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Black Republic of Letters

Note - Paul Mantz

Paul Mantz was a French art historian and critic. Learn more about Paul Mantz (in French).

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The Statue of Eugène Delacroix at the Luxembourg The inauguration took place on Sunday. The monument erected to the great painter "by his admirers" is the work the sculptor Dalou. Twenty-seven years after his death, Eugène Delacroix finally has his bronze in this Paris that his genius helped to illustrate. It is our illustrious colleague Auguste Vacquerie who was the initiator and the soul of this act of justice and reparation.

When one wants to erect a statue in memory of a great man, money is insufficient; one also needs the sculptor capable of understanding the model who must inspire him. Photographs, still incomplete thirty years later, and taken at different phases of the painter's life, only gave Mr. Dalou vague indications; he thus had to reconstitute the entire bust, and he succeeded admirably. The features are at once energetic and traced with melancholy; proud and resigned—like the life of the master. The sculptor had the courage to show him in the thick muffler that almost always enveloped the painter's neck. Three great figures characterize and complete the idea of the statuary; the Genius of Art is seated on the steps to the right, where it seems to be looking after the memory of Delacroix; Time itself is charged with the long awaited apotheosis; in his robust arms he holds Glory, and hoist her toward the bust, where she places the palms of immortality. Apollo, in an intense movement of life and truth, turns himself toward the group; he has cast down his lyre and is applauding. The movement of the god is so gripping that one is tempted to applaud with him.

The ceremony benefited from superb weather. And, at the sigh of the monument which stood splendidly in the greenery pierced with golden sunlight, there was but a single cry of admiration among the entire audience.

At exactly two o'clock, the Republican Guard played an overture; at the moment when the curtain that hid the monument was removed, they struck up a triumphal march. Then they played a patriotic hymn to close the ceremony.

Mr. Auguste Vacquerie first presented the monument to the Minister of Public Instruction. The latter replied with a speech by the Director of the Rappel. Then, Mr. Delaborde recounted the now mostly forgotten quarrels between the romantics and the classicists. Finally, after Delacroix's eulogy, pronounced by the critic Paul Mantz, Mounet-Sully read a poem by Théodore de Banville.

The monument stands in the Plane Tree Path, between the palace and the Luxembourg Museum. It takes shape between two magnificent trees; at its base is the garden of the Senate president. The architectural portion, a semi-circular basin, is of white marble; the bust and the allegorical figures are made of bronze, cast as it were from a single piece without a single touch up, best preserves the artists hand.

One believes that the sculptor worked with his whole soul, with the faith of a man convinced there was a great justice to repair, and happy to be chose for this work of reparation. Everyone agrees that Mr. Dalou has just completed his masterpiece, and renowned artists have affirmed that this monument is one of the most beautiful things that French sculpture has produced for many years.

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Paul Mantz