Mercie's "Gloria Victis" is very
fine; I know nothing so fine in modern sculpture outside of France. But
then there is not very much that is fine at all in modern sculpture
outside of France; and modern French sculpture, and M. Mercie along with
it as one of its most eminent ornaments, have made it impossible to
speak of them in a relative way. The antique and the Renaissance
sculpture alone furnish their fit association, and like the Renaissance
and the antique sculpture they demand a positive and absolute, and not a
comparative criticism.
V
Well, then, speaking thus absolutely and positively, the cardinal defect
of the Institute sculpture--and the refined and distinguished work of M.
Mercie better perhaps than almost any other assists us to see this--is
its over-carefulness for style. This is indeed the explanation of what I
mentioned at the outset as the chief characteristic of this sculpture,
the academic inelasticity, namely, with which it essays to reproduce the
Renaissance romanticism. But for the fondness for style integral in the
French mind and character, it would perceive the contradiction between
this romanticism and any canons except such as are purely intuitive and
indefinable.
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