universal
congress.

I have, like all visitors no doubt, yielded to the seductive spell of
this magnificent collection of objects of art, to which two worlds have
contributed, and under the influence of the keen and exalted enjoyment
of the first few days I should have found it impossible to qualify by a
single censure the expression of my admiration. But after a short
retirement in the country, where I allowed my mind to lie fallow, I
found that I could revisit the galleries of the Champ de Mars with more
judgment and method, and that the beauties of the first order, which I
admired as much as ever, no longer made me blind to the defects and the
weak points of certain parts.

First of all, it must be admitted that the Exhibition of this year is
not equal to that of 1855; and this is no more than was to be expected,
when one remembers that the latter had brought together the scattered
masterpieces of the long period of half a century--a period illustrated
by such names as Ingres, Delacroix, Decamps and others. This splendid
assemblage of so many important works could not be repeated in 1867; and
at that time there were unmistakable indications that a new artistic
current had set in, and we saw the first rays of the coming glory of the
painter of genre and of landscape--the triumph of Meissonier, of Gerome,
of Theodore Rousseau, of Corot.

This year, the tiny, pleasing genre pictures are still very numerous,
and in this respect the Exposition of 1878 is not unlike that of 1867,
while in another aspect it is superior to it. If, on the one hand, we
miss the names of the great masters of landscape, who, dying, have left
no successors, we have, on the other hand, to hail the advent of some
others who have risen above the level of genre and have returned to the
traditions of high art: I refer to MM. Bonnat, J.P. Laurens and Baudry.
Thanks to these great artists, one can assert with confidence that there
has been an advance within the last ten years. And how art widens its
borders and augments the number of its adepts! How many painters there
are to-day!--of the second or of the third rank, to be sure, but masters
of their business, skilful and conscientious. In 1867 the jury admitted
but four hundred pictures. In 1878 it has had to receive eleven hundred!
Evidently, French art is in the fulness of its summer bloom. Its decline
will come, for Art, which knows no country, and has wandered from the
East to the South, and fro