Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven.”
ANTOINE BARYE
LAPITH AND CENTAUR
Louvre, Paris
Numberless emotions and ideas, glowing with a strange and unearthly light presented themselves for artistic expression—emotions and ideas which art had entirely lost sight of during the previous century and a half.
It is, therefore, evident that the effects of the Romantic Movement upon sculpture call for immediate definition by all who seek to formulate the circumstance which led to the modern revival.
We propose to start with France. In spite of the strong lead which Rude gave his fellows, the whole body of French sculptors were slow to realize the importance of the new vistas of experience opening before them. A few, David d’Angers for instance, expressed a measure of the revolutionary spirit in their art. But, in the main, the elegant grace of a philo-Hellene like Pradier was appreciated above the vigorous naturalism of Rude and David. It was not until the genius of Barye and Carpeaux forced itself upon the public notice that a definite step forward was made.
Of the two, Antoine Barye (1795-1875) was the first in point of time, though the second in point of influence. In many ways, however, Barye marks, more clearly than Carpeaux himself, the gulf separating the typically modern school from that which contented itself with ringing the changes upon an endless series of mythological abstractions.