ic truth. But this research has
remained confined to pictures. It may be presumed that, had they wished
to do so, Manet and Degas could have admirably illustrated certain
contemporary novels, and Renoir could have produced a masterpiece in
commenting, say, upon Verlaine's _Fetes Galantes_. The only things that
can be mentioned here are a few drawings composed by Manet for Edgar A.
Poe's _The Raven_ and Mallarme's _L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune_, in addition
to a few music covers without any great interest.

But if the Impressionists themselves have neglected actively to assist
the interesting school of modern illustration, a whole legion of
draughtsmen have immediately been inspired by their principles. One of
their most original characteristics was the realistic representation of
the scenes, the _mise en cadre_, and it afforded these draughtsmen an
opportunity for revolutionising book illustration. There had already
been some excellent artists who occupied themselves with vignette
drawings, like Tony Johannot and Celestin Nanteuil, whose pretty and
smart frontispieces are to be found in the old editions of Balzac. The
genius of Honore Daumier and the high fancy of Gavarni and of Grevin had
already announced a serious protest of modern sentiment against academic
taste, in returning on many points to the free tradition of Eisen, of
the two Moreaus and of Debucourt. Since 1845 the draughtsman Constantin
Guys, Baudelaire's friend, gave evidence, in his most animated
water-colour drawings, of a curious vision of nervous elegance and of
expressive skill quite in accord with the ideas of the day.
Impressionism, and also the revelation of the Japanese colour prints,
gave an incredible vigour to these intuitive glimpses. Certain
characteristics will date from the days of Impressionism. It is due to
Impressionism that artists have ventured to show in illustration, for
instance, figures in the foreground cut through by the margin, rising
perspectives, figures in the background that seem to stand on a higher
plane than the others, people seen from a second story; in a word, all
that life presents to our eyes, without the annoying consideration for
"style" and for arrangement, which the academic spirit obstinately
insisted to apply to the illustration of modern life. Degas in
particular has given many examples of this novelty in composition. One
of his pastels has remained typical, owing to the scandal caused by it:
he represents a dance