Another may paint French peasants all his life
and never make them permanently interesting, because he has not Millet's
admirable instinct and equipment as a painter. He is a superb colorist,
at times--always an enthusiastic one; there is something almost
unregulated in his delight in color, in his fondness for glowing and
resplendent tone. No one gets farther away from the academic grayness,
the colorless chiaro-oscuro of the conventional painters. He runs his
key up and loads his canvas, occasionally, in what one may call not so
much barbaric as uncultivated and elementary fashion. He cares so much
for color that sometimes, when his effect is intended to be purely
atmospheric, as in the "Angelus," he misses its justness and fitness,
and so, in insisting on color, obtains from the color point of view
itself an infelicitous--a colored--result. Occasionally he bathes a
scene in yellow mist that obscures all accentuations and play of values.
But always his feeling for color betrays him a painter rather than a
moralist. And in composition he is, I should say, even more
distinguished.
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