So it is that his men of brains-and the men he paints are men of talent, with hardly an exception-are painted, not showing themselves to the world, but at ease with comrades, or, in their pursuits, quietly busy. So it is that his young women-his Brodeuses and Liseuses— have nothing of Sargent or Helleu. Their nerves possess stability; and they do not represent in the least the elegance of the Capital, or the mode of the moment. In painting them, if Fantin thought of the traditions of any predecessor, it must have been of the best traditions of Metsu and Terburg, and the best traditions of Chardin.

To turn again to Fantin's pictures of men, two of the most famous of his portrait groups are 'Un Atelier aux Batignolles' and Hommage à Delacroix.' In the first, Fantin recorded, with the quiet harmony that is usual to him-for he is colourist essentially, as well as harmonist, only, I think, in his Flower-pieces-the men (half of them destined to be famous before his life closed) with whom his life almost began. There, in the 'Atelier of the Batignolles,' were Zola and Edouard Manet. Other people-some of them perhaps famous already-were, later, dragged into the 'Hommage à Delacroix.' Why do I write 'dragged'? Because I recollect that on my saying to Fantin there seemed no special reason why these should all do homage at that particular shrine, he smilingly allowed that half of them were there not at all because they wished to be. Be it his to assume their acquiescence, and to lead their worship in the direction in which just then he thought it fitting that it should go.

It is in the Allegorical figures, the draped figures of Romantic Music, in the Classical nudities, above all-amongst which I count perforce the firm and silvery figure of 'Eve' in the lithograph-that the correctness--the warm correctness of Fantin's draughtsmanship, still more, the suavity and splendour of his design—becomes most of all apparent. I have used the word 'austere' of him; but there is no austerity whatever about his representation-his habitual representation-of the female figure. Here, with Legros, he has scarcely anything in common. In his drawing of the female Nude, he is of the tradition of Venice-with a little leaning here and there to the simpler grace of the tradition of Prud'hon. As far as Painting is concerned, I like these subjects best in the earlier years of his treatment of them. It is then that their colour is finest nothing blurred, nothing modified unduly-and the very touch of the brush is then more interesting. As far as the Lithographs are concerned, Time changed him hardly at all—if it did change him at all, it was for the better. Pace the French feeling of the moment, which inclines, even more strongly, to other things, Fantin's greatest achievement was his painting of Flowers. He is, par excellence, the Flower-painter in Oils, as Francis James is the Flower-painter in Water Colour. But next, I suppose, comes the perfection of draughtsmanship, design, and craftsman's technical skill, in the

production of the Lithographs. Whistler's, Legros's, Charles Shannon's Lithographs are the only ones that can endure at all to be set by Fantin's. That one fact let us note-it must by no means escape us-ere we say one word more of the thing that, above all others, was final, consummate-the Flower Painting.

Rightly, of late years, Fantin hardly touched Flower Painting. He had done, in his great period-in the Seventies, chiefly, but not exclusively, as has been said already-those things in Flower Painting by which he is most certain to live. In a sense, his Flower Painting is itself Portraiture—that is, the individuality of the particular bloom is in no way passed over. Fantin-like Francis James-arrests for us its soul, where Van Huysum and Van Aelst-great in verisimilitude and great in symmetry -arrested for us mainly its magnificence and its material life. With Fantin, there is the sentiment as well as the fact the intimate pleasure not only in the thing's splendour but in the thing's existence. Van Huysum's flowers were for the taste, ordered and artificial, of the Eighteenth Century—its earlier half. Fantin's were for the taste of the poet of the 'Lesser Celandine,' and of the 'primrose by the river's brim.' A background wholly lacking in incident or line-without even variety of light and shade, for the most part-but a background always carefully and subtly in harmony with the flowers themselves, is his flowers' only décor. So much have they that accuracy of draughtsmanship which is la probité de l'art, that less of subtlety in the background-less of subtlety, too, sheer subtlety, in the rendering of the main themeand the things might be botanical studies. Yet they are that, in fact, not more at all than the splendid impromptus of Diaz or the revelries of Vollon. No, no, it is not a mere Realist; it is an Idealist who has painted them. They have been not only a conscientious student's adequate material. Dahlias and roses; zinnias; roses; then roses and white heather; stocks, and roses-it is their lover who has painted them. Fantin has understood and valued the fragile life that only his love could prolong.

