What the
next century may bring is undoubtedly foreshadowed in the work of
impressionistic tendency. It has the merit of being a new direction,
one as yet hardly opened before us, but more hopeful, despite certain
excesses, than it would be to see the men of our time settle down to
an imitation of the works, however great, of those men of 1830. The
immediate effect of their example was and can still be seen in the
works of men too numerous to be enregistered here.
[Illustration: AN UNHAPPY FAMILY. FROM A PAINTING BY NICOLAS FRANCOIS
OCTAVE TASSAERT.
In the Luxembourg catalogue, to which museum the picture came from
the Salon of 1850, is printed a long quotation from Lamennais's "Les
Paroles d'un Croyant" (The Words of a Believer), an emphatic work,
of great popularity about the time that the picture was painted. The
women represented, having fallen into poverty, are suffering from cold
and hunger, the obvious end of the tragedy being explained by these
words, "Shortly after there were seen two forms, luminous like souls,
which took their flight towards Heaven." The picture, like much of
Tassaert's work, affords an instance of misguided and morbid talent.]
In Henri Harpignies, a living painter, though now aged, the influence
is felt in the careful attention to form throughout the landscape.
Pages:
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197