I wonder if anyone, small or grown up, can understand this: "It was indeed a higher kind of impressionism that Monet originated, one that reveals a vivid rendering, not of the natural and concrete facts, but of their influence upon the spirit when they are wrapped in the infinite diversities of that impalpable, immaterial, universal medium which we call light, when the concrete loses itself in the abstract, and what is of time and matter impinges on the eternal and the universal." Monet's pictures look just as that explanation of them sounds!
The same writer says that Monet was greater than Corot because he was more sensitive to colour; but if Monet had been as sensitive to colour as Corot, he could not have lived and looked at his own pictures.
PLATE--HAYSTACK IN SUNSHINE
The main feature of this picture is such a hay stack as never existed anywhere, of indescribable lurid colour, against a background of blue such as never was seen. All about there are violet and rose-coloured trees, and it is a picture that every child should know, because he is likely never to have another such opportunity.
Monet has made two interesting pictures of churches, one at Vernon, the other at Varangeville.
XXXI
MURILLO (BARTOLOME ESTEBAN)
(Pronounced Moo-reel'oh Bar-tol-o-may' A-stay'bahn)
Andalusian School
1617-1682
Pupil of Juan del Castillo
The story of Murillo has been delightfully told by Mrs. Sarah Bolton.