essionist, post, anti, or otherwise--is its power to
stimulate these mental perceptions within the mind.

But even from the point of view of the _true_ visual perception (if
there is such a thing) that modern art has heard so much talk of, the
copying of the retina picture is not so great a success. The impression
carried away from a scene that has moved us is not its complete visual
aspect. Only those things that are significant to the felt impression
have been retained by the mind; and if the picture is to be a true
representation of this, the significant facts must be sorted out from
the mass of irrelevant matter and presented in a lively manner. The
impressionist's habit of painting before nature entirely is not
calculated to do this. Going time after time to the same place, even if
similar weather conditions are waited for, although well enough for
studies, is against the production of a fine picture. Every time the
artist goes to the selected spot he receives a different impression, so
that he must either paint all over his picture each time, in which case
his work must be confined to a small scale and will be hurried in
execution, or he must paint a bit of today's impression alongside of
yesterday's, in which case his work will be dull and lacking in oneness
of conception.

And further, in decomposing the colour rays that come to the eye and
painting in pure colour, while great addition was made to the power of
expressing light, yet by destroying the definitions and enveloping
everything in a scintillating atmosphere, the power to design in a large
manner was lost with the wealth of significance that the music of line
can convey.

But impressionism has opened up a view from which much interesting
matter for art is to be gleaned. And everywhere painters are selecting
from this, and grafting it on to some of the more traditional schools of
design.

Our concern here is with the influence this point of view has had upon
draughtsmanship. The influence has been considerable, particularly with
those draughtsmen whose work deals with the rendering of modern life. It
consists in drawing from the observation of the silhouette occupied by
objects in the field of vision, observing the flat appearance of things
as they are on the retina. This is, of course, the only accurate way in
which to observe visual shapes. The difference between this and the
older point of view is its insistence on the observation of the flat
visu