The same is
measurably true of Lerolle, whose pictures are more sympathetic--sometimes
they are _very_ sympathetic--but on the whole display less power. But
in each instance the advocate _a outrance_ of realism may justly, I
think, maintain that a painter with a natural predisposition toward the
insipidity of the academic has been saved from it by the inherent sanity
and robustness of the realistic method. Jean Beraud, even, owes something
to the way in which his verisimilitude of method has reinforced his
artistic powers. His delightful Parisiennes--modistes' messengers crossing
wet glistening pavements against a background of gray mist accented with
poster-bedizened kiosks and regularly recurring horse-chestnut trees;
_elegantes_ at prayer, in somewhat distracted mood, on _prie-dieus_
in the vacant and vapid Paris churches; seated at cafe tables on the busy,
leisurely boulevards, or posing _tout bonnement_ for the reproduction
of the most fascinating feminine _ensemble_ in the world--owe their
charm (I may say again their "fetchingness") to the faithfulness with which
their portraitist has studied, and the fidelity with which he has
reproduced, their differing types, more than to any personal expression
of his own view of them.
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