Naturally thus, when the Italian influence wore itself out, and the
Fontainebleau school gave way to a more purely national art; when France
had definitely entered into her Italian heritage and had learned the
lessons that Holland and Flanders had to teach her as well; when, in
fine, the art of the modern world began, it was an art of grammar, of
rhetoric. Certainly up to the time of Gericault painting in general held
itself rather pedantically aloof from poetry. Claude, Chardin, what may
be called the illustrated _vers de societe_ of the Louis Quinze
painters--of Watteau and Fragonard--even Prudhon, did little to change
the prevailing color and tone. Claude's art is, in manner, thoroughly
classic. His _personal_ influence was perhaps first felt by Corot. He
stands by himself, at any rate, quite apart. He was the first thoroughly
original French painter, if indeed one may not say he was the first
thoroughly original modern painter. He has been assigned to both the
French and Italian schools--to the latter by Gallophobist critics,
however, through a partisanship which in aesthetic matters is ridiculous;
there was in his day no Italian school for him to belong to.
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