landscapes as full of
distinction as Monet's. The nervous vivacity of his brush, his love of
rendered surfaces, of melting Boucher-like heads, and of a dazzling
Watteau colour synthesis have endeared him to the discriminating." He
may be deficient in spiritual elevation--as were Manet, Monet, and the
other Impressionists; but as they were primarily interested in
problems of lighting, in painting the sun and driving the old mud gods
of academic art from their thrones, it is not strange that the new men
became so enamoured of the coloured appearances of life that they left
out the ghosts of the ideal (that dusty, battered phrase) and
proclaimed themselves rank sun-worshippers. The generation that
succeeded them is endeavouring to restore the balance between
unblushing pantheism and the earlier mysticism. But wherever a Renoir
hangs there will be eyes to feast upon his opulent and sonorous colour
music.

III - MANET

In the autumn of 1865 Theodore Duret, the Parisian critic, found
himself in the city of Madrid after a tour of Portugal on horseback. A
new hotel on the Puerta del Sol was, he wrote in his life of Manet, a
veritable haven after roughing it in the adjacent kingdom. At the
mid-day breakfast he ate as if he had never encountered good cooking
in his life. Presently his attention was attracted by the behaviour of
a stranger who sat next to him. The unknown was a Frenchman who abused
the food, the service, and the country. He was so irritable when he
noticed Duret enjoying the very _plats_ he had passed that he turned
on him and demanded if insult was meant. The horrible cuisine, he
explained, made him sick, and he could not understand the appetite of
Duret. Good-naturedly Duret explained he had just arrived from
Portugal and that the breakfast was a veritable feast. "And I have
just arrived from Paris," he answered, and gave his name, Edouard
Manet. He added that he had been so persecuted that he suspected his
neighbour of some evil pleasantry. The pair became friends, and went
to look at the pictures of Velasquez at the Prado. Fresh from Paris,
Manet was still smarting from the attacks made on him after the
hanging of his Olympia in the Salon of 1865. Little wonder his nerves
were on edge. A dozen days later, after he had studied Velasquez,
Goya, and El Greco, Manet, in company with Duret, returned to Paris.
It was the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

About eight years ago Duret's definitive biog