Before six months were up another assassination, this time of one of the leaders of the revolution—Marat—roused the members of the Convention and the populace to the utmost. Hardly had the news spread abroad before one of the members of the Convention arose crying: “Where art thou, David? You made a portrait of Le Pelletier for posterity when he died for his country, now the occasion has arisen for another work.” “This too I will do,” David answered, and produced one of his most moving compositions (Figs. 16 and 20). It is planned with great power and simplicity, and filled with deep and tragic feeling, for Marat was his friend. Nothing has aroused more astonishment than this friendship of David’s for Marat who has been regarded as the bloodthirsty instigator of the horrors and deviltries of the revolution. If we look into the matter more closely, however, we must recognize in Marat qualities which explain the esteem of men like David. He had remarkable philosophic and scientific gifts. While his enemies described him as a quack doctor, or, as Carlisle erroneously states, a veterinary, as a matter of fact his professional contributions as an oculist were so remarkable that some of his writings have been reprinted even of late years. Before the revolution he was the most celebrated oculist of the aristocracy, and the Comte d’Artois, later Charles X, had appointed him as his personal physician at a salary of two thousand pounds. His philosophical writings, such as the three volume Essays on Man which appeared in English and French, achieved a reputation for him abroad. Although he did not become a member of the French Academy, on account of his disagreement with Voltaire and his attack on Newton, no less a person than Goethe expressed himself concerning this injustice. Benjamin Franklin, too, was among those who visited Marat and were interested in his experiments in physics.

On the outbreak of the revolution he abandoned his career as doctor and scholar to develop an astonishing public zeal founded on his passion for the new ideas. He influenced the development of the new forms of government in no small measure, advised against copying the English constitution with which he had familiarized himself during a stay in England, and opposed all who attempted to assume Dictatorship, even Mirabeau, then Lafayette and later General Dumouriez, whose treason he foresaw before Dumouriez went over to the Austrians and the Girondists. He voted for the condemnation of the King, whom he accused of treason to his country, but advised against his condemnation for events which happened prior to the revolution. That he was not so bloodthirsty as his opponents would have us believe is proved by his insistence that Malesherbes, the king’s advisor, should not be condemned with him as he was “a wise and venerable old man.”

How many of the wild imprecations which were published against his enemies, and particularly against the nobility in his journal L’Ami du Peuple may be laid at his door, is a question. This paper was suppressed at various times, and while Marat was in hiding it appeared with distorted versions of his opinions given out by his enemies or supposed friends, in the endeavour to bring discredit on him. The really established facts concerning him place him in no unfavorable light. He opposed the Girondists because he opposed a foreign war, from which he felt not only the Monarchists but those Radicals who worked in the dark like the Girondists hoped to draw advantage, and which he felt might result in the establishment of a military dictatorship. He foresaw the September murders, and demanded the establishment of a tribunal for the prisoners. This was not done, and the murders consequently took place.

True his impassioned pen evoked death and destruction upon his opponents, but he was persecuted all his life and his enemies retaliated in kind. More than once he fled from death, hiding for weeks at a time in cellars and in sewers and contracting from lack of nourishment all sorts of bodily ills which his iron energy enabled him to disregard. Ill, unable to attend the Convention, although working all day long, he sought relief in hot baths where he wrote by placing a board across the bath for his books and papers. With, in any case, but a short time to live, he fell victim to the murderer’s knife in the hands of an eccentric and talented young noblewoman, Charlotte Corday, who hoped to end the revolution by murdering Marat, whereas her deed had exactly the opposite effect. She belonged to the Girondist circles whose persecution followed the outbreak of the war and whose suppression Marat demanded when at first victory seemed doubtful.

Marat was unquestionably a true friend of the people and his published and spoken convictions were utterly sincere. In spite of his powerful and completely independent position, for he was affiliated with no particular party, he rejected every salaried position, every political distinction and lived in the poorest circumstances, the very bathtub which he used and which later attained a sort of celebrity as a curiosity being borrowed from a neighbor. He received petitioners without number, and endeavoured in the “Letterbox” of his paper, which he was the first to introduce, to answer the countless questions put by the people. Charlotte Corday only obtained an interview with him after several unsuccessful attempts, by pretending that she was seeking help for a widow with five children. The paper which Marat holds in his hand in David’s picture was sent in by her to obtain admission, and not without reason or effect has the artist made these words legible: “13 July, 1793, Charlotte Corday to Citizen Marat.” “To be unfortunate is to be sure of your assistance.” An order for 25 francs which Marat had made out for the widow in whose name Charlotte Corday sought his aid lies on the stool in the foreground. Her dagger seems to have found him while he affixed his signature to it.

