“Beautiful! Very beautiful! Sublime! Courage, my friend Greuze; continue always to paint such subjects, so that when you come to die there will be nothing you have painted you can recall without pleasure.”
“Le Paralytique, ou la Piété filiale,” “Le Fruit d’une bonne Education,” now in the celebrated Hermitage Gallery in Russia, “La Bénédiction paternelle,” are further examples of this series of the ten commandments turned badly into paint and canvas, and less interesting still are subjects of the order of “The Torn Will,” falling, as they do, into the form of the cheapest melodrama.
PLATE IV.—PORTRAIT D’HOMME
A very good example of Greuze as a portraitist. This picture is in the Louvre, and is remarkable for its delicate harmonious colouring and the living expression in the eyes. The man seems to be listening to some one, and on the point of opening his mouth to reply.