| (....) In truth it's a wonderful season. Especially since all these efforts meet, complement and complete each other. This supports and confirms this. The same spring, the same push carries and swells these various forms. In the surge of manners renewing the old tree of art flakes, prejudices strew the turf. From one end to the other of Europe, the air, it seems, circulates with more ardor (...). The moment would thus seem well chosen to realize this project of international exhibition of all the masterpieces and all the schools of contemporary painting, of which Armand Dayot, the very knowledgeable inspector of Beaux Arts and generous director of the review Art and Artists. (...) To surprise this European soul, a Marquet went to plant his easel in front of the passionate melancholies of Naples and the smoky snows of Hamburg, Camoin chose Spain, Friesz Germany. Dufrenoy, in Venice, Girieud, and Siena, listened to the murmur of history of the noble Italian landscapes. Valloton says Switzerland, Flandrin the countryside of Rome. (...) But all this magnificent effort is scattered in small exposures in very intelligent paintings merchants, like Druet and Vollard, where the elite penetrate alone; or lost in the thick waves, the nameless and gray swamp of the salons. (...) The time seems to have come when the general public must be able to see the profound evolution of our painting, in this expression that it seeks from the European soul and in a presentation where all trends can assert themselves in the aspect of their most complete realization. (...) |