l estimate; it is personal. In the case of
Gericault perhaps one thinks a little of "the man and the moment"
theory. He was, it is true, the first romantic painter--at any rate the
first notable romantic painter. His struggles, his steadfastness, his
success--pathetically posthumous--have given him an honorable eminence.
His example of force and freedom exerted an influence that has been
traced not only in the work of Delacroix, his immediate inheritor, but
in that of the sculptor Rude, and even as far as that of Millet--to all
outward appearance so different in inspiration from that of his own
tumultuous and dramatic genius. And as of late years we look on the
stages of any evolution as less dependent on individuals than we used
to, doubtless just as Luther was confirmed and supported on his way to
the Council at Worms by the people calling on him from the house-tops
not to deny the truth, Gericault was sustained and stimulated in the
face of official obloquy by a more or less considerable aesthetic
movement of which he was really but the leader and exponent. But his
fame is not dependent upon his revolt against the Institute, his
influence upon his successors, or his incarnation of an aesthetic
movement. It rests on his individual accomplishment, his personal value,
the abiding interest of his pictures. "The Raft of the Medusa" will
remain an admirable and moving creation, a masterpiece of dramatic vigor
and vivid characterization, of wide and deep human interest and truly
panoramic grandeur, long after its contemporary interest and historic
importance have ceased to be thought of except by the aesthetic
antiquarian. "The Wounded Cuirassier" and the "Chasseur of the Guard"
are not documents of aesthetic history, but noble expressions of artistic
sapience and personal feeling.

What, I think, is the notable thing about both Gericault and Delacroix,
however, as exponents, as the initiators, of romanticism, is the way in
which they restrained the impetuous temperament they share within the
confines of a truly classic reserve. Closely considered, they are not
the revolutionists they seemed to the official classicism of their day.
Not only do they not base their true claims to enduring fame upon a
spirit of revolt against official and academic art--a spirit essentially
negative and nugatory, and never the inspiration of anything permanently
puissant and attractive--but, compared with their successors of the
present day, in