But even less frequently, I
think, than other peoples have the French exhibited in their painting
that contentment with painting in itself that is the dry rot of art.
With all their addiction to truth and form they have followed this ideal
so systematically that they have never suffered it to become mechanical,
merely _formal_--as is so often the case elsewhere (in England and among
ourselves, everyone will have remarked) in instances where form has been
mainly considered and where sentiment happens to be lacking. Even when
care for form is so excessive as to imply an absence of character, the
form itself is apt to be so distinguished as itself to supply the
element of character, and character consequently particularly refined
and immaterial. And one quality is always present: elegance is always
evidently aimed at and measurably achieved. Native or foreign, real or
factitious as the inspiration of French classicism may be, the sense of
style and of that perfection of style which we know as elegance is
invariably noticeable in its productions.
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