perfect. This is inexact. It is absolutely evident, that Manet, Monet,
Renoir and Degas have signed some masterpieces which did not lose by
comparison with those in the Louvre, and the same might even be said of
their less illustrious friends. But it is also evident that the time
spent on research as well as on agitation and enervating controversies
pursued during twenty-five years, has been taken from men who could
otherwise have done better still. There has been a disparity between
Realism and the technique of Impressionism. Its realistic origin has
sometimes made it vulgar. It has often treated indifferent subjects in a
grand style, and it has too easily beheld life from the anecdotal side.
It has lacked psychologic synthesis (if we except Degas). It has too
willingly denied all that exists hidden under the apparent reality of
the universe and has affected to separate painting from the ideologic
faculties which rule over all art. Hatred of academic allegory,
defiance of symbolism, abstraction and romantic scenes, has led it to
refuse to occupy itself with a whole order of ideas, and it has had the
tendency of making the painter beyond all a workman. It was necessary at
the moment of its arrival, but it is no longer necessary now, and the
painters understand this themselves. Finally it has too often been
superficial even in obtaining effects; it has given way to the wish to
surprise the eyes, of playing with tones merely for love of cleverness.
It often causes one regret to see symphonies of magnificent colour
wasted here in pictures of boating men; and there, in pictures of café
corners; and we have arrived at a degree of complex intellectuality
which is no longer satisfied with these rudimentary themes. It has
indulged in useless exaggerations, faults of composition and of harmony,
and all this cannot be denied.

But it still remains fascinating and splendid for its gifts which will
always rouse enthusiasm: freedom, impetuousness, youth, brilliancy,