find, finally, in Delacroix the frequent and very apparent application
of their ideas. Notably in the famous _Entry of the Crusaders into
Constantinople_, the fair woman kneeling in the foreground is painted in
accordance with the principles of the division of tones: the nude back
is furrowed with blue, green and yellow touches, the juxtaposition of
which produces, at a certain distance, an admirable flesh-tone.

And now I must speak at some length of a painter who, together with the
luminous and sparkling landscapist Félix Ziem, was the most direct
initiator of Impressionist technique. Monticelli is one of those
singular men of genius who are not connected with any school, and whose
work is an inexhaustible source of applications. He lived at Marseilles,
where he was born, made a short appearance at the Salons, and then
returned to his native town, where he died poor, ignored, paralysed and
mad. In order to live he sold his small pictures at the cafés, where
they fetched ten or twenty francs at the most. To-day they sell for
considerable prices, although the government has not yet acquired any
work by Monticelli for the public galleries. The mysterious power alone
of these paintings secures him a fame which is, alas! posthumous. Many
Monticellis have been sold by dealers as Diaz's; now they are more
eagerly looked for than Diaz, and collectors have made fortunes with
these small canvases bought formerly, to use a colloquial expression
which is here only too literally true, "for a piece of bread."

Monticelli painted landscapes, romantic scenes, "fêtes galantes" in the
spirit of Watteau, and still-life pictures: one could not imagine a more
inspired sense of colour than shown by these works which seem to be
painted with crushed jewels, with powerful harmony, and beyond all with
an unheard-of delicacy in the perception of fine shades. There are tones
which nobody had ever invented yet, a richness, a profusion, a subtlety