he enjoyed the contrast of fresh tones with the faces marked by vice and poverty; Lautrec’s two great influences have been the Japanese and Degas.  Of the former he retained the love for decorative arabesques and the unconventional grouping; of the other the learned draughtsmanship, expressive in its broad simplification, and one might say that the pupil has often been worthy of the masters.  One can only regret that Lautrec should have confined his vision and his high faculties to the study of a small and very Parisian world; but, seeing his works, one cannot deny the science, the spirit and the grand bearing of his art.  He has also signed some fine posters, notably a Bruant which is a masterpiece of its kind.

Degas’s deep influence can be found again in J.L.  Forain, who has made himself known by an immense series of drawings for the illustrated papers, drawings as remarkable in themselves as they are, through their legends, bitterly sarcastic in spirit.  These drawings form a synthesis of the defects of the bourgeoisie, which is at the same time amusing and grave.  They also concern, though less happily, the political world, in which the artist, a little intoxicated with his success, has thought himself able to exercise an influence by scoffing at the parliamentary regime.  Forain’s drawing has a nervous character which does, however, not weaken its science:  every stroke reveals something and has an astonishing power.  In his less known painting can be traced still more clearly the style and influence of his master Degas.  They are generally incidents behind the scenes and at night restaurants, where caricatured types are painted with great force.  But they are insistently exaggerated, they have not the restraint, the ironical and discreet plausibility, which give so much flavour, so much value to Degas’s studies.  Nevertheless, Forain’s pictures are very significant and are of real interest.  He is decidedly the most interesting newspaper illustrator of his whole generation, the one whose ephemeral art most closely approaches grand painting, and one of those who have most contributed towards the transformation of illustration for the contemporary press.

Jules Cheret has made for himself an important and splendid position in contemporary art.  He commenced as a lithographic workman and lived for a long time in London.  About 1870 Cheret designed his first posters in black, white and red; these were at the time the only colours used.  By and by he perfected this art and found the means of adding other tones and of drawing them on the lithographic stone.  He returned to France, started a small studio, and gradually carried poster art to the admirable point at which it has arrived.  At the same time Cheret drew and painted and composed himself his models.  About 1885 his name became famous, and it has not ceased growing since.  Some writers, notably the eminent critic Roger Marx and the novelist Huysmans, hailed in Cheret an original artist as well as a learned