whose works individual preference and predilection seem
to have a swing whose very freedom and irresponsible audacity extort
admiration--compared with the confident temerariousness of what is known
as _modernite_, their self-possession and sobriety seem their most
noteworthy characteristics. Compared with the "Bar at the
Folies-Bergere," either the "Raft of the Medusa" or the "Convulsionists
of Tangiers" is a classic production. And the difference is not at all
due to the forty years' accretion of Protestantism which Manet
represents as compared with the early romanticists. It is due to a
complete difference in attitude. Gericault imbued himself with the
inspiration of the Louvre. Delacroix is said always to have made a
sketch from the old masters or the antique a preliminary to his own
daily work. So far from flaunting tradition, they may be said to have,
in their own view, restored it; so far from posing as apostles of
innovation, they may almost be accused of "harking back"--of steeping
themselves in what to them seemed best and finest and most authoritative
in art, instead of giving a free rein to their own unregulated emotions
and conceptions.

Gericault died early and left but a meagre product. Delacroix is _par
excellence_ the representative of the romantic epoch. And both by the
mass and the quality of his work he forms a true connecting link
between the classic epoch and the modern--in somewhat the same way as
Prudhon does, though more explicitly and on the other side of the line
of division. He represents culture--he knows art as well as he loves
nature. He has a feeling for what is beautiful as well as a knowledge of
what is true. He is pre-eminently and primarily a colorist--he is, in
fact, the introducer of color as a distinct element in French painting
after the pale and bleak reaction from the Louis Quinze decorativeness.
His color, too, is not merely the prismatic coloration of what had
theretofore been mere chiaro-oscuro; it is original and personal to such
a degree that it has never been successfully imitated since his day.
Withal, it is apparently simplicity itself. Its hues are apparently the
primary ones, in the main. It depends upon no subtleties and refinements
of tints for its effectiveness. It is significant that the absorbed and
affected Rossetti did not like it; it is too frank and clear and open,
and shows too little evidence of the morbid brooding and hysterical
forcing of an arbitrary and