well-determined mental conception, I admire his work; I am merely showing how he is misunderstood, even by those who think they understand.  Does he ever seek a pose that is characteristic of the model, a pose that the model repeats oftener than any other?—­Never.  He advances the foot, puts the hand on the hip, etc., with a view to rendering his idea.  Take his portrait of Duret.  Did he ever see Duret in dress clothes?  Probably not.  Did he ever see Duret with a lady’s opera cloak?—­I am sure he never did.  Is Duret in the habit of going to the theatre with ladies?  No; he is a litterateur who is always in men’s society, rarely in ladies’.  But these facts mattered nothing to Whistler as they matter to Degas, or to Manet.  Whistler took Duret out of his environment, dressed him up, thought out a scheme—­in a word, painted his idea without concerning himself in the least with the model.  Mark you, I deny that I am urging any fault or flaw; I am merely contending that Whistler’s art is not modern art, but classic art—­yes, and severely classical, far more classical than Titian’s or Velasquez;—­from an opposite pole as classical as Ingres.  No Greek dramatist ever sought the synthesis of things more uncompromisingly than Whistler.  And he is right.  Art is not nature.  Art is nature digested.  Art is a sublime excrement.  Zola and Goncourt cannot, or will not understand that the artistic stomach must be allowed to do its work in its own mysterious fashion.  If a man is really an artist he will remember what is necessary, forget what is useless; but if he takes notes he will interrupt his artistic digestion, and the result will be a lot of little touches, inchoate and wanting in the elegant rhythm of the synthesis.

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I am sick of synthetical art; we want observation direct and unreasoned.  What I reproach Millet with is that it is always the same thing, the same peasant, the same sabot, the same sentiment.  You must admit that it is somewhat stereotyped.

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What does that matter; what is more stereotyped than Japanese art?  But that does not prevent it from being always beautiful.

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People talk of Manet’s originality; that is just what I can’t see.  What he has got, and what you can’t take away from him, is a magnificent execution.  A piece of still life by Manet is the most wonderful thing in the world; vividness of colour, breadth, simplicity, and directness of touch—­marvellous!

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