horses harnessed to the plough--and only suffers
untamed animals to exist in its midst when they are on show in
zoological gardens or fair-booths. Here the whole glorious creation
swarms unadorned and vigorous as on the seventh day after chaos; and
all that we conceal and pamper in our dapper civilization appears here
in all innocence in the open light of day. Look at this brown, lusty
peasant and this beautiful woman--these sleeping nymphs watched by the
satyrs--this glorious throng of the blessed and the damned--all this
unveiled humanity is living and acting for itself alone, and never
dreams whether prudish and pedantic fools are looking on and taking
umbrage at it. You know that nothing is really good or bad _in itself_;
it is only the power of thinking about it that makes it so. And these
creatures have never troubled themselves with thinking. They are
enjoying life fully and overflowingly--like the fat little satyr's wife
above there, nursing her twins--or they are absorbed in the sharp
struggle for existence. Look at this lion-hunt! Horace Vernet, who
wielded no unskillful brush, has painted one too. But just there you
can see the contrast between great art and petty art. Here everything
is mingled in a raging turmoil, so that there is not a hand's breadth
between--here is the very instant of highest conflict, the climax of
struggle and defense, fury and death--every muscle strained to its
utmost, and everything in such deadly yet triumphant earnest that one
trembles and yet is filled with the spirit of victory. For all true
strength is full of a certain triumphant joy. But the French picture is
like a tableau in a circus, where, in spite of all the grimacing and
posturing, there is no real struggle _a l'outrance_, And look at the
purely artistic side; here all the outlines are so melted into one
another, so lost in each other in spite of the strongest contrasts,
that they necessarily lead the eye into a network from which it cannot
escape, where it never has an opportunity to wish for anything else, or
indeed to think that anything else is possible. A skillful modern
artist, going to work with his patchwork of knowledge on the various
subjects, could not possibly produce such a work. You will always find
holes and gaps--stiff triangles and hexagons between the legs of the
horses, and the figures kept apart as nicely and neatly as though they
were going to be packed up in their cases again after it was all over."