BOOKS
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graspedonly the picturesque aspects of the Moslems, with no trace of
feelingfor their character or the organic qualities of their art.
Then, about 1853, at the age of 55, the painter matures and becomes
conscious.He outgrows his uncritical outbursts and starts to analyze the
basisof aesthetics. From now on it is the limitations of the period of
whichwe are conscious, and these he occasionally transcends. On music,
for instance, his comments are pleasingly unexpected; with true Second
Empire inconsistency he extolls Mozart and Cimarosa, and thunders
againstBerlioz, Meyerbeer, and Verdi, who are the true counterparts
of his paintings. It is probably in music that our tastes today still have
mostin common with those of the 19th century. In painting, certainly,
our horizon has broadened considerably. Delacroix's background was
limitedto the art of later Greece and the Renaissance; the vast stores
of Egypt, the New World, and the Far East, lay as yet untouched.
Equallyunappreciated was the Marxian critique and the effects of the
historicalenvironment on the artist; Delacroix's single note for July 24,
1854,
seems a trifle naIve today: "What Rembrandt and Michael Angelo
wouldhave been in our period!"
The remarks on the technique of oil-painting will be of inestimable
value for an understanding of Renaissance art. One can learn from
theirbeginnings the chiaroscuro principles of turning form through the
broad high-light, the shadow, and the half-tone rub-in. Delacroix also
analyzesfigure-composition as far as it can be realized through the
juxtapositionof light and shade. Such comments usually come to him in
museums;he is a student until the end, and (like most painters) his own
researchesare irksome for him to write down. Occasionally, however,
he emerges as the true precursor of Impressionism: "a scalawag had
climbedup on the statues; I saw him in full sunlight: dull orange in
thelight, very lively violet tones for the passage from the shadow, and
goldenreflections in the shadows turned toward the ground. The orange
and violet dominated alternately or mingled. The golden tone had a
tendencytoward green. Flesh gets its real color only in the open air, and
especiallyin sunlight."
It was to the advantage of his jQurnal that Delacroix immersed
himselfin Second Empire society. Yet it is apparent from the many il-
lustrationswhich accompany the text, that the painter, except for an
occasionalfragmentary sketch or water-color, is handicapped by a
curiouslack of distinction. Such paintings as were at the time so stir-
ring(in their subject-matter) seem displeasingly ordinary in their quality
today.(Manet, the painter of the
grande bourgeoisie,
was to fall through
thesame deficiency.) A man who was so thoroughly an artist as this
textreveals, should have achieved a more profound expression. It is
perhapssignificant that the 19th century painters who succeeded in
achievingthe full poise of the great masters (Cezanne, Seurat) were the
*'lationists.
GEORGE
L. K.
MORRIS
