n one year worthy of
the eyes of the public, which, indeed, cannot give its attention to a
greater number of such works. The more the number of artists increases,
the more careful and exacting the jury of admission ought to be.

The true character of the Salon was lost as soon as it spread along
the galleries. The Salon should have remained within fixed limits of
inflexible proportions, where each distinct specialty could show its
masterpieces only. An experience of ten years has shown the excellence
of the former institution. Now, instead of a tournament, we have a mob;
instead of a noble exhibition, we have a tumultuous bazaar; instead of
a choice selection we have a chaotic mass. What is the result? A great
artist is swamped. Decamps' "Turkish Cafe," "Children at a Fountain,"
"Joseph," and "The Torture," would have redounded far more to his credit
if the four pictures had been exhibited in the great Salon with the
hundred good pictures of that year, than his twenty pictures could,
among three thousand others, jumbled together in six galleries.

By some strange contradiction, ever since the doors are open to every
one there has been much talk of unknown and unrecognized genius. When,
twelve years earlier, Ingres' "Courtesan," and that of Sigalon, the
"Medusa" of Gericault, the "Massacre of Scio" by Delacroix, the "Baptism
of Henri IV." by Eugene Deveria, admitted by celebrated artists accused
of jealousy, showed the world, in spite of the denials of criticism,
that young and vigorous palettes existed, no such complaint was made.
Now, when the veriest dauber of canvas can send in his work, the whole
talk is of genius neglected! Where judgment no longer exists, there is
no longer anything judged. But whatever artists may be doing now, they
will come back in time to the examination and selection which presents
their works to the admiration of the crowd for whom they work. Without
selection by the Academy there will be no Salon, and without the Salon
art may perish.

Ever since the catalogue has grown into a book, many names have appeared
in it which still remain in their native obscurity, in spite of the ten
or a dozen pictures attached to them. Among these names perhaps the most
unknown to fame is that of an artist named Pierre Grassou, coming from
Fougeres, and called simply "Fougeres" among his brother-artists, who,
at the present moment holds a place, as the saying is, "in the sun," and
who suggested the rather bit