To these names let us add that of M. Degas, one of the most keen and least charitable ob servers of the life of to-day, a careful student of jockeys, an unkind humorist and a wonderful draughtsman ; and also those of M. Raffaelli, the late Monticelli, Lebourg and Guilla.
The teachings of Impressionism, even though denied by the corrupt followers of Ingres, Cab inel and Bouguereau, who was greatly Ital ianized, and by Meissonier and Gerome, °Petits Maitres,° who lose themselves in minutiae, are of advantage to the liberal minded. M. Bes nard made some innovations in this direction in his great decorative compositions and his brilliant portraits, painted in a most fascinat ing manner, show masterly handling. Henry Martin, a decorator and also a historical painter; M. Laurent, a portrait painter; and M. Le Sidaner, a landscape painter, all profited from this cleaning of the French palette. And the school of young artists claimed the name of °Neo-impressioniste.° Before mentioning the names of the young generation it would be well to note those of the °Traditionalists') who defend — and some times with great ability — the academic tradi tions. They are the pure and Giorgionesque Henner, a painter of nymphs with ivory bodies; the classical Delaunay; the severe Jean Paul Laurens, portrayer of a civilization that has van ished; the melancholic Cazin with his fine fancy; the vigorous Roll; the delicate and nerv ous Henry Levy; in fact all the members of the Institute; Benjamin Constant; Bonnat, pronouncedly pedantic painter, director of the °Ecole des Beaux Arts° ; M. Detaille who rep resents military painting, cold and panoramic, never painting a graceful detail ; M. Carolus • Duran, an elegant virtuoso; MM. Ffameng, Jacques Blanche, and Antonio de la Gandora, a skilful poser of female figures.
All these exhibit in the salons, either in the °Societe des Artistes Francais° — in which the most noted names are those of MM. Jules Adler and Hanicotte — or in the °Societe Na tionale" where MM. Cottet, Lucien Simon, Aman Jean, Rene Menard and George Des valliere compete with them.
This digression ended, we must — in order to describe those who fell heir to Impressionism — single out two men who stand apart, whose talent though incomplete is not without great merit ; Paul Ganquin, the painter of Polynesian scenery and luxuriant vegetation in decorative pages, and Cezanne. From them proceed the rising masters of to-morrow who win distinc tion in the °Salon d'Automne° and the "Inde pendents°: MM. Vuillard, Signac Bennard, Maurice Denis, George D'Espagnat, Dufrenoy and Marquet. All enthusiastic young painters of exuberant vigor, working very hard and taking pleasure in it and who, notwithstanding their exaggerated colorists, do not despair of attaining renown in the true and liberal French school.
The limits of this brief study compel us to name, only, the illustrious draughtsmen, whimsi cal painters or humorists, engravers, water colorists and lithographers, who recall Dau mier, Constantin Guys, Gustave Dore, Avarni and Toulouse-Lautree, who bear witness to the originality and fertility of French imagination and humor; they are Bracquemond, Lepere, Cheret, Willette, Odilon, Redon, Forain and Louis Legrand.
