dy to have mentioned that, for these many years (they are beginning
to be many), he has indulged in the luxury of color. It is not probable
that he regards himself in the first place as an illustrator, in the
sense to which the term is usually restricted. He is a very vigorous and
various painter, and at the Salon a constant and conspicuous exhibitor.
He is fond of experiments, difficulties and dangers, and I divine that
it would be his preference to be known best by his painting, in which he
handles landscape with equal veracity. It is a pity that the critic
is unable to contend with him on such a point without appearing to
underestimate that work. Mr. Reinhart has so much to show for his
preference that I am conscious of its taking some assurance to say that
I am not sure he is right. This would be the case even if he had nothing
else to show than the admirable picture entitled "Washed Ashore"
("Un Epave ") which made such an impression in the Salon of 1887. It
represents the dead body of an unknown man whom the tide has cast up,
lying on his back, feet forward, disfigured, dishonored by the sea. A
small group of villagers are collected near it, divided by the desire
to look and the fear to see. A gendarme, official and responsible, his
uniform contrasting with the mortal disrepair of the victim, takes down
in his note-book the _proces-verbal_ of the incident, and an old sailor,
pointing away with a stiffened arm, gives him the benefit of what _he_
knows about the matter. Plain, pitying, fish-wives, hushed, with
their shawls in their mouths, hang back, as if from a combination too
solemn--the mixture of death and the law. Three or four men seem to be
glad it isn't they. The thing is a masterpiece of direct representation,
and has wonderfully the air of something seen, found without being
looked for. Excellently composed but not artificial, deeply touching but
not sentimental, large, close and sober, this important work gives the
full measure of Mr. Reinhart's great talent and constitutes a kind of
pledge. It may be perverse on my part to see in it the big banknote,
as it were, which may be changed into a multitude of gold and silver
pieces. I cannot, however, help doing so. "Washed Ashore" is painted
as only a painter paints, but I irreverently translate it into its
equivalent in "illustrations"--half a hundred little examples, in
black and white, of the same sort of observation. For this observation,
immediate, familia