Hercule filant aux pieds d'Omphale, which was greeted in the studio with so much gaiety, sarcasm and frank mockery that the young clerk began to doubt his genius as a painter.

"Mais la passion d'Anastase était de celles qu'irrite une défaite; son fol enthousiasme pour les arts trouva de nouvelles forces dans ses premiers échecs. L'intrépide jeune homme ne déserta pas ses dieux; il ne fit que changer d'autel; ou plutôt il étendit son culte à tous les arts à la fois, résolu de tenter toutes les voies, et de persévérer là où il serait le mieux secondé par ses dispositions, et le mieux accueilli par le succès et par la gloire

(1).

Théophile Gautier, who had started his career as a painter, deserted it as did the young Anastase, but he also kept his ambition to be an artist, he too used his talents in accordance with the main tendencies of his disposition. It was in his literary production, original and critical, and not in drawing or painting that his particular creative imagination could best be exercised, and it is by this production that the psychology of the artist may be understood.

It is evident from a study of Gautier's life and work that he was equipped with certain emotional tendencies of varying force and degree of influence upon his activities. He had a great love for members of his family, a long devotion to various friends; he desired their good for their sake and for his own. He was fearful by nature and demanded protection. This he sought to find in an inner and outer tranquillity, in an impassibility which combined, with a certain reverence for power in every form, a denial of value in all but the appearance of things. The artist, who received great pleasure from form and colour, could contemplate and quietly rejoice in external beauty. He had, however, certain drives to activity. Desires for glory and originality were not wholly lacking in him; despite his general pessimistic attitude, he was interested in creating and found pleasure in construction. Above all, he desired permanence, and as he saw that external beauty was frequently the most lasting, he found himself able to link together his various emotional tendencies in one trend toward the adoration and even the creation of a permanent, plastic beauty. This trend was not unique in his make-up, it did not always prove itself more forceful than other less inclusive, but perhaps mo

mentarily more favoured tendencies. It was, however, at the base of his artistic theory and is likewise largely characteristic of his imagination in the process of creation.

The part of Gautier's emotional tendencies in the construction of his literary work is seen in atmosphere, personage and form. His early pieces are characterized by a romanticism which has its roots in his self-regarding sentiment in so far as the traditional manifestations of personal eccentricities, attitude toward nature, etc., are concerned. In its pessimistic aspect this atmosphere endures through many years of writing, with its lasting bases of nihilism and fear; in its phantasies, again, it rests upon the desire to show many phases of the beautiful as well as upon philosophical and self-regarding tendencies. It is with the æsthetic sentiment also that the grotesque atmosphere of his work has its connection; whether it be burlesque or horrible, whether its employment be that of an ugly "repoussoir" to beauty or that of the intrinsically lovely, it is connected with Gautier's preoccupation with the beautiful as well as with certain technical interests and pleasures. The satiric atmosphere, again, is in great part the product of Gautier's æsthetic sentiment: he mocks at those who despise or misunderstand beauty, he spares those who work earnestly, even though unsuccessfully, for the production of plastic beauty. He himself finds that it may often best be created through exoticism; the universal and eternal can be transported through space and time into his work and reproduced there, absolute beauty is most nearly to be found in the classic art of antiquity. The exotic and plastic atmospheres may appear individually or in combination as resultants of Gautier's æsthetic sentiment in his literary production. In so far as personages are concerned, the author presents two principal types: developments of the self or its individual traits, and representations of an external beauty. In one case the determining influence of his tendency to self-enhancement, in the other a further manifestation of the plastic, may be found. The form of his work is likewise partially dependent on the author's sentiments, for the short, polished piece of prose or verse has its connection with his artistic

theory, while feuilletons are encouraged by a sentiment of selfregard working through the need of protecting and caring for personal possessions. Here, however, questions of technique enter in very great measure, and the creative imagination of Théophile Gautier, though largely characterized by his hierarchy of sentiments, is found to have further distinctive features in technical equipment and method.

