are now eagerly sought by the museums of Europe.]

[Illustration: APOTHEOSIS OF HOMER. FROM A PAINTING BY INGRES.

Originally painted for a ceiling in the gallery of Greek and Roman
Antiquities, in the Louvre, where it is now replaced by a copy of the
same executed by Ingres's pupils. The picture represents Homer crowned
as Jupiter by Victory, and seated before his temple receiving the
homage of the poets, painters, sculptors, and architects of the
world.]

[Illustration: THE SEIZURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE BY THE CRUSADERS. FROM A
PAINTING BY EUGÈNE DELACROIX.

In 1203, through political intrigue, a French army, raised to take
part in the fourth crusade for the rescue of Jerusalem from
the Mohammedans, joined with a Venetian army in an attack on
Constantinople, then a Christian city, the capital of the Byzantine
Empire. The city fell, but later was recovered. Then, on April 12,
1204, the invaders secured it again, and subjected it to a despoilment
without parallel. Delacroix's picture portrays a scene in this
despoilment. One of the invading barons, attended by his escort, rides
on to a terrace, and the citizens fall before him, praying his mercy.
Behind lies the Bosphorous, and beyond it are the shores of Asia.]

For all this, it is hardly superlative to say that, since art began,
no man has ever felt the exquisite and subtle harmony of line to
the same degree as Ingres. Naturally the best examples of this, his
greatest quality, are to be found in his rendering of the nude human
form; and from the "Oedipus and the Sphinx," of 1808, to "La Source,"