FROMENTIN AS A CRITIC
unworked perception, while preserving all that came from analysis
and prolonged meditation. His book is an early example of what
might be called
plein-air
criticism, although it is still tied to certain
traditional theories and norn1S. I do not mean that he is an impres–
sionistic critic; with his marvellous sharpness of vision, his immediate
sensations are already set for judgment; his impressions are a starting–
point and recurrent matter for reflection; he aims at exact observa–
tion and requires a constant testing of judgments. His belief that
"there are great laws in a little object" demands of the writer on
art a probing acuity and intelligence that we do not associate with
the impressionistic critic.
Fromentin's book is an account of experiences rather than of
impressions, or of impressions which have the impact and importance
of experiences. Since he is a man who lives through
his
eyes and
through the memory of what he has seen, impressions are for him
never "fugitive," but are tenaciously held; he really bites into things
with
his
eyes. It should be remembered also that Fromentin belongs
to the period of transition from the engraved to the photographic
reproduction, before the present abundance of illustrated books on art,
so that few of the works that he is to see are familiar to him; he is
more impelled therefore to rely on the direct experience of the paint–
ing than the modern student who has always the possibility of carrying
away with him after a rapid glance at the originals the photographs of
everything that has struck his eye, for future meditation-a factor, it
may be, in the frequent indifference to fine qualities of surface and
color in modem writing on art which gives so much weight to the
schematisms of pattern and line most available in black-and-white
reproductions. Like an Impressionist painter who tries to complete
his
work before the object in one sitting-an ideal that demands the
utmost concentration-Fromentin includes in this book many of his
original notes unworked. It is most interesting to compare the final
version of his text with his note-book and letters. They show that he
often shifted his views, but some of these changes were recorded al–
ready in the notes as second observations or corrections jotted down
before the paintings themselves. Seeing Rubens'
Elevation on the
Cross
and
Descent
again and again, his judgment vacillates in an
extraordinary way. Where Fromentin feels doubts, he returns to the
object, scrutinizes it more fully, strives to detach his view from old
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