And now comes the line of Romantic Real ists instituted by Decamps, the Orientalist; these will continue in Marilhat and the dainty Fro mentin, one of the most limited in range of any of the artists of the Romantic school, and also Daumier, a superb worker in black and white, who, in addition to his celebrated lithographs, did innumerable small panels which are very Expressive, thrillingly tragic, and of a grand and sombre spirit. The Romantic realist Courbet — the grandson of the bitter Gericault — fol lowed; then came Edouard Manet. Camille Corot, however, the follower of Poussin, bathed his scenes from Virgil in a diffuse, angelic and superb light. The damp, chilly charm of the morning, the veiled mysteries of the evening, are the themes he chose. Corot is a unique master in French art. He has a very fasci nating, delicate and consummate charm. An other man standing alone is Jean Francois Millet, known as being the interpreter of the sad figures of peasants in the fields. Both be longed to the Barbizon school (Qv.).
Courbet modified the trend of Romantic art ; he took the lead in realism, and was an artless, vehement and capable leader, forming his views directly from life, of excellent health and in the first rank of historical painters. His style was degraded owing to the influence of the followers of Ingres, and he was fully imbued with the spirit of Flandrin — the con ventional and insipid painter of the nude,— and by Manet,— the Franz Hals of French soil. Round him are grouped Ribot and Bonvin.
At first under the influence of Velasquez, Goya and Franz Hals, Manet tried his skill and found the bent of his genius. He eliminated all bitumen from the palette, which left only the infinite combinations of the seven prismatic colors. He transformed Romantic Realism into a vision of modern life and was noted for representing the manners and customs of the second empire. He is not understood. The well-known and conscientious critic, le Caf ouent, paid him tribute 20 years after his death. His 'Olympia) has at last been placed in the Louvre. Manet broke off all connection with the Im pressionists, but before taking this important and reactionary step he restored to their rank two illustrious men who, in the midst of Real ism, mark the return toward mystic dreami ness: one of them is Gustave Moreau who carried out the heroic and legendary ideals of Eugene Delacroix in the dreamy magnificence of the Hindoo palaces, in the luxurious hier atisms of Hebraic royalty and in the fabu lous Hellas. He was a visionary idealist. The other one is Puvis de Chavannes, so long mis understood, who is the greatest fresco painter of the 19th century, the author of Sainte Gene vieve of the Pantheon, of the celebrated mural decorations of the Sorbonne and in the United States of the Boston Public Library.
He was not only a great painter, but a great poet. Impressionism now became noted. This style, however, was followed by neither Fantin Latour — devoted to Wagner and Virgil and em earnest and serene portrait painter —nor by Carriere — happily inspired to ;taint his Ma ternities in monochrome. To explain better the spirit of these designs let me say that Car riere did not permit himself the use of color.
Impressionism is a special study of light. Claude Monet, a fellow-worker with Manet, came into notice about 1867; he encouraged landscape painting founded on the vibratility of ambient light. The Impressionist school took its name from a picture by Monet, modestly entitled 'Impression,' which was ridiculed. The name of this work so ridiculed became a rally ing point. Luminous effects predominate in the vibrating marines of Claude Monet. His pictures (a series of cliffs, of mill-stones, of poplars and of cathedrals), copied at every hour of the day, all from the same angle, are different aspects of the same theme under the effects of the sun's rays. Monet employs the method of separating the tones; under his brush inanimate objects volatilize into irides cent and versicolored phantoms.
Near Claude Monet struggled Sisley, Renoir and Camille Pissarro, who immediately fell under the spell of the °Petits Maitres,° fore runners of the Impressionists, Boudin and Lepecie.
If Monet affiliated with Claude Lorrain and Watteau, Renoir followed the 18th century and Boucher, but a Boucher of a different power. Exceedingly appreciative of female beauty he embodied it in creatures charmingly natural and glad to be alive and he thus expanded only beautiful flowers of flesh under the rays of light, that they seemed to drink in at every pore. He was the great painter of, the de la Galetted the gem of the Caillebotte Gallery, Luxembourg Museum. Berthe Morisot left a series of water-colors, exquisite, spirited and of refined taste, painted in a style between that of Monet and Renoir.
Alfred Sisley was like Claude Monet, with the exception that he laid much less stress on the experimental demonstration of a theory of art. His subjects, the environs of Paris, are noted for the quick and accurate perception and the light touch with which they are treated. Camille Pissarro sang, in a generous and frank spirit, of shepherds, market-gardens and Nor man villages.