dance. Till
the last half of the last century his name had been almost forgotten
outside Spain. Now, among the modern 'impressionists' so-called, he
is perhaps more studied than any other painter. When we were looking
at the pictures of this great man, we saw how he and Rembrandt were
among the earliest to learn the value of subordinating detail in the
parts to the better general effect of the whole, so as to present no
more than the eye could grasp in a comprehensive glance. Every tree
and stick in Brett's 'Val d'Aosta' is truthfully painted, but the
picture as a whole does not give the spectator the impression of truth,
for the simple reason that the eye can never see at once what Brett
has tried to make it see. All the wonderfully veracious detail in the
work of the Pre-Raphaelite does not give the impression of life. Men
like Holman Hunt, on the one hand, and on the other hand Whistler,
living and working at the same time, exhibiting their works in the
same galleries, differ even more in their ideals than Velasquez
differed from the fifteenth-century painters of Italy.

Facts such as these make the study of modern art difficult. Before
the nineteenth century, pictures of the same date in the same country
were painted in approximately the same style. But during the last fifty
years many styles have reigned together. At one and the same time
painters have been inspired by the Greek and Roman sculptors, by
Botticelli, Mantegna, Titian, Tintoret, Velasquez, Rembrandt,
Reynolds, and Turner, and the work of each is, notwithstanding,
unmistakably nineteenth century, and could never have been produced
at any other date. Every artist finds a problem of his own to solve,
and attacks it in his own way. When Whistler painted a portrait he
endeavoured to express character in the general aspect of the figure,
rather than in the face. The picture of his mother is a wonderful
expression of the sweetness and peace of old age, given by the severe
lines of her black dress and the simplicity and nobility of her pose.

The great painter Watts, who by the face chiefly sought to express
the man, never painted a full-length figure portrait. His long life,
covering nearly the whole of the century, enabled him to portray many
of the foremost men of the age--statesmen, poets, musicians, and men
of letters. In his portrait gallery their fine spirits still meet one
another face to face. But his portraits, in and through likenesses
of the men,