In a lecture delivered by Mr. Howard Mansfield of New York, before the Grolier Club, on the etched work of Professor Legros, that distinguished connoisseur well says: "This etched work, while at times frankly realistic, is at times highly imaginative; while often coarse in execution, yet shows examples of unsurpassed delicacy; while uncompromisingly ugly in some of its aspects, is in others strikingly beautiful. But through it all runs one unfailing note the note of sympathy. "Legros is a man of intense personality, an artist with rare singleness of purpose and a notable disregard of fashion or popular favor. From the first he has done his work in his own way, choosing his own time, and following with utter disregard of results, so far as the public are concerned, his own ideas and conceptions. As a consequence of this peculiar temperament and also, I think, of the sympathy to which reference has already been made, his work is unlike any other which this generation has seen. It is severe, it is formal, it is varying; does not aim to be beautiful, although it often is beautiful seemingly in spite of intention; and it is grave to such a degree as fairly to justify Mr. Wedmore, the London critic, in applying to the artist the title of 'Belated Old Master.' "In no class of subjects has Legros shown deeper interest and in none does his art show a wider range of sympathy than in his treatment of various phases of the life of religious people. The DEATH AND THE WOODMAN Size of the original print, 12 by 9 inches. From the etching by Alphonse Legros. A very characteristic etching. There is not another artist of the nineteenth century who could have treated such a subject in a manner at once so simple and direct, and, at the same time, so poetical. ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON (LITHOGRAPH) Size of the original print, 13 by 9 inches. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW (LITHOGRAPH) From the original lithographs by Alphonse Legros. Every portrait by Legros is worthy of study. Among modern artists none have more style than he, and his lithographs display the same qualities as his etchings, dry-points, and paintings. monks at their devotions or at their work, the men and women performing religious duties, the bell-ringers at their tasks-all of these appear in Legros' etchings; sometimes sketched with simple fidelity and sometimes with a rare delicacy and expressiveness, but always with a sympathetic appreciation of the sincerity and selfdenial of their lives. The frivolous monk and the self-indulgent monk do not appear in Legros' pictures. For them he appears to have no thought. There is no gaiety anywhere in his work: no one even smiles. The serene pleasure in music comes nearest in expression to anything like joy." Some etchers have become famous for their figure compositions only, others for landscape only, others again for their portaits; but Legros, like Rembrandt, has etched all these subjects and it is not easy to say in which of them he excels, seeing that he has produced masterpieces in them all. His recent work in landscape far surpasses his earlier work in beauty, while some of his later portraits show a magnificent power of modeling, worthy of any sculptor. It is not surprising that such a thoroughly original artist as Legros should impress his personality powerfully upon his pupils. At the Royal Academy exhibitions it is easy to recognize their work; while in the case of one of them - the able etcher William Strang it is difficult to imagine what the work would have been if it had lacked the influence of Legros. To show what sound doctrines these pupils are taught, the following extracts from an address by Professor Legros to his class may be cited: "I wish to impress more and more strongly upon you the necessity of studying your models with such a thoroughness as to get them by heart. To that end persistent drawing must be kept up. Drawing and drawing evermore should be the student's motto (and the true artist is ever a student). We see that the old masters made a practice of drawing, and drawing much, and with a pains and earnestness which, if imitated by us, would give us more of their power. Often the same figure, or parts of it, would be drawn over and over again, the artist mastering and learning it by heart. 66 . You have here, for instance, a reproduction of Michael Angelo's study for the figure of Adam, in the Sistine Chapel. The more we study it the better we shall learn to feel the beauty of its action, and form, and execution. Every stroke, every line, is an indispensable one: nothing without its use; nothing superfluous; the last stroke is put with certainty and judgment in its right place. It would be impossible to express with less work the massive litheness of the torso, or the modeling of the arms and legs. From this drawing he painted the beautiful figure in the immortal fresco. 66 In the present day one of the most fatal things to your artistic improvement is the hurry to work for exhibitions; yet it is hardly an enviable distinction to add an indifferent picture |