The Pointillists have to-day almost abandoned this transitional theory which, in spite of the undeniable talent of its adepts, has only produced indifferent results as regards easel pictures.  Besides Seurat and Signac, mention should be made of Maurice Denis, Henri-Edmond Cross, Angrand, and Theo Van Rysselberghe.  But this last-named and Maurice Denis have arrived at great talent by very different merits.  M. Maurice Denis has abandoned Pointillism a few years ago, in favour of returning to a very strange conception which dates back to the Primitives, and even to Giotto.  He simplifies his drawing archaically, suppresses all but the indispensable detail, and draws inspiration from Gothic stained glass and carvings, in order to create decorative figures with clearly marked outlines which are filled with broad, flat tints.  He generally treats mystic subjects, for which this special manner is suitable.  One cannot love the parti pris of these works, but one cannot deny M. Denis a great charm of naivete, an intense feeling for decorative arrangements and colouring of a certain originality.  He is almost a French pre-Raphaelite, and his profound catholic faith inspires him nobly.

[Illustration:  THEO VAN RYSSELBERGHE

PORTRAITS OF MADAME VAN RYSSELBERGHE AND HER DAUGHTER]

M. Theo Van Rysselberghe continues to employ the Pointillist method.  But he is so strongly gifted, that one might almost say he succeeds in revealing himself as a painter of great merit in spite of this dry and charmless method.  All his works are supported by broad and learned drawing and his colour is naturally brilliant.  M. Van Rysselberghe, a prolific and varied worker, has painted nudes, large portraits, landscapes with figures, seascapes, interiors and still-life, and in all this he evinces faculties of the first order.  He is a lover of light and understands how to make it vibrate over flesh and fabrics.  He is an artist who has the sense of style.  He has signed a certain number of portraits, whose beautiful carriage and serious psychology would suffice to make him be considered as the most significant of the Neo-Impressionists.  It is really in him that one has to see the young and worthy heir of Monet, of Sisley, and of Degas, and that is why we have insisted on adding here to the works of these masters the reproduction of one of his.  M. Van Rysselberghe is also a very delicate etcher who has signed some fine works in this method, and his seascapes, whether they revel in the pale greys of the German Ocean or in the warm sapphire and gold harmonies of the Mediterranean, count among the finest of the time; they are windows opened upon joyous brightness.