forcing of an arbitrary and esoteric note dear to the English
pre-Raphaelites. It attests a delight in color, not a fondness for
certain colors, hues, tints--a difference perfectly appreciable to
either an unsophisticated or an educated sense. It has a solidity and
strength of range and vibration combined with a subtle sensitiveness,
and, as a result of the fusion of the two, a certain splendor that
recalls Saracenic decoration. And with this mastery of color is united a
combined firmness and expressiveness of design that makes Delacroix
unique by emphasizing his truly classic subordination of informing
enthusiasm to a severe and clearly perceived ideal--an ideal in a sense
exterior to his purely personal expression. In a word, his chief
characteristic--and it is a supremely significant trait in the
representative painter of romanticism--is a poetic imagination tempered
and trained by culture and refinement. When his audacities and
enthusiasms are thought of, the directions in his will for his tomb
should be remembered too: "Il n'y sera placé ni emblème, ni buste, ni
statue; mon tombeau sera copié très exactement sur l'antique, ou
Vignoles ou Palladio, avec des saillies très prononcées, contrairement à
tout ce qui se fait aujourd'hui en architecture." "Let there be neither
emblem, bust, nor statue on my tomb, which shall be copied very
scrupulously after the antique, either Vignola or Palladio, with
prominent projections, contrary to everything done to-day in
architecture." In a sense all Delacroix is in these words.


III

Delacroix's color deepens into an almost musical intensity occasionally
in Decamps, whose oriental landscapes and figures, far less important
intellectually, far less _magistrales_ in conception, have at times, one