VII.

The history of art presents, in every period or generation, examples of men who are in advance of their time, and who, in spite of the restrictions and conventions of the period in whic they were born, contrive to emancipate themselves from all such thraldom and by their native originality create a distinct and independent course for themselves. Such an artist was Auguste Barthelemy Glaize. He was born at Montpelier in 1813, at a time when art in France was chained to the coldest classicism, when the painters were taught to ignore life entirely and to base their studies and their methods upon the antique - a beautiful and noble model, it is true, but cold and lifeless as the sculptured marble in which antique art had been preserved to modern times. These were the influences which surrounded young Glaize when he learned to draw as a schoolboy. But a change was coming. What we now know as the romantic movement in French art was gathering strength. A race of original and resolute men had determined to cast off the shackles imposed by the old order of things, and to ignore traditions with which they had no sympathy. Prominent among these revolutionaries were the brothers, Achilee and

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Chapter 7 Text

Auguste Barthelemy Glaize