The fact of its great and special beauty further re-
commends this country to the artist. The field was
chosen by men in whose blood there still raced some
of the gleeful or solemn exultation of great art--Millet
who loved dignity like Michelangelo, Rousseau whose
modern brush was dipped in the glamour of the
ancients. It was chosen before the day of that strange
turn in the history of art, of which we now perceive
the culmination in impressionistic tales and pictures--
that voluntary aversion of the eye from all speciously
strong and beautiful effects--that disinterested love of
dulness which has set so many Peter Bells to paint
the river-side primrose. It was then chosen for its
proximity to Paris. And for the same cause, and by
the force of tradition, the painter of to-day continues
to inhabit and to paint it. There is in France scenery
incomparable for romance and harmony. Provence,
and the valley of the Rhone from Vienne to Tarascon,
are one succession of masterpieces waiting for the
brush. The beauty is not merely beauty; it tells,
besides, a tale to the imagination, and surprises while
it charms. Here you shall see castellated towns that
would befit the scenery of dreamland; streets that
glow with colour like cathedral windows; hills of the
most exquisite proportions; flowers of every precious
colour, growing thick like grass. All these, by the
grace of railway travel, are brought, to the very door
of the modern painter; yet he does not seek them;
he remains faithful to Fontainebleau, to the eternal
bridge of Gretz, to the watering-pot cascade in Cernay
valley. Even Fontainebleau was chosen for him; even
in Fontainebleau he shrinks from what is sharply

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