History of Art

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. French painting, for a hundred years, has aecom plished the same task. It is still misunderstood, especially by the French. It is one of the miracles of history, comparable to the most surprising. It has produced ten men of genius, more than the great century of Holland, or of Flanders, or of Spain, as many as the great centuries Of Italy. It appeared precisely on the morrow of the spread of revolution over Europe, offering to souls waiting in silence the power of liberation which the march of the republican armies brought to the legitimate appetites of the peoples and to the ideas of their shepherds. It is thanks to that march that it appeared in France and not in some other place, as it was thanks to the struggle of Germany to regain possession of herself from Napoleon, that the great German music, through Richard Wagner, closed its heroic cycle. The explosion Of sentiment, so long deferred, employs color as its expression. Conquered Europe and the Orient, faintly in view, tumultuously enter the sensuous emotion of the French. The Romantic dream and classical realism clash and mingle in France, where Italy and Germany meet for the third time. And it is here that the Renaissance of the south and the Renaissance of the north confront each other to affirm a definitive accord.