THE MODERN ILLUSTRATORS CONNECTED WITH IMPRESSIONISM: RAFFAËLLI,
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, FORAIN, CHÉRET, ETC.


Not the least important result of Impressionism has been the veritable
revolution effected by it in the art of illustration. It was only
natural that its principles should have led to it. The substitution of
the beauty of character for the beauty of proportion was bound to move
the artists to regard illustration in a new light; and as pictorial
Impressionism was born of the same movement of ideas which created the
naturalist novel and the impressionist literature of Flaubert, Zola and
the Goncourts, and moreover as these men were united by close relations
and a common defence, Edouard Manet's modern ideas soon took up the
commentary of the books dealing with modern life and the description of
actual spectacles.

The Impressionists themselves have not contributed towards illustration.
Their work has consisted in raising to the style of grand painting
subjects, that seemed at the best only worthy of the proportion of
vignettes, in opposition to the subjects qualified as "noble" by the
School. The series of works by Manet and Degas may be considered as
admirable illustrations to the novels by Zola and the Goncourts. It is a
parallel research in modern psychologic truth. But this research has
remained confined to pictures. It may be presumed that, had they wished
to do so, Manet and Degas could have admirably illustrated certain
contemporary novels, and Renoir could have produced a masterpiece in
commenting, say, upon Verlaine's _Fêtes Galantes_. The only things that
can be mentioned here are a few drawings composed by Manet for Edgar A.
Poe's _The Raven_ and Mallarmé's _L'Après-Midi d'un Faune_, in addition