For color he had no fancy. "In nature
all is form," he used to say. Painting he thought not an independent
art, but "a development of sculpture." To consider emotion, color, or
light as the equal of form was monstrous, and to compare Rembrandt
with Raphael was blasphemy. To this belief he clung to the end,
faithfully reproducing the human figure, and it is not to be wondered
at that eventually he became a learned draughtsman. His single figures
and his portraits show him to the best advantage. He had a strong
grasp of modelling and an artistic sense of the beauty and dignity of
line not excelled by any artist of this century. And to him more than
any other painter is due the cultured draughtsmanship which is to-day
the just pride of the French school.
Gros was a more vacillating man, and by reason of forsaking the
classic subject for Napoleonic battle-pieces, he unconsciously led the
way toward romanticism. He excelled as a draughtsman, but when he came
to paint the Field of Eylau and the Pest of Jaffa he mingled color,
light, air, movement, action, sacrificing classic composition and
repose to reality.
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