This composition is among David’s finest achievements in its combination of very simple forms and great expressiveness. We almost feel the corpse still lives, still breathes. The most touching naturalness is combined with a truly heroic style comparable to that of France’s great tragic poets, such as Racine and Corneille. If we remember that at the time this picture was painted, the elegant Rococo painters were still producing their piquant compositions, we recognize that in art as in life a new era had dawned, an art founded on entirely new conceptions, which built its compositions with large and massive forms and sought again those depths of inspiration which had entirely disappeared from the art of the court painters.

David painted still another composition as propaganda for his political ideals. A thirteen-year-old drummer boy, Joseph Bara, fell in the battles in the Vendee in December, 1793, and David was commissioned by the Convention to immortalize the death of this young hero of the Republic. This painting, now in the Museum at Avignon, although unfinished, and very simple in conception, has many charming qualities. French writers have particularly praised the purity and elegance of the drawing and the beauty of the youthful form; and in fact the swelling rhythmic line and vivacity of the bodily forms are very pleasing. If, however, we analyse the essentially novel quality in this art, it lies in the reduction of the composition to its bare essentials, combined with a deepened expressiveness. The scene of the battle in which the boy fell is only lightly indicated. In the background are clouds which might be cannon smoke, and far to one side the disappearing form of a standard bearer. The boy presses the republican cockade to his breast with one hand—there is no other indication of the day’s realities—everything else is universal, idealistic. The nakedness, the boy’s idealized features, the wide empty spaces of the background with its suggestion of a hill—everything is concentrated on the suffering and inspiration which speak from the lines of the body. The moment of transition from life to death—which to be sure the friends of the revolution had ample chance of observing—is wonderfully depicted. We feel the trembling of the body, the lift of the breast, the stiffening of the mouth and of the half-closed eyes. The curious color scheme of the painting, the thin sulphur yellow background, the pale blue shadows in the figure, the luxuriant dark brown hair and the brightly colored cockade—contrive a curious effect.

Close bonds of friendship united David to Danton and Robespierre, the two other leaders of the Reign of Terror, as well as to Marat—although this applies only to the early days where Danton is concerned. The break with him is one of the episodes in the painter’s life which is most difficult to explain although David can hardly have been alone to blame, for Danton’s violent nature was prone in moments of passion to transform friends into foes. It is unfortunate, however, that David did not exhibit more independence in his political opinions, and that even though he allowed himself to be dragged in Robespierre’s train, he helped in the downfall of this most stirring of the revolutionary heroes.

The varying attitudes of revolutionary critics make it even harder to evaluate Danton’s personality and contribution than that of Marat. Unlike Marat he was no knight of the pen, but a man of words and deeds, living fiercely in the passions of the moment, and always at his best in the times of greatest difficulty.

The personal documents which give us intimate glimpses of the personalities of the other revolutionary leaders are entirely lacking in Danton’s case. He was too impulsive for this form of expression, or, in his leisure moments, too lazy. His portraits give one an impression of the strength and softness, obstinacy and good nature, energy and procrastination, which characterized this hero of the revolution whose dramatic fate has been the inspiration of many a poet. His career was short but glorious. He rose like a meteor from the obscurity of a provincial law practice to a dominating position, and during the years 1792 to 1794 his powerful figure was in the foreground and associated with every important event. His opponents accused him of cruelty and dishonesty. It is undeniable that he occasionally indulged his wild impulse to destroy those that opposed him, as witness his speech, “Revolutions cannot be carried out on tea.” Although the September murders occurred during his day, his guilt lies rather in not preventing them, than in any instigation of them. He was occupied at that time with the formation of the volunteer army, and the monument erected to his memory by the City of Paris in the eighties, which depicts him inspiring the citizens with flaming words to departure for the tottering front, was well deserved. Whatever the faults of his stormy and excitable nature, he did more than any other to save his country in a moment of grave danger. So far as his dishonesty is concerned, he seems now and then to have dealt not all too accurately with State and private property, but his patriotism was none the less sincere. We must remember that not all active natures can live on nothing, like Marat and Robespierre, and that a powerful physical constitution demands other recreations. Danton had far more love of life than the dry Robespierre, and liked to be surrounded by his men and women friends. He finally, to the horror of some historians, acquired a small country property where he hoped, his labours over, to retire with wife and children, an ambition destined never to be fulfilled.

