seem projected in a furious shower. It is a veritable orchestral piece,
where every colour is an instrument with a distinct part, and where the
hours with their different tints represent the successive themes. Monet
is the equal of the greatest landscape painters as regards the
comprehension of the true character of every soil he has studied, which
is the supreme quality of his art. Though absorbed beyond all by study
of the sunlight, he has thought it useless to go to Morocco or Algeria.
He has found Brittany, Holland, the _Ile de France_, the _Cote d'Azur_
and England sufficient sources of inspiration for his symphonies, which
cover from end to end the scale of perceptible colours. He has
expressed, for instance, the mild and vaporous softness of the
Mediterranean, the luxuriant vegetation of the gardens of Cannes and
Antibes, with a truthfulness and knowledge of the psychology of land and
water which can only be properly appreciated by those who live in this
enchanted region. This has not prevented him from understanding better
than anybody the wildness, the grand austereness of the rocks of
_Belle-Isle en mer_, to express it in pictures in which one really feels
the wind, the spray, and the roaring of the heavy waters breaking
against the impassibility of the granite rocks. His recent series of
_Water-lilies_ expressed all the melancholic and fresh charm of quiet
basins, of sweet bits of water blocked by rushes and calyxes. He has
painted underwoods in the autumn, where the most subtle shades of
bronze and gold are at play, chrysanthemums, pheasants, roofs at
twilight, dazzling sunflowers, gardens, tulip-fields in Holland,
bouquets, effects of snow and hoar frost of exquisite softness, and
sailing boats passing in the sun. He has painted some views of the banks
of the Seine which are quite wonderful in their power of conjuring up
these scenes, and over all this has roved his splendid vision of a
great, amorous and radiant colourist. The _Cathedrals_ are even more of
a _tour de force_ of his talent. They consist of seventeen studies of