brilliant and powerful colorist, and his pictures reveal an amazing facility in the rendition of textures, which, even in the black and white reproduction of "A Midsummer Siesta," can be distinctly observed. Another of the Paris artists, although only by adoption, is Miecislaw Reyzner. He is of Polish origin, and studied at the Munich Academy and at the Paris Ecole des Beaux Arts. The success he attained with pictures of the dainty, decorative order of his "Morning," encouraged him to settle permanently in Paris, where he speedily found substantial support. Caspar Ritter, of Carlsruhe, is a favorite German painter of subjects of sentiment. His "Consolation in Song" is a realization of the German version of our familiar English proverb, "Music Hath Charms."

At the Salon exhibition of 1891, a picture which attracted a marked amount of attention was a vividly painted midsummer landscape, with the figures of three wood-nymphs, basking in the flood of golden sunshine. It was entitled "Summertime." The painter was A. Axilette, a Parisian artist whose studio was already well known to collectors. The success of "Summertime" in Europe was enormous. It was successively exhibited at various continental exhibitions, and everywhere repeated the hit it had made in France. It was, in fact, one of those works of which it is said that they "make" their authors, and in the sense that it completely established the painter's reputation, "Summertime" realized this figure of speech.

It will be noted, from these examples, that they conform closely to the title of this work. They are essentially modern, in every quality of conception and execution. The great and celebrated works of figure art of the first half of the present century, and those of the remoter past, are familiar to all persons of cultivated tastes and a love for the beautiful. The immortal productions of Titian and

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Chapter 1 Text

Rene-Joseph Gilbert