hung; and, secondly, the number of repetitions upon separate canvases of the same composition or set of lines under different atmospheric effect-the painting by series, in fact. Yet this is by no means a new idea. It was advocated by Ruskin long years ere Manet or Monet appeared upon the scene, as may be read in the preface to the second edition of "Modern Painters"-the artists' Bible.

France has been called "the interpreter of England to the human race." It is, of course, a highly debatable point as to whether or no we can allow that astute axiom of Macaulay's its full face value. (Pregnant subject for debating societies.) The first impulse of those who know France best is to deny the imputation in toto, and to set it down as simply another proof of insular egotism. Yet the more one reflects upon the matter, the more one searches the files of time for proofs of confirmation or refutation, the more strongly is it borne in upon one that in writing those words Macaulay acted neither in haste nor in malice, but with profound conviction of their veracity and in fearlessness of disproof.

In the domain of literature, particularly upon its philosophic side, independent and authoritative writers claim that from the days of Shakespeare right down to modern times the preponderance of original talent has lain with this country. A recent convert to this opinion appears to be Monsieur Emile Faguet, who, after noting Richardson's enormous influence upon the French novelists, writes as follows in his instructive "Literary History of France." The latest English idol of the French is John Ruskin. "For ten years Ruskin has been read in France with passionate eagerness; he is translated, commented upon, paraphrased, re-arranged. It is not beyond the range of possibility that the influ

ence of Ruskin in France has created a new religion, which may be called Kalolatrie." Why this extraordinary title I cannot say. Now this brings me to the starting-point of my hypothesis with regard to the very intimate connection which exists between English ideas and impressionist painting. I desire to point out certain interesting and important facts of origins which appear to have been almost entirely overlooked.

I was led to inquire deeply into all this through a chance remark let fall by Claude Monet during an interview in the Café Royal, London, in February, 1900, I being at the time engaged upon the preparation of a series of magazine articles upon the subject of modern painting, whilst Monet was daily absorbed, at the Savoy Hotel, the St. George's Hospital and elsewhere, in the production of a remarkable series of Thames pictures.

We were discussing Turner's and other British artists' inadequate appreciation of the scenic and atmospheric splendors of London, when he turned to me and said, "Have you ever studied Ruskin or read George Moore?" Startled by the question, I briefly replied that I had done both, and immediately fell into a mood of reverie, linking up in my mind the connection which might or might not exist between Ruskin's writings and Monet's paintings, for up to that time I had always regarded Ruskin as strongly antagonistic to Impressionism. Yet not so, for what do we find? Simply this, that ninety per cent. of the theory of impressionist painting is clearly and unmistakably embodied in one book alone of all Ruskin's voluminous output, namely, in his "Elements of Drawing."

That book forms a magnificent compendium of the art of impressionist painting, and ought to be in the hands of every art student and connoisseur, especially as it can now be possessed

for the insignificant sum of one shilling -maybe even for one penny. It is worth the ransom of kings. The very title with which the public has seen fit to designate the efforts of the artists composing the movement under review derives from Ruskin.

Three years after the Café Royal incident, namely, in December of 1903, Robert de la Sizeranne alone, of either native or foreign critics, noticed the close affinity of Ruskinism and Impressionism in the Revue de l'Art, wherein he styled Ruskin the "prophet" of Impressionism, giving very cogent reasons for so doing.' Indeed it is not too much to say that had Ruskin set himself the task of illustrating Manet and Monet as he has done Turner, or had those artists set themselves to exemplify and justify the philosopher, neither could have better succeeded. Upon the one hand stands Ruskin's "Elements of Drawing," upon the other Manet's "Olympia" and Monet's "Haystacks"; the two are indissoluble complementaries.

Furthermore, had Ruskin been gifted with the ability to paint as well as he could write, to put into practice æsthetic theories he expounded with such extraordinary clairvoyance, there is, in my mind, little doubt but that he would have ranked as first and foremost of impressionist painters. Facts all point to that conclusion. As things stand he has delegated to Frenchmen the Turnerean mantle which might easily have fallen to his lot. "The Elements of Drawing," issued in 1857, may be regarded as an enlarged epitome upon the practical side of the axioms and teachings scattered throughout the various volumes of Ruskin's writings issued from 1843 onwards.

The publication of those books created a tremendous European sensa

See also pp. 256, 263 of this author's "Ruskin et la religion de la Beauté."

tion, and it is perhaps too much to suppose that such informative and suggestive volumes would be entirely ignored by wide-awake intellectual giants as were Edouard Manet and Claude Monet. Whether or no either "Modern Painters" or "The Elements of Drawing" existed in translated form I cannot say, and the point is of little consequence." English reading and speaking Frenchmen and English artists confrères have existed in Paris since time immemorial. Manet at least was a college man and Bachelor of Arts, and so would speak our language, and it is upon record that Ségantini founded his art upon Ruskinian principles.

