I shall never care to see London again. I should not find there my old
memories, and, above all, I should not find the same men to enjoy with
me what there is to be seen now. Perhaps I might find myself obliged to
break a lance for Reynolds, or for that adorable Gainsborough, whom you
are indeed right to love. Not that I am the opponent of the present
movement in the painting of England. I am even struck by the prodigious
conscientiousness that these people can bring to bear even on work of
the imagination; it seems that in coming back to excessive detail they
are more in their own element than when they imitated the Italian
painters and the Flemish colourists. But what does the skin matter?
Under this seeming transformation they are always English. Thus instead
of making imitations pure and simple of the primitive Italians, as the
fashion has been among us, they mix with this imitation of the manner of
the old schools an infinitely personal sentiment; they put into it the
interest which is generally missing in our cold imitations of the
formulas and the style of schools which have had their day. I am writing
without pulling myself up, and saying everything that comes into my
head. Perhaps the impressions I received at that former time might be a
little modified to-day. Perhaps I should find in Lawrence an
exaggeration of methods and effects too closely reminiscent of the
school of Reynolds; but his amazing delicacy of drawing, and the air of
life he gives to his women, who seem almost to be talking with one, give
him, considered as a portrait-painter, a certain superiority over Van
Dyck, whose admirable figures are immobile in their pose. Lustrous eyes
and parted lips are admirably rendered by Lawrence. He welcomed me with
much kindness; he was a man of most charming manners, except when you
criticised his pictures.... Our school has need of a little new blood.
Our school is old, and the English school seems young. They seem to seek
after nature while we busy ourselves with imitating other pictures.
Don't get me stoned by mentioning abroad these opinions, which alas! are
mine.
_Delacroix._