a man who viewed his mission as that of an apostle preaching the
doctrine of pure classicism, were made easy; and the official titles
of Member of the Institute, Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, and
Senator of the Empire all came to him with the lapse of years.

More royalist than the king, and the last of David's disciples, Ingres
pursued throughout his life the even tenor of a man convinced that
the source of all inspiration in art was Greek sculpture as amplified,
transmuted, and translated to the realm of painting by Raphael.
Painting in his hands became almost purely a matter of form. The
element of color was virtually ignored, and form, chastened in contour
and modelling, became through the magic of his genius the almost
sufficient quality. The qualification is necessary. For though too
great a man to lose, as too many of his master's pupils did, the grasp
on nature; and while, therefore, his works, seen as they are through
the glamour of the antique, never lack an intimate relation to
existing life, it is impossible to resist the feeling before them that
it is life beautified, of exquisite yet virile choice, but of life
arrested. The reproach of his opponents of the romantic school that he
was an "embalmer" has a foundation of truth.

[Illustration: A PORTRAIT OF INGRES, DRAWN IN ROME IN 1816.

This lovely drawing, from the collection in the Louvre, shows Ingres
in his most pleasing aspect. By the magic of a few lines faintly
traced, he has evoked for us the image of a charming person; and by
the slight indication of costume, has also fixed the epoch at which
the drawing was made. It was in the earlier years of the master, while
he was in Rome, that he drew many such little masterpieces as a means
of livelihood, drawings which he then made for a few francs, and which