Finally, about 1896, Degas has revealed himself as a dreamy landscapist.  His recent landscapes are symphonies in colours of strange harmony and hallucinations of rare tones, resembling music rather than painting.  It is perhaps in these pictures that he has revealed certain dreams hitherto jealously hidden.

And now I must speak of his technique.  It is very singular and varied, and one of the most complicated in existence.  In his first works, which are apparently as simple as Corot’s, he does not employ the process of colour-spots.  But many of the works in his second manner are a combination of drawing, painting and pastel.  He has invented a kind of engraving mixed with wash-drawing, pastel crayon crushed with brushes of special pattern.  Here one can find again his meticulous spirit.  He has many of the qualities of the scientist; he is as much chemist as painter.  It has been said of him, that he was a great artist of the decadence.  This is materially inexact, since his qualities of draughtsmanship are those of a superb Classicist, and his colouring of very pure taste.  But the spirit of his work, his love of exact detail, his exaggerated psychological refinement, are certainly the signs of an extremely alert intellect who regards life prosaically and with a lassitude and disenchantment which are only consoled by the passion for truth.  Certain water-colours of his heightened by pastel, and certain landscapes, are somewhat disconcerting through the preciousness of his method; others are surprisingly spontaneous.  All his work has an undercurrent of thought.  In short, this Realist is almost a mystic.  He has observed a limited section of humanity, but what he has seen has not been seen so profoundly by anybody else.

[Illustration:  DEGAS

HORSES IN THE MEADOWS]

Degas has exercised an occult, but very serious, influence.  He has lived alone, without pupils and almost without friends; the only pupils one might speak of are the caricaturist Forain, who has painted many small pictures inspired by him, and the excellent American lady-artist Miss Mary Cassatt.  But all modern draughtsmen have been taught a lesson by his painting:  Renouard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Steinlen have been impressed by it, and the young generation considers Degas as a master.  And that is also the unexpressed idea of the academicians, and especially of those who have sufficient talent to be able to appreciate all the science and power of such an art.  The writer of this book happened one day to mention Degas’s name before a member of the Institute.  “What!” exclaimed he, “you know him?  Why didn’t you speak to me about him?” And when he received the reply, that I did not consider Degas to be an agreeable topic for him, the illustrious official answered vivaciously, “But do you think I am a fool, and that I do not know that Degas is one of the greatest draughtsmen who have ever lived?”—­“Why, then, my dear sir, has he never been received at the Salons, and not even been decorated at the age of sixty-five?”—­“Ah,” replied the Academician a little angrily, “that is another matter!”