added to which we have, if we choose, for comparison with all that is new, the permanent exhibitions there, notably those of the Louvre and of the Luxembourg. Again, at the before-mentioned Palais des Beaux-Arts is a selection of French pictures of past times; it too is interesting, as it helps us further to understand the march-a march forward be it or retrograde; it is at least a movement-of art in France. The limit of the acknowledged modern pictures is, we believe, placed at the former Exhibition of 1889; and so these cover a period of only eleven years. The exhibition of earlier French art is supposed to cover the rest of the century.*

In all this show, the French pictures are, of course, in the vast majority. There are some twenty-three galleries of the contemporary French pictures alone; not more than six (and these on a smaller scale) of any foreign nation. But for any one wishing to take account of the aforesaid march, or movement, in the world of painting, such preponderance of French work is less fatal than it might seem; because by universal consent France does so far take the lead in this matter and at this moment, that the original achievement of any one nation is but small beside what she has done. It is well known that the study of the French paintings in the Exhibition of 1889 started all our younger artists in their track, in the track, more especially, of the school which was then in the ascendant, called of plein air. The case of American art is shown by the general effect of passing from the French section into hers; for, so doing, we seem to be among the very same motives and the same styles. And though some of America's children (one more conspicuously than all the rest, Mr. Whistler) take the position of masters, and not disciples, still, even in such cases, in the case of Mr. Whistler and of some of his countrymen, we must remember that, Americans by birth, they are all the children of France by education. While of the less important exhibitors, as we find their pictures signed Paris, such and such a year, 'Givernay,' such another year, we confess that they only technically belong to the section in which they are placed. With England it is, no doubt, not quite the same. Our younger

The exhibition here referred to is not to be confounded with that of retrospective art in the smaller palace, to the left of the entrance gate of the Champs-Elysées. This, full of objects of interest, has nothing whatever to do with the recent history of painting in France.

men, such as Messrs. Stanhope Forbes, Frank Bramley, Clausen, La Thangue, Tuke, Arthur Lemon, and so forth, have certainly formed themselves upon a French tradition; but they have developed it in their own way; and another English painter, Mr. Brangwyn, has an originality or an eccentricity of his own. And there still remain a vast collection of artists of merit and distinction who have gained little or nothing from abroad. Millais, BurneJones, are examples that at once occur to the mind. Leighton stood quite apart from the new movement. None of these three is fairly shown in the English section. But Orchardson is great enough and original enough alone to vindicate our claim to notice and distinction; and there are many more only second to him. Then, again, the particular French school which most inspired our English painters, the plein-air school, has very much decayed abroad, and is now best represented among ourselves. All these considerations combine to give to the section of Great Britain features of marked difference from the French galleries. Greater still is the singularity of Germany, which, in beautifully decorated rooms, shows a succession of dark canvases whereof those of the severe and rugged Lenbach are of distinction in every sense of the word. But Lenbach is an exception: so much cannot be said of the majority of the German pictures. And it is no secret that the gentleman who has presided over the selection of representative German paintings, Professor Anton v. Werner, a persona gratissima to the German Emperor, is altogether out of sympathy with the younger school of German painters. Wherefore we find in the exhibition before us almost nothing that recalls the annual Munich shows, which to most people represent the 'move'ment' in German art. And that movement is essentially French.

The Belgian painting is chiefly French, though two painters, Lempoels and F. Khnopff, stand out distinct and alone. The Dutch school occupies a more independent position. Howbeit, the Dutch painter who has the widest reputation, Josef Israels, is seen upon comparison to be less original than it had been supposed he was. The most conspicuous of his pictures here exhibited is French in its workmanship, and not unlike a softened and more human L'Hermitte. In the Scandinavian divisions a curious state of things is displayed. A certain number of works whose naïveté proclaims them of purely native

growth; others, notably the pictures of Mr. Zorn and Mr. Thaulow, which are as obviously French in inspiration. And in fact every frequenter of the French salons or of the Luxembourg Museum must be familiar with Zorn's and Thaulow's work.* The works of some other Scandinavians of talent we miss, and they can ill be spared; among others, Mr. Albert, an excellent landscapist. He likewise is entirely French in his manner. Only in the Spanish and the Italian sections are accents heard of real and decisive originality. And one of the most striking and not the least pleasant experiences which have been arranged for us as we walk through these galleries, comes when we pass from the sombre German section into the blaze of sunlight which streams from the works of such men as Moreno Carbonero, Pinazo Martinez, or Sorolla y Bastida. With the last of the three, French exhibitions have been long familiar.

As a set-off upon the other side let us recall that one of the three painters who represent Peru is Albert Lynch, whom most of us have been wont to think of as a French artist through and through; that another representative for a South American state has a picture of the 'Gaïté 'de Mont-Parnasse;' and that the most conspicuous exhibitor of painting in the Japanese section, Mr. Seiki Kuroda, has, like Mr. Zorn or Mr. Whistler or Mr. Sargent, received his artistic education, and for a long time has painted in France.t

*Mr. Thaulow is not very well represented. Mr. Zorn has, among other things, the beautiful Midsummer Eve at Mora,' exhibited in the International Exhibition at Knightsbridge two years ago.

Though it is in no sense the purpose of the present article to give a catalogue of the pictures at the Paris Exhibition, it may be convenient if we add this short explanation of the arrangement of the galleries and their principal contents.