There is in the Museum at Troyes a portrait by David of Danton’s first wife,7 the brave Gabrielle, a healthy, capable and intelligent housewife with black eyes and rosy cheeks—a true type of the new Bourgeoisie. She seems to have been as cheerful as she was kind, and gave Danton several children to whom he was tenderly attached. She was destined not to see his downfall. When in February, 1793, he returned from the Belgian front, he found that his wife had died and been buried several days previously. It is characteristic both of his love for her and his untamed nature that seven days after her death he had both grave and coffin opened up, embraced the corpse and commissioned a sculptor friend to make a death mask and a bust of her. His friends had great difficulty in saving him from an emotional breakdown. Even the cool Robespierre sought to comfort him in the most feeling manner in a letter in which he pledges him his devotion and friendship unto death. How quickly and how passionately they lived, these revolutionaries! A couple of months later Danton married a sixteen-year-old girl, and a year after that, Robespierre, who had promised—and undoubtedly with sincere conviction—to be true to him till death, brought him to the guillotine.

The dual rule of two temperaments so opposed as Danton’s and Robespierre’s could not endure for long. One cannot conceive a greater contrast than that between the robust Danton, who loudly proclaimed his every thought and the elegant frail Robespierre who was all self-control and deliberation.

How clever and calculating an actor Robespierre was is shown by the account of his attempted murder by a young girl after the manner of Marat’s. The attempt failed. The crowd surged up the stairs to his room to congratulate him. Robespierre was seated in a corner calmly peeling an orange. Without a word he looked sternly at the intruding crowd, till in embarrassment they crept away. In his place Danton undoubtedly would have launched into an impassioned speech of thanks.

Robespierre and his friend St. Just (Fig. 21) are both men of pleasing appearance—almost good-looking as compared to Danton’s ugly bull-dog countenance. They were, especially Robespierre, who wore a wig and sword to the last, neat and even elegant in their dress, which differed sharply from Danton’s almost gypsy-like effect.

Unfortunately the “Titan”—so accustomed was he to towering above his opponents in the Convention and pelting them with his Shakespearian witticisms—underestimated his puny but quick-witted and accurate opponent, Robespierre, and before he realized it, he had met his doom. Just as Danton was about to mitigate the rigours of the Convention’s procedure, just as he hoped to take things a bit more easily personally, came his impeachment—plotted so subtly by Robespierre and his helper St. Just that there was no escape. So desperate a fight did the giant put up, however, for himself and his friends that it hung by a thread that his accusers might find themselves ruined in his stead. After a number of most dubious witnesses had testified against Danton, St. Just felt it wiser to deny him all defence by having the Court decide that anyone who conducted himself so offensively toward his judges as Danton, could be condemned without further hearing. Danton’s mere presence was enough to dismay the jury, who, moreover, were not really convinced of his guilt. When they retired, a rumor went about that he had been acquitted. His accusers, thereupon, rushed to the jury room and forced the rebellious members to submission. It is here that our artist, who was a devoted admirer of Robespierre, appears in no favorable light. He pressed about the jury with other members of the Convention, and the report runs, called out to those who were still hesitating, “Do you still believe Danton innocent? Has he not already been judged by public opinion? Only cowards could so conduct themselves!” What a fine argument!! One member of the jury burst into sobs, and, as he could not bring himself to vote for Danton’s impeachment, he was asked: “Who is more useful to the Republic, Robespierre or Danton?” “Robespierre,” replied the juryman sobbing. “Then Danton must go to the guillotine,” was the response.

Then came the day of the execution with its procession of three wagons, each bearing five or six condemned prisoners, and towering above them all, Danton looking proudly over the heads of the throng. The procession passed the little Café de Parnasse where, once upon a time, he had met his Gabrielle; then the Café de la Regence, and whom did he see there? It is hard to believe. There sat his former friend, the traitorous David, busily making a drawing of him (perhaps the drawing in the museum at Lille, Fig. 17). “Lackey!” Danton called to him in scorn. Next, as the procession passed Robespierre’s house, Danton called out, “You will soon follow me! Your house will be torn down, and men will cast salt upon the earth where it stood.”

