Tanguy was the possessor of a large portrait by Cezanne, done in his earliest manner.  This he had to sell on account of pressing need.  Dark days followed.  He moved across the street into smaller quarters.  The old crowd began to drift away; some died, some had become famous, and one, Van Gogh, shot himself in an access of mania.  This was a shock to his friend.  A second followed when Van Gogh’s devoted brother went mad.  Good Father Tanguy, as he was affectionately called, sickened.  He entered a hospital.  He suffered from a cancerous trouble of the stomach.  One day he said to his wife, who was visiting him:  “I am bored here...  I won’t die here...  I mean to die in my own home.”  He went home and died shortly afterward.  In 1894 Octave Mirbeau wrote a moving article for the Journal about the man who had never spoken ill of any one, who had never turned from his door a hungry person.  The result was a sale organised at the Hotel Drouot, to which prominent artists and literary folk contributed works.  Cazin, Guillemet, Gyp, Maufra, Monet, Luce, Pissarro, Rochegrosse, Sisley, Vauthier, Carrier-Belleuse, Berthe Morisot, Renoir, Jongkind, Raffaelli, Helleu, Rodin, and many others participated in this noble charity, which brought the widow ten thousand francs.  She soon died.

Van Gogh painted a portrait of Tanguy about 1886.  It is said to belong to Rodin.  It represents the naive man with his irregular features and placid expression of a stoic; not a distinguished face, but unmistakably that of a gentle soul, who had loved his neighbour better than himself (therefore he died in misery).  He it was who may be remembered by those who knew him—­and also a few future historians of the futility of things in general—­as the man who first made known to Paris the pictures of the timid, obstinate Paul Cezanne.  An odd fish, indeed, was this same Julien Tanguy, little father to painters.

II.  ROPS THE ETCHER

I

That personality in art counts, next to actual genius, heavier than all other qualities, is such a truism that it is often forgotten.  In the enormous mass of mediocre work which is turned out annually by artists of technical talent seldom is there encountered a strong, well-defined personality.  Imitation has been called the bane of originality; suppress it as a factor, and nine-tenths of living painters, sculptors, etchers would have to shut up shop.  The stencil is the support of many men who otherwise might have become useful citizens, shoemakers, tailors, policemen, or vice-presidents.  For this reason the phrase “academic” should be more elastic in its meanings.  There are academic painters influenced by Corot or Monticelli, as well as by David, Gros, or Meissonier.  The “academic” Rodin has appeared in contemporary sculpture; the great Frenchman found for himself his formula, and the lesser men have appropriated it to