Studio: international art (29.1903)

THE STUDIO

LPHONSE LEGROS, PAINTER
AND SCULPTOR. BY LEONCE
BENEDITE.

Legros has not long been well known in France.
Generations pass, and names are forgotten when
men's works are not present to defend them in the
struggle of the yearly Salons, or when the authors
themselves are too far away to exercise their
personal influence in the artistic centres. It has
needed several " manifestations," initiated by his
friends (the most recent, it will be remembered,
being the exhibition officially organised in the
Musee du Luxembourg), to restore the great name
of Alphonse Legros to current circulation.

Not so in England. There, where he was
welcomed so cordially, and where he made his
second home, his teaching, if not his actual work,
made itself deeply and authoritatively felt. His
lessons, like his counsel, have borne fruit, for his
pupils, and numberless others indebted to him,
have procured for the artist a certain popularity.

This popularity is based on gratitude, and that
gratitude is well deserved. For while in France
instruction in the arts is dispensed with method,
with discipline, with the aid of a whole bundle of
doctrines, preserved by an old, strong, and vigorous
tradition derived from its very ancient institutions,
which were directed by masters, who—take David
or Ingres, for instance—were extraordinarily