Géricault and Delacroix are the great names inscribed at the head of the
romantic roll. They will remain there. And the distinction is theirs not
as awarded by the historical estimate; it is personal. In the case of
Géricault perhaps one thinks a little of "the man and the moment"
theory. He was, it is true, the first romantic painter--at any rate the
first notable romantic painter. His struggles, his steadfastness, his
success--pathetically posthumous--have given him an honorable eminence.
His example of force and freedom exerted an influence that has been
traced not only in the work of Delacroix, his immediate inheritor, but
in that of the sculptor Rude, and even as far as that of Millet--to all
outward appearance so different in inspiration from that of his own
tumultuous and dramatic genius. And as of late years we look on the
stages of any evolution as less dependent on individuals than we used
to, doubtless just as Luther was confirmed and supported on his way to
the Council at Worms by the people calling on him from the house-tops
not to deny the truth, Géricault was sustained and stimulated in the
face of official obloquy by a more or less considerable æsthetic
movement of which he was really but the leader and exponent. But his
fame is not dependent upon his revolt against the Institute, his
influence upon his successors, or his incarnation of an æsthetic
movement. It rests on his individual accomplishment, his personal value,
the abiding interest of his pictures. "The Raft of the Medusa" will
remain an admirable and moving creation, a masterpiece of dramatic vigor
and vivid characterization, of wide and deep human interest and truly
panoramic grandeur, long after its contemporary interest and historic
importance have ceased to be thought of except by the æsthetic
antiquarian. "The Wounded Cuirassier" and the "Chasseur of the Guard"
are not documents of æsthetic history, but noble expressions of artistic
sapience and personal feeling.
What, I think, is the notable thing about both Géricault and Delacroix,
however, as exponents, as the initiators, of romanticism, is the way in
which they restrained the impetuous temperament they share within the
confines of a truly classic reserve. Closely considered, they are not
the revolutionists they seemed to the official classicism of their day.
Not only do they not base their true claims to enduring fame upon a
spirit of revolt against official and academic art--a spirit essentially
negative and nugatory, and never the inspiration of anything permanently
puissant and attractive--but, compared with their successors of the
present day, in 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 _modernité_, their self-possession and sobriety seem their most
noteworthy characteristics. Compared with the "Bar at the
Folies-Bergère," 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. Géricault 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.
Géricault 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 esoteric note dear to the English
pre-Raphaelites. It attests a delight in color, not a fondness for
certain colors, hues, tints--a difference perfectly appreciable to
either an unsophisticated or an educated sense. It has a solidity and
strength of range and vibration combined with a subtle sensitiveness,
and, as a result of the fusion of the two, a certain splendor that
recalls Saracenic decoration. And with this mastery of color is united a
combined firmness and expressiveness of design that makes Delacroix
unique by emphasizing his truly classic subordination of informing
enthusiasm to a severe and clearly perceived ideal--an ideal in a sense
exterior to his purely personal expression. In a word, his chief
characteristic--and it is a supremely significant trait in the
representative painter of romanticism--is a poetic imagination tempered
and trained by culture and refinement. When his audacities and
enthusiasms are thought of, the directions in his will for his tomb
should be remembered too: "Il n'y sera placé ni emblème, ni buste, ni
statue; mon tombeau sera copié très exactement sur l'antique, ou
Vignoles ou Palladio, avec des saillies très prononcées, contrairement à
tout ce qui se fait aujourd'hui en architecture." "Let there be neither
emblem, bust, nor statue on my tomb, which shall be copied very
scrupulously after the antique, either Vignola or Palladio, with
prominent projections, contrary to everything done to-day in
architecture." In a sense all Delacroix is in these words.