apparent that this amateur was a misjudged painter. The
still-life pictures in this exhibition were specially remarkable. But
the name of Caillebotte was destined to reach the public only in
connection with controversies and scandal. When he died, he left to the
State a magnificent collection of objets-d'art and of old pictures, and
also a collection of Impressionist works, stipulating that these two
bequests should be inseparable. He wished by this means to impose the
works of his friends upon the museums, and thus avenge their unjust
neglect. The State accepted the two legacies, since the Louvre
absolutely wanted to benefit by the ancient portion, in spite of the
efforts of the Academicians who revolted against the acceptance of the
modern part. On this occasion one could see how far the official
artists were carried by their hatred of the Impressionists. A group of
Academicians, professors at the _Ecole des Beaux-Arts_, threatened the
minister that they would resign _en masse_. "We cannot," they wrote to
the papers, "continue to teach an art of which we believe we know the
laws, from the moment the State admits into the museums, where our
pupils can see them, works which are the very negation of all we teach."
A heated discussion followed in the press, and the minister boldly
declared that Impressionism, good or bad, had attracted the attention of
the public, and that it was the duty of the State to receive impartially
the work of all the art movements; the public would know how to judge
and choose; the Government's duty was not to influence them by showing
them only one style of painting, but to remain in historic neutrality.
Thanks to this clever reply, the Academicians, among whom M. Gerome was
the most rabid, resigned themselves to keeping their posts. A similar
incident, less publicly violent, but equally strange, occurred on the
occasion of the admission to the Luxembourg Gallery of the portrait of
M. Whistler's mother, a masterpiece of which the gallery is proud
to-day, and for which a group of writers and art lovers had succeeded in
opening the way. It is difficult to imagine the degree of irritation and
obstruction of the official painters against all the ideas of the new
painting, and if it had only depended upon them, there can be no doubt
that Manet and his friends would have died in total obscurity, not only
banished from the Salons and museums, but also treated as madmen and
robbed of the possibility of