able to approach and if it can be said that Whistler has
"painted the soul of color," it certainly can be said that Stevens here
has painted its embodied life. For the most part we have, however, to
think of Alfred Stevens as a portraitist of the ponderable world; a
Flemish lover of brilliant appearances, a scrupulous translator of the
language of visible things into the idiom of art. In the picture
entitled _L'Atelier_, which we reproduce, is a more or less significant
instance of his artistic veracity. On the crowded wall, forming the
background against which is seen the model's charming profile, is a
picture which obviously is a copy of the painting of _La Fuite en
Egypte_ by Breughel. Two versions of the same subject, one, the original
by Breughel the elder, the other, a copy by his son, now hang in the
Brussels Museum, alike in composition but differing in tone, the son's
copy having apparently been left in an unfinished condition with the
brown underpainting visible throughout. That this, and not the elder
Breughel's, is the original of the picture in Steven's _L'Atelier_ is
clear at the first glance, the warm tonality having been accurately
reproduced and even the drawing of the tree branches, which differs much
in the two museum pictures having conformed precisely to that in the
copy by the younger Breughel. It is by this accuracy of touch, this
respect for differences of texture and material, this recognition of the
part played in the ensemble by insignificant detail, this artistic
conscience, in a word, that Stevens demonstrates his descent from the
great line of Flemish painters and makes good their tradition in modern
life. Many of his sayings are expressive of his personal attitude toward
art. For example:

"It is first of all necessary to be a painter. No one is wholly an
artist who is not a perfect workman."

"When your right hand becomes too facile--more facile than the thought
that guides it, use the left hand."

"Do not put into a picture too many things which attract attention. When
every one speaks at once no one is heard."

Concerning technique, he says to his pupils: "Paint quantities of
flowers. It is excellent practice. Use the palette knife to unite and
smooth the color, efface with the knife the traces of the brush. When
one paints with a brush the touches seen through a magnifying glass are
streaked with light and shade because of the hairs of the brush. The use
of the palette knife rende