The artist, however awkward in handling the tools of the painter, was extraordinarily skillful in the use of words. His endowment here, his verbal facility, were notable from his childhood on through half a century of literary production and brilliant conversation. Verbal and visual memory stood him in good stead. The imagination of the author was stimulated by a certain type of environment: the active and yet impersonal. He wrote most easily in the midst of journalistic activity; he could best compose during an omnibus-ride. The approbation and encouragement of his friends, the constant reminders of his editors, assisted him greatly in his actual output. For factual or technical detail he went willingly to collaborators who might be experts in a particular line, or who might furnish him fundamental data upon which he could embroider. His feuilleton-composition became nearly automatic: given certain observations or facts, a certain idea or plan, he could construct the desired number of chapters, and calculate his speed and output in advance. Inspiration to his work came from various sources. It might be drawn from past or contemporary literary interests (2); it might come from current events or from personal experience. Pictorial art also might be its basis. The author writes the tale of a shepherd boy who, in distinction to the attitude of the ordinary peasant, loved nature as a work of art. He did not recognize what this especial attitude was, however, until a sketch of the scene in which he figured awakened him to an understanding of his admiration. Des écailles venaient de lui tomber des yeux, une révélation subite s'était opérée en lui." He began to realize “à quoi servait de contempler les arbres, les plis du terrain et les formes des nuages" (3). Gautier writes with the conviction of one to whom

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art indeed has been a revelation, of one who has found in the fine arts a stimulus to the inception of his own literary productions.

From this or other initial steps, frequently from a combination of literary, pictorial and personal inspirations, Gautier set out to compose his work. His creative imagination was not active as improvisation, and in spite of his extraordinary memory, wellstocked by observation and reading, the author did not depend solely on this source of detail for his development. He wished for accuracy in his evocations, and proceeded toward it not only by a kind of assimilation of the past, by an imagination which entered into the general spirit of antiquity, but also by an effort at documentation, a real research which furnished him with unusual or difficult facts to be combined with the imaginary or memorial material in a single construction. Invention, personal experience and visual or literary documentation were together at the basis of the great part of his production. He took notes on the pictures which he was to describe, on the scenes which he viewed, and even set down the emotional or intellectual impression which he received from them. In his fictitious and poetic construction, the author made use of definite plans, worked out in advance of the actual composition. It may be said that he improvised on a certain inspiration only when he possessed already a solid foundation of facts, gleaned from various sources and ordered in a preliminary pattern which soon became definitive.

In the process of literary development, Gautier's creative imagination is not characterized by the use of wholly perceptual material but is shown, rather, in a combination of perceptual, affective, and conceptual elements. It is true that the author depended largely upon his actual observations, but it will also be recalled that he described the sea better before he had seen it than after: his concept of it was more valuable to him than the perception itself. Of the perceptual material used the visible was most important. Bourget writes of his objectivity, characteristic of his art and fundamental principle of his esthetic theory. "Leur objectivité est toute visuelle. (L'imagination) de Gautier s'extériorise dans des contours et des couleurs.

.

Ce ne

sont même plus des images, c'est la concrétion même de l'objet. Cet objet n'est pas décrit; il est montré, dans sa solidité, dans son relief, j'allais dire dans ses trois dimensions ." (4). The impression of the major portion of Gautier's work is indeed one of exterior substance, but it seems made up of colour rather than form. He notes and records colour first of all; light is less frequent in his evocations and does not usually lend itself to a direct verbal transposition. The three-dimensional form of which Bourget speaks is, however, comparatively rare, and Gautier seems to see in flat masses and to take note of silhouette rather than of relief. The author makes voluntary use of his visual observations, working on a basis of sensory pleasure, and influenced by certain affective associations with specific colours and forms. His perceptual material is not, however, "toute visuelle." The perfumes which are present in certain sensory experiences are recorded as an integral part of the original impression. They are not so great in number as the auditory factors which the author recalls, and his use of the kinesthetic and cœnesthetic elements of a total situation is no less frequent. Gautier's literary construction was thus based on observations of various kinds in so far as perceptual material was concerned. It included also a large amount of conceptual material, now predominantly objective, now predominantly subjective in origin. The imagination of the author is expressed not only in allusions to definite visual objects, but also in phrases which refer to a class of objects, to the ideas which the writer has formed during the course of his observations and reading. He makes use of literary and plastic conceptual comparison; on the one hand, classes of facts of which he is cognizant appear in his developments; on the other hand, he writes of his reflections on the exterior world. Here, also, affective material enters. Not only do Gautier's emotional tendencies appear in their influence on colour associations, for example; not only do certain experiences persist in his composition on account of their strong original tone of pleasure or displeasure; but also affective elements may enter autonomously into his composition, and the author will express directly as well