. Art in France. NEW CLASSICISM DURING THE REVOLU-TION AND THE EMPIRE /Esthetic Idealism.— The Influence of Antique Art.— The Revolutionary Spirit.—Administra-tive Transformations.—Compromise Between the Idealism of Artists and the Exigencies ofActuality.—Architecture: Greek pasticci; Percier and Fontaine.—Empire Furniture.—Painting: David; Reform in Technique; Realism and the Classical Spirit.—Guerin,Lethiere, Gerard.—A Romantic Attempt: Girodet.— The Survivors of the EighteenthCentury.—Prudhon.—Gros.—Some Little Masters. At the close of the eighteenth century French art submitted forthe thir
. Art in France. NEW CLASSICISM DURING THE REVOLU-TION AND THE EMPIRE /Esthetic Idealism.— The Influence of Antique Art.— The Revolutionary Spirit.—Administra-tive Transformations.—Compromise Between the Idealism of Artists and the Exigencies ofActuality.—Architecture: Greek pasticci; Percier and Fontaine.—Empire Furniture.—Painting: David; Reform in Technique; Realism and the Classical Spirit.—Guerin,Lethiere, Gerard.—A Romantic Attempt: Girodet.— The Survivors of the EighteenthCentury.—Prudhon.—Gros.—Some Little Masters. At the close of the eighteenth century French art submitted forthe third time to the classic discipline, and even more completelythan in the time of Louis XIV and Francis I. This recrudescenceor archaeology and rationalism coincided, as before, with a newattempt at national centralisation; for the Convention and theEmpire consolidated and drew more closely together those forcesof the State which the declining monarchy had allowed to relax. 303 ART IN FRANCE. (IVniporary Exhibition of the Musee dcsArts ciecoratifs.) Once more a kind ofsecret sympathy or pre-established harmony be-tween pohtical absolutismand classic art makes itseltfelt; it seems as if thecountry, when it soughtto realize its unity, pre-ferred an abstract, uni-versal art, or at least anart general enough todominate all the localvariations of the Frenchintellect. The classicspirit had intensified; inthe time of Francis I, antique or Italian influences had been ingeni-ously reconciled with local traditions; under Louis XIV, Colbertaccepted antique art, but on condition that it became naturalised inFrance. And now the aesthetes of the Revolution and the Empireput forward an absolute ideal, bearing no relation either to nationalhistory or geography. The ideas developed in the academicaldiscussions of the seventeenth century and in Charles Perraultsdialogues re-appeared, but in a more absolute and vigorous form,because they were now saturatedwith metaphysics an
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