d majestic.

His versatility amazes. He did not always paint the same picture. The
Christ Between Two Thieves is academic, yet attracts because the
expression of the converted thief is remarkable. The Three Magi and
Moses Within Sight of the Promised Land do not give one the fullest
sense of satisfaction, as do The Daughters of Thespus or The Rape of
Europa; yet they suggest what might be termed a tragic sort of
decoration. Moreau is a painter who could have illustrated Marlowe's
fatuous line, "Holla, ye pampered jades of Asia," and superbly; or,
"See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament." He is an exotic
blossom on the stem of French art. He saw ivory, apes, and peacocks,
purple, gold, and the heavens aflame with a mystic message. He never
translated that message, for his was an art of silence; but the
painter of The Maiden with the Head of Orpheus, of Salome, of Jason
and Medea, of Jupiter and Semele, will never fail to win the
admiration and homage of those art lovers who yearn for dreams of
vanished ages, who long to escape the commonplaces of the present.
Gustave Moreau will be their poet-painter by predilection.

Once in the streets of prosaic Paris he is as unreal as Rossetti or
the Pre-Raphaelites (though their superior as one who could make
palpable his visions). In the Louvre--where the _Salon Carre_ is
little changed--Manet's Olympe, with her every-day seductiveness,
resolves the phantasies of Moreau into thin air. Here is reality for
you, familiar as it may be. It is wonderful how long it took French
critics to discover that Manet was _un peintre de race_. He is very
French in the French gallery where he now hangs. He shows the lineage
of David, one of whose declamatory portraits with beady eyes hangs
near by. He is simpler than David in his methods--Mr. C.S. Ricketts
critically described David as possessing the mind of a policeman--and
as a painter more greatly endowed. But Goya also peeps out from the
Olympe. After seeing the Maja desnuda at the Prado you realise that
Manet's trip to Madrid was not without important results. Between the
noble lady who was the Duchess of Alba and the ignoble girl called
Olympe there is only the difference between the respective handlings
of Goya and Manet.

PICTURES IN MADRID

I

The noblest castle in Spain is the museum on the Prado. Now every
great capital of Europe boasts its picture or sculpture gallery; no
need to enumerate the treasures of ar