objects than their transparency across the atmosphere. The portraits are
frankly presented and broadly executed. The artist occupies himself in
the first place with getting correct values and an exact suggestion of
depth. He understands the illogicality of a false perfection which is as
interested in a trinket as in an eye, and he knows how to proportion the
interest of the picture which should guide the beholder's look to the
essential point, though every part should be correctly executed. He
knows how to interpret nature in a certain sense; how to stop in time;
how to suggest by leaving a part apparently unfinished; how to indicate,
behind a figure, the sea or some landscape with just a few broad touches
which suffice to suggest it without usurping the principal part. It is
now, that Renoir paints his greatest works, the _Déjeûner des
Canotiers_, the _Bal au Moulin de la Galette_, the _Box_, the _Terrace_,
the _First Step_, the _Sleeping Woman with a Cat_, and his most
beautiful landscapes; but his nature is too capricious to be satisfied
with a single technique. There are some landscapes that are reminiscent
of Corot or of Anton Mauve; the _Woman with the broken neck_ is related
to Manet; the portrait of _Sisley_ invents pointillism fifteen years
before the pointillists; _La Pensée_, this masterpiece, evokes
Hoppner. But in everything reappears the invincible French instinct: the
_Jeune Fille au panier_ is a Greuze painted by an Impressionist; the
delightful _Jeune Fille à la promenade_ is connected with Fragonard; the
_Box_, a perfect marvel of elegance and knowledge, condenses the whole
worldliness of 1875. The portrait of _Jeanne Samary_ is an evocation of
the most beautiful portraits of the eighteenth century, a poem of white
satin and golden hair.

[Illustration: RENOIR

YOUNG GIRL PROMENADING]