I recall vividly the
impatience with which he once spoke to me of painting "to show what you
can do." His own standard was always the particular ideal he had formed,
never within the reach of his ascertained powers. And whatever he did,
one may say, illustrates the sincerity and elevation of this remark,
whether one's mood incline one to care most for this psychological
side--undoubtedly the more nearly unique side--of his work, or for such
exquisite things as his "Forge" or the portrait of Mme Sarah Bernhardt.
Incontestably he has the true tradition, and stands in the line of the
great painters. And he owes his permanent place among them not less to
his perception that painting has a moral and significant, as well as a
representative and decorative sanction, than to his perfect harmony with
his own time in his way of illustrating this--to his happy fusion of
aspect admirably rendered with profound and stimulating suggestion.
III
Of the realistic landscape painters, the strict impressionists apart,
none is more eminent than M.
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