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De Kay has referred to this work as an example of Barye's power to reproduce the horrible and to make one's blood run cold with the ferocity of the destroying beast. It seems to me, however, that it is one of the pieces in which Barye's power to represent the horrible without destroying the peace of mind to be found in all true art, is most obvious.
Sebastian, but the powerful realism and energy of the animal group represented what henceforth was to be Barye's characteristic achievement, the realization, that is, of what the Chinese call the "movement of life;" the strange reality of appearance that is never produced by imitation of nature and that makes the greatness of art.
He excluded nothing belonging to the sentiment of his subject and comparison of his work with that of other animal sculptors and painters deepens one's respect for the penetrating insight with which he sought his truths. Since Barye's death and the great increase in the prices of his work, many devices have been used to sell objects bearing his name, but not properly his work.
The figures of the four stone groups on the Louvre, however, have a certain antique nobility of design and withal a naturalness that put them in the first class of modern sculpture, I think. One point worthy of note in any comparison between Barye's animals and his human beings is the intensity and subtlety of expression in the former and the absence of any marked expression in the latter.
A canvas of Corot looked down upon a grotesque, grimacing Japanese idol, a beautiful bronze reproduction of a vase by Michael Angelo stood shoulder to shoulder with a bean-pot full of tobacco; a crumpled cravat was thrown carelessly over the arm of a dancing faun, while a cluster of Barye's matchless animals were apparently making their way with great difficulty through a collection of pipes, broken modeling tools, faded flowers and loose papers.
"Baltimore will be hotter than the Place-as-Isn't," he said plaintively. "Martyrdom by fire! However, I'm off by the five-o'clock train. I'll let you know if anything special comes of it, Bert." Barye's splendid bronze boar couches, semi-shaded, in the center of Monument Park, Baltimore's social hill-top. There Average lounged and strolled through the longest hour of a glaring July morning.
But we have to thank Barye's instinct for refined conception that these features of the work do not claim and hold our attention which is absorbed by the vital line, the gracious sweep of the contours, the lovely surface, and the omission of all irrelevant and unreasonable detail. Many of Barye's subjects included the human figure and in a few instances the human figure alone preoccupied him.
It is manifestly unwise to carry the parallel very far, yet there is still another touch of similarity in the beautiful surfaces. Piero's fine, delicate handling of pigment is in the same manner of expression as Barye's exquisite manipulation of his metal after the casting, his beautiful thin patines that do not suppress but reveal sensitive line and subtle modulation.
He looked about him quickly; all the objects in the range of his vision the corner of the desk, the corduroy couch, the low bookcase with Flossie's yellow slipper and Barye's lioness upon it seemed to move back and stand upon the same plane; the objects themselves appeared immovable enough, but the sensation of them in his brain somewhere behind his eyes began to move about in a slow, dizzy whirl.
And that, in brief, is how it came to be that this machine of antiquated pattern was added to the library bric-a-brac. To say the truth, it was of no more practical use than Barye's dancing bear, a plaster cast of which adorns my mantel-shelf, so that when I classify it with the bric-a-brac I do so advisedly.
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