Paul G. Konody

“ But whilst the professional painters meekly submitted to Le Brun's tyranny, the revolt which was to transform the art of painting in France in the eighteenth century was heralded, nay initiated, in the field of polemic literature. A fierce battle was waged between the traditional advocates of the supremacy of line and the champions of colour, or rather of paint that fulfils a more vital function than the colouring of spaces created by linear design. ”

“ The tiger, watching its prey, has less light in its eyes and has less impatient quivering in its muscles, than could be perceived in our great painter when with his whole soul he flung himself on an idea or endeavoured to seize a dream. ”

“ Mythology and allegory continued to rule supreme in the art of Boucher, which is the most typical expression of the French eighteenth century, but they are adapted to the decoration of the boudoir, and colour and brushwork are no longer subordinated to design. Boucher, the most French of all French painters, is inconceivable without two centuries of the Italian tradition of design and without Rubens's example of handling paint. In the art of Fragonard, that great virtuoso of the brush, the influence of Rubens becomes absolutely paramount. ”

“ It was on the occasion of this 1827 Salon that the terms "Romanticism" and "Romanticists" first came into general use. Their exact definition is not an easy matter. Broadly speaking, the romantic movement in literature, music, and painting signifies the accentuation of human emotions and passions in art, as opposed to the classic ideal of purity of form. Delacroix himself did not wish to be identified with any group or movement, but in the eyes of the public he stood as the leader of the Romanticists in painting, just as Victor Hugo, with whom he had but little sympathy, did in literature. ”

“ To-day we may be surprised that a picture so balanced in design, so sober in colour, so sculpturally plastic in the modelling of the human form, could have been considered in any way revolutionary and should have evoked such violent abuse as was showered upon it by the Davidists. But turn from this "Dante" to David's "Oath of the Horatii" and "Leonidas," which may be taken to typify the artistic standard of the time, and you will grasp the full significance of Delacroix's bold step. True, Géricault had already followed similar aims with his "Raft of the Medusa" ”

“ Although the design offends against the fundamental rule of all ceiling decorations, that there should be no "above" and "below," and that the composition should be devised so as to be equally intelligible from every point of view, one cannot but admire the noble co- and subordination of the different groups and figures, the lucid clearness of the pictorial statement of an essentially intellectual conception, the astonishing colour-magic, and, above all, the manner in which the master has adapted his own work to the somewhat gaudy and over-decorated surroundings. ”

“ Italianism became paramount in French painting when, in the fourth decade of the sixteenth century, Rosso and Primaticcio followed the call of Francis I. and founded the School of Fontainebleau. From about 1532 right into the nineteenth century, the official art of France, that is to say, the art favoured by the rulers and encouraged by the Academy, was based on the imitation of Raphael and the Italians of the decline—an art that was essentially intellectual, cold, and dominated by drawing and design, not by colour. ”

“ What was once considered extreme and revolutionary, has become what might almost be described as a classic basis of a revaluation of æsthetic values. Even Manet's "Olympia," the starting-point of a more recent artistic upheaval, a picture which on its first appearance at the Paris Salon of 1865 was received with wild howls of execration, now falls into line at the Louvre with the other great masterpieces of painting. It marks a bold step in the evolution of modern art, but it is no longer disconcerting to our eyes. And Delacroix can no longer be denied classic rank. ”

“ Of course, the application of Ingres's standard of classic perfection in drawing might justify the conclusion, but one need only glance at Delacroix's sketch-books and studies to realise that he was a great draughtsman, if drawing, as it was to him, is considered the means towards an end, and not an end in itself. And his mastery of spontaneous, nervously expressive drawing was as complete as it could be, if mastery can be acquired through the curbing of impetuous genius by half a century's methodical, steady practice. ”

“ And it is not too much to say that Delacroix solved the problem in more masterly fashion than any painter between the glorious days of the Italian Renaissance and the advent of Puvis de Chavannes, the greatest decorator of modern times.
Like all true fresco decoration, the two large paintings of "Jacob wrestling with the Angel" and "Heliodorus driven from the Temple" do not attempt to give the illusion of plastic life, or of an opening cut through the wall, but duly accentuate the flatness of the surface. ”

“ His only passions were his art, his love of romantic literature, and his staunch friendship. A few journeys and frequent spells of illness were the only events that broke the even tenor of his life. As a writer, Delacroix has left a marvellous "Journal," which ought to be consulted and carefully studied by every artist, and a number of carefully constructed magazine articles on various æsthetic questions, which only reveal the cool intellectual side of his dual nature. He was a man of great reticence, who rarely allowed himself to be drawn into criticising the art of his contemporaries. ”

