VI
Carpeaux perhaps never did anything that quite equals the masterpiece of
his master Rude. But the essential quality of the "Chant du Depart" he
assimilated so absolutely and so naturally that he made it in a way his
own. He carried it farther, indeed. If he never rose to the grandeur of
this superb group, and he certainly did not, he nevertheless showed in
every one of his works that he was possessed by its inspiration even
more completely than was Rude himself. His passion was the
representation of life, the vital and vivifying force in its utmost
exuberance, and in its every variety, so far as his experience could
enable him to render it. He was infatuated with movement, with the
attestation in form of nervous energy, of the quick translation of
thought and emotion into interpreting attitude. His figures are, beyond
all others, so thoroughly alive as to seem conscious of the fact and joy
of pure existence. They are animated, one may almost say inspired, with
the delight of muscular activity, the sensation of exercising the
functions with which nature endows them.
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