convictions, even though his profession be purely aesthetic.  In England he was very successful both at the Academy and with the amateurs of the aristocracy, of many of whom he made portraits, besides finding ready purchasers among them for his imaginative works.  The list of these latter begins, if we except some delightful decoration for one of the Champs-Elysees palaces, with a statue called “La Brodeuse,” which won for him a medal at the Salon of 1870.  Since then his production has been prodigious in view of its originality, of its lack of the powerful momentum extraneously supplied to the productive force that follows convention and keeps in the beaten track.

His numerous peasant subjects at one time led to comparison of him with Millet, but the likeness is of the most superficial kind.  There is no spiritual kinship whatever between him and Millet.  Dalou models the Marquis de Dreux-Breze with as much zest as he does his “Boulonnaise allaitant son enfant;” his touch is as sympathetic in his Rubens-like “Silenus” as in his naturalistic “Berceuse.”  Furthermore, there is absolutely no note of melancholy in his realism—­which, at the present time, is a point well worth noting.  His vivacity excludes the pathetic.  Traces of Carpeaux’s influence are plain in his way of conceiving such subjects as Carpeaux would have handled.  No one could have come so closely into contact with that vigorous individuality without in some degree undergoing its impress, without learning to look for the alert and elegant aspects of his model, whatever it might be.  But with Carpeaux’s distinction Dalou has more poise.  He is considerably farther away from the rococo.  His ideal is equally to be summarized in the word Life, but he cares more for its essence, so to speak, than for its phenomena, or at all events manages to make it felt rather than seen.  One perceives that humanity interests him on the moral side, that he is interested in its significance as well as its form.  Accordingly with him the movement illustrates the form, which is in its turn truly expressive, whereas occasionally, so bitter was his disgust with the pedantry of the schools, with Carpeaux the form is used to exhibit movement.  Then, too, M. Dalou has a certain nobility which Carpeaux’s vivacity is a shade too animated to reach.  Motive and treatment blend in a larger sweep.  The graver substance follows the planes and lines of a statelier if less brilliant style.  It has, in a word, more style.

I can find no exacter epithet, on the whole, for Dalou’s large distinction, and conscious yet sober freedom, than the word Venetian.  There is some subtle phrenotype that associates him with the great colorists.  His work is, in fact, full of color, if one may trench on the jargon of the studios.  It has the sumptuousness of Titian and Paul Veronese.  Its motives are cast in the same ample mould.  Many of his figures breathe the same air of high-born ease and well-being,