on even terms, and to pass as geniuses of a very "spirituel" order.
The irritating group to whom I refer, in its frantic efforts to be original, hit on the idea of drawing with the "naïveté" of the untutored child; and this "rôle" was for several years acted se thoroughly that some of the papers looked as if their illustrations had been copied from a collection of babies' slates. Terrible examples of this evident incapability passing muster as genius may be seen in the ludicrous discords by "Bob," and, in a less degree, in the many works by Dépaquit, Delaw, Rabier and others.
Midway between this group of "soidisant" on actual incompetents, and the valiant band of thorough unflinching draughtsmen of realism — in whose ranks we find Renouard, Steinlen, Léandre, Huard, Malteste, Wély, and others — came an intervening group. Their work was, and is, extremely interesting. They adopted much of the naïveté of the enfantillistes, but wedded to it much knowledge and artistic feeling, In this class one may mention Lautrec, who wavered between one group and the other, Ibels, who did much the same, Jossot, who, amongst a large number of weird drawings, has produced some really fine, strong work in black and white and in an Metivet, who has similarly produced both classes of work, Hermann Paul, an undeniably great draughtsman, and the subject of this chapter, Frédéric Vallotton.
