Jacques de Caso, pre-eminent specialist of nineteenth-century French sculpture, is preponderantly responsible for re-inserting the great Romantic sculptor, David d'Angers, into the art historical narrative of French Romanticism. In his 1988 book, David d'Angers: L'Avenir de la mémoire (translated in 1992 as David d'Angers: Sculptural Communication in the Age of Romanticism), in numerous articles, in his recent critical edition with Jean-Luc Marais of the recently discovered letters of Victor Pavie to David (2021), de Caso unveils the sculptor as a prepotent artist dedicated to communicating significant cultural and historical concepts in his art. In "Tremblez chacals", a testament to David d'Angers' eloquent writing, we discover the sculptor as a dedicated and independent author who addresses a great range of ideas and observations, often expressed in a poetic and moving style. In these meticulously transcribed and copiously annotated published texts, drafts, and manuscripts, de Caso reveals David as an insightful and fearless writer who valued the written word as a practice that was "consubstantiel de la pratique et de l'expérience de la sculpture" (135). De Caso relates this consubstantiality of the practice of art with that of writing to the visual and written oeuvre of Delacroix, who acknowledged and admired David d'Angers, the writer as well as the artist. In a letter to David penned after reading his article on the sculptor, Thorvaldsen, Delacroix writes: "La rectitude d'un pareil jugement ne doit pas surprendre de votre part, mais la manière dont il est exprimé et le style de votre lettre me prouvent une fois encore que les seuls vrais écrivains sont ceux qui ne le sont pas par métier". (130-131) In addition to David's learning and interest in history, we learn throughout the book of the sculptor's capacious literary culture and his friendship with the great Romantic writers, including Hugo and Sainte-Beuve, among others.

Rather than adopt a chronological approach, de Caso has grouped the writings into five principal themes: "Art et Société"; "Artistes, Littérateurs et Politiques"; "Ars Princeps: La Sculpture"; "L'Histoire"; "Poésie et Société". He has included the manuscript versions, transcribed and made accessible for the first time, in order to give the reader a means of following the sculptor/writer's train of thought. In his magisterial 120-page "Introduction" to David as writer, historian, and critic of his time, annotated in minute detail, de Caso addresses these themes and contextualizes them. The annotations found here and throughout the book, based on a wealth of archival material and primary sources, many hitherto inaccessible, greatly enrich our understanding of French Romantic history and culture.

In transcribing meticulously and accurately the writings of David d'Angers, de Caso provides a very significant corrective to Henry Jouin's late 19th-century monograph on the sculptor and related publications. Jouin sought to establish the place of David d'Angers in 19th-century French art and culture according to his own lights. The pronounced biographical emphases of his works served as a foundation for studying the sculptor until de Caso took up the cause. Jouin included passages from David d'Angers' writings that he claimed as accurate transcriptions. In "Tremblez chacals", de Caso demonstrates the extent to which Jouin "sanitized", transformed, and interpreted the sculptor's written word, likely for political reasons as well as a desire to promote a certain image of the artist for posterity (de Caso addressed this initially in a 1991 Art Bulletin article, "A Philological Imposture: Henry Jouin, Interpreter of David d'Angers"). The correct version of the texts presents a very different picture of the sculptor as writer, thinker, and ardent devotee of the ideals and principles of the French Revolution and the First Republic, Liberty first and foremost.

Throughout the two volumes, de Caso comments on major themes in David's writings and underscores that David, in dramatic contradistinction to sculptors of his time (most notably, his principal rival, James Pradier), eschewed subjects based on sensual mythological subjects and embraced instead Enlightenment ideals of sculpture as a moral and didactic art. Thus, David chose to dedicate much of his art to the creation of monuments to the "Grands hommes", individuals who had contributed to advancing civilization and to ameliorating the human condition across many domains. In addition to large-scale statues and monuments (including the vast pediment of the Pantheon in which an allegorical figure of a grateful Country crowns a gathering of the Grands hommes of France), David created busts and also an extensive gallery of medallions depicting portraits of those he deemed worthy of commemoration, great individuals, both men and women. David wrote that the sculptor must provide an historical record of those who most contributed to the "archives" of humanity, that these commemorative works of public sculpture must be didactic and educate the public about the important contributions made across literary, artistic, cultural, and scientific domains. David likened the sculptor who was dedicated to these ideas to the mythic Deucalion: "Le statuaire Deucalion, qui sème les statues des grands hommes sur toute la terre [...] (864-5).

David d'Angers often writes of his emotional responses to all that he observes and experiences around him, and as he reads and interprets the signs and symbols of nature, he refers to the soul, the spirit, and to universal ideas. De Caso highlights and comments extensively upon texts that reveal David's profound empathy with those suffering from illness, poverty, injustice, and the cruelty of regimes, typically expressed in a haunting and poetic style.

There are many surprises and revelations in this two-volume treasure trove. Among them is de Caso's discovery and transcription of David d'Angers' biography of his revered teacher and mentor, Jacques-Louis David. De Caso includes the manuscript versions that the sculptor prepared for this 1848 article in which he emphasizes the painter's works that reveal his ardent embrace of the ideals of the French Revolution and Republic. The biography of the painter by the sculptor he so inspired, is just one of the many examples brought to light and adduced by de Caso that attest to the richness of David d'Angers' perspicacious writings and meditations on art, artists, and a multitude of historical, political, and social aspects of 19th-century Romantic culture.

One finishes a reading of "Tremblez chacals" with a renewed and enhanced respect for David d'Angers - already acknowledged as a masterful Romantic sculptor of signal importance - revealed in these writings as a thinker and writer of the first order.

Dorothy Johnson