been wanting in intellectual depth and has left to its successors the
care of realising works of great thought. But it has brought us a sunny
smile, a breath of pure air. It is so fascinating, that one cannot but
love its very mistakes which make it more human and more accessible.
Renoir is the most lyrical, the most musical, the most subtle of the
masters of this art. Some of his landscapes are as beautiful as those of
Claude Monet. His nudes are as masterly in painting as Manet's, and more
supple. Not having attained the scientific drawing which one finds in
Degas's, they have a grace and a brilliancy which Degas's nudes have
never known. If his rare portraits of men are inferior to those of his
rivals, his women's portraits have a frequently superior distinction.
His great modern compositions are equal to the most beautiful works by
Manet and Degas. His inequalities are also more striking than theirs.
Being a fantastic, nervous improvisator he is more exposed to radical
mistakes. But he is a profoundly sincere and conscientious artist.

[Illustration: RENOIR

ON THE TERRACE]

The race speaks in him. It is inexplicable that he should not have met
with startling success, since he is voluptuous, bright, happy and
learned without heaviness. One has to attribute his relative isolation
to the violence of the controversies, and particularly to the dignity of
a poet gently disdainful of public opinion and paying attention solely
to painting, his great and only love. Manet has been a fighter whose
works have created scandal. Renoir has neither shown, nor hidden
himself: he has painted according to his dream, spreading his works,
without mixing up his name or his personality with the tumult that raged
around his friends. And now, for that very reason, his work appears