III

Really, Eugène Boudin must have had a wonderful constitution. Nothing jerry-built about him. Like 'Sarah '-once supposed to have no staying power-he was made, truly, of steel. The penury of his earlier years of manhood, I mean-the immense struggle of all his middle life-neither the one nor the other shortened visibly his days. He survived those evil times. He died at seventy-four.

All that accounts for his large and various productiveness; it accounts for the fact that some of his work, and some that is not the least excellent, must be referred to a period only old men can remember-the period of the early Sixties-and for the fact, too, that some

of his work belongs to a time which even young men allow to be recent. Boudin painted at Antibes and at Beaulieu in the Winter of 1896. Nor did he fail to change in accordance with the years: the impulse, a natural one, coming from within and never from without. So it was, and under those conditions only, that he was dans le mouve ment' entirely-even 'du dernier bâteau,' one would say. And Boudin is now on his way to be a Classic; and there are about twenty people in England to whom his name is familiar.

Since, from seeing one striking oil sketch of his, in M. Jacobi's window, then over against the portico of Notre Dame de Lorettesince, from seeing that sketch of towering sails, golden and grey, in a placid harbour, I began to take serious interest in Eugène Boudin, I have often asked myself why we have known him so little. Certainly an English dealer here and there has had his work, and has presumably sold it; but with us it has never been concentrated, never seen en masse, never made a theme of Criticism; and in most recent days it has seemed, amongst us, neither quite entertainingly new nor quite respectably old. It is of the generation that followed that of the Romantics; and the Romantics, the men of 1830'-Corot and Rousseau, Diaz and Dupré-held the field, and Boudin, whom the last of the Romantics admired, has stood alone.

6

Again, though Boudin's work has great and various virtues, though it is sterling entirely, and though one never wearies of it, it has no peculiarity. Boudin does not break suddenly and visibly away, as Corot did, at a particular moment, from the recognised road-painting never the forms of things, but only their suggestiveness; painting a few things; painting these with reiteration-the. dreamy, undulating land, the silver of the morning, the mist of twilight. That was Corot's way. And one of the reasons why he has impressed-though he was late in impressing the big Public, is that pertinaciously, and not as I suppose with any inward satiety, he went on doing practically one thing-I mean that it is one order of sentiment that dominates in Corot, that makes itself felt, that by mere repetition gets itself accepted. Such work, by its mass and similarity, maintaining all the time a high though very far from an unbroken level, ends by imposing on the Public no obligation of alertness, no exertion, no meeting of the painter half way. You know a Corot, or an imitation of Corot, as you know the palm of your hand; and the Public loves that facility; and Boudin, with his variety, with the endlessness of the impressions he records, offers it no pleasure so idle and convenient. More or less you must know his work-more or less, too, you must have studied his themes-to understand his individuality. He is a virtuoso, but much more than a virtuoso-he appeals to the most tasteful of experts. Baudelaire-sanest of critics, if least wholesome of poets-forty years ago, jumps to the recognition of him. Corot acclaims him 'le roi des

ciels. Courbet declares 'Il n'y a que vous qui connaissez le ciel.' And much of the best modern Criticism of France echoes in effect that eulogy.

A word about his circumstances and his life, before I try to analyse with some degree of detail his achievement, and speak of the mediums as well as of the themes in which his art is expressed.

