750159

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Constable and the 'Massacres de Scio' by Delacroix Author(s): Michel Florisoone Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 20, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1957),

pp. 180-185Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750159Accessed: 17-04-2015 16:46 UTC

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i8o0MISCELLANEOUS NOTES signa vides impresa manu senis Altitonantis:

hanc propriam superis, hanc sibi signet ovem. an pecus et populus, caula [placuere] vel aula?

et pecus et populus, caula vel aula, placet. pastor erat populi, populorum rex Agamemnon:

hic no~mtv

kocCav: Graecia tota pecus. in caulis aula est: habitarunt dii quoque silvas, et deus errantem pavit Apollo gregem.7

Whether Fraunce quoted this device as

Sidney's because the latter had borne it at one of the Court Tilts, or whether he merely took it from the Arcadia; or indeed whether he knew it from both these sources cannot be de- cided.8 It is also possible that Fraunce may have taken a hint from one of the collections of shields carried at the tilts, which were a favourite source for collectors of imprese.9 In any case the impresa in question is a further proof of the identification of Sidney with Philisides.

D. COULMAN 7Fol. 2ov. When one who is whiter than the swan,

and milder than the young lamb, wears the sign of the melancholy old man, mortal things (if I mistake not) are in flux; capricious chance rules; stars have not had their proper powers; a new cycle of destinies is being born in the heavens: say, Archimedes, what you think those destinies are. No blemish is found on the peerless body: there is, and can be, no place for spots. Neither the stigma of dishonour, nor the human hand, has branded this sheep that roams so mildly through the meads. The signs you see were impressed by the hand of the Sky-thundering old man: he marks this sheep as belonging by right to the gods, as belonging to him. Have the flock and the people, in fold or court, [been found pleasing?] Yes, both flock and people are pleasing. Agamemnon was the shepherd of his people and the supreme king of peoples: he was Poimen La6n,

and Greece in its entirety was his flock. The court is in the sheepfold: gods too have dwelt in the woods: Apollo, though a god, has fed his flock as it roamed. 8 v. sup. pp. 4 ff. Miss Yates' article clearly shows that some participants in the Accession Day tilts were meant to be recognized in the Arcadia, and this may be so for others besides Sidney and Lee.

9 Henry Peacham (The Compleat Gentleman, London, 1622, p. 234), among others, mentions a famous collection in a gallery at Whitehall; and Aubrey (Wilt- shire, the Topographical Collections of John Aubrey, 1659- i67o, ed. Jackson, London, 1862, p. 88) refers to another set preserved at Wilton.

CONSTABLE AND THE 'MASSACRES DE SCIO' BY

DELACROIX

veryone has heard the story of how Eugene Delacroix, on the eve of the I824

Salon, suddenly "discovered" the work of Constable, and of how this discovery had such a violent impact on the young artist that he repainted the whole of his 'Massacres de Scio,' particularly the background, in four days in a room in the Louvre. Yet, if one compares the landscape in the 'Massacres' (P1. I3a) with works by Constable dating from before 1824-the 'View of Hampstead' (P1. I3b), for example, which may be the same as No. 360o in the "Livret" of the Salon of I824,1 or with various paintings of views on the River Stour, such as the one now in the Phillips Collection, Washington; 2 or, better still, with the 'Hay Wain'3 (P1. 13c) (No. 358 in the same

"Livret" as the 'View of Hampstead')-one finds that the differences between the thick and lumpy texture of Constable's work at this period and Delacroix' smooth, brushed surfaces are more obvious than is the technical relationship claimed for them.

It would be worth while settling once and for all the question of the debt owed to Constable by the 'Massacres de Scio.' If such a powerful influence was in fact wielded, did it really make itself felt only at the eleventh hour-a kind of bolt from the blue? Let us examine what Delacroix says himself; where has he indicated that he repainted the background of his picture in a sudden transport, after having seen for the first time some landscapes by an unknown painter named Con- stable? Nowhere does he make such a suggestion. The first reference to the episode occurs in 1855, in Th. Silvestre's study on Eugene Delacroix.4 Silvestre, who received his information from the artist himself, informs us that "Delacroix obtained permission to do some retouching to it [the 'Massacres de Scio'] before the public exhibition, in the

1 Now in the Louvre. SH. Isherwood Kay ("The Hay Wain", Burlington

Magazine, LXII, 1933, pp. 285-9) has suggested that Constable's picture exhibited as No. 359 in the Salon of 1824 under the title 'Canal en Angleterre, paysage' can be identified with the painting known as 'A View of the Stour near Dedham' in the Huntingdon Collec- tion, California. 3 National Gallery, London.

