first to study the relation between the moving lines of a living being
and the immovable lines of the scene which serves as its setting; the
first, also, to define drawing, not as a graphic science, but as the
valuation of the third dimension, and thus to apply to painting the
principles hitherto reserved for sculpture. Finally, he will be counted
among the great analysts. His vision, tenacious, intense, and sombre,
stimulates thought: across what appears to be the most immediate and
even the most vulgar reality it reaches a grand, artistic style; it
states profoundly the facts of life, it condenses a little the human
soul: and this will suffice to secure for Degas an important place in
his epoch, a little apart from Impressionism. Without noise, and through
the sheer charm of his originality, he has contributed his share towards
undermining the false doctrines of academic art before the painters, as
Manet has undermined them before the public.

[Illustration: CLAUDE MONET

AN INTERIOR, AFTER DINNER]




V

CLAUDE MONET: HIS WORK, HIS INFLUENCE


With Claude Monet we enter upon Impressionism in its most significant
technical expression, and touch upon the principal points referred to in
the second chapter of this book.