hey are through
the glamour of the antique, never lack an intimate relation to
existing life, it is impossible to resist the feeling before them that
it is life beautified, of exquisite yet virile choice, but of life
arrested. The reproach of his opponents of the romantic school that he
was an "embalmer" has a foundation of truth.

[Illustration: A PORTRAIT OF INGRES, DRAWN IN ROME IN 1816.

This lovely drawing, from the collection in the Louvre, shows Ingres
in his most pleasing aspect. By the magic of a few lines faintly
traced, he has evoked for us the image of a charming person; and by
the slight indication of costume, has also fixed the epoch at which
the drawing was made. It was in the earlier years of the master, while
he was in Rome, that he drew many such little masterpieces as a means
of livelihood, drawings which he then made for a few francs, and which
are now eagerly sought by the museums of Europe.]

[Illustration: APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER. FROM A PAINTING BY INGRES.

Originally painted for a ceiling in the gallery of Greek and Roman
Antiquities, in the Louvre, where it is now replaced by a copy of the
same executed by Ingres's pupils. The picture represents Homer crowned
as Jupiter by Victory, and seated before his temple receiving the
homage of the poets, painters, sculptors, and architects of the
world.]

[Illustration: THE SEIZURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS. FROM A
PAINTING BY EUGENE DELACROIX.

In 1203, through political intrigue, a French army, raised to take
part in the fourth crusade for the rescue of Jerusalem from
the Mohammedans, joined with a Venetian army in an attack on
Constantinople, then a Christian city, the capital of the Byzantine
Empire. The city fell, but later was recovered. Then, on April 12,
1204, the invaders secured it again, and subjected it to a despoilment
without parallel. Delacroix's picture portrays a scene in this
despoilment. One of the invading barons, attended by his escort, rides
on to a terrace, and the citizens fall before him, praying his mercy.
Behind lies the Bosphorous, and beyond it are the shores of Asia.]

For all this, it is hardly superlative to say that, since art began,
no man has ever felt the exquisite and subtle harmony of line to
the same degree as Ingres. Naturally the best examples of this, his
greatest quality, are to be found in his rendering of the nude human
form; and from the "Oedipus and the Sphinx," of 1808, to "La Source,"
of 1856