first hour. He was rich, fond of art, and himself a painter of great
merit who modestly kept hidden behind his comrades. His picture _Les
raboteurs de parquets_ made him formerly the butt of derision. To-day
his work, at the Luxembourg Gallery seems hardly a fit pretext for so
much controversy, but at that time much was considered as madness,
that to our eyes appears quite natural. This picture is a study of
oblique perspective and its curious _ensemble_ of rising lines sufficed
to provoke astonishment. The work is, moreover, grey and discreet in
colour and has some qualities of fine light, but is on the whole not
very interesting. Recently an exhibition of works by Caillebotte has
made it apparent that this amateur was a misjudged painter. The
still-life pictures in this exhibition were specially remarkable. But
the name of Caillebotte was destined to reach the public only in
connection with controversies and scandal. When he died, he left to the
State a magnificent collection of objets-d'art and of old pictures, and
also a collection of Impressionist works, stipulating that these two
bequests should be inseparable. He wished by this means to impose the
works of his friends upon the museums, and thus avenge their unjust
neglect. The State accepted the two legacies, since the Louvre
absolutely wanted to benefit by the ancient portion, in spite of the
efforts of the Academicians who revolted against the acceptance of the
modern part. On this occasion one could see how far the official
artists were carried by their hatred of the Impressionists. A group of
Academicians, professors at the _Ecole des Beaux-Arts_, threatened the
minister that they would resign _en masse_. "We cannot," they wrote to
the papers, "continue to teach an art of which we believe we know the
laws, from the moment the State admits into the museums, where our
pupils can see them, works which are the very negation of all we teach."
A heated discussion followed in the press, and the minister boldly
declared that Impressionism, good or bad, had attracted the attention of