! He did not begin to draw, that is, for a
living, until past forty. His method of work was simplicity itself,
declare those who watched him at work. He seemingly improvised his
aquarelles; his colour, sober, delicate, was broadly washed in; his
line, graceful and modulated, does not suggest the swiftness of his
execution. He could be rank and vulgar, and he was gentle as a refined
child that sees the spectacle of life for the first time. The
bitterness of Baudelaire's flowers of evil he escaped until he was in
senile decadence. In the press of active life he registered the shock
of conflicting arms, the shallow pride of existence and the mere joy
of living, all in a sane manner that will ever endear him to lovers of
art.

George Moore tells the following anecdote of Degas: Somebody was
saying he did not like Daumier, and Degas preserved silence for a long
while. "If you were to show Raphael," he said at last, "a Daumier, he
would admire it; he would take off his hat; but if you were to show
him a Cabanel, he would say with a sigh, 'That is my fault.'"

If you could show Raphael a croquis by Constantin Guys he would
probably look the other way, but Degas would certainly admire and buy
the drawing.

XI. IMPRESSIONISM

I - MONET

The impressionists claim as their common ancestors Claude Lorraine,
Watteau, Turner, Monticelli. Watteau, Latour, Largilliere, Fragonard,
Saint-Aubin, Moreau, and Eisen are their sponsors in the matters of
design, subject, realism, study of life, new conceptions of beauty and
portraiture. Mythology, allegory, historic themes, the neo-Greek and
the academic are under the ban--above all, the so-called "grand
style." Impressionism has actually elevated genre painting to the
position occupied by those vast, empty, pompous, frigid, smoky,
classic pieces of the early nineteenth century. However, it must not
be forgotten that modern impressionism is only a new technique, a new
method of execution--we say new, though that is not exactly the case.
The home of impressionism is in the East; it may be found in the vivid
patterns woven in Persia or in old Japan. In its latest avatar it is
the expression of contemporaneous reality. Therein lies its true
power. The artist who turns his face only to the past--his work will
never be anything but an echo. To depict the faces and things and pen
the manners of the present is the task of great painters and
novelists. Actualists alone count in the