International studio (22.1904)

unworthy of ^7*^777^ a7-Z. He did not understand
it, and he never understood.
Happiiy, Milcendeau stood firm. We should
have made a lot of progress if he, like so many
others, had exhibited his Jasons and Helens and
Ulysses according to the master's formula! What
is past is past, and it is useless indeed to continue
it and repeat it. Milcendeau has regained the
open, has gone -back home to his cottages, his
his meadows and his streams, and there
he has found the elements of his own work ; which
is infinitely better than to have gathered up the
crumbs from the work of another. At the same
time, he owes something, of course, to Moreau :
the discipline and the honesty of work, the spirit to
do, the courage to struggle hard. Gustave Moreau
was of high moral worth, and one may hope that in

his pupils are to be found the heirs of his
conscience.
As to the form of Milcendeau's drawings, I
firmly believe it to be strictly his own. Originality
of this kind is born with an artist. It is this sort
of originality which finds confirmation and gains
development by contact with the Masters—every
one of them; and Milcendeau, I think, went to
all, not only the Italians who inspired Moreau,
but also to Rembrandt, Rubens, Velasquez,
Delacroix, and the others.
He has the good fortune to possess an indi-
vidual style of drawing, and he has his native land,
home and race—herein is the artist's inexhaustible
store. In his own country he recovers himself,
gathers fresh strength because he has sprung from
its very soil. A supply of sap has been, as it were,
his heritage, and he knows
where that supply may
be renewed. In the case
of Milcendeau, this store
of force is in Vendee and
in Brittany. Amid these
familiar landscapes and
villages, surrounded by
folk long and well known,
he feels at his ease;
he knows what he is going
to say and how he is
going to say it. Thus the
slightest of his sketches
has an inimitable accent
of its own. Compared
with the pages he has
brought back from his
native place, all the
77M'.fM-g73-.M?7i!<? of tourist
painters appear insipid,
without emotion, without
conviction.
With Milcendeau there
is the deep touch, the
sensitive mark—the parent-
age, so to speak. Look
at these old peasants sit-
ting in the chimney corner,
or at the table, eating
their soup, or out of
doors, looking after their
pastures. Everything
about them — their stiff,
bent frames, their lean
faces, their hard, suspici-
ous, obstinate eyes—tells