Another picture of the same quality is the Coup de Mistral, where the steely blue of sea and sky and the leaden tone which the cold, dry wind lays on the land, have inspired him to a new and fine colour harmony, dry and unprepossessing perhaps, but worked out with a fine consistency and limpid purity. Here, too, the harsh, rectangular forms of the buildings and the sharp, upright of the cypress have their exact significance, and the choice of proportions shows a master of design. And, fortunately, there are many more such works in the exhibition.
The two elements which I have tried to distinguish in M Marchand's landscapes both come together in the big Maternity. This looks far better than it did in the autumn Salon, and I am glad to have the opportunity to revive the impression it then made on me. I think M Marchand has never done anything better than the central and most crucial part of this picture. The plastic rhythm of the nude breast and arms of the mother and the body of the child is extremely beautiful. He has woven these complex movements into a single whole of almost sculptural completeness and coherence. The drawing is everywhere large, simple, and firm. And this is the essential part of the picture. It is a splendid piece of direct and solid painter's workmanship controlled by a fine sensibility. But was M Marchand wise to turn this solid piece of objective vision, this complete study from the model, into a "Maternity"? I cannot help thinking that when the idea of doing this occurred to him it exercised an unfortunate influence on the rest of the picture. It led, I think, to certain accents in the head of the mother which were not dictated by purely plastic considerations, and it led to his introducing a landscape background, a reminiscence of a Paris banlieue, which has to my feeling no intimate connection with the figure. The mother and child are quite evidently painted in a studio light. Had M Marchand kept the actual background before which they sat, his infallible sense of relations would have made him follow through an unbroken sequence of reliefs and spaces into the rest of the design. As it is, I am brought up by a sudden break in the texture whenever my eyes stray from the figure to its surroundings.
I turn now to the other figure pieces, and here I find nothing but solid achievement and steady progress. The portrait of M Raverat is admirable. The placing is just, and the vigorous relief is obtained by means of surprising simplicity. The drawing and modelling of
