passed since the broad, sensuous work of Turner, big in conception and big in treatment, was followed by the more exact painters of the English school, many of whom are still at work, notably Leader and Alfred Parsons, both Royal Academicians, and of whom some contemporaneous critic insisted that they had counted the leaves on their elm-trees fringing the polished water of the Thames. They, of course, had only been eclipsed by the broader brushes of more recent time, men like Frank Brangwyn and Colin Hunter, who have yielded to the pressure of the change in taste, or of whom it would be more just to say, have set present taste, so that to-day not only the afternoon of night, but the twilight of forgetfulness, is slowly and surely casting long shadows over the more realistic men of the eighties and nineties.

What will follow this evolution of technic no man can predict. The lessons of the past, however, are valuable, and to-day one touch of Turner's brush is more sought for than acres of canvases so greatly prized twenty years after his death.

And this is not alone confined to the old realistic English school. In my own time I have seen Verbeckoeven eclipsed by Van Marcke, Bouguereau, Cabanel, and Gérôme by Manet, and Sir Frederick Leighton by John Sargent—a young David slaying the Goliath of English technic with but a wave of his magic brush—and, last and by no means least, the great French painter Meissonier by the equally great Spanish master Sorolla.

I am tempted to continue, for the success of these men in the fulness of the sunlight of their triumph, realists as well as impressionists, was wholly due to their understanding of and adherence to the rules of selection, composition, and mass which form the basis of these papers, and which despite their differences in brush work they all adhered to.

In the late half of the preceding century Meissonier received $66,000 for his "Friedland," a picture which cost him the best part of two years to paint, and the expenditure of many thousands of francs, notably the expense attendant upon the trampling down of a field of growing wheat by a drove of horses that he might study the action and the effect the better. Forty years later Sorolla received $20,000 for two figures in blazing sunlight which took him but two days to paint, the rest of his collection bringing $250,000, the whole exhibit of one hundred and odd pictures having been visited by 150,000 persons in thirty-two days. And he is still in the full tide of success, pre-eminently the greatest master of the out-of-doors of modern times, while to-day the work of Meissonier has fallen into such disrepute that no owner dares offer one of his canvases at public auction except under the keenest necessity. The first master expresses the refinement of extreme realism, or rather detailism; the other is a pronounced impressionist of the sanest of the open-air school of to-day. How long this pendulum will continue to swing no one can tell. Both men are great painters in the widest, deepest, and most pronounced sense; both men have glorified, ennobled, and enriched their time; and both men have reflected credit and honor upon their nation and their school.

Meissonier could not only draw the figure, give it life and action, keep it harmonious in color, perfect in its gradations of black and white, but he had that marvellous gift of color analysis which reproduces for you in a picture the size of the top of a cigar-box every tone in the local and reflected light to be found, say, in the folds of a cavalier's cloak, the pleats no wider than the point of a stub pen.

All this, of course, Sorolla ignores and, I am afraid, knowing the man personally as I do, despises. What concerns the great Spaniard is the whole composition alive in the blaze of the sunlight, the glare of the hot sand and the shimmer of the blue, overarching sky, beating up and down and over the figures, and all depicted with a slash of a brush almost as wide as your hand. The first picture, the size of a tobacco-box, you can hold between thumb and finger and enjoy, amazed at the master's knowledge and skill. The other grips you from afar off as you enter the gallery and stand startled and astounded before its truth and dignity. In the first Meissonier tells you the whole story to the very end. In the second Sorolla presents but a series of shorthand notes which you yourself can fill in to suit your taste and experience both of life and nature.

Whether you prefer one or the other, or neither, is a matter for you to decide. You pay your money or you don't, and you can take your choice. The future only can tell the story of the revolution of the wheel. In the next decade a single Meissonier may be worth its weight in sheet gold and layers of Sorollas may be stored in attics awaiting some fortunate auction.

What will ensue, the art world over, before the wheel travels its full periphery, no man knows. It will not be the hysteria of paint, I feel assured, with its dabbers, spotters, and smearers; nor will it be the litters of the cub-ists, that new breed of artistic pups, sponsors for "The girl coming down-stairs," or "The stairs coming down the girl," or "The coming girl and the down-stairs," it makes no difference which, all are equally incoherent and unintelligible; but it will be something which, at least, will boast the element of beauty which is the one and only excuse for art's existence. I may not live to see Meissonier's second dawn and I never want to see Sorolla's eclipse, but you may. You have only to remember Turner's second high noon to be assured of it.

And just here it might be well to consider this question of technic, especially its value in obtaining the results desired. While it has nothing to do with either selection, composition, or mass, it has, I claim, much to do with the way a painter expresses himself—his tone of voice, his handwriting, his gestures in talking, so to speak—and therefore becomes an integral part of my discourse. It may also be of service in the striking of a note of compromise, some middle ground upon which the extremes may one day meet.

To make my point the clearer, let me recall an exhibition in New York, held some years ago, when the bonnets were five deep trying to get a glimpse of a picture of half a dozen red prelates who were listening to a missionary's story. Many of these devotees went into raptures over the brass nails in the sofa, and were only disappointed when they could not read the monogram on the bishop's ring. Later on, a highly cultivated and intelligent American citizen was so entranced that he bought the missionary, story and all, for the price of a brown-stone front, and carried him away that he might enjoy him forever.

One month later, almost exactly in the same spot hung another picture, the subject of which I forget, or it may be that I did not understand it or that it had no subject at all. If I remember, it was not like anything in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, or the waters under the earth. In this respect one could have fallen down and worshipped it and escaped the charge of idolatry. With the exception of a few stray art critics, delighted at an opportunity for a new sensation, it was not surrounded by an idolatrous gathering at all. On the contrary, the audience before it reminded me more of Artemas Ward and his panorama.

"When I first exhibited this picture in New York," he said, "the artists came with lanterns before daybreak to look at it, and then they called for the artist, and when he appeared—they threw things at him."

For