, quite frankly, the
technique of the young Pointillist painters, his juniors, because it
appeared to him better than his own. He is, if not a great painter, at
least one of the most interesting rustic landscape painters of our
epoch. His visions of the country are quite his own, and are a
harmonious mixture of Classicism and Impressionism which will secure one
of the most honourable places to his work.

[Illustration: PISSARRO

RUE DE L'EPICERIE, ROUEN]

[Illustration: PISSARRO

BOULEVARDE MONTMARTRE]

[Illustration: PISSARRO

THE BOILDIEAUX BRIDGE AT ROUEN]

[Illustration: PISSARO

THE AVENUE DE L'OPERA]

There has, perhaps, been more original individuality in the landscape
painter Alfred Sisley. He possessed in the highest degree the feeling
for light, and if he did not have the power, the masterly passion of
Claude Monet, he will at least deserve to be frequently placed by his
side as regards the expression of certain combinations of light. He did
not have the decorative feeling which makes Monet's landscapes so
imposing; one does not see in his work that surprising lyrical
interpretation which knows how to express the drama of the raging waves,
the heavy slumber of enormous masses of rock, the intense torpor of the
sun on the sea. But in all that concerns the mild aspects of the _Ile de
France_, the sweet and fresh landscapes, Sisley is not unworthy of being
compared with Monet. He equals him in numerous pictures; he has a
similar delicacy of perception, a similar fervour of execution. He is
the painter of great, blue rivers curving towards the horizon; of
blossoming orchards; of bright hills with red-roofed hamlets scattered
about; he is, beyond all, the painter of French skies which he presents
with admirable vivacity and facility. He has the feeling for the
transparency of atmosphere, and if his technique allies him directly
with Impressionism, one can well feel, that he painted spontaneously and
that this technique happened to be adapted to his nature, without his
having attempted to appropriate it for the sake of novelty. Sisley has
painted a notable series of pictures in the quaint village of Moret on
the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where he died at a ripe
age, and these canvases will figure among the most charming landscapes
of our epoch. Sisley was a veteran of Impressionism. At the Exhibition
of 1900, in the two rooms reserved for the works of this school, there
were to be seen a