Things now drop into their true place, look as they
really do, and count as they count in nature, because the painter is no
longer content with giving us change for nature, but tries his best to
give us nature itself. Perspective acquires its actual significance,
solids have substance and bulk as well as surfaces, distance is
perceived as it is in nature, by the actual interposition of atmosphere,
chiaro-oscuro is abolished--the ways in which reality is secured being
in fact legion the moment real instead of relative values are studied.
Something is lost, very likely--an artist cannot be so intensely
preoccupied with reality as, since Manet, it has been incumbent on
painters to be, without missing a whole range of qualities that are so
precious as rightly perhaps to be considered indispensable. Until
reality becomes in its turn an effect unconsciously attained, the
painter's imagination will be held more or less in abeyance. And perhaps
we are justified in thinking that nothing can quite atone for its
absence. Meantime, however, it must be acknowledged that Manet first
gave us this sense of reality in a measure comparable with that which
successively Balzac, Flaubert, Zola gave to the readers of their
books--a sense of actuality and vividness beside which the traditionary
practice seemed absolutely fanciful and mechanical.
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