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Rh terms his aversion from the theatrical tendencies of contemporary art, and even from the theatre. "The Luxembourg gallery," said he, "has given me an antipathy to the theatre. I have always had a marked dislike to the exaggerations, the falsities and simperings of actors and actresses. I have seen a little of the people belonging to that particular sphere and have become convinced that by dint of trying to assume the personality of someone else they cease to know their own, that they come to speak only according to their parts, and that they lose truth, common sense and the simple feelings of plastic art. If one would produce true and natural art, one must avoid the theatre."

More energetically still did he protest against the claim made by his friends and his enemies to reckon him with the socialist camp. Like many other French artists who lived at the time of the 1848 Revolution, he felt, naturally enough, a fraternal sympathy that drew him towards the people; but it should be noted that neither Millet nor, with the exception of Courbet, any of the greatest among these painters joined in the popular