Watteau was not a consumptive of the Pole's type.
He did not alternate between ecstasy and languor. He was cold,
self-contained, suspicious, and inveterately hid the state of his
health. He might have been cured, but he never reached Italy, and that
far-off dream and his longing to realise it may have been the basis of
his last manner--those excursions into a gorgeous dreamland. He
yearned for an impossible region. His visions on canvas are the
shadowy sketches of this secret desire that burned him up. It may have
been consumption--and Mauclair makes out a strong case--and it may
have been the expression of a rare poetic temperament. Watteau was a
poet of excessive sensibility as well as the contriver of dainty
masques and ballets.

In literature one man at least has understood him, Walter Pater.
Readers of his Imaginary Portraits need not be reminded of A Prince of
Court Painters, that imaginative reconstruction of an almost obscure
personality. "His words as he spoke of them [the paintings of Rubens]
seemed full of a kind of rich sunset with some moving glory within
it." This was the Watteau who is summed by Pater (a distant kinsman,
perhaps, of the Pater Watteau tutored) as a man who had been "a sick
man all his life. He was always a seeker after something in the world,
that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all." Camille
Mauclair eloquently ends his study with the confession that the mere
utterance of Watteau's name "suffices to evoke in men's minds a memory
of the melancholy that was his, arrayed in garments of azure and rose.
Ah! crepuscular Psyche, whose smile is akin to tears!"

XIII. GAUGUIN AND TOULOUSE-LAUTREC

I - GAUGUIN

The key-note to the character of Paul Gauguin, painter and sculptor,
may be found in his declaration that in art there are only
revolutionists or plagiarists. A brave speech. And a proud man who
uttered it; for unless he wished to avoid its implications he must
needs prove his sincerity. In the short, adventurous, crowded life
vouchsafed him, Paul Gauguin proved himself indeed a revolutionary
painter. His maxim was the result of hard-won experiences. He was born
at Paris June 7, 1848--a stormy year for France; he died at Dominique
May 9, 1904. His father was a native of Brittany, while on his
mother's side he was Peruvian. This mixed blood may account for his
wandering proclivities and his love for exotic colouring and manners.
To further accentuate the rebell