FRAGONARD REDIVIXIT

"Whether Fragonard painted for a future or for his contemporaries matters little, since we of a generation to him unknown may revel in his creative and radiant joy. 'To see Fragonard at his best, one must now come to America,' said one art critic; to see him at any time is an exquisite delight and an invitation to revel in the delicacy of color which cannot be equalled. The firmness of line shown in his drawing is so enwrapped and developed in the charm of coloring, combined with a daintiness of touch, that make the spectator fairly tremble with delight. From a painter of the Gallic race, one would look for effects of beauty which probably 'never were on sea or land,' but even among French types of genius, have we ever seen but one Fragonard. Inconceivably fertile in imagination, unless given a specific order for Gods and Goddesses of mythology, he secured his subjects from the every-day incidents around him. Taking these merely as a theme for his brilliant fancy, he translated them into such forms of beauty, such loveliness of dainty hues, that fairyland itself must have been open to his enchanted gaze. Watteau is pale and colorless beside these ravishing tones of the primary colors. Let us trust there never will be a Fragonard craze, that no modern copyists will feel inspired to imitate that wonderful vivacity, that charm of the combination of vivid imagination married to a hand absolutely sure of its technique, and fairly overpowered with the perceptive penetration to succeed in fixing an iris and to grasp a rainbow's glint." The foregoing extract from a private letter recently received is so full of charm and so daintily appreciative as to call for its inclusion here.

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