Studio: international art (63.1914/15)

The Grosvenor House Exhibition of French Art
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" lecon de danse " ( The property of Mons. Hoentschel) by h. g. e. degas

analysis worth while, we realise that there is no of Manet's shows in every touch not only the artist's

equivalent for this highly-strung art in anything enjoyment of the element of paint itself, but of

that has preceded it. It is easy to underrate the the contact of the very brush with canvas. His

genius of this art through confusing it with the " touch" is like that of a fine pianist. And this

nebulous work of followers, practising in the method virtuosity is not something all upon the surface ;

without the spirit and the vision of its originators, the profound charm of quality in Manet's painting

More banal and empty even than any Academy rests with the fact that in his case execution was so

convention is much of the art that passes as immediately responsive to his will. His art defines

Impressionism in England to-day. Things are his desires, not only in the main, but in every

always opposed by the imitations to which they shade. In this sensitive art of Manet, the art of

give rise. No one can pass such an apparently painting is full-blown, a zephyr might carry away

damaging criticism upon a movement as an un- the petals and begin the disintegration of the lovely

worthy follower. flower. After this we must look for development

Some day the Impressionist school—using the in painting from another stem,
term with convenient freedom, embracing Manet The blacks in a painting by Manet give us the
and Degas—will be acknowledged to rank with the same kind of pleasure as porcelain of the rarest
great historic schools. It took up, explored, and kind. He could not fail to interpret life in terms
interpreted an aspect of nature which had escaped of distinction, for his imagination for reality was of
the attention of all former art. It is not merely a the most elevated kind. His mind was so con-
question of sensitive response to physical atmo- stituted that even if there are commonplace things,
sphere and the problems of representing light. he could not perceive them; consciousness can
Wonderful as were the systems organised in only entertain that which answers to itself. The
adapting the palette to problems of the kind, its field from which the subject of a picture is taken
supreme attainment means much more than that, has nothing to do, of course, with the plane on
The eagerness" of this art, and- its desire for which the art that interprets it moves. The world
immediate contact with everything human, seemed which an artist depicts is not so much one that
special to France at a moment when for the first he chooses, as one that chooses him ; one into
time genius became its own patron and the artist which he is born by the particular constitution of
realised a kind of freedom which gave him a new his mind.

conscience. In strong contrast to the politeness of Manet's

It is especially for the fine representation of the art is the fervour of Degas. It seems that there is

art of Manet and Degas that the Grosvenor House no shape that human life can take which does not

Exhibition is memorable. Manet's art is essentially excite his sympathy. His art is the best example

aristocratic in character. The painter possessed of realism in the true sense. It is life m the

that sense of " quality " which is, in highly attuned actual—as itself the new and strange ideal—and

people, a sixth or seventh sense. The slightest sketch not "the ideal" that interests him. This realism