4 Histoire des Artistes vivantsfrangais et 1trangers. Etudes d'apris nature; Editions Blanchard, Paris, n.d. [1855- 1856], p. 69; Les Artistes frangais, Itudes d'apris nature, Paris, 1878, (---); Les Artistes frangais, I, Romantiques, Paris, 1926, p. 28.


a-Eugene Delacroix, 'The Massacres of Scio,' Louvre (p. I80)

b

b-John Constable, 'Hampstead Heath,' Louvre (p. I8o) c-John Constable, 'The Hay Wain,' National Gallery, London (p. I80) C

Reproduced by Courtesy of the Trustees, the National Gallery, London t~


CONSTABLE AND THE 'MASSACRES DE SCIO' BY DELACROIX 18i Salle des Antiques in the Louvre." There is no question here, therefore, of repainting or transforming, nor does Constable come into the matter; and the only importance that Th. Silvestre seems to attach to this anecdote is that it enables him to relate the well-known remark made by Girodet en passant.

Another writer, Frederic Villot, in his article on Constable in the Revue Universelle des Arts, 1856,5 gives a different account of the incident-a version which he subsequently abandons. It should be pointed out here that by this time Delacroix and Villot had not been on speaking terms for a whole year;6 and that, in 1824, they had not yet become friends. "M. Delacroix," writes Villot, "who had had an opportunity of seeing his [Constable's] landscapes before the exhibition, was so struck by their brilliance and texture [ . . . ] that he went back to his studio and set to work again on the almost finished 'Massacres de Scio'; he thickened the high-lights, introduced rich half-tones, increased the trans- parency of the shadows by means of glazes, breathed life into the flesh and blood." Later, in 1865, after Delacroix' death, Villot returned to his subject in the preface to the sale catalogue of his collection,7 and his new text differs considerably from the first: "The 'Massacres de Scio'," he now writes, "had first been painted in this style [that of Geri- cault, by "hatching"]; but when Delacroix had an opportunity of seeing the landscapes by Constable and the portraits by Lawrence sent to the 1824 exhibition, he suddenly became aware of methods infinitely better suited to the expression of his ideas, and he took advantage of the few days before the opening of the Salon to transform his work. After it had been submitted to the jury, he took it down to one of the Antique rooms, thickened the high-lights, introduced rich half-tones, substituted varnish for oil, thus crystallizing his colours and making them sparkle like jewels; constantly exchanged his large brush for a small one in order to render detail with greater exactness; gave trans- parency to the shadows and luminosity to the light passages by means of numerous glazes, paid considerable attention to precision of touch, and never tired of repeating that even

if one sketched in one's design with a broom, one should finish off with a needle."

Were it not for Th6ophile Silvestre's evidence, Villot's first account would seem the more acceptable version, since one obviously cannot accept the story of how Delacroix was suddenly thunderstruck, as it were, just before the opening of the Salon. The 1824 Salon actually opened on August 25th; and Dela- croix had certainly seen Constable's pictures in June-quite possibly even in May, and he had doubtless been acquainted with a minute technical description of them for more than two years. We know perfectly well that from June, two months before the Salon, Delacroix was able to examine at his leisure the three Constables intended for the Salon-the 'Hay Wain,' the 'Canal in England' and the 'View near London, Hampstead Heath'; on June 19th, 1824, in the middle of working on the 'Massacres,' he writes in his Journal: "Saw the Constables [ . . . ] This Constable is very good for me," referring to the 'Hay Wain,' which the French dealer Arrowsmith had just bought from Constable during the winter together with the two other pictures, and which he had brought to Paris in May. Delacroix saw it again with the others a few days later-on the 25th: "Saw the Constables again, etc.," he records on that date. Dela- croix studied them, therefore, during June, and no doubt he went back several times to Arrowsmith's gallery, to which both painters and amateurs of painting were flocking at that time. There is no question of denying that Delacroix was profoundly stirred by direct contact with this entirely new kind of painting-he has said so himself; but the surprise had been prepared for well in advance, and it was his friend Gericault himself who had introduced him as early as 1822 to the English pictorial revolution. G'ricault had seen the 'Hay Wain' in London in 1821; it was on exhibition at Somerset House, and all the Paris studios were buzzing with comments on this sensational work. "G'ricault," wrote Delacroix in his letter of December 31st, 1858, to Th. Silvestre, "came back quite stunned by one of the big landscapes he has sent us"; which means, no doubt, that as well as spread- ing the great news of the birth of modern landscape painting G6ricault also took the initiative in having the 'Hay Wain' brought to France. Perhaps, if we read Delacroix' meaning aright, this was even the last will and testament of the painter of the 'Races at Epsom'-his last thought and action, his

