International studio (20.1903)

77?^

feeling for rather complex character. There are
some other portraits by no means devoid of merit.
One, painted by M. Faivre, of an elegant woman and
a girl in a garden, is perfectly fascinating, though
the painting, it must be said, rather lacks breadth
—the breadth we so much admire in Sargent's "Por-
traits of the Misses Hunter," also exhibited here.
Here, indeed, we have an artist of the very first
rank, one of the greatest portrait painters of our
day, who gives us with wonderful insight the actual
image of the modern lady. This is really living
art. Living in the wonderful colouring, the easy
freedom of the attitudes, and the indescribable
feeling of life. The three young ladies are sur-
prised, caught, in the very secret of their charm
and beauty, seated on a sofa, dressed in gowns
of sober hue, brightened here and there by a white
lace bow or the rosy tints of a hand. Sargent
indisputably reigns supreme in portrait painting,
and certainly the work of Dagnan - Bouveret,
Carolus - Duran, Rosset - Granger, Picard, Mont-
zaigle, Thevenot, or Aman-Jean will bear no com-
parison with his, in spite of their various merits,
which I am far from denying; we can but bow
before the indisputable pre-eminence of a master.
Besnard alone, in his

reveals an individuality even more marked, though
in a quite different way, and even more specialised
gifts as a painter. Who, indeed, but he could
have achieved such a task as this portrait of a
lady seen in profile, in the cold white light of
the studio, in an attitude so full of movement ?
This is a work of such simplicity, such severity,
as quite takes us by surprise, coming from so
startling a colourist. But though he has here
disdained the resources of his palette and relied
wholly on black and white, we And in another
room the Besnard whom we know—the Besnard,
I feel inclined to say, of the g-a/azz/M, who,
like his precursors of the eighteenth century, can
depict with ease the Bickering light and shade
on the nude limbs of a woman. Here are a
few small pictures of delightful quality, in which
we discover, as we look, unexpected variety of
tone and colour. There is not in this exhibition
any artist who carries on more splendidly the
tradition of the great French colourists.
There is a fine air of sincerity in M. Lucien
Simon's work; his two female portraiis show much
of his usual high quality. I prefer, however, the
and the capital small picture
representing Breton men tramping across the plain


"LA SEtNE ET XOTRE DAME: L'mvER."
58

BY G. GILLOT