Duran never drew so fluently as that,
nor was he ever capable of so pictorial an intention. Chaplin, for it
recalls Chaplin, was always heavier, more conventional; above all,
less real. For it is very real, and just the reality that ladies like,
reality without grossness; in other words, without criticism. So Mr.
Sargent gets his public, as the saying goes, "all round". He gets the
ladies, because it realises the ideal they have formed of themselves;
he gets the artists, because it is the realisation of the pictorial
ideals of the present day.
The picture has been described as marvellous, brilliant, astonishing,
superb, but no one has described it as beautiful. Whether because of
the commonness of the epithet, or because every one felt that
beautiful was not the adjective that expressed the sensation the
picture awoke in him, I know not. It is essentially a picture of the
hour; it fixes the idea of the moment and reminds one somewhat of a
_premiere_ at the Vaudeville with Sarah in a new part. Every one is on
the _qui vive_. The _salle_ is alive with murmurs of approbation. It
is the joy of the passing hour, the delirium of the sensual present.
The appeal is the same as that of food and drink and air and love. But
when painters are pursuing new ideals, when all that constitutes the
appearance of our day has changed, I fear that many will turn with a
shudder from its cold, material accomplishment.
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