THE NATIONAL OLOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ideals of fitness — these proclaim the in- 

 tense sanity of the French mind. What 

 the French know, they possess. 



The Frenchman is terribly explicit. His 

 exactness, were it not relieved by so many 

 human qualities, would be excessively un- 

 sympathetic. The clearness of the lan- 

 guage itself, its almost faultless precision, 

 long ago made it the language of diplo- 

 macy ; its very clarity reflexively conduces 

 toward clearness in thinking. 



THE MOTHER OF CRITICS 



All this must connote a high degree of 

 critical taste ; for every one is constantly 

 guarding against the vague, the unsym- 

 metrical, the inelegant manner of expres- 

 sion ; every one is constantly watching for 

 things, ideas, and forms that appeal to 

 the aesthetic nature. The result has natu- 

 rally been that France is the mother of 

 a majority of the keenest masters of criti- 

 cism in modern times, not only in litera- 

 ture, but in music, painting, architecture, 

 and sculpture. 



If there is such a thing as being too 

 sane, as some of our psychologists warn 

 us, then France's extreme regard for the 

 sanity, the orderliness, the symmetry of 

 life may some day prove dangerous ; but 

 at present the wholesome, jovial, almost 

 effervescent nature of these very human 

 people shows little sign of such a peril. 



One may expect to find, therefore, in 

 French art a profound regard for what 

 may be called the artistic proprieties — 

 in other words, style. To a foreigner, 

 French painting and sculpture may seem 

 to possess more of order and movement 

 than of profound motive. 



Edith Wharton has said: "However 

 lofty and beautiful a man's act or his pur- 

 pose, it gains by being performed with 

 what the French . . . call 'elegance.' 

 . . . They do not care for the raw 

 material of sensation: food must be ex- 

 quisitely cooked, emotions eloquently ex- 

 pressed, desire emotionally heightened, 

 every experience must be transmuted into 

 terms of beauty before it touches their 

 imagination." 



Beauty is unquestionably present in 

 their sculpture, painting, architecture ; 

 but whether one finds here the terrific 

 energy, the abandonment, the fine frenzy 



seen in some of the work of the Italians 

 is indeed a question. 



In fact, French art sometimes seems 

 to be more the fruit of intelligence than 

 of overpowering genius. It is so abso- 

 lutely finished, so decisively clear, that it 

 leaves perhaps too little to the imagina- 

 tion. It reminds one of the dignified 

 symmetry and grandeur of portions of 

 Milton's Paradise Lost, but not of the 

 stormy emotion of the poems of Burns 

 or Byron. 



One finds oneself, even in one's admi- 

 ration for it all, secretly longing for a 

 little irregularity, a touch of the unusual, 

 a flash of the wild abandonment that 

 often thrills one in the primeval wilder- 

 ness. 



But violence in any form has until 

 very lately been rather repugnant to the 

 French artistic sense — violence in color, 

 line, and contrasts — and svmmetry, 

 ideal, restful, eternal symmetry, takes the 

 place of successful audacity. 



triumphs op French art 



But in spite of all this, what nation has 

 equaled France in high general level of 

 artistic production? Where may be 

 found her equal in Gothic architecture — 

 her Notre Dame, St. Chapelle, the cathe- 

 drals of Rheims and Rouen? Where, 

 too, may be found the rival of Paris in 

 noble modifications of the Greek — the 

 Madeleine, the Pantheon, the Palais 

 Royal, and a score of others ? 



Repeatedly from the Middle Ages to 

 this present hour the French masters 

 have led Europe in finish and clearness 

 of sculpture. An art lavishly supported 

 from public funds, it has found expres- 

 sion in such marvelous works as De- 

 lore's "Triumph of the Republic," Bar- 

 ries' "The First Burials," and Rodin's 

 "The Thinker," "Balzac," and "The 

 Hand of God." In the older paintings 

 of France there was a decided liking for 

 allegory or symbolism, notably in the 

 seventeenth and earlier years of the 

 eighteenth century — it is so apparent in 

 the work of Versailles — but today there 

 is a tendency toward the same realism 

 and naturalism as is found in modern 

 French literature. 



I fear that many an American looks 

 upon French art as a thing of general 



