Crane's accusations of drunkenness might as well be
made against Mr. Bernard Shaw. When, hypocritically, I said the
picture was a lesson, I referred to the woman, who happens to be
sitting next to M. Deboutin. Mr. Crane, Mr. Richmond, and others have
jumped to the conclusion that M. Deboutin has come to the cafe with
the woman, and that they are "boozing" together. Nothing can be
farther from the truth. Deboutin always came to the cafe alone, as did
Manet, Degas, Duranty. Deboutin is thinking of his dry-points; the
woman is incapable of thought. If questioned about her life she would
probably answer, _"je suis a la coule"_. But there is no implication
of drunkenness in the phrase. In England this class of woman is
constantly drunk, in France hardly ever; and the woman Degas has
painted is typical of her class, and she wears the habitual expression
of her class. And the interest of the subject, from Degas' point of
view, lies in this strange contrast--the man thinking of his
dry-points, the woman thinking, as the phrase goes, of nothing at all.
_Au Cafe_--that is the title of the picture. How simple, how
significant! And how the picture gains in meaning when the web of
false melodrama that a couple of industrious spiders have woven about
it is brushed aside!
I now turn to the more interesting, and what I think will prove the
more instructive, part of my task--the analysis of the art criticism
of Mr.
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