“ Evolution on these lines was impossible. French art was only saved from stagnation by the influence of Northern art, from which it continued to derive its vitality. It was saved by painters who, like Philippe de Champaigne and Watteau, had come from the North, or who, like the brothers Le Nain, Chardin, Boucher, Fragonard, and finally Delacroix, had drawn their inspiration either from the Dutchmen or from Rubens and the Flemings.
During the "grand" century there are only isolated instances of painters who resisted the tyranny of academic rule and the exclusive worship of classic antiquity. ”

“ At the very outset, Watteau carried the emotional expressiveness of pigment to a point where it could not be maintained by his followers and imitators. He had never been to Italy; and though he had studied the works of the Venetian colourists, his art was mainly derived from Flemish sources. But the Academy continued to send its most promising pupils to its branch school in Rome, where they were taught to worship at the shrine of Raphael and his followers, and whence they returned to continue the tradition of the School. ”

“ The "Jewish Wedding in Morocco," in which the painter's concern with true tone-values and beautiful quality of pigment is carried even further than in the "Algerian Women," and the intensely dramatic "Hamlet and the Gravediggers"—both are now at the Louvre—were his chief works in 1839; whilst in the following year he devoted his energies to the large "Justice of Trajan" (now extensively restored) at the Rouen Gallery, and the powerful "Shipwreck of Don Juan," surely one of the most tragic and impressive pictures ever conceived by human genius. ”

“ The impetuous youth, with his keen sense of the dramatic and romantic, and his passionate love of music, even if his emotionalism was held in check by intellectuality, felt repelled by the icy coldness of the man in whom the teaching of David had stifled any personal talent he may have possessed. ”

“ In a subject of this kind the artist could allow himself to yield completely to the sensuous enjoyment of the rare and at the time entirely novel harmonies of pure, beautiful colour evolved by his brush. The superbly painted negress on the right of the composition undoubtedly owes much to the Spanish masters whom Delacroix must have studied during his brief visit to the Peninsula; and there is as little doubt that she in turn became the progenitor of the wonderful negress in Manet's "Olympia." Indeed, Delacroix at this stage must be considered Manet's precursor and source of inspiration. ”

“ Delacroix's Moroccan sketch-books, which are among the treasured possessions of the Louvre, constitute one of the most interesting documents ever left by artist's hand. There is always a peculiar fascination about an artist's self-revelations in moments when his mind is far away from the public to whom he directs his appeal in his finished pictures. ”

“ Delacroix once expressed himself on one of those rare occasions when he broke through his habitual reticence concerning his critical views on his contemporaries, "wants to make painting a dependency of the antiquaries; it is pretentious archæology; these are not pictures." "Cameos are not made," he wrote on another occasion, "to be put into painting; everything ought to keep its proper place." ”

“ He was deeply stirred by these productions, which had a by no means beneficial influence upon his art. To his love of the stage may be ascribed the least acceptable characteristics of his minor pictures and lithographs—exaggerated action, stage grouping, and a certain lack of restraint. It is difficult to understand Goethe's highly eulogistic comment upon Delacroix's "Faust" illustrations, unless it was a case of faute de mieux, or that he had not seen the complete set. To modern eyes, at any rate, they are the epitome of the master's weaknesses. The drawing is frequently inexcusably bad ”

“ Some are sketched in pure colour-washes in bold flat masses, some in pencil or pen and ink heightened with strong blobs of water-colour, others in pure outline; and generally they are accompanied by explanatory notes hastily scribbled in pencil. Throughout is to be noted the same swift impulsiveness and definiteness of purpose, the utmost expressiveness obtained by the greatest economy of means. ”

“ It is interesting to note how completely this vivid description of the mature man tallies not only with the painted portrait of Delacroix at the age of thirty-one, but with another description of the adolescent, left by his college friend, Philarète Chasle, who speaks of him as "a lad, with olive-hued forehead, flashing eyes, a mobile face with prematurely sunken cheeks, abundant wavy black hair, betraying southern origin." ”

“ The beholder is filled with profound respect, instead of being thrilled by the emotional effect of colour. Nor can this be entirely due to bad lighting and to the serious deterioration and indifferent restoring of the paintings, of which scarcely more than the design is by Delacroix's own hand, the execution being almost entirely due to Lassalle Bordes and other assistants, who are also largely responsible for the actual painting of the Luxembourg decoration. ”

“ Delacroix himself tells in his Journal that he was so powerfully impressed by the intense realism of his friend's work, that on leaving the studio he ran through the streets like a madman. How much he benefited by Géricault's example became clear when his "Dante and Virgil" appeared at the Salon of 1822, raising its author with a single bound to fame. ”

“ Both pictures are based on the study of Raphael. Among Delacroix's intimates of these early days was the English painter, Thales Fielding, from whom he not only acquired his knowledge of the art of water-colour painting—then scarcely practised in France—but who awakened or strengthened in him the taste for English literature and especially for Shakespeare and Byron. ”