re
hung in a public gallery, and the numerous drawings made for it ranged
alongside, how finely discredited would be those knowing ones who, in
their desire to emphasize the difference between form and that of which
form is composed, are in the habit of calling Renoir a great colourist
and then pausing impressively. I suppose it is because he rarely uses a
lead pencil that the wiseacres are able to fulfil their destiny. Drawing
in charcoal or pastel need not be taken seriously; while drawing with
the brush is apparently not drawing at all. That Renoir is a great
draughtsman may be inferred from almost everything he has ever done. But
(though that amazing _Boy with a Cat_ was achieved as early as 1868) it
is the work of this period--and _Les Baigneuses_, with its attendant
studies, are capital examples--that makes patent his mastery and
entitles him obviously to a place between Ingres and Daumier.

That it should be difficult to find a date for the beginning of Renoir's
last period does not much trouble me; but I am sorry that it is quite
impossible to indicate in words its character. One can say confidently
that the new conception was being elaborated between 1895 and 1900; one
can suppose that its final character was to some extent imposed on the
master by his growing infirmities. A painter who can hardly move arm or
fingers will neither sweep nor wiggle. He must paint, if he is to paint
at all, in blobs and smears and patches and soft strokes; and it is
out of these that Renoir's latest works are built up. "Built up"--the
expression is absurd. Rather, it is as though forms had been melted down
to their component colours, and the pool of iridescent loveliness thus
created fixed by a touch of the master's magic--lightly frozen over by
an enchanting frost. Only ice is cold. At any rate, what happens to
the spectator is that first he perceives a tangle of rather hot and
apparently inharmonious tones; gradually he becomes aware of a subtle,
astonishing, and unlooked-for harmony; finally, from this harmony emerge
completely realized and exquisitely related forms. After which, if he
has any sense of art, he remains spellbound and uncritical, and ceases
to bother about how the thing was done. That, at least, is my impression
of Renoir's latest style. Examples of it abound in Paris, notably M.
Maurice Gangnat's collection; and it is said that the artist intends
these pictures to improve by keeping.

In his pleasant, well-writ