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.
Gericault 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.
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