Besides this masterpiece, there were
many others, (I shall never forget the simple evening scene, "Watering
the Cow,") all inimitable, all perfect as pictures, works of mere art;
and then it seem'd to me, with that last impalpable ethic purpose from
the artist (most likely unconscious to himself) which I am always
looking for. To me all of them told the full story of what went before
and necessitated the great French revolution--the long precedent
crushing of the masses of a heroic people into the earth, in abject
poverty, hunger--every right denied, humanity attempted to be put back
for generations--yet Nature's force, titanic here, the stronger
and hardier for that repression--waiting terribly to break forth,
revengeful--the pressure on the dykes, and the bursting at last--the
storming of the Bastile--the execution of the king and queen--the
tempest of massacres and blood. Yet who can wonder?
Could we wish humanity different?
Could we wish the people made of wood or stone?
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
The true France, base of all the rest, is certainly in these pictures.
I comprehend "Field-People Reposing," "the Diggers," and "the Angelus"
in this opinion. Some folks always think of the French as a small
race, five or five and a half feet high, and ever frivolous and
smirking. Nothing of the sort. The bulk of the personnel of France,
before the revolution, was large-sized, serious, industrious as now,
and simple.
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