Fancy Beraud's masterpiece, the Salle
Graffard--that admirable characterization of crankdom embodied in a
socialist reunion--painted by an academic painter. How absolutely it would
lose its pith, its force, its significance, even its true distinction. And
his "Magdalen at the Pharisee's House," which is almost equally
impressive--far more impressive of course in a literary and, I think,
legitimate, sense--owes even its literary effectiveness to its significant
realism.
What the illustrators of the present day owe to the naturalistic method,
it is almost superfluous to point out. "Illustrators" in France are, in
general, painters as well, some of them very eminent painters. Daumier,
who passed in general for a contributor to illustrated journals, even
such journals as _Le Petit Journal pour Rire_, was not only a genius of
the first rank, but a painter of the first class. Monvel and Montenard
at present are masterly painters. But in their illustration as well as
in their painting, they show a notable change from the illustration of
the days of Daumier and Dore.
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