poises
claim that their artists were undoubtedly the instructors and masters of
the Penguins. It is difficult to form an opinion on the matter, because
the Penguins, before they began to admire their primitive painters,
destroyed all their works.

We cannot be too sorry for this loss. For my own part I feel it cruelly,
for I venerate the Penguin antiquities and I adore the primitives.
They are delightful. I do not say the are all alike, for that would be
untrue, but they have common characters that are found in all schools--I
mean formulas from which they never depart--and there is besides
something finished in their work, for what they know they know well.
Luckily we can form a notion of the Penguin primitives from the Italian,
Flemish, and Dutch primitives, and from the French primitives, who are
superior to all the rest; as M. Gruyer tells us they are more logical,
logic being a peculiarly French quality. Even if this is denied it must
at least be admitted that to France belongs the credit of having kept
primitives when the other nations knew them no longer. The Exhibition
of French Primitives at the Pavilion Marsan in 1904 contained several
little panels contemporary with the later Valois kings and with Henry
IV.

I have made many journeys to see the pictures of the brothers Van Eyck,
of Memling, of Roger van der Weyden, of the painter of the death of
Mary, of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, and of the old Umbrian masters. It was,
however, neither Bruges, nor Cologne, nor Sienna, nor Perugia, that
completed my initiation; it was in the little town of Arezzo that I
became a conscious adept in primitive painting. That was ten years
ago or even longer. At that period of indigence and simplicity, the
municipal museums, though usually kept shut, were always opened to
foreigners. One evening an old woman with a candle showed me, for half a
lira, the sordid museum of Arezzo, and in it I discovered a painting
by Margaritone, a "St. Francis," the pious sadness of which moved me to
tears. I was deeply touched, and Margaritone, of Arezzo became from that
day my dearest primitive.

I picture to myself the Penguin primitives in conformity with the works
of that master. It will not therefore be thought superfluous if in this
place I consider his works with some attention, if not in detail,
at least under their more general and, if I dare say so, most
representative aspect.

We possess five or six pictures signed with his hand. His mast