It was that amplification and exaggeration of forms, by which alone movement can be expressed in art, that led the unthinking to the belief that Delacroix "could not draw." Of course, the application of Ingres's standard of classic perfection in drawing might justify the conclusion, but one need only glance at Delacroix's sketch-books and studies to realise that he was a great draughtsman, if drawing, as it was to him, is considered the means towards an end, and not an end in itself. And his mastery of spontaneous, nervously expressive drawing was as complete as it could be, if mastery can be acquired through the curbing of impetuous genius by half a century's methodical, steady practice. For Delacroix, from his early student days to his death, never started on his day's work without having first "got his hand in" by half-an-hour's practice in sketching or drawing, just as a pianist will first run through his finger exercises and scales, to make sure of his mastery over his instrument. Thus, by unremitting practice, Delacroix acquired such absolute command of the language of line and form that, in the pictorial expression of his ideas, he used it as an orator uses the language of words--in a steady flow, without doubts and hesitations. His inspiration was not checked and weakened by the struggle for an adequate form of expression. There was nothing in life and in nature that did not stimulate his artistic curiosity, and all his sketches betray the same passionate search for the really essential, the elements of life and movement and mood, which are often to be obtained only by the sacrifice of literal correctness. He never tired of making drawings after Rembrandt's etchings, and he spent many hours at the Jardin des Plantes, in the company of the animal sculptor Barye, sketching and painting wild beasts from life. Indeed, Delacroix was rarely rivalled, and probably never surpassed, as a painter of animals either in repose or in the very frenzy of movement.