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But I hope and believe there are thousands of people in the world in full possession of their natural eyesight, and capable of appreciating the Accroupie when once their attention is called to it. I knew it was useless to search further among the galleries of the Louvre, for there could not be two such works in existence anywhere, much less in one collection.
But to those who, like myself, wander in the outer darkness of common barbarian life, the Accroupie is unknown till we happily chance upon it. Possibly the reason may be that this statue infinitely surpasses those fixed ideals of art which the studios have for so many centuries resolutely forced upon the world. It seems that after a certain length of art study the natural eyesight is lost.
He did not; he worked all round the statue, reading every word legible on the base of the insignificant figures against the wall, and so onwards down the salon. One of the most complete of the guide-books dismisses the Accroupie in a single line, so it is not surprising that people do not seek it.
She had loved the Greek marbles best. The weird shapes in the Corridor of Pan, the glorious torso of the Venus Accroupie with the two deep lines in her side that make her more human and alive than any other Venus, more divine even than the Milo, faultless in her "serpentining beauty rounds on rounds," serene and gracious in the shadow of her crimson-hung alcove.
Other shops had none. The Venus of Milo is in every shop in every size, and from every point of view; of the Accroupie these two poor representations were hunted out from the bottom of a portfolio. Of course, these remarks apply only to Paris as the public know it; doubtless the studios have the Accroupie, and could supply representations of every kind: casts, too, can be obtained at the Louvre.
She is not all, not too feminine; with all her tenderness, she can think and act as nobly as a man. Absorbed in the contemplation of her beauty, I did not for some time think of inquiring into material particulars. But there is a tablet on the pedestal which tells all that is known. This statue is called the 'Venus Accroupie, or Stooping Venus, and was found at Vienne, France.
It always returns to, and rests upon, the Accroupie the living and the beautiful. Here is the difference between genius and talent. Talent has lined the walls with a hundred clever things, and could line miles of surface; genius gives us but one example, and the clever things are silenced. Here is the difference between that which expresses a noble idea, and that which is dexterously conventional.
The one single idea dominates the whole. Here is the difference, again, between the secret of the heart, the aspiration of the soul, and that which is only the workmanship of a studio ancient or modern. The Accroupie is human, loving tender; how poor are goddesses beside her!
One came along, on the contrary, very slowly, carefully examining the inscriptions upon the altars and various figures; he appeared to understand the Latin and Greek, and it might have been expected that he would stay to look at the Accroupie.
Pupil of A. Roll, Benjamin Constant, Puvis de Chavannes, and Dagnaux. Mme. Marlef is a portrait painter. Her picture, "Manette Salomon," is in the Hotel de Ville, Paris; the "Nymphe Accroupie" is in the Municipal Museum of Nantes.
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