Boudin was the son of a sailor: the sea was in his blood. Born at Honfleur, the quaint and interesting, but now, I suppose, somewhat decaying port, on the western side of the estuary of the Seine-the port whose ancient picturesqueness Isabey romantically chronicled, in a picture whose effect is preserved for us through the impressive mezzotint of Lucas-he was himself, like more than one of the sea novelists, his true brethren, a while before the mast.' His father was at that time pilot on board the humble packet that daily crossed, in serene Summer and stormy Autumn, the breadth of Channel water that divides Honfleur from Le Hâvre. Eugène, in his boyhood, had wider experiences. Once, at least, his ship dropped anchor in an English port; and M. Gustave Cahen's authoritative Life of him records that he was once at the Antilles. These early voyages gave him impressions, gave him actual knowledge, gave him insight. I do not minimise their importance. All his youthful ways did something to equip him for the business of his life. But the vitality of his work, during long years, is due, of course, not only and not mainly, to those first experiences with which so many painters are wont to be contentits sustained excellence is due to Boudin's habit of daily and of hourly contact with the scenes that gave him occasion for those subjects on which his choice instinctively fell.

Before old age came on him, Boudin's father retired from the sea. He settled then at Le Havre-established himself there as a small stationer and frame-maker-kept Eugène Boudin with him as an assistant, and the instinct for drawing showed itself in Eugène as a youth. 'Chance,' says M. Cahen-to whose book I am indebted for details of Boudin's early days-chance brought into the shop the painter Troyon, who gave him some pastels to be stretched and framed.' The sight of them was a stimulus. Young Boudin did a landscape which came under the notice of Millet-Millet, poor but a Master. His heart was set already upon being an artist: nothing else. Millet reasoned with him to no purpose-reasoned from his own bitter experience-but helped him, gave him his first lesson, as well. The shop, thenceforth, was as a closed book to him. Troyon, Isabey, and Coûture, recognising the young man's talent, busied themselves with getting the town of his adoption to grant him for a few years an allowance. The object was, that he should have leisure to study. And, towards 1850, a three years' pension from the municipality of Le Havre was forthcoming; and to Paris, to study, and observe, went Eugène Boudin. Not, however, as it seemed

at first, and seemed even for some time afterwards, very usefully. He was confused in his course. Rousseau'solicited' him this way— the word is Boudin's own-Corot 'solicited' him in that. And, at a bad moment for Portraiture to succeed-for, amongst people who could afford but little, the daguerreotype was then found fascinating and absorbing-he made the mistake of taking to Portraiture. Nobody wanted his portraits. The time for the pension expired. The town of Hâvre owed me nothing,' says Boudin; and, 'It had been deceived.'

Then began the really difficult days that must have seemed to be endless ones. In spite of occasional recognition of a success that was personal, they lasted more or less till the beginning of his old agetill within ten years of his death. Then only was his income a good one; in the years of what is now accounted his best labour, his earnings, not always actually insignificant-and his ways were humble ways-were at least strangely uncertain. In several years that followed pretty closely upon those in which Le Havre had pensioned him, Boudin must have starved if he had not been useful to Troyon. Many a Troyon background-the sky, or more than the sky-owes something of its life to Boudin. Troyon had a name and was busy, and Boudin helped him effectively, where he needed help the most. But, by that time, Boudin's work, wrought on his own panels, was his own entirely, in character. He had learnt his lessons. He had taken his road. But the Public would not receive him. 'La Peinture grise n'était guère goutée à ce moment-là,' he says: 'surtout pour la marine.' And it was the grey of the Channel waters, and the grey of the Channel skies, that Boudin had found, by this time, it was his business to set down. How wide, really, was his range, how unremitting his originality and freshness, in that which, looked at superficially, may seem to be limited, I shall insist on-I shall try to show-a little later, when I have done counting the milestones: done with the brief story of Boudin's outward life.

In one of the years that followed not long after the ending of the pension, Boudin went to Brittany. He returned there later; but it must have been in the first of his long sojourns in a land that lies beyond the boundaries of the veritable France, that he met the Breton girl whom, in 1858, he married-using her that very year as his principal model for what seemed then an 'important' but must be looked at now as on the whole an unsatisfactory picture, the 'Pardon de Sainte Anne la Palud, Finisterre.' The town of Hâvre, not even then quite weary of well-doing as far as he was concerned, bought the canvas. It hangs in the Museum. In after years Boudin was ashamed of it-wished it had never been painted; wished it had been destroyed -in its hard and laboured finish it misrepresented the artist he had become. But, at the time, no doubt the purchase pleased him. Like his wife's modest dowry-destined certainly to be spent-it helped