5 Pp. 289-305, especially 302. 6 Letter to Soulier, May 27th, i86o; Correspondance ginirale, edited by A. Joubin, IV, p. I81, Paris, I938. 7 Tableaux, aquarelles, dessins, croquis, etudes, planches gravies t I'eau-forte par Eugizne Delacroix provenant du Cabinet de M.F. V.," February i ith, 1865, p. V.


182 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES final demand?8 Meanwhile, another Con- stable had gone the round of the studios-a little sketch shown by the obscure painter Regnier; just as Serusier, sixty-five years later, was to reveal to the Acad6mie Julian the "talisman" painted under Gauguin's direc- tion in the Bois d'Amour. Delacroix saw this signed sketch on November 9th, 1823, and he wrote in his Journal: ". . an amazing and incredible thing !"9

Long before the inauguration of the Salon and the summoning of its jury, Constable had already heard rumours of his triumph; on June 2 Ist he writes that Collins had called on him: "He says I am a great man at Paris, and that it is curious they speak there of only three English artists, namely Wilkie, Law- rence, and Constable. This sounds very grand." The next day, the 22nd, Constable records that he has had a letter from Arrow- smith telling him of the safe arrival of his pictures and "how much they were admired."'1

From then on Paris was anxious for a visit from him; and on July 7th he wrote: "Saw in a newspaper on the table, a paragraph mentioning the arrival of my pictures in Paris. They have caused a stir, and the French critics by profession are very angry with the artists for admiring them." The artistic battle was at its height in July 1824, nearly two months before the Salon. On July 18th, Constable wrote from Brighton: "The French critics have begun with me, and that in the usual way, by comparison with what has been done. They are angry with the artists for admiring these pictures, which they 'shall now proceed to examine,' &c. They acknowledge the effect to be 'rich and powerful, and that the whole has the look of nature, and the colour, their chief excellence, to be true and harmonious; but shall we admire works so unusual for these excellencies alone? what then is to become of the great Poussin?' They then caution the younger artists to 'beware of the seduction of these English works.' " Minds had been made up long before the doors of the Louvre opened on August 25th; "the stony hearts of the French painters" were not only to melt, as Con- stable wished, but were to be won over completely ; " and if, to quote Leon Bazalgette's picturesque metaphor,12 "the bull escaped from his pasture aroused stupefaction, anger and fear" when he "appeared at the doors of the Salon, sniffing the air," he certainly did not have this effect either on the artists or on the critics, who were already familiar with the animal or had been on his tracks for weeks, but only on the visitor who was unaware of the revolutions taking place in the studios.

