studies, his pearly-toned beautifully drawn nudes, his
lithographs with their soft darks and tender manipulations of line, his
ambitious imaginative compositions, are none of them so eloquent of his
personality as his portraits with their absolute integrity, their fine
divination, and their fluent technique. The portrait which we reproduce
is of Madam Maitre, was painted in 1882, and was acquired by the Museum
of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1906. It represents a
woman of middle years with a sincere and thoughtful face and a quiet
bearing. The felicities of Fantin's brush are seen in the way in which
the silk sleeve follows the curve of the round firm arm, and the soft
lace of the bodice rests against the throat and is relieved almost
without contrast of color against the white skin. The touches of pure
pale blue in the fan and the delicate tints of the rose are
manifestations of the artist's restrained and subtle management of
color, but above all there is a perfectly unassuming yet uncompromising
rendering of character. There is nothing in the plain refined features
that cries out for recognition of a temperament astutely divined. They
have the calm repose that indicates entire lack of self-consciousness,
no quality is unduly insisted upon, there is neither sentimentality nor
brutal realism in the handling, the sitter simply lives as naturally
upon the canvas as we feel that she must have lived in the world. It is
for such sweet and logical truth-telling, such mild and strict
interpretation, that we must pay our debt of appreciation to Fantin, the
painter of ideal realities and of actual ideals.

CARL LARSSON

IX

CARL LARSSON

The accomplished Swedish critic, Georg Nordensvan, opens his monograph on
Carl Larsson with the statement that the latter is unquestionably the
most popular artist of the present day in his own country, and that he is
equally popular as a man. It is not often that the personality of an
artist seems so essentially connected with his work as in Larsson's case.
His gay, pugnacious, independent, yet amiable temper of mind is so
directly reflected in the character of his various production as to make
a consideration of the two together an almost necessary prelude to any
account of him. He has insisted upon expressing his individuality at
whatever cost of traditional and conventional technique and he has at the
same time unconsciously represented the frankest, most