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There has, perhaps, been more original individuality in the landscape painter Alfred Sisley. He possessed in the highest degree the feeling for light, and if he did not have the power, the masterly passion of Claude Monet, he will at least deserve to be frequently placed by his side as regards the expression of certain combinations of light. He did not have the decorative feeling which makes Monet's landscapes so imposing; one does not see in his work that surprising lyrical interpretation which knows how to express the drama of the raging waves, the heavy slumber of enormous masses of rock, the intense torpor of the sun on the sea. But in all that concerns the mild aspects of the Ile de France, the sweet and fresh landscapes, Sisley is not unworthy of being compared with Monet. He equals him in numerous pictures; he has a similar delicacy of perception, a similar fervour of execution.

He is the painter of great, blue rivers curving towards the horizon; of blossoming orchards; of bright hills with red-roofed hamlets scattered about; he is, beyond all, the painter of French skies which he presents with admirable vivacity and facility. He has the feeling for the transparency of atmosphere, and if his technique allies him directly with Impressionism, one can well feel, that he painted spontaneously and that this technique happened to be adapted to his nature, without his having attempted to appropriate it for the sake of novelty. Sisley has painted a notable series of pictures in the quaint village of Moret on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where he died at a ripe age, and these canvases will figure among the most charming landscapes of our epoch.

Sisley was a veteran of Impressionism. At the Exhibition of 1900, in the two rooms reserved for the works of this school, there were to be seen a dozen of Sisley's canvases. By the side of the finest Renoirs, Monets and Manets they kept their charm and their brilliancy with a singular flavour, and this was for many critics a revelation as to the real place of this artist, whom they had hitherto considered as a pretty colourist of only relative importance.

SISLEY - SNOW EFFECT

SISLEY - BOUGIVAL, AT THE WATER'S EDGE

SISLEY - BRIDGE AT MORET

Paul Cézanne, unknown to the public, is appreciated by a small group of art lovers. He is an artist who lives in Provence, away from the world; he is supposed to have served as model for the Impressionist painter Claude Lantier, described by Zola in his celebrated novel "L'Oeuvre." Cézanne has painted landscapes, rustic scenes and still-life pictures. His figures are clumsy and brutal and inharmonious in colour, but his landscapes have the merit of a robust simplicity of vision.

These pictures are almost primitive, and they are loved by the young Impressionists because of their exclusion of all "cleverness." A charm of rude simplicity and sincerity can be found in these works in which Cézanne employs only just the means which are indispensable for his end. His still-life pictures are particularly interesting owing to the spotless brilliancy of their colours, the straightforwardness of the tones, and the originality of certain shades analogous to those of old faience. Cézanne is a conscientious painter without skill, intensely absorbed in rendering what he sees, and his strong and tenacious attention has sometimes succeeded in finding beauty. He reminds more of an ancient Gothic craftsman, than of a modern artist, and he is full of repose as a contrast to the dazzling virtuosity of so many painters.

CÉZANNE DESSERT

Berthe Morisot will remain the most fascinating figure of Impressionism,—the one who has stated most precisely the femineity of this luminous and iridescent art. Having married Eugène Manet, the brother of the great painter, she exhibited at various private galleries, where the works of the first Impressionists were to be seen, and became as famous for her talent as for her beauty. When Manet died, she took charge of his memory and of his work, and she helped with all her energetic intelligence to procure them their just and final estimation. Mme. Eugène Manet has certainly been one of the most beautiful types of French women of the end of the nineteenth century. When she died prematurely at the age of fifty (in 1895), she left a considerable amount of work: gardens, young girls, water-colours of refined taste, of surprising energy, and of a colouring as distinguished, as it is unexpected.

As great grand-daughter of Fragonard, Berthe Morisot (since we ought to leave her the name with which her respect for Manet's great name made her always sign her works) seemed to have inherited from her famous ancestor his French gracefulness, his spirited elegance, and all his other great qualities. She has also felt the influence of Corot, of Manet and of Renoir. All her work is bathed in brightness, in azure, in sunlight; it is a woman's work, but it has a strength, a freedom of touch and an originality, which one would hardly have expected. Her water-colours, particularly, belong to a superior art: some notes of colour suffice to indicate sky, sea, or a forest background, and everything shows a sure and masterly fancy, for which our time can offer no analogy.

A series of Berthe Morisot's works looks like a veritable bouquet whose brilliancy is due less to the colour-schemes which are comparatively soft, grey and blue, than to the absolute correctness of the values. A hundred canvases, and perhaps three hundred water-colours attest this talent of the first rank. Normandy coast scenes with pearly skies and turquoise horizons, sparkling Nice gardens, fruit-laden orchards, girls in white dresses with big flower-decked hats, young women in ball-dress, and flowers are the favourite themes of this artist who was the friend of Renoir, of Degas and of Mallarmé.

BERTHE MORISOT - MELANCHOLY

BERTHE MORISOT - YOUNG WOMAN SEATED

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