At the time of the publication of "The Elements of Drawing" Manet was painting in gray-black tones, a result of Couture's influence, whilst Monet was still working under Boudin's lead and producing pictures of harbors and shipping in and around Honfleur, which, compared to subsequent work, are black as the proverbial hat.

The sight, however, of Turner's and Constable's pictures, frequently exhibited at the Paris Salon and in London, coupled in all likelihood with the study of Ruskin's clear exposition of their underlying principles, and the sojourn of Monet, Pissarro and others in London in 1870, were undoubtedly the foundation and starting-point of the brilliantly successful phase of art

5 Just on the eve of publication of this article, the following interesting and most significant information has become known to

me.

In 1864 Mons. Gerault-Ballière, of Paris, published a book under the title of "L'Esthétique Anglaise Etude sur M. John Ruskin, par M. J. Milsand.... donne sur le préraphaélitisme anglais des vues générales et une intéressante critique.

Readers will remember that the Impressionist movement proper germinated in, or about, 1864. Furthermore, in 1900 Mons. H. E. Cross published a translation of Ruskin's "Elements of Drawing." a book which, he says, every artist ought to be acquainted with. Mr. Cross is one of the founders and chief exponents (in company with M.M. Sigand Seurat, now styled Post-Impressionists), of the "Neo-Impressionist" school of painting.

na

So that, by way of proof of Macaulay's axiom, France has once again, and this time in the field of the art of painting, become "the interpreter of England to the human race." Yet to the Ruskinian creed of Impressionism must be added a strange and exotic ingredient, for to the art of England was added a pinch of that of Japan. From Japanese color prints and the gossamer sketches on silk and ricepaper which for the past half-century have permeated French commerce the impressionists learnt the manner of painting scenes viewed from an altitude, with the curious perspective which results. Pissarro, in particular, has successfully applied this. grasped the significance of elementary subjects and of fewer gradations of tonal values. By these means they found confirmation in actual practice of Ruskin's suggestions in "The Elements of Drawing" and elsewhere for simpler lines and homelier subjects.

They

We cannot, I think, go far wrong if we accept John Ruskin's guidance in matters of taste. He possessed the artistic temperament, and fortified it by a lifetime's loving study and devotion to matters æsthetic, coupled with an inspired diction unequalled since Shakespeare's time. England may well be proud of him. No man more than he understood the value of words. Every sentence he wrote is meaningful, compact, and lucidly stated in phrases, words and stops which constitute veritable legal documents of art teaching. Into these sentences no two interpretations can be read or supposed even by the malevolent. The Bible, it has been said, can support a hundred conflicting religions; not so the gospel of art according to Ruskin, which is one law, fiercely final and irrevocable.

In briefly tracing the extraordinary

theories, founded principally, it must be remembered, upon Turner's practice, and Impressionism, I shall confine myself almost exclusively, for brevity's sake, to the great critic's wonderful book upon "The Elements of Drawing." Students will easily be able to enlarge upon this in the same author's "Modern Painting," "Stones of Venice," "The Oxford Lectures," and elsewhere.

As the matter is too technical to interest lay readers, I shall but indicate the direction of a few leading analogies. Ruskin clearly perceived that "if any production of modern art can be shown to have the authority of Nature on its side, and to be based on eternal truths, it is all so much more in its favor, so much further proof of its power that it is totally different from all that have been seen before."

It must be admitted that impressionist painting comes under that heading; certainly nothing before has been seen like it, and it distinctly has the authority of Nature on its side. Every great master of art creates his own style, which, differing from others, can neither be fully understood nor copied by the uninitiated. He has also to create his own audience, a still more difficult feat. Therefore quite an education is needed, and education is a matter of time. No less than forty years have been required for public acceptance of impressionist painting.

Five of the basic tenets of these modern painters may be summarized as follows. Naturally there are many others, but space is limited:—

First, the painting by the mass, which comprises simplified light and shade.

Secondly, colored shadows, including notation of the purple tints in Nature. Thirdly, atmospheric effects and the See Preface to Vol. I," Modern Painters."

use of opaque color in purest tint juxtaposed. Fourthly, composition, with its rhythm of line and roundness of touch. Fifthly, sea and tree painting and the rendering of herbage and foliage.

Hear, then, what the great critic has to say regarding the first of these-the painting by the mass. It reads precisely as though, after scrutinizing some picture by Manet or Monet, he had set himself to write as follows:“A good artist habitually sees masses, not edges, and can in every case make his drawing more expressive by rapid shade than by contours, so that all good work whatever is more or less touched with shade and more or less interrupted in outline."

The quotation is too long to give in its entirety, but its significance is great. I will not labor the point, but if what I have just read and its context does not in a marvellously clear manner define the artistry of Manet's "Olympia," amongst many other examples, then I am at a loss to find a better analogy, and my contention falls to the ground.