What are the leading tendencies, the main currents which govern French pictural art to day? Impressionism henceforth is to take its place in history. It was always recognized that this was not an isolated manifestation, a contradiction to the traditions of the veritable school, but on the contrary a logical return to such traditions which had been tainted by a degenerate Italianism. As a matter of fact it is academicism and not impressionism which is really international. Impressionism may be de fined as a reactionary movement the Greco-Latin spirit and the scholastic organiza tion of painting such as had been imposed on it after the Second Renaissance, by the School of Fontainebleau, Louis XIV's century, the School of Rome and the consular and imperial style. It is also a no less normal reaction against the dark and bituminous style of the degenerate inheritors of Romanticism. In 1850 the sun, which shone alike for all, did not ap parently cast its rays on the students' work shops. The impressionists, however, by dili gent travail, sub Jove credo were able to rectify this omission. It was Turner's ex ample which determined Claude Monet and Pissarro in 1871 to modify entirely their pal ette. These two masters, at that time young, were struck with admiration by Turner's land scapes in the National Gallery of London. They perceived on studying his pictures that the white effects of the snow were obtained by polychromes and realized that the proper tech nic to be established was that of the division of tone. They accordingly eliminated the
earths and the blacks from their palettes. Im pressionism was therefore especially a technical movement, a revolution in the art of preparing and composing the palette, in a word, a method, a means, a tool, thanks to which artists suc ceeding them were able to make a great devel opment in decorative art. The impressionists knew that color does not exist by itself, that the coloring of objects is merely pure illusion, the creative source of the colors being the solar light which reveals and diversifies the objects according to the hours of the day and the state of the atmosphere. Drawing and color exist together in nature; without light there is neither color nor form. It is by light alone that we conceive that a drawing is the limitation of color and its contour. That is why, basing their theory on this,— justified moreover by the works of Chevreul and these in novators decided to employ only the seven primitive tones of the solar spectrum, thus fol lowing light itself. In this way they brought about the suppression of the local tone with a view to bathing their landscapes in an atmos phere of a continually diversified character. They consequently sounded the death knell of the old academic conception of "ombres noire (black shadows), and painted shadows, not darker and thicker, but clearer and transparent in different grades of shadings. Owing to these impressionist measures and to the dis sociation of tonality, light became the essential theme of the picture and painting evolved, strictly speaking, toward an optical art. The landscape, so conceived, is a symphony, start ing from a luminous theme and developing on the canvas variations of this theme. The ad versaries of impressionism objected that the process was easy to employ. In this they were greatly mistaken. On the contrary, the process is exceedingly difficult in unskilled hands result ing in a confused and disjointed whole. To paint in divided tones and keep a just relation of color, avoiding too brilliant reflexes demands an extraordinary surety of eye and hand, an acute sensibility and a perfect chromatic science. Impressionism has rendered immense service to contemporary painting, renovating it, invigorating it and rejuvenating it. It is one of the most beautiful artistic movements in the history of art. It has brought a gust of pure air, a caressing touch to a superior nature. The work of the masters of this school is one of light and a feast for the eye. A landscape by Monet stimulates the imagination; we look at a canvas of Berthe Morisot and for the time we live in a delightful park. The influence of French impressionism on foreign painting was equally felt; in Germany, Max Lieberman, Felix Borchardt, Gothardt Knehl, Karl Koep ling, abandoned, in order to follow this new movement the symbolic romanticism of Boek lin and the Academic traditions of Stuck; in Norway, Tfianlon, Carl Larson, Skredsvig, Dereks; in Denmark, 'Kroger; in Belgium, Claus, Verheyden, Theo Van Ryselberghe; in Spain, Anglade, Dario de Regnoyos, Sorolla; in Italy, de Sezantine; in America, Lewis Brown, who followed de Mault and Degas, and those brilliant virtuosos Morris, Miller, Frieseke. The direct followers of impression ism were the “Pointillistes? They brought the obroken touch)) method to a greater degree of perfection, but instead of combining the or pure colors on the palette they represented them by dots of unmixed pigment laid side by side on the canvas in order to con fer a high pitch of vivacity and an increase of luminosity to their works. The Pointil listes were too often scholars and theorists who made a profound study of the laws of solar analysis, They were criticized in a bantering manner and their work compared to a display of so much confetti; indeed it could be objected, not without reason, that their theories of a cold mathematical precision left no place for that spirit of inspiration and creative imagina tion sought for -in masters. They left nothing to chance, there were no effects at virtuosity, no liberties taken with the palette. It is not surprising therefore that we prefer their aquarelles to their more pretentious works, as they are more spontaneous, more directly ap pealing and quite often exquisite. Impression ism and Pointillism are really so much technic or methods employed to obtain the maximum of luminous saturation on a canvas.