vating.
Imagine a Rops who has some of Millet's boundless sympathy for his
fellow-humans and you have approximately an understanding of Louis
Legrand.

He is a native of Dijon, the city that gave birth to Bossuet, but
Legrand is not that kind of Burgundian. Several critics pretend to see
in his work the characteristics of his native Cote d'Or; that,
however, may be simply a desire to frame the picture appropriately.
Legrand might have hailed from the south, from Daudet's country; he is
exuberant as he is astute. The chief thing is that he has abundant
brains and in sheer craftsmanship fears few equals. Like Whistler, his
principal preoccupation is to suppress all appearance of technical
procedures. His method of work is said to be simplicity itself;
obsessed by his very definite visions, he transfers them to the
scratched plate with admirable celerity. Dry-point etching is his
principal medium. With his needle he has etched Montmartre, its
cabarets, its angels--in very earthly disguise--its orators, poets,
and castaways, and its visiting tourists--"God's silly sheep." He has
illustrated a volume of Edgar Poe's tales that displays a _macabre_
imagination. His dancers are only second to those of Edgar Degas, and
seen from an opposite side. His peasants, mothers, and children, above
all, babies, reveal an eye that observes and a brain that can
co-ordinate the results of this piercing vision. Withal, he is a poet
who extracts his symbols from everyday life.

This is what Camille Mauclair said of him at the time of his debut:

"An admirably skilful etcher, a draughtsman of keen vision, and a
painter of curious character, who has in many ways forestalled the
artists of to-day. Louis Legrand also shows to what extent Manet and
Degas have revolutionised the art of illustration, in freeing the
painters from obsolete laws and guiding them toward truth and frank
psychological study. Legrand is full of them without resembling them.
We must not forget that besides the technical innovation [division of
tones, study of complementary colours] impressionism has brought us
novelty of composition, realism of character, and great liberty in the
choice of subjects. From this point of view Rops himself, in spite of
his symbolist tendencies, could not be classed with any other group if
it were not that any kind of classification in art is useless and
inaccurate. However that may be, Louis Legrand has signed some volumes
with the most sedu