d easy to
foresee the new formula that would spring from theirs, that rush of
sunshine, that limpid dawn which was rising in new works under the
nascent influence of the 'open air' school. It was undeniable; those
light-toned paintings over which people had laughed so much at the Salon
of the Rejected were secretly influencing many painters, and gradually
brightening every palette. Nobody, as yet, admitted it, but the first
blow had been dealt, and an evolution was beginning, which became more
perceptible at each succeeding Salon. And what a stroke it would be if,
amidst the unconscious copies of impotent essayists, amidst the timid
artful attempts of tricksters, a master were suddenly to reveal himself,
giving body to the new formula by dint of audacity and power, without
compromise, showing it such as it should be, substantial, entire, so
that it might become the truth of the end of the century!

In that first hour of passion and hope, Claude, usually so harassed by
doubts, believed in his genius. He no longer experienced any of those
crises, the anguish of which had driven him for days into the streets in
quest of his vanished courage. A fever stiffened him, he worked on with
the blind obstinacy of an artist who dives into his entrails, to drag
therefrom the fruit that tortures him. His long rest in the country had
endowed him with singular freshness of visual perception, and joyous
delight in execution; he seemed to have been born anew to his art,
and endowed with a facility and balance of power he had never hitherto
possessed. He also felt certain of progress, and experienced great
satisfaction at some successful bits of work, in which his former
sterile efforts at last culminated. As he had said at Bennecourt, he
had got hold of his 'open air,' that carolling gaiety of tints which
astonished his comrades when they came to see him. They all admired,
convinced that he would only have to show his work to take a very high
place with it, such was its individuality of style, for the first time
showing nature flooded with real light, amid all the play of reflections
and the constant variations of colours.

Thus, for three years, Claude struggled on, without weakening, spurred
to further efforts by each rebuff, abandoning nought of his ideas, but
marching straight before him, with all the vigour of faith.

During the first year he went forth amid the December snows to place
himself for four hours a day behind the height