upple. Not having attained the scientific drawing which one finds in
Degas's, they have a grace and a brilliancy which Degas's nudes have
never known. If his rare portraits of men are inferior to those of his
rivals, his women's portraits have a frequently superior distinction.
His great modern compositions are equal to the most beautiful works by
Manet and Degas. His inequalities are also more striking than theirs.
Being a fantastic, nervous improvisator he is more exposed to radical
mistakes. But he is a profoundly sincere and conscientious artist.

[Illustration: RENOIR

ON THE TERRACE]

The race speaks in him. It is inexplicable that he should not have met
with startling success, since he is voluptuous, bright, happy and
learned without heaviness. One has to attribute his relative isolation
to the violence of the controversies, and particularly to the dignity of
a poet gently disdainful of public opinion and paying attention solely
to painting, his great and only love. Manet has been a fighter whose
works have created scandal. Renoir has neither shown, nor hidden
himself: he has painted according to his dream, spreading his works,
without mixing up his name or his personality with the tumult that raged
around his friends. And now, for that very reason, his work appears
fresher and younger, more primitive and candid, more intoxicated with
flowers, flesh and sunlight.

VII

THE SECONDARY PAINTERS OF IMPRESSIONISM--CAMILLE PISSARRO, ALFRED
SISLEY, PAUL CEZANNE, BERTHE MORISOT, MISS MARY CASSATT, EVA GONZALES,
GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE, BAZILLE, ALBERT LEBOURG, EUGENE BOUDIN.

Manet, Degas, Monet and Renoir will present themselves as a glorious
quartet of masters, in the history of painting. We must now speak of
some personalities who have grown up by their side and who, without
being great, offer nevertheless a rich and beautiful series of works.

Of these personalities the most considerable is certainly that of M.
Camille Pissarro. He painted according to some wise and somewhat timid
formulas, when Manet's example won him over to Impressionism to which he
has remained faithful. M. Pissarro has been enormously productive. His
work is composed of landscapes, rustic scenes, and studies of streets
and markets. His first landscapes are in the manner of Corot, but bathed
in blond colour: vast cornfields, sunny woods, skies with big, flocking
clouds, effects of soft light--these are the motifs of some charming
canv