them aside and
has fallen into a profound revery. As typical of the mistrust which has
crept into her heart with avarice and doubt, a bunch of keys is
suspended to her girdle; above her is an hour-glass, the emblem of her
transitory existence. Nothing could be more admirable than the face of
Melancholy, both in the severe beauty of her features and the depth
of her gaze.

Neither the sentiment of melancholy nor the word which expresses it had
appeared in art before the time of Albert Duerer.

* * * * *

INGRES

From the 'Life of Ingres'

Small of stature, square of figure, rough of manner, devoid of
distinction, Ingres's personality afforded a great contrast to the
refinement of his taste and the charm of his feminine figures. I can
hardly conceive how a man thus built could show such delicacy in the
choice of his subjects; how those short, thick fingers could draw such
lovely, graceful forms.

Ingres hated academic conventionality; he mingled the Florentine and
Greek schools; he sought the ideal not outside of reality but in its
very essence, in the reconciliation of style with nature. Color he
considered of secondary importance; he not only subordinated it
voluntarily to drawing, but he did not have a natural gift for it.
Ingres is the artist who has best expressed the voluptuousness not of
flesh but of form; who has felt feminine beauty most profoundly
and chastely.

CALAMATTA'S STUDIO

From 'Contemporary Artists'

I can still see Lamennais, with his worn-out coat, his round back, his
yellow, parchment-like face, his eyes sparkling beneath a forehead
imprinted with genius, and resembling somewhat Hoffmann's heroes. George
Sand sometimes visited us, and it seemed to me that her presence lighted
up the whole studio. She always spoke to me, for she knew that I was the
brother of a distinguished writer, and when she looked over my plate I
trembled like a leaf.

Thus our calm sedentary life was enlivened by an occasional sunbeam; and
when I was hard at work with my graver, my mind was nourished by the
minds of others. Giannone, the poet, read his commentaries on
Shakespeare to us, and Mercure always had a witty retort in that faulty
French which is so amusing in an Italian mouth. Calamatta would listen
in silence, his eyes glued to his drawing of the 'Joconde,' at which he
worked on his good days.

BLANC'S DEBUT AS ART CRITIC

From 'Contemporary Artists'