Manet, the most
individual woman painter that ever lived; and Mary Cassatt, a pupil of
Degas, though more closely allied to the open-air school in her
methods. Miss Cassatt possesses a distinguished talent. As a school
impressionism has run down to a thin rill in a waste of sand. It is
more technical than personal, and while it was lucky to have such an
exponent as Claude Monet, there is every reason to believe that
Monet's impressionism is largely the result of a peculiar penetrating
vision. He has been imitated, and Maufra and Moret are carrying on his
tradition--yet there is but one Monet.

We know that the spectral palette is a mild delusion and sometimes a
dangerous snare, that impressionism is in the remotest analysis but a
new convention supplanting an old. Painters will never go back to the
muddy palette of the past. The trick has been turned. The egg of
Columbus has been once more stood on end. Claude Monet has taught us
the "innocence of the eye," has shown us how to paint air that
circulates, water that sparkles. The sun was the centre of the
impressionistic attack, the "splendid, silent sun." A higher pitch in
key colour has been attained, shadows have been endowed with vital
hues. (And Leonardo da Vinci, wonderful landscapist, centuries ago
wrote learnedly of coloured shadows; every new discovery is only a
rediscovery.) The "dim, religious light" of the studio has been
banished; the average palette is lighter, is more brilliant. And
Rembrandt is still worshipped; Raphael is still on his pedestal, and
the millionaire on the street continues to buy Bouguereau. The amateur
who honestly wishes to purge his vision of encrusted painted
prejudices we warn not to go too close to an impressionistic
canvas--any more than he would go near a red-hot stove or a keg of
gunpowder. And let him forget those toothsome critical terms,
decomposition, recomposition. His eyes, if permitted, will act for
themselves; there is no denying that the principles of impressionism
soundly applied, especially to landscape, catch the fleeting,
many-hued charm of nature. It is a system of coloured stenography--in
the hands of a master. Woe betide the fumbler!

II - RENOIR

The secret of success is never to be satisfied; that is, never to be
satisfied with your work or your success. And this idea seems to have
animated Auguste Renoir during his long, honourable career of painter.
In common with several members of the impressioni