time, without, however, conveying its spiritual or intellectual
expression; showing also the rich and grave middle period in which
beauty of face and form and the charm of elegant accessories are
rendered with singular intensity and perfect sincerity; as in _Les
Visiteuses_, _Desesperee_, etc.; and, finally, showing the psychological
synthesis of the later years, which reveals itself in such works as _Un
Sphinx Parisien_, baffling in its fixed introspective gaze, and executed
with an impeccable technique.

Many of the early pictures have a joyousness of frank workmanship, a
directness of attack and a simplicity of arrangement that appeal to the
world at large more freely than the subtler blonde harmonies of the
later years. The _Profil de Femme_ (1855) in which M. Lambotte discerns
the influence of Rembrandt, is more suggestive to the present writer of
familiarity with Courbet's bold, heavy impasto and sharp transitions
from light to shadow. The _Reverie_ of the preceding year has also its
suggestions of Courbet, in spite of the delicately painted flowers in
the Japanese vase; but in the pictures of the next few years, the robust
freshness of the painter's Flemish vision finds expression in
color-schemes that resemble nothing so much as the gardens of Belgium in
springtime, filled with hardy blossoms and tended by skillful hands; _La
Consolation_ of 1857, for example, in which the two black-robed women
form the heavy note of dead color against which are relieved the pink
and white of their companion's gown, the pale yellow of the wall, the
blue of the floor and the low, softly brilliant tones of the beautiful
tapestry curtain. Another painting of about the same time has almost
the charm of Fantin-Latour's early renderings of serious women bending
over their books or their sewing. In _La Liseuse_ the girl's face is
absorbed and thoughtful, the color harmony is quiet, the white dress,
the dull red of the chair, the blue and yellow and green wools on the
table, forming a pattern of closely related tones as various in its
unity as the motley border of an old-fashioned dooryard. In other
examples we have reminiscences of that time of excitement and esthetic
riot when the silks and porcelains and enamels of the Far East came into
the Paris of artists and artisans and formed at once a part of the
baggage of the Parisian atelier. _L'Inde a Paris_ is a particularly
delightful reflection of this period of "Chinoiseries." It depict