une lumière inattendue, un contraste de natures entre différents groupes, forment ce qu'on appelle une idée en peinture" (6). If this definition of Gautier's is applied to his own written composition, it seems fairly evident that there are certain coïncidences between his theory of pictorial ideas and his own literary practice. The type of subject which he has selected as suitable for representation in art is that which he has made use of for his writings, and in them are those things whose absence denotes the literary; rich stuffs, bright colors, polished forms, etc., make up the substance of his compositions. Des séries entières de pièces, celles par exemple qu'il entitule Paysages et Intérieurs, sont exécutées non pas comme des poèmes où se développe une action, où s'analyse un sentiment, mais comme de véritables tableaux où les divers objets se rangent, simultanément, à leurs plans divers, dans un parti pris de lumière, pour éveiller une sensation de joie physique bien plus qu'une émotion de l'ordre intellectuel ou moral" (7). The limited subject, the individual perfected trait, are sought and very frequently found by him, and on them his literary method is often constituted. To them he is willing to sacrifice, to a large extent, the originality and the variety which, in his theory, he exacts of truly literary work. The "pictorial idea" is characteristic of a large portion of his writing, and in this, always assuming that the author is correct in his initial distinctions between the arts, his creative imagination seems plastic. He is at least justified in claiming that, on the basis of his choice of subject-matter, of idea, he is often more plastic than literary. In his study of the Capitaine Fracasse, Lehtonen finds that there was in Gautier a tendency, comparable to that of the painters of his generation, to make of his production the means for setting before the public a great number of "ideas." These were not only the plastic ideas which have been noted, however, but they included the truly literary, the verbal, as well as the pictorial and visual: "... Il a fait de son dernier grand roman un véritable déversoir pour tout ce qu'il avait lu d'ancien et de moderne, un des plus curieux recueils de locutions rares et étranges, de types calqués sur ceux des vieux romans, de descriptions les plus prolixes et les plus inattendues. Il refaisait exactement l'œuvre des peintres d'histoire de 1830, qui entassaient aussi dans leurs tableaux tout un musée d'ethnographie, le plus souvent sans aucune critique et sans aucune vraisemblance . . (8). If it be granted that, according to his idea of plasticity in subjectmatter, Gautier was frequently plastic in his method of choice of idea or subjects, the next question to be answered is whether in the development of his works his general choice of words and images is also plastic. Lehtonen seems to imply that Gautier's preoccupation here was more extended than plasticity alone would warrant, and from the whole study of his process of composition, at a far earlier date than the Capitaine Fracasse, it is evident that he did not limit himself to plastic means for the upbuilding of his pieces. The matter must be considered in detail and a balance taken between various positive pieces of testimony for a plasticity of method which have been pointed out in this connection, and the arguments to be advanced, on the grounds of vocabulary and development, against the designation of plasticity as the predominant method of the author. In considering Gautier's literary composition, Küchler and Luitz have judged the process to be plastic for three principal reasons: (1) the use of pictorial allusion and comparison; (2) the transposition of nature into terms of art; and (3) the frequent use of words of form and colour in descriptions and comparisons. The first of these criteria seems hardly decisive for method of composition; although it is without doubt indicative of Gautier's interests, it may quite as well be the product of a verbal habit, induced largely by his reading and by the theory of literature which surrounded him, as an evidence of plastic imagination. One of the contemporary critics of the Capitaine Fracasse pointed out the possible distinction to be made between a real plasticity of thought and a verbal habit which indulged itself in the piling up of picturesque detail as proof of its versatility and facility: Le matérialisme littéraire de M. Gautier est bien connu, et il s'en ferait gloire plutôt qu'il ne s'en défendrait. "M. Gautier s'est mépris, il s'est refusé une belle part dans la littérature contemporaine en abusant de sa plume au détriment de son esprit. L'auteur du Capitaine Fracasse ne va-t-il pas au hasard, faisant la chasse aux descriptions comme un antiquaire fait la chasse aux vieilleries? “. . . Le vrai genre picaresque est fertile en ressources prises dans le vif de la réalité; le monde picaresque de M. Gautier est habillé d'un luxe d'images et d'épithètes qui étonne, mais l'auteur, au lieu de chercher dans la réalité une veine nouvelle d'observation bouffonne, se borne à reproduire les types du Roman comique . . ."(9). It seems possible, then, to see in Gautier's introduction of plastic allusion and metaphor a verbal habit, a method of literary development, rather than a true evidence of plastic imagination. This view is confirmed by a comparison of his process of composition with the general practice of the years during which his habits. of thought were being formed. Rosenthal, in his study of French painting from the romantic movement to realism, and again in his article on la Peinture sous la monarchie de juillet, finds that the pictorial allusion, the introduction of painters, their works, their views, their very vocabulary, was very frequent in the literature of the time. "Dans le roman, les artistes interviennent souvent comme héros ou comme personnages épisodiques. Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu de Balzac est demeuré seul parmi une série d'ouvrages oubliés où des peintres célèbres jouaient le premier rôle. . "Les monographies ou 'physiologies' auxquelles s'est amusée cette époque, n'ont garde d'oublier l'artiste, le rapin, les séances de l'atelier. Même quand ils ne mettent pas d'artistes en scène, les écrivains évoquent volontiers le souvenir d'artistes ou d'œuvres d'art. Balzac introduit une dissertation sur Raphaël dans la Cousine Bette, sur Michel-Ange dans Honorine, et une étude sur Decamps dans l'Interdiction. Eugène Sue ne croit pas effaroucher les lecteurs des Mystères de Paris en évoquant les noms de Greuze, de Watteau, de Boucher, de Michel-Ange, et les pinceaux de Callot, de Rembrandt et de Goya'. "Même disposition chez les poètes. . Victor Hugo évoquant Albert Dürer (1837) fait dans les Voix intérieures de la véritable critique artistique; Alfred de Musset espère rencontrer Quelque alerte beauté de l'école flamande, Une ronde fillette échappée à Teniers, et Leconte de Lisle, dans la période où il tâtonne encore, célèbre en vers médiocres Raphaël, Michel-Ange, Masaccio, et Corrège. Auguste Barbier, enfin, consacre un des poèmes du Pianto à une admirable étude sur le Campo Santo (10). Gautier, in following the literary trend of his age, was, then, no more plastic than these other authors who made use of the pictorial allusion, the language of the ateliers, the plastic hero. It is difficult to feel that this particular practice was much more than a literary fad of the time having its origin in the whole attitude of the romanticism of 1830, and leading to a verbal habit rather than to a characteristically plastic process of thought. There is not here a true criterion for Gautier's plasticity of creation. The further question arises, however, as to whether the translation of nature into terms of art constitutes an evidence of plasticity of thought on the part of the author, or whether this, like pictorial allusion and images, is simply the result of a verbal habit, without significance for an essential plasticity of process. Gautier's presentation of nature in terms of art has been considered one of the proofs of his individuality, of his special talent, and Küchler and Luitz cite many instances of such transpositions in outlook. Here again, the author of the "Paysages" is not unique in his time; Musset amuses himself with such verbal play, Joseph Delorme presents various peaceful landscapes: "Oh! que la plaine est triste autour du boulevard! Et loin, sur les coteaux, au-dessus des villages, ." (11). tu vivras à ." (12); in his "Promenade," He shows to the child-dreamer the different kinds of nature which will appear to him, "toi poète, toujours, rêver sur l'éternel tableau he reviews the characteristic landscapes of the great poets of his time, and then describes the picture of nature as he sees it (13). From this unanimity of representation, it would seem possible to argue that, here again, Gautier and his fellows were simply yielding to the current of their time in dealing with nature in this particular way. On the other hand, it must be recalled that they lived in the midst of artists, that several of them had had years of training in painters' ateliers and had been taught to see in nature certain artistic values which they then noted in their reproduction, pictorial or literary. In any presentation of nature as wholly beautiful, moreover, there is implied, to at least some extent, the attitude and the manner of thought of the plastic artist. A feeling for the beauty of nature necessitates the separation of its loveliness from its qualities of utility, from its possi bilities of consolation, etc., and its consideration from a purely æsthetic point of view. This Gautier and his contemporaries were in the habit of doing, Gautier perhaps more constantly and more thoroughly than the other literary artists who surrounded him. He presented this side of nature almost exclusively in his work (it is only in the early poetry that nature the consoler appears, for example), and here his process of literary composition may be judged plastic, or at least artistic. If this be granted as a criterion of plasticity, however, it becomes necessary to admit the same trait of imagination in many other writers who have not been rated as plastic but who have, nevertheless, regarded and reproduced the beauty of nature as such. For Gautier, then, this type of composition may become an indication of plasticity but not a differentiation of his particular type of creative imagination; such plasticity is easily shared. A more exclusive characteristic of Gautier's writing is his use of a vocabulary of colour and form, and this, to his critics, has become the great criterion of plasticity. "... En ce qui regarde Théophile Gautier . on ne saurait nier qu'il n'ait été poursuivi par la préoccupation plastique jusque dans ses œuvres de style, et qu'il n'ait souvent combiné des teintes et des nuances plutôt qu'assemblé des mots. . . . Il recherche 'les épithètes moulées sur nature, les tours abondants et larges, les phrases à riches draperies, où l'on sent le nu sous l'étoffe, les muscles sous la pourpre' . . ." (14). Abundant evidence for this type of work has already been presented in the study of Gautier's process of composition, but it was noted at the same time that the use of a vocabulary of colour and form was not the author's only method of literary development; that his habits included transposition of scenes to sound, or to motion, or even to perfume; that not only the visual and pictorial was recorded, but also the emotional effect of an impression; that pictorial and visual metaphors were general rather than particular, calling upon the readers' verbal concept rather than on definite plastic imagery. Gautier's method here was by no means wholly plastic (15). Even in so far as he made use of words of colour or form it is not self-evident that the author's imagination was more plastic |