The classic subject was abandoned by the romanticists for dramatic scenes of mediaeval and modern times. The romantic hero and heroine in scenes of horror, perils by land and sea, flame and fury, love and anguish, came upon the boards. Much of this was illustration of history, the novel, and poetry, especially the poetry of Goethe, Byron, and Scott. Line was slurred in favor of color, symmetrical composition gave way to wild disordered groups in headlong action, and atmospheres, skies, and lights were twisted and distorted to convey the sentiment of the story. It was thus, more by suggestion than realization, that romanticism sought to give the poetic sentiment of life. Its position toward classicism was antagonistic, a rebound, a flying to the other extreme. One virtually said that beauty was in the Greek form, the other that it was in the painter's emotional nature. The disagreement was violent, and out of it grew the so-called romantic quarrel of the 1820's. LEADERS OF ROMANTICISM: Symptoms of the coming movement were apparent long before any open revolt. Gros had made innovations on the classic in his battle-pieces, but the first positive dissent from classic teachings was made in the Salon of 1819 by Gericault (1791-1824) with his Raft of the Medusa. It represented the starving, the dead, and the dying of the Medusa's crew on a raft in mid-ocean. The subject was not classic. It was literary, romantic, dramatic, almost theatric in its seizing of the critical moment. Its theme was restless, harrowing, horrible. It met with instant opposition from the old men and applause from the young men. It was the trumpet-note of the revolt, but Gericault did not live long enough to become the leader of romanticism. That position fell to his contemporary and fellow-pupil, Delacroix (1799-1863). It was in 1822 that Delacroix's first Salon picture (the Dante and Virgil) appeared. A strange, ghost-like scene from Dante's _Inferno_, the black atmosphere of the nether world, weird faces, weird colors, weird flames, and a modelling of the figures by patches of color almost savage as compared to the tinted drawing of classicism. Delacroix's youth saved the picture from condemnation, but it was different with his Massacre of Scio two years later. This was decried by the classicists, and even Gros called it "the massacre of art." The painter was accused of establishing the worship of the ugly, he was no draughtsman, had no selection, no severity, nothing but brutality. But Delacroix was as obstinate as Ingres, and declared that the whole world could not prevent him from seeing and painting things in his own way. It was thus the quarrel started, the young men siding with Delacroix, the older men following David and Ingres.