and which went on increasing, until, owing to the acceptance, with
modifications, of his point of view by the most virile and vigorous
painters of the day, he became, as he has become, in a sense the head of
the corner. Manet's great distinction is to have discovered that the
sense of reality is achieved with a thousand-fold greater intensity by
getting as near as possible to the _actual_, rather than resting content
with the _relative_, value of every detail. Everyone who has painted
since Manet has either followed him in this effort or has appeared
jejune.

Take as an illustration of the contrary practice such a masterpiece in
its way as Gerome's "Eminence Grise." In this picture, skilfully and
satisfactorily composed, the relative values of all the colors are
admirably, even beautifully, observed. The correspondence of the gamut
of values to that of the light and dark scale of such an actual scene is
perfect. Before Manet, one could have said that this is all that is
required or can be secured, arguing that exact _imitation_ of local
tints and general tone is impossible, owing to the difference between
nature's highest light and lowest dark, and the potentialities of the
palette. In other words, one might have said, that inasmuch as you can
squeeze absolute white and absolute black out of no tubes, the thing to
do is first to determine the scale of your picture and then make every
note in it bear the same relation to every other that the corresponding
note in nature bears to its fellows in its own corresponding but
different scale. This is what Gerome has done in the "Eminence Grise"--a
scene, it will be remembered, on a staircase in a palace interior. Manet
inquires what would happen to this house of cards shored up into
verisimilitude by mere _correspondence_, if Gerome had been asked to cut
a window in his staircase and admit the light of out-of-doors into his
correspondent but artificial scene. The whole thing would have to be
done over again. The scale of the picture running from the highest
palette white to the lowest palette dark, and yet the key of an actual
interior scene being much nearer middle-tint than the tint of an actual
out-of-doors scene, it would be impossible to paint with any
verisimilitude the illumination of a window from the outside, the
resources of the palette having already been exhausted, every object
having been given a local value solely with relation, so far as truth of
representation i