Continental artists show perhaps to the greatest
advantage, yet when we take into consideration the
short time given the Englishmen to experiment in
what has been to many an entirely new medium, these
are not so far behind their rivals, either in technique
or colouring, as might not unreasonably have been
expected. Still, and in spite of the allowances
which must in fairness be made for these circum-
stances, the fact remains that there is far too much
work in the Grosvenor, which, clever and skilful as
it is for the most part, cannot properly be described
as pastel at all, being, both in its methods and aims,
imitative oil and water-colour. It would seem that
many men whose work is both valuable and inter-
esting, liave yet to learn, whatever they may by
preference use to express themselves in, that each
medium has, if not an exactly definable province of
art to itself, at least a certain scope in which its
most valuable qualities are displayed to the greatest
advantage, and in which the best results may be
obtained by the least labour, without the trickery
and legerdemain of counterfeiting the natural effect
of a rival medium. If, as it seems to us, the
particular province of pastel is to imitate the
freest and brightest colour in nature, and if those
who find its technique most suited to their power
and ambition fail to learn that it is so, future
exhibitions of pastels may be as painful as the
water-colour room of the Royal Academy, where
gentlemen of the last generation, by prescriptive
right or ignorant allowance, still hang pictures
which are neither oil nor water-colour, but a miser-
ably clever and laboured mixture of both, without
the best qualities of either. For assuredly it is no
more within the scope of pastel to obtain the true
tone and depth of oil than it is within that of water-
colour ; and though it certainly at the first glance
seems more successful, such a deceptive triumph
over an unnatural and added difficulty is the more
likely to lead the artist astray. It is in this more
perhaps than in much greater technical skill and
dexterity that the French Pastellistes have beaten
those whom they have but now begun to teach, for,
to speak the truth, more than a few of the pictures
which have crossed the Channel are certainly not
above criticism, either in their aims or indeed in
their workmanship. For among them there is some
bad drawing and childish modelling, while others
are, in the proper sense of the word, merely meretri-
cious, the only sin we are not inclined to forgive, or
at least to ignore, considering the general level of
excellence attained.
Among the exhibits there is a somewhat larger proportion of portraits than is usual, but many of the examples of this branch of art are worthy of the most careful study, even though some of tiiem may seem, as is natural to the particular medium, rather sketchy in effect. Without doubt the finest in the whole collection is by J. E. Blanche, of the French Society of Pastellistes. It is the portrait of Mdlle. Julia 13artet (52), of the Comedie Fran^aise, and is admirable in its freshness, entire unconventionality, and dexterous finish, while the striking and almost startling arrangement of the black and white drapery does not in the least detract from the pure and beautiful lines of the face. His other portraits, though good in their way, are somewhat shallow and unsympathetic in their criticism, and at times even affected.
No one on entering the gallery can fail to note the study of a lady in grey (without number, owing to the lateness of its arrival), by P. Helleu, which is remarkable for the delicacy of its graded tones and its high finish, considering the great breadth of handling. His ' Spanish Lady ' (148) is, on the other hand, strong in colour and contrast, and the painting of the suffused light and the background is careful and true, though that part of the background which is seen through the strings of the harp is apparently in a different plane from its surroundings.
It is like entering quite a new world to only glance at the Portrait (153) of an Etcher, by P. A. Besnard. As the work of an impressionist, to use the word in its common acceptation, it is almost startling in its realism, and though too much like an oil-painting, the truth of colour, the free mastery of the subtleties of modelling, and the very delightful handling of the reflected lights, render it almost entirely admirable, while the manner in which the artist has seized the effect of ascending cigarette smoke on the etcher's contorted eye is humorous in the extreme, and so powerfully and truthfully expressed as to be almost marvellous in dexterity. One would be constantly tempted to return to it, were it not that the same artist's study (154) of a girl in the water is as beautiful in feeling and exalted colour as the portrait is clever, wliile the companion study of the nude (49) fully displays his technical power in the modelling of the breast and shoulder, the delicacy of the contours, and the harmony of the background, and shows us what pastel-work should be. No. 174, entitled 'Pierrot,' by Theodore Roussel, is a sketch, of Lady Archibald Campbell in costume, remarkable for its selection of characteristics from a striking personality, and one that deserves study for its methods and the mastery over the material, although it is as slight, and as white, as its motto, ' Ma fonction est d'etre blanc,' might seem to imply.
There are four works here by J. L. Machard ; and though his Portrait (76) of a Lady is distinctly the worst, yet the other three offend against taste with
