Delacroix's Journal entry for July 28, 1854 considers the enduring appeal of masterpieces in art and literature in contrast to our perhaps shallow desire for novelty.
Delacroix’s Journal entry for July 28, 1854, reads,
“I have been thinking of Voltaire’s novels, of the tragedies of Racine, and of thousands upon thousands of other masterpieces. Can we believe that such things are done merely so that in every generation men may ask whether there is anything fresh to divert them in the way of literature? Is not this incredible output of masterpieces, produced for the human herd by the greatest minds and the most sublime geniuses, enough to terrify the more sensitive portion of our unhappy race? Will the insatiable search after novelty never give anyone the idea of seeing whether the old masterpieces are not newer and fresher than the rhapsodies that pander to our idleness, and which we prefer to the masterpieces? Were these miracles of imagination and wit, of reason, gaiety, or pathos, produced by geniuses at a cost of such immense labour and sleepless nights, and rewarded, so rarely alas, by meager praise when first appeared – were these great works, I say, created only to lapse, after a brief appearance and a few eulogies, into the dust of libraries and the unproductive, almost dishonouring esteem of so-called savants and antiquaries? Shall college pedants tug at our sleeves and remind us that Racine is at least simple, that La Fontaine saw as much in nature as Lamartine, and that Lesage portrayed men as they really are? Are the leaders of our present civilization, these ordinary schoolmasters, who have been raised to be ministers or shepherds of the people because they once had a quarter of an hour of inspiration according to present-day standards, the men who are to make a new literature? New indeed! A fine sort of novelty!”
Delacroix eloquently states his belief that we should keep alive our collective intrigue with our culture’s masterpieces rather than forgetting their joys as we endlessly seek out whatever’s new.
This reminds me of the stance that contemporary Classical Realist painters take in defense of the incomparable and time-tested work of the Old Masters. Surely the work of the Old Masters is the highest achievement we have seen in western art. This is not to say that we must blindly stick to tradition or that novelty in itself is bad. But it’s to say that many commendable artistic methods have already been discovered and that learning what is already known is the best foundation for moving forward.
This is why I believe we are seeing a contemporary move away from modern art, which shallowly insists on sheer novelty and rebellion against representational painting and which so many people simply don’t like, toward a return to realism.