France. The French section consists of two divisions, one decennial, or more strictly undecennial, i.e. of works painted since the last Exhibition of 1889: the other professedly centennial, though, in fact, all the more interesting pictures in this part have been painted either by living artists or painters lately dead. David, Ingres, and the French painters down to Delacroix cannot possibly be judged by the specimens of their workmanship presented here; nor can any school before the Barbizon school and the painters of, say, 1860-80, be studied to any advantage. The landscape-painters of this period are to be found chiefly in the lower rooms-the entresol-of the centennial section. Of the painters who belong more than did the Barbizon school to the new movement, some are very ill represented.

The outcome, then, of a review of the whole exhibition of pictures is to show that the main current of art in this kind

Of Bastien Lepage we have four or five canvases, but no very characteristic work. Of Henri Regnault there are only two small pictures (Room XXIII.). On the other hand there is some interesting early work of the better-known painters now alive, of Carolus Duran (e.g' L'Assassiné,' Room XXIII.), of L'Hermitte, B. Constant, Harpignies, J. P. Laurens, Gervex, Jules Breton, &c., mostly better than any of their work which is to be found in the modern section. There are good things of Legros (Room XXV.), Falguière (Room XXIV.), Cazin, Maignan, Rafaelli, Bonhommé, &c. Manet and the modern impressionists (in Rooms XXV. and XXIX. respectively) are better seen than they have yet been in any public exhibition. It should be mentioned that the rooms of this centennial period, though not distinctly separated from the decennial, are distinguished by a numeration in Roman numerals, going from numbers XXIII. to XXIX. Some of the rooms below are distinguished by letters of the alphabet. Unfortunately at the time of sending this article to press the numbering both of the rooms and of individual pictures was incomplete or incorrect.

The more important pictures in the decennial part of the French section numbered in Arabic numerals (1-22) may be briefly described room by room.

Room 1. Collet ('Au pays de la mer').

Room 2. Dagnan Bouveret ('La Cène'); Franzini d'Issoncourt, a portrait.

Room 3. J. Adler ('Les Las'); Henner, several, utterly monotonous in style, as Henner's work is.

Room 4. Guillemet, landscapes, all inferior to that in the Luxembourg gallery; Buland; Mme. Demont Breton.

Room 5. Montenard, landscapes; G. Bergès, Spanish girls dancing (No. 135).

Room 6. Ch. Busson, landscapes; Laurent; Desrousseaux ('Les Suspects'); G. Girardot, eastern scenes; and some very bad work of a once esteemed painter, Courtois.

Room 7. Malle. Dubufe. (A very poor room.)

Room 8. Geoffroy, two interiors (La prière des humbles,' the best).

Room 9. Henri Royer; T. Robert Fleury's 'Washington,' a large and poor picture, put here perhaps to please the Americans.

Room 10. The large hall opposite the grand staircase. From a motive (one may suspect) the reverse of that which dictated the hanging of 'Washington' in its place of honour in Room 9, the picture which first catches the eye of the visitor is J. P. Laurens' 'Tolosa liberata' (painted in a fresco manner), in which the most conspicuous object is a lion transfixed by a spear falling into the abyss. In the picture, this is the lion of De Montfort: for the public of sightseers it will no doubt serve for another lion. Laurens has also St. Chrysosthome'

is certainly French; though there are contributory channels running from other lands; or, to use another image, that

(No. 1125), &c.; Gervex, 'Distribution des récompenses;' L'Hermitte; F. Cormon; L'Agache, 'L'Epée' (No. 16), &c.

Room 11. Another large gallery. Roybet, Charles le Téméraire à Nesles,' a striking, clever, and ugly work; A. P. Dawant, one of the few sea-pieces by a Frenchman to be found here, but not a good one. Hoffbauer, Les gueux; H. Martin, not a favourable specimen of this master.

Room 12. Besnard.

Room 13. H. Martin.

Room 14. Rochegrosse, two pretentious, clever, and ugly pictures much inferior to the 'Knight among the flowers,' in the Luxembourg. Room 15. Detaille, poor and pretentious works, covering a vast wall space.

Room 16. Carrière; R. Collin.

Room 17. Dauchez (No. 566); Enders (No. 727); Humbert, several portraits, but all inferior to that in the Luxembourg.

Room 18. Meunier; Ménard; Da Gandara.

Room 19. Pointelin and Rigolot, good landscapes, entirely and interestingly contrasted in style; poor, pretentious work of Bonnat. Room 20. A. Tanzi, fair landscape; Mdlle. Dufau; E. Wéry; shockingly bad work by the popular painter Béraud, who, however, is better in the centennial portion (No. 28).

Room 21. Demond, clouds; Jules Breton; Lagarde; Carolus Duran; Roll; Aman Jean; Harpignies (he too is far better in the centennial portion).

Room 22. Bouguereau-of his work nowadays it is unnecessary to speak or to look at it; B. Constant-the decline of this painter in recent years is phenomenal. His portrait of the Queen, much praised and talked of, is utterly devoid of merit.

Great Britain. It is unnecessary to say much of the British section, because all the pictures exhibited there are old favourites. Leighton, Burne-Jones, and Millais are none of them adequately represented. But Orchardson in portraiture is well so. Every possible variety of style is represented, from (shall we say ?) Leader to Brangwyn.

America. Messrs. Sargent and Abbey exhibit in this section. Of Whistler, Humphreys, Johnston, and A. Harrison we have spoken elsewhere. A. W. Alexander has several charming monotonous studies. Homer's Summer night at sea' is a fine picture, and the painter possibly little known here.

Germany. The German collection is, as has been said, not really representative.

Spain. Pictures of extraordinary brilliance in their effect of sunlight. The best of these are referred to elsewhere. But such form the only genre.

Italy. Boldini's brilliant impressionist portraiture, much after the same manner as Sargent's, is noticeable. Segantini, an original and eccentric painter, occupies the lion's share of these walls.