Allowance made for the difference in time, in general feeling of
the aesthetic environment, the change in ideas as to what was fit subject
for representation and fitting manner of treating the same subject, it
is hardly an exaggeration to say that Ingres would have sincerely
applauded Gerome's "Cleopatra" issuing from the carpet roll before
Caesar. And if he failed to perceive the noble dramatic power in such a
work as the "Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant," his failure would
nowadays, at least among intelligent amateurs, be ascribed to an
intolerance which it is one of the chief merits of the romantic movement
to have adjudged absurd.
It is a source of really aesthetic satisfaction to see everything that is
attempted as well done as it is in the works of such painters as
Bouguereau and Cabanel. Of course the feeling that denies them large
importance is a legitimate one. The very excellence of their technic,
its perfect adaptedness to the motive it expresses, is, considering the
insignificance of the motive, subject for criticism; inevitably it
partakes of the futility of its subject-matter.
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