Villot's story of I856 may very well agree with the facts, therefore; and the imprecision of such terms as "before the exhibition," "went back to his studio," "almost finished," does not contradict the truth. It is only in the second version, after Th. Silvestre, that he fixes the time of the picture's transformation

8 Grammatically, the "il" in the phrase "qu'il nous a envoy6s" can only refer to G6ricault, especially since the previous passage only mentions Constable in con- junction with Turner, and it would have been necessary to use the plural pronoun "ils," which would not have made sense. Delacroix always wrote excellent and lucid French; without definite proof to the contrary, he cannot lightly be suspected of obscurity. However, since at the moment of writing his mind was full of Constable rather than of Turner, he may have been thinking ex- clusively of Constable, and the uncertainty can stand. It is not likely, however, that G6ricault was unaware of the arrival in Paris of landscapes by the English artist. G6ricault died on January 26th, I824. On January 17th Constable wrote to Fisher: "The Frenchman [Arrowsmith] who was after my large picture of 'The Hay Cart' last year, is here again. He would, I believe, have both that and 'The Bridge' . . . His object is to make a show of them at Paris." On January i8th Fisher replied: "Let your 'Hay Cart' go to Paris by all means." On May 8th everything was ready and the pictures were taken away by Arrowsmith's agent (C. R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, London, 1949; see also H. Isherwood Kay, op. cit., pp. 281-2). 9 Some of the responsibility for the formation of this legend which has grown up round the genesis of the 'Massacres' must lie with Ernest Chesnau; in his introduction to the Robaut Catalogue he first of all retained the version given in the article in the Revue Universelle des Arts, but in the notice on the picture itself he con- fuses this article and the I855 preface, and adds some erroneous details. R. Escholier, in his monumental work on Delacroix, appreciates the main lines of Dela- croix' meeting with Constable's works, but neverthe- less accepts Villot's final version of the story without question.

10 They must have arrived about the beginning of the month, because on June I6th Constable records that "A French gentleman and his wife called .. . He ordered a little picture, and wished to know if I would receive any commissions from Paris, where he said I was much known and esteemed, and if I would go

there, the artists would receive me with great 6clat." This Frenchman must have brought over the first reaction to the exhibition of the pictures in Paris. He was probably a dealer who wanted to compete with Arrowsmith, and to take advantage of the success of their exhibition both at the latter's gallery and previously.

Ix Letter to Fisher of May 8th, I824. All references to Constable are taken from Leslie, op. cit.

12 L6on Bazalgette, "Constable et les paysagistes de I830" (Introduction to the French edition of the Memoirs-John Constable d'apris les Souvenirs recueillis par C. R. Leslie, Paris, I905).


CONSTABLE AND THE 'MASSACRES DE SCIO' BY DELACROIX 183 between its examination by the jury and the opening of the Salon. He seems to have forgotten where and when Delacroix had seen the Constables; indeed, the vagueness of the first text makes one doubt whether he ever knew the exact circumstances. It is clear that in 1865 Villot is confusing two separate events; first, the great impression made on Delacroix by the Constables intended for the Salon, but known to him two months earlier, and secondly, the last minute retouching which the young painter carried out to his 'Massacres.' But the mistake in chronology has falsified the whole question, and has created a legend which has been too readily accepted because of its romantic flavour.

To re-establish the genesis of the work, one must first find out the extent of the "transformation" which the picture is supposed to have undergone during the last few days. Villot does not locate this in any particular part of the painting; he talks of a transformation of the whole, which argues very rash behaviour on Delacroix' part. Historians have therefore endeavoured to discover tangible evidence in the 'Massacres' of this sudden and general English influence; for the most part, they have been unable to find any direct or even any very clear influence, and for want of anything better they have had to fall back on the character of the landscape-since it was an English landscape painter who was involved. But no one ever noted that the landscape in the 'Massacres' had remained just as the "broom" had left it and had none of the "rugged" quality which Constable admitted to in his colour.13 It is the foreground, rather than the landscape, which seems to have benefited from Constable's revelations. There, in the enclosed area in front of the group of Greeks, it can be seen that over the original flat pigment thick short touches have been superimposed, which could be related to those of the 'Hay Wain', and which give an intense luminosity to this part of the picture. On the figures themselves can be observed an intensifying of the white touches and the highlights which punctuate them and give them rhythm-from the man with the moustache on the left, through the kneeling woman, the drapery of the dead girl and the slave being carried off by the Turkish horseman, to the horse's head. The technique of "teintes diverses" and little coloured touches is first used, within that of G6ricault,

in certain parts of this foreground-on the body of the child on the right, on the bosom of its mother, and on the forearm of the old woman. In searching for traces of Constable, it should not be forgotten that the picture has been considerably modified since then-by Delacroix himself in the first place, in I847, because according to Lassalle-Bordes he found "les tons pousses au jaune." Then, in I854, the varnish was cleaned off, as a result of which Delacroix complained that the "transparence des ombres" was lost.14 One may surmise that the varnish which, according to the expert technician Villot, Delacroix used "pour cristalliser les couleurs" disap- peared in this operation; and it will always be difficult to reach any definite decision on this point.

