Ingres, then, was the first to have a conception of actual truth; the first to know that in art the ideal is the quintessence of the real; that style should be derived not from erudition, but from life; that it may be acquired from the most commonplace models; that it must be _human_....
In leading the French school back to a study of nature, he purged it from two evils, called in the language of the studios _chic_ and _poncif_. The first signifies the fashion of painting from memory, from practice, without consulting nature. The second signifies the habit of repeating forms learned by heart. From these two banes of art Ingres delivered painting in France, thereby rendering it an inestimable service. While giving satisfaction to the romanticists in recognizing that their reaction was to some extent justifiable, he perceived at the same time, and just as clearly, that romanticism was a return to the decadence. Indeed, since it had burst into being, only those painters were admired who, essentially imitators, were called in Italy _naturalisti_. Caravaggio, Ribera, Guercino, Zurbaran, Manfredi, Solimena--all were lauded. Nothing was talked of but "solid painting," "solidity of technique," "painting with a full brush." The sublime beauties of fresco were forgotten, as were the men who had found expression in the grand, the universal art of design. It seemed, forsooth, as if art had begun in the seventeenth century, for in the estimation of these innovators the first of all masters, after Veronese, was Rubens, and according to them Rubens had but one equal--Rembrandt. What they admired in Rembrandt, however, was not exactly his genius, his poetic invention, and the delicacy of his marvelously expressive drawing; but the freedom, the boldness, of his style, the so-called secrets of his etchings, the intensity of his famous lights, contrasting with the transparency of his underpainting--all the alchemy of his mysterious methods.
From these departures from the established methods of the French school Ingres in his turn reacted, and as he was convinced that he was right and was by nature violent, he reacted with conviction and with violence. He loved nature but not naturalism. He was willing that his pupils should salute Rubens, but they must not pause before him in the Louvre, but pass on to Perugino, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolommeo, Andrea del Sarto. All beautiful variations of color were to his mind inferior to the eloquence of form. The affectation of searching for effect seemed to him a means of degrading painting to the level of the theatrical. To the decorators of Venice he preferred the draftsmen of Florence; to Delacroix, he preferred Ingres.