may be sustained.  In neither beautiful marble is there revealed any sensual dominance, though the Bacchus, notwithstanding its plastic superiority, rather inclines that way.  The Apollo has been loudly extolled for the pride of its attitude and its divine calm in the encounter with the serpent Python; and still it is said that “a god could not have cause for so great pride in the conquest of a reptile.”  But the art-critics have exaggerated the import of the figure, which is wonderfully beautiful without being accurately expressive.  The civilization of the new era has developed in man moral and physical qualities, which furnish new expressions by which the artist may set forth that part of human life which Delsarte called “the transluminous obscurities of our inmost organism.”  Dating from this epoch we find in sculpture less of plastic beauty and more spiritual and touching expression.  Who would compare the pathos of the Laocoon to that of Canova’s Magdalen?  The sculptor Marcello (Mme. de Castiglione), too early removed from an artistic career, exhibited certain creations which illustrate this difference.  Among them is a bust, in marble, of an Arab chief, which is after the style of the antique, beautiful lines, without expression (a predominance of the physical element).  In her “Weary Bacchante” she shows beauty tarnished by vice, and here the predominant expression is sensual.  But in her “Marie Antoinette in the Temple Prison,” as in Mercie’s “David” and the “Dying Napoleon,” it is not the marvelous beauty which entrances us, but first and above this reigns the power of expression.

Sentiment is become predominant.  In the “Marie Antoinette,” what bitter disappointment!  In the “Napoleon,” what disillusion with the toys of the world in which he had reigned!  In the “David”—­Biblical subject treated by a modern chisel—­what strange impressions and reflections are suggested by that tranquil head and the wonderful frailty of the body! how original the conception of the figure, and the whole a tribute to the high personality of the artist!  Mercie shows not only the work accomplished, but in this are glimpses of promise of greatness to come which serve as more valuable proof of greatness than the masterpiece completed.  This leads me to a reflection already often alluded to, but which I would keep ever before you as the foundation of my argument:  “Man is the object of art.”  He is also the art-producer, and considering relatively the two terms of the proposition, the manifestations of the faculties are not necessarily adequate between the producer and the production.  I will explain.

The best conditions under which an excellent work of art should be produced are undoubtedly the following:  The conceiver possesses in the highest possible degree of development the modalities of being essential to the kind of creation undertaken, and these in their most perfect harmony; but this perfection of intensity and of the relations of the elements of the concept by no means necessitates the artist’s formation of types at once morally, intellectually and physically artistic.  This depends upon the truth of his subject.  That he embellish it, whatever it may be, by his artistic interpretation and execution, is all that we should expect.