Fortune Favors The Bold...

I am very fortunate to have good friends. Recently a good friend of mine read the first 100 pages of my Delacroix book and gave me valuable feedback. There are segments here and there that might seem unclear for the reader that I have to rewrite or clarify.

Any aspiring writer needs commentary on his or her manuscript, I realized this long ago when I wrote poetry. Often philosophically laden; the reader of poetry needs a requisite of intellectual ïndulgence, something often frowned upon in our modern society. Step back twohundred years and it was a necessity. A novel is much the same, although not assembled in the same fashion, it bears the resemblance of the grandiose.

Currently I am reading the wonderful book "The End Of The Salon" by Patricia Mainardi, who states that:

"Nineteenth-century studies' previous focus on the modernis avant-garde..."

- which is, by any means a humble statement. If Delacroix would have lived to see the development of the Salon, or the politicas regimes, perhaps he wouldn't have tried so hard to become a part of the institution. Or, perhaps he would have sought out a change?

Delacroix friend Alexis-Joseph Pérignon wrote:

"The annual Salon cannot satisfy everyone, because it has two contradictory purposes: "to be an exposition of choice works", and to: "serve the artist"...

Today we know who the "winners" of the Salon where. Merely a bunch survived the history pages and a household names today. I wonder if this was the prerogative of Charles Blanc, the Directeur des beaux-arts?