ntry
to the artist. The field was chosen by men in whose blood there still
raced some of the gleeful or solemn exultation of great art--Millet who
loved dignity like Michelangelo, Rousseau whose modern brush was dipped
in the glamour of the ancients. It was chosen before the day of that
strange turn in the history of art, of which we now perceive the
culmination in impressionistic tales and pictures--that voluntary
aversion of the eye from all speciously strong and beautiful
effects--that disinterested love of dulness which has set so many Peter
Bells to paint the river-side primrose. It was then chosen for its
proximity to Paris. And for the same cause, and by the force of
tradition, the painter of to-day continues to inhabit and to paint it.
There is in France scenery incomparable for romance and harmony.
Provence, and the valley of the Rhone from Vienne to Tarascon, are one
succession of masterpieces waiting for the brush. The beauty is not
merely beauty; it tells, besides, a tale to the imagination, and
surprises while it charms. Here you shall see castellated towns that
would befit the scenery of dreamland; streets that glow with colour like
cathedral windows; hills of the most exquisite proportions; flowers of
every precious colour, growing thick like grass. All these, by the grace
of railway travel, are brought to the very door of the modern painter;
yet he does not seek them; he remains faithful to Fontainebleau, to the
eternal bridge of Grez, to the watering-pot cascade in Cernay valley.
Even Fontainebleau was chosen for him; even in Fontainebleau he shrinks
from what is sharply charactered. But one thing, at least, is certain:
whatever he may choose to paint and in whatever manner, it is good for
the artist to dwell among graceful shapes. Fontainebleau, if it be but
quiet scenery, is classically graceful; and though the student may look
for different qualities, this quality, silently present, will educate
his hand and eye.

But, before all its other advantages--charm, loveliness, or proximity to
Paris--comes the great fact that it is already colonised. The
institution of a painters' colony is a work of time and tact. The
population must be conquered. The innkeeper has to be taught, and he
soon learns, the lesson of unlimited credit; he must be taught to
welcome as a favoured guest a young gentleman in a very greasy coat, and
with little baggage beyond a box of colours and a canvas; and he must
learn to preser