I do not single out this picture as typical of the impressionist practice, for it does not even exhibit the most characteristic mark of the method, viz., that of the division of tones of color. I mention it as being one of the earliest, most noticeable, and most easily reachable of Manet's works, wherein for the first time in French painting are exemplified Ruskin's teachings in the matter of subordination of shadow detail and the apparent attenuation of all shadow values. In fact, the "painting by the mass" in light tones of color.

Claude Monet was the first, and is still the chief, of those who use the idea in landscape painting. I refer particularly to his snow and ice scenes, and all the haycock, poplar and cathedral series of pictures. That exqui

site piece of painting, the "Olympia," created an extraordinary sensation at the time of its appearance, and was the casus belli of some of the most violent battles of interest ever engaged upon in the field of art. It was contemptuously thrown out by the Salon jury, and came near to causing the murder of its author. Open ridicule and insult met him at every turn in the street and in every café he entered, culminating in a duel with his one-time literary friend Duranty, out of which the artist emerged victorious. All this for having had the audacity to perpetrate a chef d'œuvre of painting. Yet the strain of the long-continued hostility galled him to the quick, and he died prematurely on the very threshold of triumph—a brilliant soul ruthlessly sacrificed to the Juggernaut of art.

However, taste has improved since then, a more tolerant spirit prevails, and "Olympia" now hangs upon the line in the galleries of the Louvre, close by several of Ingres' masterpieces of painting of the female nude. Comparison between Manet and the Ingres forms one of the most instructive lessons in high art to be found in the whole of that superb museum. brief, Manet completely and triumphantly eclipses his rival.

In

Now as to the second special quality which has been noted as distinguishing impressionist painting-colored shadows, to wit. Impressionists have noted sunlight's emphatic insistence upon shadow and how that shadow is invariably colored, despite the teaching of the careless or the color-blind, who, ignoring modern science and the research of men of genius, would still have us paint these shadows black as night and sharp as steel.

Hear what Ruskin has to say about this as far back as 1843, thus proving conclusively, even had not Turner's work exemplified it, that the theory existed long before it was put into

practice by the impressionists. "It is an absolute fact," said Ruskin, "that shadows are as much color as lights are, and whoever represents them by merely the subdued or darkened tint of the light represents them falsely. I particularly want you to observe that this is no matter of taste, but fact." There is much more writing to the same effect, but at that emphatic statement I think we can leave the matter.

Impressionists are frequently found fault with on account of their painting of violet shadows and the general purplish tint of many of their pictures. Yet, if truthful effect is to be given, that purplish tinge and those violet shadows are demanded. Sisley, amongst others, has captured many such charming effects.

Ruskin well knew this, for he says: "The quantity of gray and purple in Nature is, by the way, another somewhat surprising subject of discovery." Had the critic lived in France he would certainly have remarked this phenomenon in much greater degree there than here. I myself, together with all the French innovators, have noted and painted the fact for years.

I remember distinctly, during the summer of 1901, at Les Andelys-onSeine, that upon two days and for two hours during the afternoons of those days all Nature, animate and inanimate, bore the aspect of things seen under a strong glare of violet light, exactly as though a tinted glass were suspended between the sun's rays and the earth. The effect was most curious and disturbing. Nature appeared to be toneless and flat. High lights and shadows were attenuated almost to extinction, whilst in this dull purple glare the heat became more intense than ever, possibly through lack of wind, for all was still.

With regard to the third distinguishing quality of impressionist painting

color-pure, brilliant, harmonious coloration. Here again the analogy between Ruskin's teaching and the impressionist practice is absolutely amazing. "You may," says Ruskin, "in the time which other vocations leave at your disposal, produce finished, beautiful and masterly drawings in light and shade. But to color well requires your life. It cannot be done cheaper. Nothing but the devotion of a life and great genius besides can make a colorist. If you sing at all you must sing sweetly, and if you color at all you must color rightly. Noble men learned their lesson nobly. The base men also, and necessarily, learn it basely. The great men rise from color to sunlight. The base ones fall from color to candlelight."

So it would appear from the foregoing that the greatest art of the greatest colorists must be applied to sunlight painting. It is also clear that Manet, Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, Renoir, and subsequently those artists whom they have most strongly influenced, such as Le Sidaner, Gagliardini, Besnard, Montenard, Chabas, La Touche, Twatchman, Sorella, Emile Claus, Mark Fisher, Childe Hassam, Segantini, Liebermann, La Thangue, G. Clausen, Arnesby Brown, Edward Stott, and many others, have risen to the occasion and have succeeded in imprisoning in paint many beautifully convincing manifestations of sunlight effect.

Now, however, comes a paragraph which completely epitomizes one of the most characteristic features of impressionist painting-that of the juxtaposition of pure tints of color. Ruskin wrote it years before the appearance of impressionist pictures as we now know