the gaze veiled, the bland, pontifical expression, the expression of the man who spoke of “the mania of certitude”—­here is Ernest Renan, voluptuous disdainer of democracies, and planner of a phalanstery of superior men years before Nietzsche’s superman appeared.  Zorn in no unkindly spirit shows us the thinker; also the author of L’Abbesse de Jouarre.  It is something, is it not, to evoke with needle, acid, paper, and ink the dualism of such a brain and temperament as was Renan’s?

He is not flattering to himself, Zorn.  The Henry G. Marquand, two impressions, leaves one rather sad.  An Irish girl, Annie, is superb in its suggestion of form and colour.  Saint-Gaudens and his model is excellent; we prefer the portrait.  The Evening Girl Bathing is rare in treatment—­simple, restrained, vital.  She has turned her back, and we are grateful, for it is a beautiful back.  The landscape is as evanescent as Whistler, the printing is in a delicate key.  The Berlin Gallery contains a Zorn, a portrait striking in its reality.  It represents Miss Maja von Heyne wearing a collar of skins.  She could represent the Maja of Ibsen’s epilogue, When We Dreamers Awake; Maja, the companion of the bear hunter, Ulfheim.  As etched, we miss the massiveness, the rich, vivid colour, yet it is a plate of distinction.

Among his portraits are the Hon. Daniel S. Lamont, Senator “Billy” Mason, the Hon. John Hay, Mr. and Mrs. Atherton Curtis, and several big-wigs of several nations.  An oil-painting is an impressionistic affair, showing some overblown girls dressing after their bath.  The sun flecks their shoulders, but otherwise seems rather inclined to retire modestly.  Evidently not the midnight sun.

We have barely indicated the beauties in which the virile spirit of Anders Zorn comes out at you from the wall—­a healthy, large-hearted, girted Swede is this man with the Z.

BRANGWYN

The name of Frank Brangwyn may fall upon unresponsive ears; yet he has a Continental reputation and is easily the foremost English impressionist.  New York has seen but little of his work; if we mistake not, there was a large piece of his, a Gipsy Tinker in the open air, hung several seasons ago at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  Mr. Kennedy shows extraordinary etchings of his at the Wunderlich Galleries.  We call them extraordinary not alone because of their size, but also because Brangwyn is practically the first among latter-day artists to apply boldly to etching the methods of the impressionists.  Etching in its essential nature is an impressionistic art.  We do not mean to assert that Brangwyn uses the dot or dash or broken dabs in his plates, for the very good reason that he is working in black and white; nevertheless a glance at his plates will show you a new way of conquering old prejudices.  Whistler it was who railed at large etchings.  He was not far wrong.  In the hands of the majority of etchers