No art manifestation is really isolated. However new it may seem, it is
always based upon the previous epochs. The true masters do not give
lessons, because art cannot be taught, but they set the example. To
admire them does not mean to imitate them: it means the recognition in
them of the principles of originality and the comprehension of their
source, so that this eternal source may be called to life in oneself,
this source which springs from a sincere and sympathetic vision of the
aspects of life. The Impressionists have not escaped this beautiful law.
I shall speak of them impartially, without excessive enthusiasm; and it
will be my special endeavour to demonstrate in each of them the cult of
a predecessor, for there have been few artistic movements where the love
for, and one might say the hereditary link with, the preceding masters
has been more tenacious.

The Academy has struggled violently against Impressionism, accusing it
of madness, of systematic negation of the "laws of beauty," which it
pretended to defend and of which it claimed to be the official priest.
The Academy has shown itself hostile to a degree in this quarrel. It has
excluded the Impressionists from the Salons, from awards, from official
purchases. Only quite recently the acceptance of the Caillebotte
bequest to the Luxembourg Gallery gave rise to a storm of indignation
among the official painters. I shall, in the course of this book, enter
upon the value of these attacks. Meanwhile I can only say how
regrettable this obstinacy appears to me and will appear to every free
spirit. It is unworthy even of an ardent conviction to condemn a whole
group of artists _en bloc_ as fools, enemies of beauty, or as tricksters
anxious to degrade the art of their nation, when these artists worked
during forty years towards the same goal, without getting any reward for
their effort, but poverty and derision. It is now about ten years since