It is rather the suggestion of
Mrs. Browning's lines:
"Better far
Pursue a frivolous trade by serious means
Than a sublime art frivolously."
Nothing could be more misleading than to fancy Barye a kind of modern
Cellini. Less than any sculptor of modern times is he a decorative
artist. The small scale of his works is in great part due to his lack of
opportunity to produce larger ones. Nowadays one does what one can, even
the greatest artists; and Barye had no Lorenzo de'Medici for a patron,
but, instead, a frowning Institute, which confined him to such work as,
in the main, he did. He did it _con amore_ it need not be added, and
thus lifted it at once out of the customary category of such work. His
bronzes were never _articles de Paris_, and their excellence transcends
the function of teaching our sculptors and amateurs the lesson that
"household" is as dignified a province as monumental, art. His groups
are not essentially "clock-tops," and the work of perhaps the greatest
artist, in the line from Jean Goujon to Carpeaux can hardly be used to
point the moral that "clock-tops" ought to be good.
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