Danton tried to the last to cheer the friends around him—the ordinarily merry Camille Desmoulins who was grieving over his bride, Lucille; the poet Fabre, who affirmed that one of his accusers, who was also a poet, would doubtless steal his unprinted manuscripts and publish them under his own name. “Soon that will no longer worry you,” said Danton to him. The executions were quickly under way. The sun was setting, and Danton’s giant figure was silhouetted darkly against the evening sky. One of his friends wanted to embrace him but the executioner would not permit it. He wanted to finish his task before sundown. “Idiot,” said Danton to him, “Will you be able to prevent our heads from kissing each other in the basket?” For one moment he flinched when he thought of his young wife, “My beloved, shall I never see you again?” Then, with an effort, he exclaimed, “Come Danton, let there be no weakness,” and to the executioner, “Show my head to the people. It is worth it.” These were his last words.

The curse uttered by Danton as he passed Robespierre’s house was fulfilled all too quickly. Before five months were up, Robespierre trod the same path, and the wagon was halted before his house to let the deposed Dictator see the mob in its fury sprinkling his door with the blood of a slaughtered ox.

And now the earth began to tremble under David’s feet. He was to the last a devoted adherent of Robespierre. When the latter on the eve of his fall read to the Jacobins his defence which ended with the words, “I am ready to drink the poisoned cup,” David cried out “We will drink it with you.” He must have been thinking of his portrayal of the death of Socrates, but he probably hardly realized how imminent was the fall of the last great leader of the revolution and how very nearly he himself was involved in that fall.

David, as we know, did not complete his painting of Bara. This was because he was planning for the Convention a festival in honor of the fallen drummer boy. He was a great master in the arrangement of such celebrations. With their carefully designed costumes, massed choirs, improvised statues and profusion of flowers and patriotic orations, they must have been astonishingly impressive, comparable only to the national festivals of the Roman Empire. Unfortunately these artistic manifestations of the revolution, which constituted an appreciable part of David’s life work, were in their nature transitory. David had set the date of the Bara festival for the 10th Thermidor (July 26, 1794). This was the very day of Robespierre’s downfall, and his execution took place two days later. Through this coincidence of date—or had David been warned?—he did not attend the sitting of the Convention on the 10th Thermidor. Had he done so, he would undoubtedly have been arrested and guillotined with Robespierre’s other adherents.

When he came into the Convention hall three days later he was denounced by André Dumont and obliged to defend himself. He probably believed the end had come. He was no orator, and his defect of speech made things still harder for him. He stood there, pale and fearful, and it is said a nervous perspiration so dewed his forehead that it dripped down his coat to the floor. Where now was the courage with which he had offered to die with Robespierre; with which when Marat was attacked in the Convention he had once exclaimed: “Kill me in his place!” Yes, it was undoubtedly easier to make drawings of one’s enemies and former friends on their road to the guillotine than to defend one’s life before a tribunal of the people. He made so pitiful an impression that they let him go. Two days later, however, it was thought wiser to arrest him. At first his sentence was light and he was allowed to work, but soon, after another stormy session of the Convention, he was transferred to the Luxembourg. His imprisonment lasted five months. Toward the end, conditions were again made easier and he was allowed to work. Then he was set free, and again, this time at the instigation of his fellow artists, imprisoned for months. Finally during the general amnesty at the end of the year 1795 he again obtained his freedom. This was the end of his political activities. The terrible months of uncertainty during his imprisonment, when death so often stared him in the face, must have been a time of spiritual growth for him, for they resulted in his painting a marvellous series of portraits. His achievement at this time, and during the following years when the revolution slowly ebbed, is the greatest of his artistic career.

There is first of all a portrait depicting the artist at the period of his imprisonment (Fig. 22). It is seldom that a self portrait expresses so vividly the perplexities of a period of terror as do the haunted eyes of this young fanatic. These eyes have been called evil, and David himself described as a good artist but an evil man. The moral equipment of the revolutionaries cannot be summarized in such simple fashion, however. David’s political opponents hit nearer the mark when they called him to the defence of Marat, “What does that prove so far as Marat is concerned? Only the devotion of an honorable man who is allowing himself to be carried away by excitement.” That David’s political life was so passionate, may be due in part to the youthful violence of his friends. Nearly all the revolutionary leaders were in their early thirties, an age which is apt to be the stormy period of a man’s life. Old people do not bring about revolutions. David, to be sure, was forty at the time of its outbreak, but see how youthful he still looked; and the unspent store of his strength is proved by the great age to which he lived.

