His spirit was fortified and nourished by the warmth of his imagination, and assisted by an adequate technique, marvellously suited to the expression of his ideas, he produced the colossal art of his later years. If his performance is studied with reference to the vicissitudes and the adventures of which it is eloquent, the influence upon his works of the times in which they were created is obvious. The changes in his life, the transference from those gay and tranquil years to others full of the horrors of blood and fire, of shame and banishment, tended, without doubt, to discipline his spirit and excite his intelligence. His natural bias to the fantastic and his tendency to adapt the world to his visions seized upon the propitious occasion in a time of invasion and war to exalt itself, or, as he himself expressed it, “the dream of reason produces prodigies.” An artist and creator more as regards expression than form, especially in the second phase of his work, unequal in achievement and at times inaccurate, he sacrificed much to divest himself of these faults. He deliberately set himself to discipline his ideas and develop that degree of boldness with which he longed to infuse them. But he was not quite able to subject himself to reality, and, as he was forgetful and indolent, that which naturally dominated him began to show itself in quite other productions of consummate mastery. This art, imaginative in expression and idea, is more striking as regards its individual and original qualities, than for any degree of discipline which it shows.