The list of these latter begins, if we except some
delightful decoration for one of the Champs-Elysees palaces, with a
statue called "La Brodeuse," which won for him a medal at the Salon of
1870. Since then his production has been prodigious in view of its
originality, of its lack of the powerful momentum extraneously supplied
to the productive force that follows convention and keeps in the beaten
track.
His numerous peasant subjects at one time led to comparison of him with
Millet, but the likeness is of the most superficial kind. There is no
spiritual kinship whatever between him and Millet. Dalou models the
Marquis de Dreux-Breze with as much zest as he does his "Boulonnaise
allaitant son enfant;" his touch is as sympathetic in his Rubens-like
"Silenus" as in his naturalistic "Berceuse." Furthermore, there is
absolutely no note of melancholy in his realism--which, at the present
time, is a point well worth noting. His vivacity excludes the pathetic.
Traces of Carpeaux's influence are plain in his way of conceiving such
subjects as Carpeaux would have handled.
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