He painted another important work during his imprisonment—a little landscape of the Luxembourg Gardens as seen from his window (now in the Louvre), one of the first modern realistic landscapes which seem to foreshadow Courbet’s efforts. The eighteenth-century conception of landscape was very different. The landscapes were like theatrical scenery, built up with carefully divided “wings.” Here, for the first time, a French artist dared to paint an unpromising bit of earth exactly as he saw it, with all nature’s accidental qualities. A garden fence in the middle runs diagonally across the picture, while over in one corner is an avenue of trees which should conventionally have been in the center of the canvas—no planned symmetrical construction, no coulisses in the foreground. Here, too, was a break with tradition—a new beginning.

The two portraits of Monsieur and Madame Seriziat (Figs. 18 and 19), painted by David while he was still under arrest, are particularly illuminating as regards his personality. How could an artist, above whose head the sword of Damocles still hung, paint such sunny and optimistic portraits? We would, in fact, appreciate only one side of David if we think of him always as the stern Roman, never as the light-hearted Frenchman. From the beginning to the end of his artistic career, side by side with his classic compositions and his moving revolutionary portrayals (Fig. 23), he painted a series of charming portraits which prove that through all the horrors of the revolution he never lost his Gallic light-heartedness or his feeling for grace. At the beginning of the series stands the pleasing portrait of Vigée LeBrun, painted in 1793, and at the end, the famous portrait of Madame Recamier painted in 1800. In these works there is still an echo of eighteenth century elegance, a trace of that esprit and glamour which always distinguishes the best of French art. Yet the forms, the simple outlines, the wide empty spaces of the background and the flatness of the treatment is wholly new. And besides in these portraits we find for the first time representations of the Bourgeoisie which replace those of the aristocracy of the eighteenth century and whose best types became henceforth the patrons of art which in former days the courts had been.

Scarcely a year had passed since David’s escape from prison when his freedom was again endangered by the royalist youth who believed that the moment of reaction had arrived. But now there appeared in his studio one day—this was at the end of 1796—an officer sent by General Bonaparte who asked in his name whether he would accept an offer of safety with his army in Italy. It is evidence of the extraordinary farsightedness of Napoleon that his feelers extended everywhere—wherever there might be future support for his power. But David did not accept the offer: not that he had not at once recognized in Bonaparte his coming greatness—in fact he already called him his “hero”—for David’s instinct was in this respect just as unerring as was Bonaparte’s—but that he had most likely promised himself, as a result of the terrible experience of the last years, to no longer become embroiled in political affairs. Napoleon’s political position was at this time not yet assured, he did not give up the idea of tempting our artist. When he returned from Italy he called at his studio for the first time and wished to be painted. His restless spirit, however, could endure only one sitting. The wonderful sketch which resulted (Fig. 24) is still in existence and proves that Bonaparte knew what he was about when he desired David to become the blazoner of his coming power. No artist has given us from the very beginning so idealized a conception of his personality. The breadth of the design in this unfinished composition; the noble verve of the position; the dauntlessness of expression: everything was in keeping with the great historical style that Napoleon himself might have dreamed of. A few weeks later David received an invitation from Napoleon to accompany him on his Egyptian campaign. Again the artist refused although he had already entirely succumbed to the personality of the great general. When Napoleon returned from Egypt he visited David frequently and flattered him by taking him around Paris and talking over with him his plans for beautifying the city. At the end David fell completely under the influence of the stronger personality, as had happened before in the case of Marat and Robespierre. And in the same degree that Napoleon’s personality was more powerful than that of the revolutionaries, his influence was the more crushing. Only in this way can we account for the fact that the one-time revolutionary-champion of democratic ideals became at the end the court painter of the emperor. But this was not to the advantage of David’s art. So long as Napoleon had not yet reached the height of his power—that is until about 1800—our artist succeeded in producing several imposing compositions in honor of the First Consul, especially the famous portrait on horseback, where he is shown ascending the Alps, symbolically representing his rise to the highest heights of glory—certainly an extraordinary translation of a still living and even young personage into the realm of the ideal and of history. But when Napoleon had become emperor and David his none too carefully treated servant, his art became weaker and weaker from year to year, the while his compositions grew larger in size. When after the downfall of the emperor and the return of the Bourbons he left France in exile and settled in Brussels, where he lived until the year 1824, he still attracted the attention of the world through his many pupils and admirers, though his art now belonged to the past.

