French Art

ere inspired by the artistic,' the constructive, the fashioning, rather than the poetic, spirit. And so evident is this inclination in even contemporary French painting?and indeed in all French esthetic expression?that it cannot be ascribed wholly to the circumstances mentioned. The circumstances themselves need an explanation, and find it in the constitution itself of the French mind, which (owing, doubtless, to other circumstances, but that is extraneous) is fundamentally less imaginative and creative than co-ordinating and constructive. Naturally thus, when the Italian influence wore itself out, and the Fontainebleau school gave way to a more purely national art ; when France had definitely entered into her Italian heritage and had learned the lessons that Holland and Flanders had to teach her as well ; when, in fine, the art of the modern world began, it was an art of grammar, of rhetoric. Certainly up to the time of Géricault painting in general held itself rather pedantically aloof from poetry. Claude, Chardin, what may be called the illustrated vers de société of the Louis Quinze painters?of Watteau and Fragonard?even Prudhon, did little to change the prevailing color and tone. Claude's art is, in manner, thoroughly classic. His personal influence was perhaps first felt by Corot. He stands by himself, at any rate, quite apart. He was the first thoroughly original French ? ? painter, if indeed one may not say he was the first thoroughly original modern ...