e, in short, of art; whereas Dore contended that art which
said nothing, which conveyed no idea, albeit perfect in form and
color, missed the highest quality and raison d'etre of art." What is
plain from this is, that Gautier was an artist and cared first of all
for art, while Dore was never an artist, properly speaking, at all,
and never understood the artist's passion for perfection. To Dore,
what was necessary was to express himself anyhow--who cared if the
style was defective, the drawing bad, the color crude? The idea was
the thing. His admirers can defend him only on this ground, and they
adopt of necessity the Philistine point of view. The artists of Dore's
time and country were very clear in their opinion. "The painters,"
says Mr. Jerrold, "said he could not paint."

The sculptors admitted that he had ideas in his groups, but he was not
sculpturesque. His friends protest against this judgment, and
attribute it, _ad nauseam_, to "malevolence" and "envy." What if his
technique was less brilliant than that of Hals, they say; what if his
shadows are less transparent than those of Rembrandt (and they will
make no meaner comparison)? He is "teeming with noble thoughts," and
these will put his work "on a level with the masterpieces of the
Italian masters of the sixteenth century." It is the conception, the
creation--not the perfect painting of legs and arms and heads, the
harmonious grouping, the happy and delicate combination of color--by
which the observer is held spell bound. All these qualities, which
his admirers grudgingly admit that Dore had not, are classed as "mere
dexterity," and are not considered worth a second thought.

This is the true literary gospel of art, but it is one that no artist,
and no critic who has any true feeling of art, has ever accepted or
will ever accept. Thoughts, ideas, conceptions, may enhance the value
of a work of art, provided it is first of all a piece of beautiful art
in itself, but they have never preserved, and never will preserve from
oblivion bad painting or bad sculpture. The style is the artist, if
not the man; and of the two, beautiful painting with no idea at all
(granting, for the sake of argument, that it exists), will ever be
infinitely more valuable to the world than the lame expression of the
noblest thoughts. What may be the real value of Dore's thoughts is
therefore a question with which we have no concern. As painter and
sculptor, his lack of education and his gr