Feminine painting is invading us; and if our time, of which Delacroix is
the true representative, _has not dared enough_, what will the enervated
art of the future be like?
Only paintings are exhibited just now. Two rooms scarcely hold his
riches; and when one thinks that there are here but the elements of
Delacroix's production, one is bewildered. What strikes one above all
in his sketches is the note of nervous, contained intensity, which
during all his full career he never lost; neither fashion nor the
influence of others affected it; never was there a more sincere note.
Plenty of incorrectness, I grant you, but with a great feeling for
drawing. Whatever one may say, if drawing is an instrument of
expression, Delacroix was a draughtsman. A great style, a marvellous
invention, passion expressed in form as well as in colour, Delacroix is
typically the artist, and not a professor of drawing who fills out
weakness and mediocrity by rhetoric.
_Paul Huet._