David belongs with the few artists who are mentioned not only in the history of art but also in political history—perhaps a doubtful advantage, for preoccupation with two so conflicting fields as art and politics, was only possible through the sacrifice of one or the other. Indeed David as politician lived only in the shadow of the greater ones. In the field of art he was at his best when his political ideas did not tempt him too much toward abstract themes—that is to say, in portraiture, when he had the model before him. As a human being his forte lay in a highly sensitive response to the most intense intellectual and emotional currents of his time. Since, during the greater part of his lifetime, these currents were not primarily of an artistic nature, his art could not always take advantage of them.

This too intense interest in the great events of the day was perhaps his weak point: the fact that he submitted too easily to the ephemeral demands of his contemporaries, preferring the fortune of a successful present to the glory which the future reserves only for the highest aims and the complete renunciation of the demands of the day. From his earliest years David had the critics on his side, and the steady stream of admirers that had gathered about him showed no decrease, remaining with him even in the most dangerous periods of his life. How different did it fare with one of his really great contemporaries—Beethoven—who throughout his life had to contend with uncomprehending critics, but who is quoted as having said in this connection, “Damn me as much as you like; you are not able to damn me into eternity.” Just as to the great ones is given as a recompense for the misunderstanding of their day the consciousness of their own value to the future, so the artist who is glorified in his own time knows his own limitations. David said himself that many of his own works such as the Brutus no longer had a living value. It was his bad fortune that he was in too close contact with the affairs of the revolution, for the greatest art (we return here to our introductory remarks) cannot arise in the midst of bloodshed. There can be no doubt of where the unattached and eternal art lay during David’s period, when we call to mind the poetry of Goethe or the music of Beethoven. The centers where the greatest poet and the greatest musician of the days of the revolution lived—Weimar and Vienna—were far removed from the theater of the struggle, just as Rembrandt’s art flowered outside the scene of the Thirty Years War. From a distance the deafening war clangor permeated into the quiet worlds of these rulers in the realm of art; from a distance through transfiguring light appeared to them the new ideas for which the struggle was waged. Such should be the milieu where the greatest art is born—impregnated with the shower of the newly created ideas, but quietly and not to such a degree that its own existence is imperilled.

This chance for perspective also makes it possible for the really great artist to judge worldly matters more clearly than the one who lives in the midst of the fray. How much more impartially, for instance, did Beethoven, who otherwise did not care for politics, judge the events of the times than David, who worried about them half his lifetime! Beethoven, also, like the best of his contemporaries, was democratically inclined and applauded the new revolutionary ideas. When Napoleon became First Consul he recognized his greatness and desired to celebrate in his music the hero who had brought the revolution to completion. He began his great symphony, the “Eroica,” and wrote upon the title page the name of Bonaparte next to his own. When the news was brought to him that Napoleon had crowned himself emperor, indignant that his illusions had been dispelled and that Bonaparte had become as tyrannical as the crowned heads which the revolution had deposed, he tore up the dedication and began the symphony anew, ending it with the funeral march.

The fascination of the art and the personality of David lies in the fact that they reflect the period of the greatest intellectual and social upheaval of his nation—an upheaval such as comes to every nation once in its history, with such a force that through it the whole world is shaken. In such moments of history creations of centuries collapse at one blow. The foundations of faith and of morals waver; the ties of family and friendship are torn apart and even the customary tasks of the day, under other circumstances serving as an anchor alike to the weak and the strong, appear useless and cease: like the flood of the terrific storm which engulfs us, rudely tearing away from the strongest the guiding of their own fate, and forcing the slothful into the maelstrom of the higher general will. What remains for the individual who, hesitating, stands at the edge of the precipice, viewing the tragic drama? Can he do better than to plunge into the stream, keeping afloat as best he may?

Happy the one who in such periods succeeds like our artist in preserving so much of his own identity that from out the history of this chaos his name still rings with vibrant life.