This at least may be said
of him, that he shows what, given genius, can be got out of the
impressionist method artistically and practically employed to the end of
illustrating a personal point of view. A mere amateur can hardly
distinguish between a Caillebotte and a Sisley, for example, but
everyone identifies a Degas as immediately and as certainly as he does a
Whistler. His work is perfectly sincere and admirably intelligent. It
has neither the pose nor the irresponsibility of the impressionists. His
artistic apotheosis of the ballet-girl is merely the result of his happy
discovery of something delightfully, and in a very true sense naturally,
decorative in material that is in the highest degree artificial. His
impulse is as genuine and spontaneous as if the substance upon which it
is exercised were not the acme of the exotic, and already arranged with
the most elaborate conventionality. Nothing indeed could be more opposed
to the elementary crudity of impressionism than his distinction and
refinement, which may be said to be carried to a really _fin de siecle_
degree.
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