It is probably to these "quelques retouches" that Theophile Silvestre alludes in his "Etude d'apres nature." In the absence of any written comment from Delacroix himself, therefore, it seems probable that on seeing his picture exhibited in the Louvre the artist experienced the disappointment felt by many artists when the work which they have laboured over so long in the atmosphere and lighting of their studio is suddenly seen in a different lighting and different surroundings. The effect they wanted, and thought to have achieved, suddenly seems weakened, extinguished, ab- sorbed, so to speak, by its new setting; their one wish is to take back the picture and re- paint it-in particular, to make it more luminous. Such a result is common enough; it no doubt happened in the case of the 'Massacres de Scio,' and Delacroix must have been disagreeably surprised by the diminished brilliance of his painting, which seemed more sombre than he had thought, in spite of the benefit, albeit incomplete, which he had derived from Arrowsmith's exhibition and Regnier's sketch. He attempsed to brighten it therefore. The luminous Constables already on the walls of the Salon, no doubt shown in a better light than that of Arrow- smith's gallery, again suggested the means to him.15 The result was a disturbing contrast

13 Letter to Fisher, quoted by Villot, Revue Universelle des Arts, I856, p. 3oo.

1,4Joural, 27 June 1854. 1 The memoirs of Chenavard in his old age, re- corded by Boyer d'Agen (Ingres d'apris une Correspondance Inidite, Paris, 1909, p. 168) apparently overlooked by Delacroix's historians, seem to confirm this point of view. Chenavard told Boyer d'Agen all he knew of the matter: "Although it had already been repainted twice [the 'Massacres de Scio'] when it left for the Louvre it was still unfinished. But Gros generously gave the young exhibitor permission to finish his work


184 MISCELLANEOUS NOTES between the background and foreground of the picture, which Delacroix remedied by the last-minute expedient of erecting this kind of dark barrier which separates them in such a curious way. This was directly in opposition to Constable's precepts; the latter had inten- tionally placed his 'Hay Wain' at high noon so that the light would fall vertically and thus suppress all the shadows which, in composi- tions where the light comes from the rear, play the part of bringing forward the foreground.'6 Indeed, Delacroix here seems to have done the very opposite to what the 'Hay Wain' taught.

One should, moreover, inquire whether Delacroix did in fact at this moment (as claimed thirty-two years later by Villot, and many others after him) "surprise with a single glance one of the most important secrets of Constable's power"-a secret, explains Vil- lot,'1 which is not taught in the schools, and of which too many instructors are ignorant- that "in nature an apparently uniform colour is composed of the union of a myriad different colours, visible only to the eye that has learnt to see. A meadow, therefore. ..": Delacroix' famous remark on the superiority of Con- stable's green seems to date from September I846, twenty-two years later.18 In any case,

Constable's own forthright criticism of French painters is all too applicable to the 'Massacres de Scio.' On December 17th, 1824, Constable wrote: "The truth is, they study (and they are very laborious students) pictures only; [.. . ] they make painful studies of individual articles, leaves, rocks, stones, &c. singly; so that they look cut out, without belonging to the whole." Lack of unity is certainly the chief defect of the 'Massacres,' masterpiece though it undoubtedly is. But Delacroix' aim was never the same as Constable's.

