The Zest of Delacroix
The Journal of Eugene Delacroix. Translated from the French by Lucy Norton. (Phaidon. 21s.) Tuts pleasant volume is the translation of a selection from Delacroix's Journal, and, oh, what a good book it is. Wherever I have compared it with the original it seems to have been very well done. The format of the book makes it very pleasant to handle, one can slip it into the pocket ; the foreword is full of information, the introduction is excellent. Altogether, the Phaidon Press must be congratulated on this venture, which should be a great and enduring success. I have known Delacroix' Journal for a long time. It must have been in 1910 that Auguste Breal first lent me his copy in Seville and I disgraced myself by losing one of the volumes ; I had to send for another set from Paris and I was left with the incomplete one. Later on I bought an improved version in France, three volumes of it. What zest Delacroix had, and, oh, what a very great man he was ! Universally liked, socially well placed, magnificently aware of his great gifts, sensitive, crying when he felt so dispoged. What pleasure awaits anybody who will read this book : one goes into the country with him, one goes to a party, one goes into the city, to his studio (and in the French text one even peeps in on a few stray love affairs). I have been dipping into this book for over forty years, and I don't think that any book has ever given me more entertainment. There are lots of interesting books, but a more interesting book I have never met. I recommend it to all painters especially, nay, to all and sundry, to beg, borrow or buy. I should not lend it if I were you. I was asked to review this book round about Christmas, and I said I would like to because I had always admired it. I looked up certain loved passages and compared the English with the original and they all seemed very well translated indeed. But then 1 started browsing in the book again and got comfortably lost. This has been going on ever since and I have written many thousand words of enthusiasm, which of course the Spectator would not dream of publishing. Every now and again my secretary has said : " You must get on to cutting that review," and I have said : " Yes, of course I must," and then started browsing again. It is a good thing for my business that I have at last decided to publish none of it— only just this quite inadequate review ; but if I have made clear to you that it is an adorable book, that it is one of my favourite books, that if you don't buy (or borrow) it you will be depriving yourself of the most extraordinary pleasure, then I have achieved my object.
GERALD KELLY.
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