very important man for his technical discoveries regarding the
relations of light and shadow, the flat appearance of nature, the
exact value of color tones. Some of his works, like The Boy with a
Sword and The Toreador Dead, are excellent pieces of painting. The
higher imaginative qualities of art Manet made no great effort at
attaining.

Degas stands quite by himself, strong in effects of motion, especially
with race-horses, fine in color, and a delightful brushman in such
subjects as ballet-girls and scenes from the theatre. Besnard is one
of the best of the present men. He deals with the figure, and is
usually concerned with the problem of harmonizing color under
conflicting lights, such as twilight and lamplight. Beraud and
Raffaelli are exceedingly clever in street scenes and character
pieces; Pissarro[16] handles the peasantry in high color; Brown
(1829-1890), the race-horse, and Renoir, the middle class of social
life. Caillebotte, Roll, Forain, and Miss Cassatt, an American, are
also classed with the impressionists.

[Footnote 16: Died, 1903.]

IMPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: Of recent years there has been a
disposition to change the key of light in landscape painting, to get
nearer the truth of nature in the height of light and in the height of
shadows. In doing this Claude Monet, the present leader of the
movement, has done away with the dark brown or black shadow and
substituted the light-colored shadow, which is nearer the actual truth
of nature. In trying to raise the pitch of light he has not been quite
so successful, though accomplishing something. His method is to use
pure prismatic colors on the principle that color is light in a
decomposed form, and that its proper juxtaposition on canvas will
recompose into pure light again. Hence the use of light shadows and
bright colors. The aim of these modern men is chiefly to gain the
effect of light and air. They do not apparently care for subject,
detail, or composition.

At present their work is in the experimental stage, but from the way
in which it is being accepted and followed by the painters of to-day
we may be sure the movement is of considerable importance. There will
probably be a reaction in favor of more form and solidity than the
present men give, but the high key of light will be retained. There
are so many painters following these modern methods, not only in
France but all over the world, that a list of their names would be
impossible.