In I854, in his Questions sur le Beau, Dela- croix allots Constable his definite place in relation to French painting, and therefore in relation to himself: "What have the vigorous and unexpected landscapes of the remarkable English painter Constable-the father of our own landscape school-in common with those of Poussin?"-the same Poussin he had re- ferred to a year earlier, in the Moniteur Uni- versel of June 26th, I853, as the "true father of French art" but whom Constable just now somewhat ironically called as a witness ... While recognizing that "beauty is to be found equally in both" artists, Delacroix implies by his way of expressing himself that he does not belong to the contemporary Franco-English

on the spot, a most valuable privilege which allowed him to paint his picture in the lighting in which it was to be shown, and which was rarely accorded to any but heads of studios and recognized masters. When Dela- croix saw his painting in the broad daylight of an enormous palace apartment, so different from the poor light which had fallen on it from a simple attic sky- light, he suddenly became disgusted with his canvas and determined to begin it afresh." Then Chenavard describes an argument which Delacroix had with one of the "recognized masters." In spite of a few lapses of memory (Chevanard thought, for example, that the 'Massacres' had been painted in the attic of Mme. de Verninac's town house, but by this time that lady had lost all her money and the house had been sold) Delacroix' old friend seems to have understood the problem exactly, though the two first met in I825, after the 'Massacres de Scio'; and no doubt he remem- bered what Delacroix had told him. He makes no mention of Constable, though he is probably alluding to the influence certainly exerted by the English artist's pictures when he talks about the 'Massacres' having been repainted twice. But that was before the picture left for the Louvre.

16 Cf. Prosper Dorbec, "Les Paysagistes anglais en France," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, I912, II, p. 273.- 17 Revue Universelle des Arts, Paris, I856, p. 303, article on "John Constable." i8 This remark is dated "23 Septembre, en revenant de Champrosay," and is therefore certainly not earlier than I844; Andre Joubin, in his edition of the Journal de Eughne Delacroix (1932 and 1950, p. 451), puts it according to the context in I846. It might be useful to compare Delacroix' text with that of Villot. The

latter goes on: "Thus a meadow, for example, made up of numbers of plants with leaves of different shades of green, appears to be some kind of green-but if a painter tries to imitate it by simply laying a matching colour on his canvas, his meadow will remain flat and lifeless, and be very imperfectly represented. If, on the other hand, he follows the example of nature herself, and makes full use of the resources of his palette, setting warm colours against cold, varying the shades, dis- guising them by blending them, by superimposing one upon the other so that the lower colour shows through, linking them together with glazes which will restore an appearance of uniformity without destroying their actual variety-then and only then will he approach the magic of nature, because he has taken her as his guide. All that we have said concerning a stretch of grass is still truer and more indispensable when it comes to painting flesh, where blood, muscles, veins and bones, in a great variety of colours and at varying depths, are all 'glazed' themselves by the skin, sometimes smooth and sometimes covered with a down of changing tones. This apparent unity, achieved by such complex means, is so potent that it can lend interest and charm to the representation of the simplest objects

...

" Ten years earlier, Delacroix had simply written: "Constable says that the green of his meadows is superior to that of other artists because it is composed of a multitude of different greens. The lack of intensity and life in the verdure of the common run of landscape painters is due to the fact that it is usually painted in a uniform colour. What he says here of the green of meadows can be applied to all the other colours." Notice that it is not long after he again became unsettled by Constable's technique-in 1847, according to Lassalle-Bordes-that Delacroix re- touched the 'Massacres.'


NOTE ON A FORGED DATE

NOTE ON A FORGED DATE

n an article, "The Prisca Theologia in France," published in this Journal (XVII,

1954, p. 219, note 2), I cited an edition by Lef~vre d'Etaples of the works of Pseudo- Dionysius the Areopagite,' printed at Venice and bearing the date 1481; the copy I used is in the library of the Warburg Institute, having been bought by Aby Warburg in 1913 for 15 lire. The date 1481 is suspiciously early; for it had previously been thought that Lef~vre's recension was first published at Paris in 1498. I should therefore have verified it; which was easy to do, since the colophon reads:

In inclyta ciuitate Venetiarf p Ioine tacuinfi de Tridono formulariae artis magistrii: Anno ab icarnati6e eiusde Dfii nii Iesu Christi.

Mcccclxxxi. xxi. mdsis Nouembris. Principe Leonardo Lauretano.

The true date of the book must therefore be later than 1501, when Lionardo Loredan became Doge; it is in fact 1502. In other

copies of the book2 the penultimate line of the colophon reads:

Mcccccii. die. xxi. mesis Nouembris.

