel
pictures. To the salon of 1870 he had sent a picture called
“ Harvest;” the “ Beheading of John the Baptist ” figured in the
Great Exhibition of 1889; then followed “ Hope ” (1872), the
“Family of Fisher-Folk ” (1875), and “Women on the Seashore
” (1879). But these canvases, however interesting, are
not to be named by the side of his grand decorative works. Two paintings in the Palais Longchamp at Marseilles, ordered in 1867, represent “ Marseilles as a Greek Colony ” and “ Marseilles, the Emporium of the East.” After these, Puvis executed for the town-hall of Poitiers two decorative paintings of historical subjects: “ Radegund, ” and “ Charles Martel.” The Pantheon in Paris also possesses a decorative work of great interest by this painter: “The Life of Saint Genevieve, ” treated in three panels. In 1876 the Department of Fine Arts in Paris gave the artist a commission to paint “ Saint Genevieve giving Food to Paris ” and “ Saint Genevieve watching over Sleeping Paris, ” in which he gave to the saint the features of Princess C antacuzene, his wife, who died not long before he did. At the time of his death-on the 24th of October 1898-the work was almost finished. After completing the first paintings in the Pantheon, which occupied him for three years and eight months, Puvis de Chavannes undertook to paint the staircase leading to the gallery of line arts in the Lyons Museum, and took for his subjects the “ Vision of the Antique, ” a procession of youths on horseback, which a female ngure standing on a knoll points out to Pheidias; the “ Sacred Grove ”; and two allegorical figures of “ The Rhéne ” and “ The Saone." It was in the same moqd of inspiration by the antique that he painted the hemicycle at the Sorbonne, an allegory of “ Science, Art, and Letters, ” a work of great extent, for which he was paid 3 5,000 francs (£1400). At the Hotel de Ville in Paris, again, Puvis decorated the grand staircase and the first reception-room. These works employed him from 1889 till 1893. In the reception-room he painted two panels, “ Winter ” and “ Summer ”; the mural paintings on the staircase, which had previously been placed in the hands of Baudry and of Delaunay, are devoted to the glory of the attributes of the city of Paris. On the ceiling we see Victor Hugo offering his lyre to the city of Paris. The pictures in the Rouen Museum (1890-1892) show a different vein, and the artist's power of conceiving and setting forth a plastic scheme enabling him to decorate a public building with beautiful human figures and the finest lines of landscape. We see here toilers raising a
