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But compare his "Voltaire" in the foyer of the Comédie Française with Chapu's "Berryer" of the Palais de Justice, to take one of the very finest portrait-statues of the present day.
Perhaps the antiquary of a thousand years from now, to whom the traits which to us distinguish so clearly the work of certain sculptors who seem to have nothing in common will betray only their common inspiration, will be even less at a loss than ourselves to find traces of a common origin in such apparently different works as Chapu's "Mercury" and his "Jeunesse" of the Regnault monument.
Chapu's statue is more than irreproachable, it is elevated and noble, it is in the grand style; but it is plain that its impressiveness is due to the fact that the subject is conceived as the Orator in general and handled with almost a single eye to style.
The reader will say at once here that I am cavilling at M. Dubois for what I praised in Chapu. But let us distinguish. The two artists belong to wholly different categories. Chapu's inspiration is the antique spirit. M. Dubois, is, like all academic French sculptors, except Chapu indeed, absolutely and integrally a romanticist, completely enamoured of the Renaissance.
In fact, it is because of the exceptional position that he occupies in deriving from the antique, instead of showing the academic devotion to Renaissance romanticism which characterizes the general movement of academic French sculpture, that in any consideration of this sculpture Chapu's work makes a more vivid impression than that of his contemporaries, and thus naturally takes a foremost place.
And if there be no question of perfection, but only of the artist's attitude, one has but to ask himself the real meaning of the epithet Shakespearian to be assured of the harmony between individuality and the most impersonal practice. Nevertheless, this attitude and this perfection, characteristic as they are of Chapu's work, have their peril.
No one could, of course, mistake this work for an antique an error that might possibly be made, supposing the conditions favorable, in the case of Chapu's "Mercury;" but it presents, nevertheless, an excellent illustration of a modern working naturally and freely in the antique spirit.
The personal interest that accentuates every detail of the "Voltaire" the physiognomy, the pose, the right hand, are marvellously characteristic simply is not sought for in Chapu's work. Of this quality there is more in Houdon's bust of Molière, whom of course Houdon never saw, than in almost any production of the modern school.
Chapu's "Maid" is the ideal, more or less perfectly expressed; she is everybody's "Maid," more or less adequately embodied. The statue is the antipodes of the conventional much more so, even, to our modern sense, than that of Rude; it suggests no competition with that at Versailles or the many other characterless conceptions that abound.
Chapu's works, and such exceptions as the heads of Baudry and Renan already mentioned, apart, one perceives that the modern school has made too many statues of the République, too many "Ledas" and "Susannahs" and "Quand-Mêmes" and "Gloria Victis." And its penchant for Renaissance canons only emphasizes the absolute commonplace of many of these.
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