In the Warburg copy, then, someone has erased the last three letters of the date and the word "die," and inserted the letters "lxxxi." This has been done quite neatly, but a slight smudge round the forged letters is visible. It seems at first sight a pointless forgery, since the presence of the Doge's name gives it away. But Tacuinus is known to have been extremely careless in dating his books, and the forger may have hoped to pass this copy off as one genuinely misdated by Tacuinus.

I hope this note will prevent anyone being misled by my carelessness in citing this forged date.

My thanks are due to Professor Jean Dagens of the University of Strasburg, whose justified incredulity about this book led me to investigate it, and to Dr. Victor Scholderer of the British Museum whose expert eye detected the forgery.

D. P. WALKER 1 Diuini Dionysij Areopagite Caelestis hierarchia. Ecclesi-

astica hierarchia. Diuina nomina. Mystica theologia. Undecim epistolae. Ignatii Undecim epistolae. Polycarpi Epistola una. Theologia viuificans Cibus solidus. sig. (a iv) vo-(a vi) vo: Epistola lacobi. Iacobus Faber Stapulensis piis lectoribus.

2 There is one in the British Museum and another in the Bibliothbque Nationale.

185 landscape school: he stands apart from it and judges it from outside, and not as a member of it. The formula he uses frees him from all affiliation. He is one of those who follow Poussin-"who only respect those established conventions which permit of going to the very source, in other words the imitation of nature, for those effects which painting can produce." As a classical painter (for so he wished to be) Delacroix was an upholder of the established conventions; for him, art lay in the interior choice of usable and necessary conventions beyond which, however, he was carried by the abundance of his genius.

The study of Constable's three pictures at this moment, which was no doubt very disturbing for him, produced a reaction in his mind which, as he has written himself, was in the nature of an "impression,"'19 not an

imitation; it was also of a technical order, and Delacroix must have been the first in France to understand the immense resources of these new methods imported from England. But at this particular moment he made too hasty and dangerous a use of them, which might have completely spoilt his 'Massacres de Scio' and which did indeed make him fail to achieve his object. In fact, it was not till after the 'Massacres de Scio,' a transitional work, that Delacroix really understood Con- stable's technique; after the journey to England in 1825, and after Morocco. He was to make use of it then in his own fashion, intermittently, as the occasion and the need arose, quite freely and unsystematically. One recognizes it in the 'Femmes d'Algers'; but it seems to have been at Champrosay above all that he pondered over the multiplicity of tones and uniformity of colours-and at Saint-Sulpice as well, in 1i86o.

MICHEL FLORISOONE

19 Letter to Th6ophile Silvestre, 31 December 1858: "That admirable man Constable is a credit to his country. I have already told you of the impression he made on me when I was painting the 'Massacres of Scio' " (Correspondance, ed. Joubin, IV, p. 6o).


Article Contentsp. 180[unnumbered]p. 181p. 182p. 183p. 184p. 185

Issue Table of ContentsJournal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 20, No. 1/2 (Jan. - Jun., 1957), pp. 1-186Volume InformationFront MatterEuropa [pp. 1-3]Elizabethan Chivalry: The Romance of the Accession Day Tilts [pp. 4-25]Ut Rhetorica Pictura: A Study in Quattrocento Theory of Painting [pp. 26-44]The Theories of Mabillon and Montfaucon on French Sculpture of the Twelfth Century [pp. 45-58]Johannes Schefferus and Swedish Antiquity [pp. 59-74]Robert Wood and the Problem of Troy in the Eighteenth Century [pp. 75-105]Diderot and 'The Justice of Trajan' [pp. 106-111]Notes on Some Astronomical, Astrological and Mathematical Manuscripts of the Bibliothque Nationale, Paris [pp. 112-172]Miscellaneous NotesA Classical Topos in the Introduction to Alberti's Della Pittura [p. 173]Vespasiano da Bisticci and Gray [pp. 174-176]An Early Tudor Programme for Plays and Other Demonstrations against the Pope [pp. 176-179]"Spotted to Be Known" [pp. 179-180]Constable and the 'Massacres de Scio' by Delacroix [pp. 180-185]Note on a Forged Date [p. 185]A Note on Bruegel's 'Combat between Carnival and Lent' [p. 186]

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