But the
character saves it from this category; what one may almost call its
psychological interest redeems its superficial triviality.
M. Saint-Marceaux is always successful in this way. One has only to look
at the eyes of his figures to be convinced how subtle is his art of
expressing character. Here he swings quite clear of all convention and
manifests his genius positively and directly. The unfathomable secret of
the tomb is in the spiritual expression of the guarding genius, and the
elaborately complex movement concentrated upon the urn and directly
inspired by the ephebes of the Sistine ceiling is a mere blind. The same
is true of the portrait heads which within his range M. Saint Marceaux
does better than almost anyone. M. Renan's "Confessions" hardly convey
as distinct a notion of character as his bust exhibited at the Triennial
of 1883. Many of the sculptors' anonymous heads, so to speak, are
hardly less remarkable. Long after the sharp edge of one's interest in
the striking pose of his "Harlequin" and the fine movement and bizarre
features of his "Genius" has worn away, their curious spiritual
interest, the individual _cachet_ of their character, will sustain them.
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