File:Art and criticism - monographs and studies (1892) (14597965260).jpg

Identifier: criticismmo00chil (find matches)
Title: Art and criticism : monographs and studies
Year: 1892 (1890s)
Authors: Child, Theodore
Subjects: Art criticism
Publisher: Harper
Contributing Library: Whitney Museum of American Art, Frances Mulhall Achilles Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Metropolitan New York Library Council - METRO

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erene,tranquil, and somewhat abstract beauty which the Greeks re-garded as the supreme end of the art; nothing, either, of thatbeauty nearer to reality, but impressed with a personal, moral,and new sentiment, which we find in the sculpture of the Re-naissance. This is an intelligible criticism based on the postulate thatsculpture can only exist as a calm and austere art, and that itis a mistake to make it picturesque and realistic. But thispostulate may be contested. Carpeaux was an enthusiast oflife and color. The master quality of his work is intense vivac-ity, a very thrill and quiver of life—or, as he used to say, lefremissement—and one of the elements which most contributeto produce this impression is the skilful handling of light, half-tones, and shadows, or, in other words, the sense of color, whichCarpeaux displays in his modelled compositions. A master-piece in this respect is the high relief of Flora, surroundedby a ring of dancing children which adorns the facade of the
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SILVER BUST OF A BOY.—By M. Antonin Mercie. MODERN FRENCH SCULPTURE. 239 Pavilion de Flore in the Louvre. Add to this quality of coloradmirable truth of proportions, unerring construction of inte-rior framework and muscular envelope, and a caressing model-lino- of the surfaces which finds singular artifices* in the work-ing of the clay in order to render the very palpitation of theepiderm. But, after all, there is no solution to the difficulty.Carpeaux worked according to his temperament, and neversought those qualities of calmness and austerity which M.Clement reproaches him for not having displayed. The onlyquestion that we can reasonably put is not whether Carpeauxswork is in conformity with the Greek ideal, but whether it is arealization of Carpeauxs ideal, and whether it is beautiful anddelightful in itself. The condemnation of M. Falguieres rendering of instan-taneous movement is based upon a similar pctitio principii.M. Falguiere has made two statues representing the move-men

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