always be called art, is another matter. Monet's aim was scientific truth, and scientific truth has no inevitable relation to art. The aim of art, however one defines it, must always be closely connected with beauty, and it is undeniable that Monet's painting, though always interesting, is not always beautiful. His spotty raw pigment is a positively unpleasant substance. His colour is harmonious or inharmonious, his design good or indifferent, in exact correspondence with the pictorial qualities of the subject in hand. As his subjects were usually chosen as materials for scientific experiment, their pictorial qualities are a mere matter of chance, and sometimes are slight enough.
Monet's ablest successors seem to have realized that this logical culmination of realism was also its reductio ad absurdum. The present tendency is in favour of very direct painting in fresh colour, but some discretion is exercised in the choice of subjects whose tones and colours are naturally harmonious. The paintings of Harpignies might serve as examples of such a compromise, while Cazin, by whom the method is combined with a vein of pensive poetry, has achieved results that, in their way, are charming. Of the landscape of Puvis de Chavannes this is hardly the place to speak. Had Constable never lived, Puvis de Chavannes might have worked in a more conventional key, but it is unlikely that the amazing originality of his genius would have failed to evolve the nobly spaced design, the frank use of silhouette, and the tranquil silver atmosphere that give him a place apart from the other artists of the nineteenth century. Some of his best qualities are found also in the work of his countryman, Professor Legros, where the ever-present memory of Rembrandt and Poussin makes them appear almost familiar.
Among the other Continental schools of landscape, that of Holland takes the first place. The Dutch have for centuries been a race of painters, so that in their hands the modern fashion in realism has not been carried to any absurd extremity, however apparent the French influence in their work may be. Their colour, if often too cold or too raw to be quite pleasant, is never violent or uncouth. Nevertheless, their dexterous compromise between art and nature has not the scientific interest of Monet's experiments, the real grandeur and force underlying the struggles of Rousseau, or the profound insight of Millet. Matthys Maris, it is true, is something of a visionary, whose dreams often recall
30
