say of Charles Baudelaire, entitled Le Peintre de la Vie
Moderne, to be found in Volume III of his collected works (L'Art
Romantique), remains thus far the standard reference study concerning
Guys, though deficient in biographical details. Other critical studies
are by Camille Mauclair, Roger Marx, Richard Muther, and George
Grappe; and recently Elizabeth Luther Cary in a too short but
admirably succinct article characterised the Guys method in this
fashion: "He defined his forms sharply and delicately, and used within
his bounding line the subtlest variation of light and shade. His
workmanship everywhere is of the most elusive character, and he is a
master of the art of reticence." Miss Cary further speaks of his
"gentle gusto of line in motion, which lately has captivated us in the
paintings of the Spaniard Sorolla, and long ago gave Botticelli and
Carlo Crivelli the particular distinction they had in common."
Mauclair mentions "the most animated water-colour drawings of Guys,
his curious vision of nervous elegance and expressive skill," and
names it the impressionism of 1845, while Dr. Muther christened him
the Verlaine of the crayon because, like Verlaine, he spent his life
between the almshouse and a hospital, so said the German critic.
Furthermore, Muther believes it was no mere chance that made of
Baudelaire his admirer; in both the decadent predominated--which is
getting the cart before the horse. Rops, too, is recalled by Guys, who
depicted the gay grisette of the faubourgs as well as the nocturnal
pierreuse of the fortifications. "Guys exercised on Gavarni an
influence which brought into being his Invalides du sentiment, his
Lorettes vielles, and his Fourberies de femmes."

It is not quite fair to compare Guys with Rops, or indeed with either
Gavarni or Daumier. These were the giants of French illustration at
that epoch. Guys was more the skirmisher, the sharpshooter, the
reporter of the moment, than a creative master of his art. The street
or the battle-field was his atelier; speed and grace and fidelity his
chief claims to fame. He never practised his art within the walls of
academies; the material he so vividly dealt with was the stuff of
life. The very absence of school in his illustrations is their chief
charm; a man of genius this, self-taught, and a dangerous precedent
for fumblers or those of less executive ability. From the huge mass of
his work being unearthed from year to year he may be said to have