"Delacroix is an eagle, I am only a skylark," he remarked
once, with his characteristic cheeriness. His range is not, it is true,
as circumscribed as is generally supposed outside of France. Outside of
France his figure-painting, for example, is almost unknown. We see
chiefly variations of his green and gray arbored pastoral--now idyllic,
now heroic, now full of freshness, the skylark quality, now of grave and
deep harmonies and wild, sweet notes of transitory suggestion. Of his
figures we only know those shifting shapes that blend in such classic
and charming manner with the glades and groves of his landscapes. Of his
"Hagar in the Wilderness," his "St. Jerome," his "Flight into Egypt,"
his "Democritus," his "Baptism of Christ," with its nine life-size
figures, who, outside of France, has even heard? How many foreigners
know that he painted what are called architectural subjects
delightfully, and even _genre_ with zest?
But compared with his landscape, in which he is unique, it is plain that
he excels nowhere else. The splendid display of his works in the
Centenaire Exposition of the great World's Fair of 1889, was a
revelation of his range of interest rather than of his range of power.
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